LIBRARY
OF TJIK
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
OF"
Mrs. SARAH P. WALS WORTH.
Received October , 1894.
Accessions No. / 1"" Clj^s No.
B. WAISWORTH, ALBION, N
*o
PREMILLENNIAL ESSA
PROPHETIC CONFERENCE,
^y^A.
V*
HELD IN THE
CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, NEW YORK CITY.
APPENDIX OF CRITICAL TESTIMONIES.
NATHANIEL WEST.
I!
Nat lpxop.a.1 rax'v. A/j.qv, '
F. H. EEVELL, 148 AND 150
Publisher of Evangelical Literature,
1879.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1879, by
F. H. REVELL,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
B. WAiS WORTH, ALBUM
COUSTTEISTTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION, 5
CALL FOR THE CONFERENCE, 11
POEM, 15
ESSAYS.
I.
OPENING ADDRESS. By the Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, Sr., D.D., 17
II.
CHRIST'S COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. By the Rev. Stephen
H. Tyng, Jr., D.D., Rector Church of the Holy Trinity, New
York, .--./ ... 22
III.
CHRIST'S COMING : Is IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. By the Rev. S. H.
Kellogg, D.D., Presbyterian Seminary, Allegheny, Pa., - 47
IV.
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. By the Rev. A. J. Gordon, Clarendon
Street Baptist Church, -Boston, Mass., 78
V.
THE REGENERATION. By the Rev. C. K. Imbrie, D.D., Jersey
City, 108
VI.
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. By Professor H. Lummis,
Methodist, Monson, Mass., 174
VII.
THE PRESENT AGE AND DEVELOPMENT OF ANTICHRIST. By
the Rev. Henry M. Parsons, Pastor Lafayette Street Presby-
terian Church, Buffalo, N. T., - 204
VIII.
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL. By Bishop W. R. Nicholson, of the
Reformed Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, .... 222
IX.
THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS. By the Rev. J. T. Cooper, D.D.,
United Presbyterian Semina.y, Allegheny, Pa., - 241
3
CONTENTS.
X. PAGE
THE COMING OP THE LORD IN ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOC-
TRINE. By the Rev. James H. Brookes, D.D., Pastor Walnut
Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, Mo., - - - 270
XL
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. By the Rev.
Nathaniel West, D.D., Presbyterian, Cincinnati, Ohio, - 313
XII.
A SUMMARY OP THE ARGUMENT IN DEFENCE OP PRE-MILLEN-
ARIANISM. By the Rev. John T. Duffield, D.D., Professor
of Mathematics in Princeton College, 405
XIII.
HOPE OP CHRIST'S COMING AS A MOTIVE TO HOLY LIVING AND
ACTIVE LABOR. By the Rev. Rufus W. Clark, D.D., Reformed
Dutch Church, Albany, N. T., 429
ADDRESSES.
I.
THE RETURN OF CHRIST AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. By Dr.
W. P. Mackay, of Hull, England, 456
II.
THE COMING OP THE LORD IN ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOC-
TRINE. By the Rev. E. R. Craven, D.D., Pastor Third
Presbyterian Church, Newark, N. J., 462
III.
THE THREE DAYS' FEAST WITH DAVID'S SON. By Dr. W. P.
Mackay, of Hull, England, 470
CRITICAL APPENDIX.
EXTRACTS FROM
The Berlerberg Bibel Richter's ErklSrte Haus Bibel Starke's Synopsis, N cue's
Testament Theurer'a Das Reich Gottes Stockmayer-Das Oelblatt Pfleiderer's
Der Paulinismus EbrarcTs Chrietliche Dogmatik Schenkel's Christliche Dog-
matik Van Oosterzee's Christian Dogmatics Chris>tlieb's Modern Doubt and
Christian Belief Dorner's Person of Christ Luthardt's Lehre yon der Letzen
Dingen Lange's Bremen Lecture Auberlen's Der Prophet Daniel Kliefpth's
Offenbarung Johannis Rothe's Dogmatik Roos' Interpretation of Daniel -
Schmid's Biblical Theology Koch's Das Tausendjahrige Reich Steffann's Das
EndeMo-es Stuart on the Apocalypse Alford OB the Apocalypse Winthrop's
Premium Essay Jamieson's, Faueett's and Brown's Critical Commentary The
Parousia, Neander, Lechler, Gloag, Olshausen, Meyer, Baumgarten, Hackett, Da
Costa, on Acts 3: 19-21 Rev. George Dtiffleld, D.D., Dissertations on the Proph-
eciesRev. R. J. Breckenridge, D.D.. Knowledge of God Subjectively Considered
DQsterdieck's Offenbarung Johannis.
IlSTTIlODUCTIOlSr.
AN anti-chilastic writer of great ability, in a volume of 560 pages, just
issued from the London press, thus speaks : " No attentive reader of
the New Testament can fail to be struck with the prominence given by
the evangelists and apostles to the PAROUSIA, or ' Coming of the Lord.'
That event is the great theme of New Testament Prophecy. There is
scarcely a single book, from the Gospel of St. Matthew to the Apoc-
alypse of St. John, in which it is not set forth as the glorious promise
of God, and the Blessed Hope of the Church. It was frequently and
solemnly predicted by our Lord ; it was incessantly kept before the eyes
of the early Christians by the Apostles ; and it was firmly believed and
eagerly expected by the churches of the primitive age. It can not be
denied that there is a remarkable difference between the attitude of the
first Christians, in relation to the Parousia, and that of Christians now.
That glorious hope, to which all eyes and hearts in the apostolic age
were eagerly turned, has almost disappeared from the view of modern
believers. "Whatever may be the theoretical opinions, expressed in
symbols and creeds, it must, in candor, be admitted that the * Second
Coming of Christ ' has all but ceased to be a living and practical belief."
Parousia. Preface, 1, 2. The solution by the writer is praeteristic,
holding that the Second Coming occurred at the Destruction of Jerusa-
lem, A.D. 70.
Another praeteristic and anti-chiliastic writer, of still greater ability,
in the Anglican Church, and, like the former, abandoning the "Whitby-
ian theory, shows us to what lengths Praeterism is driven. Closing his
comment on the Millennium, which he discards, and having shown, as
he thinks, the "Unreality of the Second Advent," he thus speaks of the
Apocalypse : " A book which deals in theological invective of a bitter
kind ; which displays Jewish predilection, in an exclusive and unamia-
ble light; which represents Jesus as a tyrannical and sanguinary Mes-
siah, and the Almighty Himself as a vindictive and avenging Deity;
which abounds in monstrous prodigies, and revels in incredible phenom-
ena; which founds the millennial kingdom upon the defeat of the
armies of Antichrist, and which connects the Coming of Christ at the
end of the world with the calamity which came upon Jerusalem and
6 INTRODUCTION.
the Destruction of Pagan Rome whatever its claim to apostolic
authorship or canonical position can neither be valuable as a predic-
tion, nor be regarded as a safe guide for the performance of the duties
of this life, nor for the attainment of that which is to come." Desprez.
Daniel and John, 317.
Equally, with these two writers, abandoning the Whitbyian pre-advent
Millennium, which rests upon the violation of grammatical exegesis,
yet with a nobler purpose, and returning to the evangelical ground of
the primitive Church and the Reformation, Canon Ryle, with marvelous
simplicity and power, has given to the Church his expression of the
true faith, in the following Pre-Millennian Creed, which he holds to be
what the Scriptures require :
1. " I believe that the world will neVer be completely converted to
Christianity, by any existing agency, before the end comes. In spite
of all that can be done by ministers, members, and churches, the wheat
and the tares will grow together until the Harvest ; and when the end
comes, it will find the earth in much the same state that it was when
the flood came in the days of Noah. Matt. 13 : 24, 30; 24 : 37, 39.
2. " I believe that the wide-spread unbelief, indifference, formalism,
and wickedness, which are to be seen throughout Christendom, are only
what we are taught to expect in God's word. Troublous times, depart-
ures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing
cold, are things distinctly predicted. So far from making me doubt
the truth of Christianity, they help to confirm my faith. Melancholy
and sorrowful as the sight is, if I did not see it I should think the Bible
was not true. Matt. 24 : 12; 1 Tim. 3 : 1, 4, 13.
3. " I believe that the grand purpose of the presentdispensation is to
gather out of the world an elect people, and not to convert all mankind.
It does not surprise me at all to hear that the heathen are not all con-
verted when missionaries preach, and that believers are but a little
flock in any congregation in my own land. It is precisely the state of
things I expect to find. The Gospel is to be preached ' as a witness,'
and then shall the end come. This is the dispensation of election, and
not of universal conversion. Acts 15 : 14; Matt. 24 : 13.
4. " I believe that the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is the
Great Event which will wind up the present dispensation, and for
which we ought daily to long and pray. 4 Thy Kingdom come,' ' Come,
Lord Jesus,' should be our daily prayer. We look backward, if we
have faith, to Christ dying on the Cross, and we ought to look forward,
no less, if we have hope, to Christ coming again. John 14 : 3; 2 Tim.
4 :8; 2 Peter 3 : 12.
5. u I believe that the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ will
INTRODUCTION.
be a real, literal, personal, bodily coming; that as He went away in the
clouds of heaven with His body, before the eyes of man, so, in like
manner, will He return. Acts 1:11; Rev. 1 : 7.
6. " I believe that, after our Lord Jesus Christ comes again, the earth
will be renewed, and the curse removed ; the devil shall be bound, the
godly shall be rewarded, the wicked shall be punished ; and that, before
He comes, there shall be neither resurrection, judgment, nor Millen-
nium; and that not till after He comes shall the earth be filled with the
knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Acts 3 :21; Isa. 25 : 6, 9; 1
Thess. 4: 14,18; Rev. 20 : 1.
7. " I believe that the Jews shall be ultimately gathered again, as a
separate nation, restored to their own land, and converted to the faith of
Christ. Jer. 30 : 10, 11 ; 31 : 10; Rom. 11 : 25, 26.
8. " I believe that the literal sense of the Old Testament Prophecies
has been far too much neglected by the churches, and is far too much
neglected in the present day, and that, under the mistaken system of
spiritualizing and accommodating Bible language, Christians have too
often completely missed its meaning. Luke 24 : 25, 26.
9. " I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the Great Predicted
Apostasy from the faith and is Babylon, and the Pope Antichrist
although I think it highly probable that a more complete development
of Antichrist will yet be exhibited to the world. 2 Thess. 2 : 3, 11 ; 1
Tim. 4 : 1, 6; (Rev. 13 : 1, 8).
" I believe, finally, that it is for the safety, happiness, and comfort, of
all true Christians to expect as little as possible from churches, or gov-
ernments, under the present dispensation, to hold themselves ready for
tremendous conversions and changes of all things established, and to
expect their good things only from Christ's Second Advent." Coming
Events and Present Duties. Preface.
The Essays, in the present volume, the fruit of the Prophetic Con-
ference, held in the Church of the Holy Trinity, New York City,
October 30, 31, and November 1, 1878, are given to the church and the
world as a testimony in behalf of the same great and solemn truths repre-
sented in the creed just quoted. For the views expressed in these pro-
ductions their authors are severally responsible. Owing to the extended
character and importance of these papers, only part of which, in some
cases, were read, but upon whose entire publication the Committee hav-
ing them in charge decided, as also to diminish the size of the present
volume, most of the "Addresses" are reserved with the consent of
the speakers. They are found in the New York Tribune Extra, No. 46,
two editions of which, reaching 50,000, have already been issued.
The Resolutions passed by the Conference the evening of its closing
8 INTRODUCTION.
session, express in brief the views of the large body of ministers who
participated in, or were present to sympathize with, its proceedings,
and are as follows :
Before closing this Conference, composed of brethren from so many
different branches of the one Redeemed Church of our Lord, we desire
to return devout thanks to the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, who is our Hope, for the presence of his Holy Spirit and
the fellowship in Christ experienced during our sessions, so that we have
been as in heavenly peace in Christ Jesus.
We desire, also, disclaiming whatever doctrines have been or may be
held in connection with the belief of the Pre-Millennial coming of the
Lord, which conflict with the faith once delivered to the saints, and
received by the Church Universal along the ages, to bear our united tes-
timony to that which we believe to be the truth of the Gospel, in the par-
ticulars which follow, viz. :
I. We affirm our belief in the supreme and absolute authority of the
written Word of God on all questions of doctrine and duty.
II. The prophetic words of the Old Testament Scriptures, concerning
the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, were literally fulfilled in His
birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension; and so the prophetic
words of both the Old and the New Testaments concerning His second
coming will be literally fulfilled in His visible bodily return to this
earth in like manner as He went up into Heaven ; and this glorious
Epiphany of the great God, oar Saviour Jesus Christ, is the blessed hope
of the believer and of the Church during this entire dispensation.
III. This second coming of the Lord Jesus is everywhere in the
Scriptures represented as imminent, and may occur at any moment ; yet
the precise day and hour thereof is unknown to man, and known only to
God.
IV. The Scriptures nowhere teach that the whole world will be con-
verted to God, and that there will be a reign of universal righteousness
and peace before the return of our blessed Lord, but that only at and by
His coming in power and glory will the prophecies concerning the
progress of evil and the development of Antichrist, the times of the Gen-
tiles, and the ingathering of Israel, the resurrection of the dead in
Christ, and the transfiguration of His living saints, receive their fulfill-
ment, and the period of millennial blessedness in its inauguration.
V. The duty of the Church during the absence of the Bridegroom is
to watch and pray, to work and wait, to go into all the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature, and thus hasten the coming of the
day of God; and to His last promise, "Surely I come quickly," to-
respond, in joyous hope, " Even so; come Lord Jesus."
INTRODUCTION. 9
The following resolution was passed not only unanimously by the
conference, but by the vast audience voluntarily rising en masse to its
feet a magnificent spectacle not soon to be forgotten: " Resolved, That
the doctrine of our Lord's pre-millennial advent, instead of paralyzing
evangelistic and missionary effort, is one of the mightiest incentives to
earnestness in preaching the Gospel to every creature, until He comes."
I desire to express my acknowledgments to my beloved brethren,
Rev. Dr. Nast, once a class-mate with Strauss, but now long a faithful
servant of Christ, for his kindness in furnishing me with Starke's Synop-
sis, and to the Rev. Mr. Krebhiel, both of Cincinnati, with both of
whom precious hours have been had in discussing Romans, Chapters
VII. and VIII. ; and also to the Rev. Dr. Tyng, Jr., of New York, Dr.
Gordon, of Boston, and Dr. Brookes, of St. Louis, for their encourage-
ment during the editorial supervision of this work.
Battling, Suffering, Trusting, Praying, Hoping, Working, Watching,
Waiting, "till He come," this volume is sent forth on its mission, with
the supplication that God's blessing may attend it.
NATHANIEL WEST.
Cincinnati, 0., Feb. 28, 1879.
CALL, FOB THE COSTFERE]S T CE.
DEAR BRETHREN IN CHRIST : When from any cause some vital doc-
trine of God's Word has fallen into neglect or suffered contradiction
and reproach, it becomes the serious duty of those who hold it, not only
strongly and constantly to re-affirm it, but to seek by all means in their
power to bring back the Lord's people to its apprehension and accept-
ance. The precious doctrine of Christ's second personal appearing has,
we are constrained to believe, long lain under such neglect and misap-
prehension.
In the Word of God we find it holding a most conspicuous place. It
is there strongly and constantly emphasized as a personal and imminent
event, the great object of the Church's hope, the powerful motive to
holy living and watchful service, the inspiring ground of confidence
amid the sorrows and sins of the present evil world, and the event that
is to end the reign of Death, cast down Satan from his throne, and
establish the kingdom of God on earth. So vital, indeed, is this truth
represented to be that the denial of it is pointed out as one of the con-
spicuous signs of the apostacy of the last days.
Now, while casting no word of reproach upon those who may differ
from us, we can not be insensible to the fact that there has been a sad
decline in our times from the clear, vivid, ardent faith of the early
church in regard to this doctrine. Very many Christians have been
taught to think of the coming of Christ as equivalent to their own
death ; others regard it as synonymous with the gradual diffusion of
Christianity. Many, satisfied with this present world, have little desire
for the return of the absent Lord ; while here and there are those who
boldly speak of such an event as only a " fascinating dream," destined
never to be realized. But while we lament all this, and can but regard
it as an alarming symptom of the present state of religion, it is an occa-
sion for the profoundest gratitude that there has within the last few
years been such a powerful and wide-spread revival of this ancient
faith. Looking over the Church of God in all its branches, and listen-
ing to the clear and decisive testimony to this truth that is coming up in
such volume from teachers and pastors, expositors and lay workers
evangelists and missionaries, it can but appear to us, that after the long
11
12 CALL FOR THE CONFERENCE.
sleep of the Church, the wise are at last rising up, and trimming their
lamps, in preparation for the coming of the Bridegroom.
In view of these facts, it has seemed desirable that those who hold to
the personal pre-Millennial advent of Jesus Christ, and who are " looking
for tbat blessed hope," should meet together in conference, as our
honored brethren in England have recently done, to set forth in clear
terms the grounds of their hope, to give mutual encouragement in the
rnaintainance of what they believe to be a most vital truth for the present
times, and in response to our Lord's " Behold, I come quickly," to voice
the answer by their prayers and hymns and testimony, " Even so, comCj
Lord Jesus."
We, the undersigned, therefore cordially invite you to meet with us at
the Church of Holy Trinity, Madison Avenue and Forty-second Street
(the Rev. S. H. Tyng, Jr., Rector), in the City of New York, on the 30th
and 31st of October and 1st of November, 1878, to listen to a series of
carefully prepared papers on the pre-Millennial advent of the Lord Jesus
Christ and connected truths, and to participate in such discussions as
the topics may suggest.
JAMES H. BROOKS, A. J. GORDON,
S. H. TYNG, JR., MAURICE BALDWIN,
W. R. NICHOLSON, H. M. PARSONS,
W. Y. MOOREHEAD, RUFUS W. CLARKE,
Committee.
The following-named Bishops, Professors, Ministers and Brethren,
unite in indorsing the calling of the conference :
T. H. Vail, Bishop Protestant Episcopal Church, Topeka, Kansas.
Geo. C. Lorinier, Pastor Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass.
S. H. Tyng, Rector Emeritus St. George's Episcopal Church, N. Y.
S. H. Kellogg, Prof, of Theology, Alleghany Presbyterian Seminary.
J. T. Cooper, Prof, of Theology, Alleghany United Seminary.
Jos. A. Seiss, Pastor Lutheran Church, Philadelphia.
Jos. Wild, Pastor Union Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.
C. K. Imbrie, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Jersey City, N. J.
J. Parker, Pastor South Second Street M. E. Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.
L. W. Bancroft, Rector Christ Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.
E. T. Perkins, Rector St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, Ky.
J. D. Herr, Pastor Central Baptist Church, New York City.
H. M. Saunders, Pastor Baptist Church, Yonkers, N. Y.
C. M. Whittlesey, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Speucerport, N. Y.
R. C. Matlack, Secretary Evangelical Educational Society, Phil.
J. W. Bonham, Church Evangelist, New York City.
George R. Kramer, Wilmington, Delaware.
T. W. Hastings, Rector Holy Trinity Church, Swanton, Vt.
J. P. Farrer, Pastor Baptist Church, Ludlow, Vt.
Alfred Harris, Pastor Baptist Church, Westchestcr, Penn.
Joseph Evans, Pastor Baptist Church, Goshen, Penn.
GALL FOR THE CONFERENCE. 13
L. Osier, Pastor Advent Church, Providence, R. I.
J. M. Orrock, Editor Messiah's Herald, Boston, Mass.
Myron Adams, Pastor Congregational Church, Rochester, N. Y.
L. B. Rogers, Albion, N. Y.
F. W. Flint, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Kingston, Penn.
R. C. Booth, Rector Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Brooklyn, N. Y.
H. Dana Ward, Episcopal Church, Philadelphia.
J. E. Grammer, Rector St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Baltimore, Md.
E. P. Adams, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Dunkirk.
C. M. Morton, Pastor Chicago Avenue Independent Church, Chicago, 111.
George W. Tew.
Frank M. Rockwell, Evangelist, Chicago, 111.
George F. Pentecost, Evangelist, Boston, Mass.
J. M. Stifler, Pastor First Baptist Church, Hamilton, N. Y.
Richard Norton, Lockport, N. Y.
Nathaniel West, Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Jesse L. Gilbert, Pastor Methodist Church, Newark, N. J.
J. P. Sankey, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Rochester, N. Y.
J. S. Stewart, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Towanda, Penn.
Almond Barrelle, Baptist Church, Melrose, Mass.
J. B. Thompson, Pastor Dutch Reformed Church, Catskill, N. Y.
D. E. Bierce, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Racine, Wis.
C. C. Foote, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Detroit, Mich.
G. R. Milton, Pastor First Congregational Church, Geneva, 111.
E. R. Craven, Pastor Third Presbyterian Church, Newark, N. J.
L. C. Baker, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Camden, N. J.
E. P. Goodwin, Pastor First Congregational Church, Chicago.
W. J. Gillespie, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, New York.
W. B. Lee, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Portland, Conn.
R. W. French, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Peotone, 111.
S. B. Reed, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, Tenn.
Edwin R. Davis, Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 111.
G. M. Peters, Pastor Cedar Street Baptist Church, Buffalo.
S. R. Wilson, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Louisville, Ky.
B. Dubois Wyckoff, Presbyterian Church, Olyphant, Penn.
Abner Kingman, Congregational Church, Boston, Mass.
George Hall, Methodist Church, Clifton Springs, N. Y.
T. W. fJarvey, Methodist Church, Chicago, 111.
R. F. Sample, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, Minn.
T. W. Bancroft, Professor Brown University, Providence, R. I.
E. P. Marvin, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Lockport, N. Y.
R. A. McAycal, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Oskaloosa, Iowa.
H. P. Welton, Evangelist Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, Minn.
F. E. Towel, Pastor Brighton Avenue Baptist Church, Boston, Mass.
Wm. Reynolds, Presbyterian Church, Peoria, 111.
John Wanamaker, Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia.
Jos. E. Jones, Baptist Church, West Chester, Penn.
H. W. Brown, Evangelist Baptist Church, Oconomowoc, Wis.
H. N. Burton, Pastor Congregational Church, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Henry Foster, Methodist Church, Clifton Springs, N. Y.
David JL Wallace, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Wooster, Ohio.
W. H. Clarke, Pastor Dutch Reformed Church, Palerson, N. J.
R. Patterson, Pastor Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, Cal.
14 GALL FOR THE CONFERENCE.
J. T. Beckley, Pastor Baptist Church, Newburyport, Mass.
J. J. Miller, Pastor Baptist Church, Sonierville, Mass.
W. J. Erdinan, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Jamestown, N. Y.
R. C. Matthews, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Monmouth, 111.
W. E. Blackstone, Methodist Church, Oak Park, 111.
J. B. Galloway, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Clarence, Iowa.
George C. Needham, Evangelist, Philadelphia.
D. W. Whittle, Evangelist, Chicago.
Edward S. White, Baptist Church, Cambridge, Mass.
A. Erdman, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Morristown, N. J.
C. Cunningham, Pastor Evangelical Advent Church, Boston.
B. F. Jacobs, Baptist Church, Chicago.
C. Perren, Pastor Baptist Church, Chicago.
F. L. Chappell, Pastor Baptist Church, Evanston, 111.
J. Romeyn Berry, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Montclair, N. J.
W. R. Gordon, Pastor Reformed Church, Schraalenberg, N. J.
John T. Duffield, Professor Princetown College.
Robert Cameron, Pastor Baptist Church. Brantford, Ont.
Samuel J. Andrews, Hartford, Conn.
J. S. McCulloch, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, Tenn.
H. F. Titus, Pastor First Baptist Church, Ithaca, N. Y.
Wm. V. Feltwell, Pastor Reformed, Episcopal Church.
H. L. Hastings, Editor Christian, Boston, Mass.
W. W. Barr, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia.
R. D. Morris, Presbyterian Church, President Oxford Female College,
Oxford, Ohio.
F. W. Dobbs, Minister St. John's Church, Portsmouth, Ont.
M. B. Smith, Reformed Episcopal Church, Passaic, N. J.
R. Newton, Rector Church of the Epiphany, Philadelphia.
H. A. Cordo, Pastor Baptist Church, Gloversville, N. Y.
Geo. M. Stone, Pastor Baptist Church, Tarrytown, N. Y.
G. Hayser, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, New Salem, 111.
W. W. Clarke, Pastor Congregational Church, Painesville, Ohio.
Samuel Ashurst, Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia.
Francis -Russell, Pastor Congregational Church, Mansfield, Ohio.
H. M. Bacon, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Toledo, Ohio.
D. Mack, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Carthage, 111.
David R Eddy, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Brockport, N. Y. "
Wm. P. Paxon, Pastor Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, Mo.
John Pearson, Advent Church, Newburyport, Mass.
Josiah Litch, Advent Church, Philadelphia.
WATCHING.
It may be in the evening,
When the work of the clay is done,
And you have time to sit in the twilight
And watch the sinking sun,
While the long bright day dies slowly
Over the sea,
And the hour grows quiet and holy
With thoughts of me ;
Let the door be on the latch
In your home,
For it may be through the gloaming
I will come.
It may be when the midnight
Is heavy upon the land,
And the black waves lying humbly
Along the sand ;
When the moonless night draws close,
And the lights are out in the house;
When the fires burn low and red,
And the watch is ticking loudly
Be&ide the bed ;
Though you sleep, tired out, on your couch,
Still your heart must wake and watch
In the dark room,
For it may be that at midnight
I will come.
It may be at the cock-crow,
When the night is dying slowly
In the sky,
And the sea looks calm and holy,
Waiting for the dawn of the golden sun
Which draweth nigh;
In the chill before the dawning,
Between the night and morning
I may come.
15
16 WATCHING.
It may be in the morning,
When the sun is bright and strong,
And the dew is glittering sharply
Over the little lawn;
With the long day's work before you,
You rise up with the sun,
And the neighbors come in to talk a little,
Of all that must be done ;
But remember that I may be the next
To come in at the door,
To call you from your busy work
For evermore;
As you work your heart must watch,
For the door is on the latch
In your room,
And it may be in the morning
I will come.
So I am watching quietly
Every day;
Whenever the sun shines brightly
I rise and say
Surely it is the shining of His face !
And look unto the gates of His high place,
Beyond the sea,
For I know He is coming shortly
To summon me.
And when a shadow falls across the window
Of my room,
Where I am working my appointed task,
I lift my head to watch the door, and ask
If He is come ;
And the angel answers sweetly,
In my home
" Only a few more shadows,
And lie will come."
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ESSAYS.
OPENING ADDKESS.
BY THE KEY. STEPHEN H. TYNG, SENIOR, D.D.
DEAR BRETHREN: In the name of our common Lord, I
salute you this day. We have met in the name of this
exalted Eedeemer, as believers in His divinity, His incar-
nation, His atoning death, His resurrection from the dead,
His abiding intercession for those for whom He died, His
future triumphant return to earth as the final judge of
man, the glorified ruler, the everlasting portion of those
whom He hath redeemed with His own death, clothed with
His own righteousness and justified before the throne of
His Father and their Father, of His God and their God,
in the perfectness of His work of merit and by the glorious
fullness of His acknowledged triumph and power.
Our personal bond of union is our participation in this
excellence and these attainments of man's Eedeemer.
Accepting Him in all His offices, in this relation, we par-
take together by His gift in all the blessings which He hath
obtained by His willing humiliation and His triumphant
sacrifice. Our security, our happiness, our fruitfulness,
depend wholly upon our personal union with Him. We are
saved not merely by believing facts about Him or truths
which He has taught, but by our living participation in
18 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Him and with Him through the power of the Spirit. He
is the vine, we are the branches. The living connection
which we must have with Him He has thus illustrated: As
the branch can not bear fruit if severed from the vine, so-
also must we be dead and helpless if separated from
Jesus. Our whole spiritual heavenly life depends upon
this vital connection with Him, and our participation in
the blessings which He has obtained and which He alone
can impart.
Thus He presents His historic future to His disciples:
"In my Father's house are many mansions; I go to pre-
pare a place for you, and I will come again and receive
you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also."
This future, glorious coming of Jesus is the very life of
the hopes and the inheritance of His people.
To the soul that really loves Him, where He is, is heaven r
" and prisons would palaces prove if Jesus would dwell
with us there."
Our relation is to be wholly this personal one with Him,
and our hope is always in the assured enjoyment of this.
He is " the way, the truth, and the life." How much the
Saviour dwelt upon this personal relation in His last inter-
view with His disciples! and how little some portions of
modern Christianity seem to realize it! It was laid at the
foundation of all His last instructions and encourage-
ments to His disciples.
They are His disciples who, by the teaching and power
of His Spirit dwelling within them, live and walk and act
in Him, by His power, for His glory. True religion,
under this dispensation, is this living, by the indwelling
power of the Holy Spirit, in unbroken, personal union
with this glorious Saviour. Of this He says: "I will not
leave you comfortless; I will come to you." "He that
loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love
OPENING ADDRESS. 19
him, and will manifest myself to him." This living of
our souls in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and
this living of Christ in us, by the same power, is the
reality of true religion, and of this it is that our Lord says:
"I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you;"
"Because I live ye shall live also;" "At that day ye shall
know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in
you." This divine scheme of spiritual and heavenly
relationship has been the history of the true church of
Christ through all the succeeding ages of the Christian
era. Union with Christ, living in Christ, following
Christ, looking forward to the promised coming of Christ
and to an everlasting dwelling with Christ, have made up
the character, the joy, and the hope of true believers in
every age. And these constitute their significant descrip-
tion with equal certainty in our day. The lovers of a
Saviour are looking for His appearing, longing with in-
creasing desire to see Him as He is, to be with Him where
He is. And thus He offers for them all the earnest sup-
plication, " For all who shall believe on Him through His
word." "That they all may be one, that they may be
with Him, where He is." That they may behold His
glory, which He had before the foundation of the world.
Thus in the day of His ascending triumph they beheld
His glory as a cloud received Him or.t of their sight; and
while in wonder they looked steadfastly toward heaven as
He ascended, angelic messengers addressed them, "This
same Jesus, who is taken up from you info heaven, shall so
come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."
In the belief of this coming, the church of Jesus has
been one in every age. In the thankful anticipation of
this new manifestation of this glorious Saviour, His church
on earth has always been in union, believing in His future
advent, looking for His appearing, striving to seek the
20 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
things which are above, that when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, we may also appear with Him in glory. In
this sure confidence in the reality of this personal advent
of the Saviour to the earth, on which He died, in the cer-
tainty of the confidence that the time of His glorious
advent draweth near, we stand and wait. Many of its
preliminary facts have been accomplished. Much that
was necessarily antecedent in the history and condition of
man has already passed, and every passing year brings
this great fact in this history of earth still nearer and
diminishes the number of earthly events which are to pre-
cede its manifestation. Knowledge and interest in connec-
tion with this great event on earth have vastly increased,
and increasing multitudes are looking for the Lord's ap-
pearing, with enlarged understanding, with new convic-
tions, with constantly brightening hopes. For some of
us, necessarily, the interval of hope must be short.
Our earthly period of education has come near to its
conclusion, and but little more can elapse before we shall
see the Lord in His glory. As a fact in our personal
history, it has become almost in sight. But some of us
also believe that as a fact in the history of man, involving
consequences of immense outspread extent, and of vast
relative influence in the welfare of earth and in the eternal
consequences which are to follow individual experience,
this great manifestation standeth at the door, and while
many sleep the Son of Man will come. In this solemn
conviction we have assembled here, bringing together our
several impressions, convictions and studies, that we may
individually contribute to the general fund of knowledge,
of observation, and of conviction, in reference to this great
event in the history of earth The coming of man's
Redeemer to assume the government which He hath pur-
chased with His death, to restore the earth to His own
OPENING ADDRESS. 21
dominion, and to gather into one redeemed fold the flock
which has strayed upon all mountains, and has been scat-
tered, wandering through all the moves of human igno-
rance, waywardness, and moral and intellectual degrada-
tion. And I close, with the expression of an earnest hope
that infinite grace, almighty power, and everlasting love
may bless the earth on which we dwell, the land which we
inhabit, the nation of which we are part, and the whole
race, for which the Son of God was content to die. The
Spirit of God has been ready to teach, and the faithfulness
of God has covenanted a future restoration and opened
the hope of everlasting glory.
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE.
BY THE REV. S. H. TYNQ, JR., D.D., RECTOR OP THE CHURCH OF THE
HOLY TRINITY, NEW YORK.
open our defense of the doctrine of the personal and
visible return of our Lord with the presumptive proof of
its primitive authority. Whether justified by the language
of the Holy Scriptures, or a delusion of man's enthusiasm,
there will be no dispute that the earliest writings of the
Christian Fathers recognized it as the current opinion of
the post-Apostolic Church. The ancient creeds have
crystallized it in confession. The oldest liturgies express it
in devotion. The history of heroic achievements by
martyrs and confessors claims it as of the highest and most
imperative motive. Until the learned Origen, in the third
century, introduced his method of allegory into exegesis
there is no evidence of a dissent from the traditional
expectation. Nor was his system sufficiently influential
to resist the consensus of the church in the Nicene and
Constantinopolitan councils, which affirmed: "He shall
come again with glory to judge both the quick and the
dead, whose kingdom shall have no end." The historian
Gibbon is our authority that "the ancient Christians were
animated by a contempt for their present existence and by
a just confidence of immortality, of which the .doubtful
and imperfect faith of modern ages can not give us any
adequate notion. In the primitive church, the influence
of truth was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion
which, however it ma} 7 deserve respect for its usefulness
and antiquity, has not been found agreeable to experience.
It was universally believed that the end of the world and
CHRISTS COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 23
the kingdom of heaven (by which they meant Christ's
reign on earth) were at hand." In the theological and
moral darkness of the Middle Ages there were not lacking
earnest souls who maintained and voiced this truth, which
traced its paternity to Apostolic teachers. But our assump-
tion is still further strengthened by the fact, which authentic
history warrants, that the formulae of faith and the private
testimonies of the fathers of the Protestant Reformation
give this doctrine a foremost rank. It was primitive in
the English, the Scotch, the Lutheran, the Congregational,
the Baptist, the Moravian, and all other Christian bodies,
which have passed through the fires of persecution. The
burden of proof really rests with those who deny our hope.
The probability in favor of those, who affirm it, is equal to
the accumulated force of the argument that the men so
marvelously raised up and qualified for the planting, and
the reformation of the church, could not have been mis-
taken in the tradition of the single century, that had
elapsed since the death of St. John, nor misled in their
diligent, delving study of the Bible, as compared with the
comments ol ancient authors. If the assertion and rejection
of this doctrine stand on equal ground before Scriptures^
which do not undoubtedly determine the question at issue,
yet is the preponderance of probability a deciding factor in
th'e discussion.
Waiving this preliminary presumption, we pass to the
consideration of three propositions, which are the common
ground on which this Conference meets, and will be
assumed in the discussion of all succeeding topics. Both
for our present purpose, and for an intelligent reception of
all after-instruction, it is of the first importance that these
principles should be plainly stated and sustained.
1. The authority of Holy Scripture is the basis of all
knowledge that the Lord Jesus will in any wise return to
24 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
this earth. To His life in the flesh there are a few allusions
in classic authors. History endorses sufficiently the story
of the Gospels. The philosophy of history demands, aa
the solution of the problem presented by organized and
social Christianity, the fact of His human existence. But
no other voice than that of God can absolutely foretell.
His hand alone can draw the veil, which hides the things
to come. Speculation has no place in this discussion.
Philosophy has no permission to deal with the unrevealed
future. It may outline the possible outcome of present
tendencies, but catastrophes in all ages have rebuked its
presumption. Whether, therefore, probable or improbable
to the reason of man, the certain knowledge of a fact that
is to be depends upon the sole and unsupported Word of
God. If He is silent, we must remain in ignorance. When
He speaks, every doubt dies. At the foundation of our
faith is a reverent recognition of the Holy Bible as a
revelation from God. Outside of its lids we decline to
follow our disputants. They must be brought to this
crucial test in connection with the promise of our Lord's
coming. It is a more severe criterion than that presented
by miracles, for these may be accepted on human and
contemporaneous testimony. But predictions depend upon
God's declaration. If we are mistaken in our Bible, then
our doctrine may be a delusion. If these sacred books be
"received not as the word of man, but, as they are in truth r
the word of .God," then is our confidence rational.
2. The language of Scripture is the source of all
information concerning both the matter and the manner of
the return of our Lord. Our revelation is clothed in words,
" which the Holy Ghost teacheth." It contains an accurate,
authentic and credible account of events, which have their
place in the world's history. To this is added a series of
didactic statements of truth, adapted to different difficulties
CHRIST S COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 25
and doubts in the current life of those, who submit to their
teaching. Promise and precept are interwoven in the web
of doctrine, and predictions glisten on every page, illumi-
nated by glintings of glory from another world. But
faith, hope and obedience turn with equal curiosity to the
very words, " which holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost." Whether to know " the things
freely given us of God" in our Great Substitute, or " the
things which God hath prepared for those who love Him,"
our search is purely exegetical. We approach, without
partiality or prejudice, to learn from words, which express
His thoughts, what the Lord God will say concerning us.
This postulate implies the rejection of all authoritative
interpretations in the assumed teaching office of any church.
Every such claim must be tested by the word itself. Still
more does it deny all supplementary visions or revelations,
as either complements or expositions of our present Bible.
The closing verses of Revelation are a solemn charge
neither to add to nor take away from the words of the
prophecy of this book. Whether they apply to the dog-
matic portions of the whole New Testament or not, it i&
clear that they do imperatively bind us in our reception of
prophetic truth. They are God's seal upon that symbolical
book, which by all students is admitted to be the chart of
the future. Whatever be our hope, it must draw its reasons
from the written word.
3. The laws of language are the instruments by which
we are to construe the written words of God. But for the
mystical, spiritualizing school of expositors, we should
have no need to do more than state this proposition. It
would seem to be involved in the popular character of our
Bible. Not in cipher, hieroglyphic, or cabalistic signs, but
in the language and dialect of living men, with which
grammar, rhetoric, and logic can closely deal, has God made
26 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
known his purposes to us. There is no esoteric sense
between the lines and beneath the letter. Spiritual dis-
cernment is the knowledge by experience, and does not
imply a superior intellectualism. Even the symbolic books
have their glossary in other and plainer Scriptures. Similes,
metaphors, and parables indeed abound, but these are all
subject to the rules of interpretation, which control in
secular literature. We affirm, then, the law of Bishop
Newton, that a literal rendering is always to be given in
the reading of Scripture, unless the context makes it
absurd. To vindicate this law from all cavil and establish
the proposition which it expresses, one need only appeal to
the common sense of any casual stranger to scholastic
theology. Is it honest to argue with infidels on the basis
of the literal fulfillment of prophecies relating to our Lord's
first coming, and allegorize the predictions connected with
these in chapter, verse, and often clause, because they refer
to His second appearing? What reason have we for holding,
in opposition to the Jew, that it was foretold where Christ
should be born, where He should begin to preach, how He
should enter Jerusalem, what varied sufferings He should
endure, that He should hang upon the tree, that not a bone
of His body should be broken, that His garments should
be parted and His vesture be transferred by lot, that with
transgressors He should die, and yet with the rich make
His grave what possible basis have we for asserting the
historical fulfillment of all these prophecies, which the Jews
spiritualize, if we, in our turn, spiritualize the plain and
closely joined predictions of the glorious Messiah, which
they interpret literally? Surely, as a key tied by a string
close to the lock, are the scriptural interpretations of
fulfilled prophecy. With these at hand, it is not difficult
for the serious student to open the secret things of God.
But to this consideration may be added, in our appeal to
CHRIST 8 COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 27
the common fairness of the church and world, the fact that,
in every controversy with professed Christians, whose
creed we hold to be defective, we insist upon a literal inter-
pretation of Scripture. What Trinitarian would suffer a
Soeinian to spiritualize the declarations of our Lord's
supremacy and sovereignty? The whole controversy with
Universalism pivots on this principle. Unless the word
of God means what it says, the denier of future punishment
may have the right. And on what conception of candor
do men stand; who are strenuous for the principle of literal
interpretation when it suits their theological system, and
severe in its denunciation when they can not suborn the
testimony in favor of their own dogma? Indeed, let this
spiritualizing method be enforced, and all positive lines of
division between truth and error are instantly obliterated.
The Socinian, Calvinist, Arminian, Swedenborgian, and
every other school of theological thought, will spiritualize
in opposite ways to suit their several schemes. On this
principle any book may be turned into a Bible. A recent
reviewer has well written: "Truly quite enough of this
sort of exegetical violence has been done to the New
Testament. It is time that it should cease, and that a
little more of the respect usually paid to authors called
* profane ' should be rendered to books, which the mass of
the Christian world is so well agreed to accept as ' sacred,'
or as the very * word of God.' In other words, it is surely
time that the language of these ancient books should be
used in its own sense the sense which it is manifestly
intended to convey and that modern expositors should
cease their well-meant efforts to compel it into agreement
with the ecclesiastical systems and theological creeds, which
flourish so variously around us, from the so-called infalli-
bility of Rome down, through many gradations, to that of
an American revivalist." The German Rationalists, in
28 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
their efforts to naturalize the history, are not so untrue to
revelation as those in the church, who spiritualize the
prophecy of the Bible.
These three propositions we affirm and assume as a
Conference: The authority of Holy Scripture is the basis
of all knowledge that the Lord Jesus will in anywise return
to this earth; the language ol Holy Scripture is the source
of all information concerning both the matter and manner
of the return of our Lord; the laws of language are the
instruments by which we are to construe the words of God,
to ascertain the character and circumstances of His
appearing. If either one of these can be disproved, our
doctrine must fall into doubt. But whenever it is in
question, the admission of these principles will instantly
take it out of all question.
I. It is evident to the superficial student of the Bible
that very frequent reference is made by all the sacred
writers to " the coming of the Lord." A careful compu-
tation has shown that one verse in every twenty-five, or
about three hundred verses of the New Testament, speak
of this future event. So constant is the allusion to that,
which is to be, at " the coming," " the appearing," " the
revelation " of the Lord, that all expositors must needs
have some theory of interpretation, which will harmonize
and explain these passages. The topic of this paper gives
the ke} r -note of the creed of our Conference. Whatever
else we may hold as true in reference to the translation of*
the church, the resurrection of the dead in Christ, the
coming of the Lord with His saints, and the establishment
of the millennial kingdom, this assertion of the personal
and visible manner of His return is fundamental to all.
Every detail of literally interpreted prophecy pre-supposes
His presence in His glorified humanity, made perceptible
to the sense of sight. And, indeed, in this definition of
CHRISTS COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 29
the doctrine we have no controversy with post-millenarians.
Their champion, Dr. David Brown, is as explicit as any
pre-millenarian in his affirmation of the ocular manifesta-
tion of Christ at the last day. Whatever may be our
differences among ourselves, or with those who postpone
our Lord's appearing until the world's conversion, and
a thousand years after that consummation, we are here
banded in the defence of a common truth. But we have
a strangely commingled multitude of antagonists. They
have no coherence except their consenting denial of our
doctrine. For the negative argument of our present
discussion, we group them in five classes, and seek to show
that neither one nor all satisfy or exhaust the testimonies,
that they quote in support of their varying dogmas. It is
held by some that
1. The coming of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pen-
tecost is the sufficient fulfillment of our Lord's promise.
Ten days after the ascension of Jesus the Holy Ghost came
to the church. The manner of His appearing, the mode
of His operation, the ministry of His presence, all combine
to mark Him as " another Comforter. 1 ' The condition of
His gift by the Father was the departure of the Christ.
He was to be the Yicar of Christ on the earth and in the
church. As such He has controlled in this dispensation
of grace. His office- work, as defined by Jesus, has been
ever fulfilled. It was promised: ""When He is come, He
will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment." "He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of
mine and shall show it unto you." " And He will show
you things to come." Surely these passages on their very
face demand that a distinction of some sort be drawn be-
tween the Spirit and the Son, and at the same time indi-
cate their relative offices in the development of the divine
purpose. The entire ministry of the Holy Ghost is sup-
30 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
plementary to the redemption, and preparatory to the
reign, of Christ. How then can they be confounded in
their comings? But what warrant is given in Scripture
for this strange view? The only text ever quoted in its
support is a sufficient answer to the theory. Our Lord
said, " If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
again and receive you unto myself." But the time and
style of reception is contained in the succeeding clause,.
" that where I am, there ye may be also." Is it not too
plain even for comment that the coming of the Holy
Ghost did not and could not accomplish this last result?
It will not do to evade this answer by urging men to look
for " larger outpourings " of the Spirit, for the Holy Ghost
as a person has come. In His descent were the prophe-
cies of the Old Testament as literally fulfilled as in the
birth of Jesus. A more reliant recognition of His pres-
ence and power will doubtless result in a deeper realiza-
tion of His grace and comfort. But this is not another
coming. He is -here and will remain until the end of the
age. One of the serious charges we have to present
against this school of spiritualizing expositors is that they
diminish the dignity of the dispensation of the Holy
Gh'ost. In seeking to avoid the doctrine of the personal
coming of our Lord, they do despite unto the Third Per-
son of the Blessed Trinity, who is the Spirit of Grace.
2. Again, there are expositors, who hold that the catas-
trophe of the fall of Jerusalem, A.D. TO, and the entrance
of Titus the Eoman, are the facts to which certain
predictions of the coming of the Lord referred. This
can only be affirmed in connection with the twenty-fourth
chapter of St. Matthew and the parallel passages in St.
Mark's and St. Luke's gospels. Epistles written to Gen-
tile churches and the Kevelation to St. John on Patmos
can not be supposed to take cognizance of this local event.
CHRISTS COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 31
If the chronology of the books, written at least twenty
years after Titus' coming, did not determine their refer-
ence to somewhat subsequent to the fall of the Holy City,
surely their scope of argument would negative such a nar-
row construction. We are limited, therefore, to the exam-
ination of a solitary passage as the locus classicus of this
second view. Our Lord was seated on the Mount of Olives
with four of His disciples. He had pronounced the
prophecy of Jerusalem's overthrow: " See ye not all these
things [the buildings of the temple]? Verily I say unto
you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another
that shall not be thrown down." The disciples privately
asked Him three questions, which had most naturally
been suggested by His words, saying (Matt. 24:8): "Tell
us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign
of thy coming, and of the end of the age?" Each of
these queries was answered by Him in its logical order.
A few sentences sufficed to sketch the outline of all events
between His ascension and His corning again. And then
He added the words found in Matt. 24:30: "And then
shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven :
and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and
they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds
of heaven : with power and great glory. And he shall
send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet : and
they shall gather His elect from the four winds." It
is scarcely conceivable that the Lord would represent the
leader of the Roman army, clothed with such a form as
this. But the manifest reference in the words to the
prophecy of Daniel increases this improbability. Be-
sides, at the coming of Titus it is not true that all the
tribes of earth did mourn. To put such a false exaggera-
tion in the mouth of Jesus is to reduce Him from the
rank of a prophet to the ravings of an enthusiast. And
32 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
by what subtle exegesis can the scattering of the Chris-
tians, and their escape to little Pella in the mountains, be
made the correspondent fact to the promised gathering of
the elect? When not only contradictory words but irre-
concilable events become identical these expositors may be
trusted. The misinterpretation, which we now contro-
vert, is made impossible by the remembrance that, only
two days after these words were used on the Mount of
Olives, they were repeated by Jesus in the High Priest's
palace. In Matt. 26: 64 we read: "Jesus saith unto him,
Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter
shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." The point
at issue was His Messiahship. His claim to stand in this
relation was the cause of the wrath of the Sanhedrim.
And now, with prophetic words and an emphasis incapa-
ble of misapprehension, He foretells His future manifest-
ation in glory. Did He speak of Titus to the High
Priest? If not, by what principle of interpretation can the
same words, uttered forty-eight hours before His arraign-
ment, be tortured into such a reference? That the Jews
well understood His meaning is made evident by the
action of the High Priest. He " rent his clothes, saying,
He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of
witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy."
Many witnesses had before been called, but their testi-
mony did not agree. Thus far the evidence was too con-
flicting to warrant a judgment. But as soon as Jesus
spake of His "coming in the clouds of heaven," the case
was closed. He was found guilty of blasphemy, and con-
demned to death because He foretold His second coming.
3. A third theory, that we antagonize, resolves many
passages of the Epistles into what is styled a spiritual com-
ing and presence. The supporters of this most mystical
CHRISTS COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 33
interpretation make much of His title, as " the Coming
One," and speak of Him as ever holding this relation to
the church. But do they forget that the Coming One
u came unto His own and His own received Him not?"
that when the Baptist sent messengers to ask, u Art thou
the Coming One, or do we look for another?" Jesus an-
swered by directing attention to the correspondence be-
tween His miracles and the marvels predicted by Isaiah,
and that it was in this character that the multitudes wel-
comed Him, crying, "Blessed is the Coming One in the
name of the Lord ? " It casts a strange shadow on His
earthly life to ignore the fulfillment of this title in His
days of obedience and suffering. The Coming One was
materialized. With a form like unto ours He passed into
the heavens. Surely now His promise that He will come
again can not imply an annihilation of that perfected man-
hood. He must return in His Glorified Body, whether
visible or invisible to us, unless His humanity be a myth.
But how can these Scriptures of the Apostles refer to a
spiritual coming, whatever that may mean, in the face of
the Lord's own assurances : u Where two or three are gath-
ered together in My name, there am I in the midst of
them." "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the age ? " Spiritually the Son of God has never been,
and can never be absent from the world or the church.
The omnipresence of God is through the redemption a
part of our heritage. u The Lord of Hosts is with us, the
God of Jacob is our refuge." And in a peculiar manner
does the Holy Ghost make real to the believer the Christ
of the past on Golgotha, in the Garden of the Sepulchre,
and on the Mount of Ascension as a present Saviour. But
as the Mediatorial Priest and King it is distinctly stated
that His session is still in the heavenly places: " Whom
the heavens must receive until the time of restitution of
34 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His
holy prophets since the world began." It surely is mani-
fest that those times of restoration have not yet dawned.
There must be, therefore, something in store for the
church beyond the spiritual influences of her absent Lord.
4. It is held by some writers that the progress of the
gospel and the church is the concrete fact, in which the
promises of our Lord's coming combine. There is a
vagueness about this view, which makes it most difficult to
controvert. If definite passages were quoted in its sup-
port, we might dispute the exegesis. But when one is
referred generally, and with a wave of the hand, to all the
prophecies and promises, it argues distrust of the position
in those who affirm it, and it proposes an endless task to
those who are its opponents. Let us meet general asser-
tions with specific suggestions. In only one text of the
New Testament is the church called Christ. St. Paul
wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor., 12: 13), " As the body is
one and hath many members, and all the members of that
one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ."
"With this solitary exception, the church throughout the
epistles is represented as the body, of which Christ is the
head. Undoubtedly the text quoted is in the line of this
uniform teaching, but the language identifies the body
and its head under the one name of Christ. For the most
part, by the apostle the body is represented as visible, and
the head as invisible. The growth is upward " into Him
in all things, which is the Head, even Christ." And the
Head is represented as "in the heavenly places, far above
all principality and power and might and dominion, and
every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in
that which is to come." As a visible fact, the church is
now headless. It waits for His coming, who shall crown
it with His own glorified humanity. From a single par-
CHRIST 8 COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 35
ticular do they attempt to generalize, who hold this fourth
theory, whilst the burden of passages bearing on this very
illustration is contrary to them. But the second coming
of Christ is manifestly somewhat exterior to the church
itself. The law of obedience given to the church is,
" Occupy till I come." The symbols of sacramental com-
munion are to be used " until He come." The attitude of
spiritual desire is to "wait for His Son from heaven." In
the midst of sloth and sin, it is commanded to "watch, for
ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." The sub-
stance of its supplication and song is: "Come, Lord Jesus,
come quickly." The coronation of the church is an event
separate from its struggle. All its discouragements are
cheered by the blessed hope of His appearing. Thus,
then, there, shall the church be glorified. The Bridegroom
will claim the Bride.
5. To these varying interpretations of our Lord's com-
ing must be added one more, which identifies it with the
death of believers. This definition results in a destructive
dislocation of Scripture, and an annihilation of all true
hope in the Christian life. That which the law of self-
preservation teaches us to dread can not be the substance
of our Lord's most joyous promise or of the church's puri-
fying hope. The saintly Baxter expressed the universal
experience of the church, when he wrote: " Death appear-
eth to me as an enemy, and my nature doth abhor and
fear it; but the thoughts of the coming of the Lord are
most sweet and precious. Christ's servants can submit to
death, but His coming they love and long for." What a
perversion is it to reduce all the glad expectancy of His
appearing, who " will change our bodies of humiliation
that they may be fashioned like unto His own glorious
body," into the dull thought that disease may at some
moment seize us, and death assert its sovereignty over us!
36 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
The presumption against such a reading of promise is so
strong as almost to discharge us from argument. But to
strengthen our defense, let us remember that the vocabu-
lary of the Bible always classes death as an enemy. From
the first to the last book of the sacred canon this is its uni-
form representation. Our Lord Jesus is said to have
abolished death, but its physical accidents still remain in
all their hideous self-assertion. The sting of death has
been extracted, but the serpent survives. It will not be
until His coming that dead bodies shall be raised, and the
battle-cry, "O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where
is thy victory?" be sung without a challenge. Then the
last enemy, even death, shall have been destroyed. In
the lack of a single passage, which plainly associates
death with the coming of the Lord, how dare men,
instructed by this exceptionless usage, misread God's
word? The departing believer hastes to be absent from
the body that he may be present with the Lord to be
with Christ in Paradise to depart and be with Christ,
which is far better. Time would fail to quote a tithe of
the passages which present Jesus as He appeared to Ste-
phen, waiting for His saints, and the dying believer as
carried by angels into His presence. Never is there a
reversal of this relation in the language of God's word.
Moreover, whenever death is represented in imagery the
figure is the contrast of the person of Christ. He who
rides upon the pale horse can not be the same as He who
cometh in the clouds of heaven. Violence is done to every
principle of personification by such an attempted identity.
Not to prolong our negative argument, we have only to
add our Lord's own discrimination between death and
His own second coming, as a final answer to the assump-
tions of this theory. When Peter over-curiously demanded
in reference to John, " Lord, and what shall this man do?"
CHRIST S COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 37
Jesus saith unto him, "If I will that he tarry till I come,
what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this
saying abroad among the brethren, that this disciple
should not die." They were beguiled into the very confu-
sion of thought, which we have been controverting.
"Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but if I
will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" The
Lord leaves no doubt about the difference between these
two future facts. It is only an exploded tradition to con-
nect them. And the heat of controversialists, who make
this attempt, is far less pardonable than the mistake of the
disciples, since subsequent to this interview so much
instruction in reference to the Lord's coming has been
given by the apostles. This much is certain : " We shall
not all sleep " (in death), but we shall all be summoned
before the judgment-seat of Christ. There will be at
least one generation to whom death shall not be the com-
ing of the Lord.
These five theories do neither satisfy nor exhaust the
teaching of the Scriptures in reference to the second com-
ing of our Lord. Though it be admitted that, analogically,
the facts, which they relate, may be anticipations of His
appearing, yet there is somewhat in all the passages quoted,
which refuses to be cramped and confined by these inter-
pretations. It may be that these incidents stand in the
foreground of the unveiled picture of the future, and are
foreshortened into a practical prominence, but there is a
sublime event looming up in the background, which far
transcends them in significance and interest. To the scrip-
tural authority of this reserved revelation of our Lord, we
have a remarkable testimony from a rationalistic critic in a
recent number of the Nineteenth Century Review. Though
regarding the Messianic kingdom as " unreal and untrue,"
he frankly admits that "the men of the first Christian
38 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
generation, including the Apostles and the writers of the
New Testament, lived in the almost daily expectation of
the Lord and the end of the world. ;) This witness of Dr.
Yance Smith is valuable as that of one coldly unprejudiced
in his examination of the sacred text, and avowedly hostile
to this truth. That it is justified by exact exegesis, it is
now our purpose to demonstrate as the positive argument
of this paper. We hope to be able to show that there is a
very numerous class of passages, which can not by any
expository skill be connected with one or all of the professed
fulfillments already disputed, but which imperatively
demand, and will brook no denial of, the personal, in the
sense of visible, coming of our Lord. To these we turn
with undoubting confidence.
1. The nouns substantive used to signify the Advent are
first in this line of proof. They are incapable of other
definition than a real, personal, and corporeal as opposed
to a figurative, spiritual, and incorporeal coming of our
Lord. So definite is the usage of the terms that we may
be thus explicit in our statement. The first of these words
is Apokalypsis. It occurs in nineteen passages of the ^S T ew
Testament, and is translated in our version, "revela-
tion," " manifestation, 5 ' " appearing," " coming," and " to
lighten." It will be recognized in the texts: (1 Cor. 1 : 7),
" Waiting for the revelation of Jesus Christ;" (2 Thess.
1 : 7), " At the revelation of Jesus Christ with His mighty
angels;" (1 Peter 1:7), "At the appearing of Jesus
Christ;" (1 Peter 4 : 13), "When His glory shall be
revealed." Whenever used in reference to objects or per-
sons, which can be recognized by sight, this word requires
visibility as a necessary quality. It is introduced to express
the discovery of spiritual truth to the mind, but never for
the spiritual discernment of Christ. The only instance
apparently doubtful is Galatians 1 : 16, " To reveal His
CHRIST 8 COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 39
Son in (to) me;" but the three recitals of his conversion in
the Book of Acts assert that St. Paul heard the voice and
imply that he saw the form of Christ. Indeed, it was this
personal revelation to him it was which gave him all his
rights in the apostolate. The use of the word in Matt.
11 : 27, ''Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the
Son, and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him," is
no exception to our rule, since the person of the Father
is ever invisible and can only be spiritually perceived.
Indeed, it is only necessary to recall the fact that the last
book of the Bible is called the Apocalypse to establish our
rule of interpretation. By whatsoever process rendered
perceptible, it is evident that this Revelation to St. John
was objective, for he distinctly, in the preface to the book,
asserts that "he saw" the things which he is about to
relate.
The second noun employed in this same connection by
the sacred writers is Epiphaneia. Together with the verb,
from which it is derived, it is found in ten passages of the
New Testament. The lexicographer Schleusner gives as
its classic definition, " The appearance of a thing corporal
and resplendent." He adds that " it was particularly
employed by the Greeks to denote the appearance of their
gods, with circumstances of external splendor." In accord
with this usage, St. Paul introduces the word (2 Tim. 1:10)
to describe our Lord's incarnation at His first advent. He
speaks of the grace that " is now made manifest by the
epiphany of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished
death and brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel." Again, when describing Paul's shipwreck,
Luke wrote (Acts 27 : 20), " Neither sun nor stars in many
days epiphanized." Every other text in which this word
is met has reference to the second coming; as, for example,
(1 Tim. 6 : M), " Keep this commandment without spot,
40 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:
which in His time He shall show, who is the blessed and
only Potentate;" (2 Tim. 4 : 1), "The Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and dead at His appearing and
His kingdom;" (Titus 2 : 13), "Looking for that blessed
hope, and the glorious appearance of our Saviour Jesus
Christ, who gave Himself for us." The unvarying usage of
this word in the New Testament sustains the classical defini-
tion. The context of every passage makes any other an
impossibility, if not an absurdity.
The third and last word, to which we ask attention is
Parousia. It will be found in twenty-four texts of the New
Testament, with the two meanings of " coming " and
" presence." Seventeen of these passages refer to the com-
ing of our Lord. As examples we quote (Matt. 24 : 3):
" What shall be the sign of Thy coming;" (1 Cor. 15 : 23),
"They that are Christ's at His coming;" (1 Thess. 2:19),
"Are not even ye at the coming of our Lord;" (James
5 : 8), " The coming of the Lord draweth nigh." Once the
word is used in connection with the manifestation of the
Man of Sin. In all other passages it is employed to
describe the coming of individuals; as (1 Cor. 16 : 17),
" the coming of Stephanas;" (2 Cor. 7 : 6), " the coming of
Titus;" and (Phil. 1 : 26), the "coming " of Paul. The lit-
eral rendering of this term is u the becoming present." It
marks the moment when absence ceases, and presence
begins. It excludes all idea of a prolonged period, as they
who seek to identify the coming of the Lord with death
vainly fancy. How contrary to common sense is such a
definition will instantly appear on attempting to adjust it
to the prophecy, (Matt. 24 : 27), " As the lightning cometh
out of the east and shineth even unto the west; so shall
also the coming of the Son of Man be." There is nothing
in nature so instantaneous as this. It is now, and in the
CHJRIST'S COMING : PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 41
twinkling of an eye it is gone. So shall also the Parousia
of the Son of Man be. The word is equally intolerant of
the theory of a spiritual coming. It implies personality,
and in several passages suggests physical visibility. If the
coming of the Lord, to which it refers, be spiritual or figura-
tive, so must also the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus,
and Achaicus, who certainly brought substantial help to
the Apostle Paul, and must, therefore, have been more
than phantoms.
These three words, singly and in combination, bear an
exclusive testimony to the future real and personal coming
of the Lord.
2. We pass from them to consider the pronouns and
adverbs, which control and qualify the various promises of
our Lord's appearing. These not only consent to the inter-
pretation, which we are now presenting, but greatly
strengthen its proof. To attenuate the Second Advent into
a figurative or spiritual fact is to oppose Scripture, which
seems, in its very texture, to have been arranged for just
such an emergency of doubt. Whilst looking up into the
clouds, which had shut off from their gaze the ascended
Christ, two angelic men recalled the thoughts of the dis-
ciples to earth, and with words of promise opened to them
a most glorious hope. They said, " This same Jesus who
is taken "up from you. into heaven, shall so come in like
manner as ye have seen Him go." What a combination of
carefully chosen words is this text ! It is a mosaic of
promises. In opposition to all allegorizers and spiritual-
izers, it presents " this same Jesus" not His influences,
but Himself. In contradiction of all theories, that would
degrade His coming by identifying it with death, the pass-
age presents descent after translation as the outline of His
coming, u in like manner as ye have seen Him go." On
every side is this assurance guarded by these qualifying
42 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
parts of speech. It is impossible to wrest such a Scripture
from its natural and literal rendering. But the Apostle
Paul is not less careful in his collocation of words. The
change of living saints and the resurrection of the dead in
Christ are works of omnipotence. They can not certainly
be separated from a personal act. In foretelling them as
the events that shall especially mark His coming, the
apostle traces them to our Lord's personal presence and
power, "because the Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven." Surely this pronoun decides the issue. Only
one other illustration shall be added to these, though they
might be indefinitely extended. The apostle to the
Hebrews (9 : 28) contrasts His former sin -bearing with
the Lord's future glory: " Christ was once offered to bear
the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall
He appear the second time without sin unto salvation."
There is a plain antithesis between " once " and " second
time." The resemblance between the two appearings is
asserted to be personality. The difference is equally defined
by their contrasted relation to sin and offering for sin.
Even the smallest particles of scriptural language protest
against the perversions of our doctrine,
3. But to these sources of proof we add the offices and
actions, which are connected with His coming, and to which
the Scriptures command our reverence. These are all
intensely personal, both in their conception and in the
mode of their accomplishment. Our Lord warned His
disciples against the pretensions of anti-christs. These
impostors were clearly to be persons. Their peculiar dogma
was to be that they (2 John 7) " confess not that Jesus Christ
is coining in the flesh," and the substitution of themselves in
the stead of Christ as the object of hope. If His competi-
tors were to be personal and visible, surely the language of
warning implies more than a spiritual manifestation on our
CHRIST 8 COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 43
Lord's part. The contrast between Christ and Anti-christ
involves the personal coming of the Lord. But all are
agreed that the judgment of the saints and the world will
be a chief feature in the Advent. How is this office
presented in Scripture? Will the law of the survival of
the fittest produce the final judgment, irrespective of a
glorious Person? Are the discriminating influences
the Gospel all that is meant by this phrase? Are the
"judgment-seat of Christ " and " the great white throne "
fictions of fancy, which have no corresponding reality?
These glosses of philosophy, and spiritaalizers, must be
brought to the test of the word itself. St. Paul taught in
skeptical Athens the truth in words, which anticipate all
later criticisms (Acts 17:30, 31): "God hath appointed a
day, in the which He will judge the world by that man,
whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance
unto all men, in that He hath raised him from the dead."
If " that man " is a personal designation, then the Judge
will be a person. If the resurrection of Christ was visibly
demonstrated, equally so will be His coming again. This
is a demonstration of the surface of the passage. Another
character, in which our Lord is represented in the day of
His advent, is as the JRaiser of the Dead. This office He
performed in His life of substitution. Again, at His
death-cry (Matt. 27:52), "The graves were opened; and
many bodies of the saints which slept, arose, and came out
of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy
city and appeared unto many." Once more is this action
traced to Him (1 Thess. 4:16), "For the Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead
in Christ shall rise first ... to meet the Lord in the
air." To refer this future fact to a spiritual change is
condemned as the error of Hymeneus and Philetus (2 Tim.
44 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
2: 18), which in the apostle's day overthrew the faith of
some. The passages which prove its physical character
will doubtless be presented in a succeeding essay of the
Conference. It is sufficient for our present purpose to show
that the resurrection of the body has always been and will
hereafter be personal and visible. And from this we
have a right to argue that " the Lord in the air " will be
equally personal and visible. Our conviction is strength-
ened by the use of the Greek word, translated " to
meet." In every other passage of the New Testament, in
which it occurs, it has the uniform meaning of a personal
encounter. The very term introduced by the Evangelists to
describe the meeting of Christ with His disciples in His
mortal and risen life is projected as the outline of promise
and prophecy for His reception of His church in the day of
His appearing. 'To these offices and actions might be
added His relation to the world as the Eestorer of Creation,
of which His miracles were the earnests, His relations to
the Jews as the Shiloh of Israel, and to the Gentiles as the
Desire of all Nations, in connection with which designation
every prophecy and all philosophy of government demand
personality, and His relation to the church as the Bride-
groom of the Bride (2 Thess. 1: 10), " When He shall come
to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them
that believe in that day." Every term used in connection
with these varied functions of His mediatorial sovereignty
requires somewhat more than a spiritual manifestation.
The token of His real personality and visibility was His
risen and glorified body. In this He must come again.
Our eyes may be holden that we may not recognize Him,
but the difficulty will be in our sight, not in His reality:
" We see not yet all things put under Him. But we see
Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." (Heb.
CHRIST 8 COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 45
2:8, 0.) Finally, to affirm that His appearing will be that
of a spirit only is to fall into the very error from which in
His risen life our Lord delivered His disciples. We look
for our King clothed in glorified flesh.
Great confusion has been caused in this discussion by
the scholastic associations of the word "person." We have
seen that all the Greek nouns, pronouns, and adverbs,
which are employed by the sacred writers in this connection,
necessarily imply both a full, real, and individual appearing
of our Lord, and that this will be a proper object of sight.
But the force of these terms has been clouded by the
prominence given to the Latin word " persona." The
dream of a personal as distinct from a visible demonstra-
tion of our Lord's presence is not warranted by the classic
use of the word, but is a sequence of the controversy over
the distinctions in the Blessed Trinity. Theologians
writing in Latin chose this word " persona," divested it of
visibility among other ideas, and employed it in its
modified definition to express the separate relations of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So in theology the word
has come to have a narrow and peculiar meaning, quite
distinct from that of its derivation. It is with this battle-
axe of an ended conflict that men are found armed in the
controversy concerning the Lord's coming. Let " persona "
have its Ciceronian meaning, and the title of this essay
will be seen to be tautological. The appearing of our Lord
because personal must be visible.
To this cumulative argument we simply add, in closing,
the unmistakable testimony that Christ's personal coming
will be visible. Thus saith the Lord: (Matt. 26:64),
" Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right
hand of power;" (John 16:16), "A little while, and ye
shall not see Me, and again, a little while, and ye shall see
Me, because I go to the Father;" (Kev. 1:7), " Behold He
46 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and
they also which pierced Him." To such assurances
Christian faith and hope impel the Lord's people to respond
in mutual congratulation: (1 John 3:3), "Beloved, now
are we the sons of God; and it doth not appear what we
shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall
be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." The Christ
as He was is the object of faith. The record of His
finished work is so realized to holy fancy by the Holy
Ghost, as to justify the expression of St. Paul to the
Galatians, (3: 1) " before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been
evidently set forth, crucified among you." So actual was
Christ, so very real to Paul's faith, as to be almost visible.
The Christ as He is is the object of hope. The history of
His risen life and ascension gives the outline of the (Titus
2: 12) " blessed hope " that we are (2 Peter 3: 11) "looking
for" and (1 Thess. 1:9, 10) " waiting for." In holy con-
templation, the Man from the Glory comes often within
the closest circle of our communion. But when hope shall
find its divine and human object in the personal and visible
Lord from heaven, then in its fulness shall be understood
that saying, " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."
CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 47
CUEIST'S COMING IS IT FEE-MILLENNIAL?
BY THE KEY. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D., PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE
PRESBYTERIAN SEMINARY, ALLEGHENY, PA.
THAT the Lord Jesus Christ, in his glorified human
nature, is yet to return to this earth, is and always has
been the faith and hope of the Church. In this article of
faith, Protestant and Eomanist, Greek and Oriental
Christians, are all agreed. That same Jesus which was
taken up from us into heaven, shall so come in like man-
ner as He was seen to go. The so-called Millennarian
controversy has never involved any doubt as to the fact
that there is to be a literal bodily return of the risen Jesus
in the clouds of heaven to this very earth which witnessed
His humiliation and rejection. The undivided Church
joins with one accord in those words of the Te Deum,
"We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge." Nor
is the question before us whether this world shall become
subject to Christ. The earth shall'be filled with the knowl-
edge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
" All nations shall serve and obey Him." On this subject
Scripture is so explicit that no body of Christians has ever
rejected the doctrine. This is the eternal decree of the
Father: "Ask of Me, and I will give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth
for thy possession." Nor is there any question as to
whether the preaching of the Gospel shall be a success.
There may be, and indeed is, among good men, a question
as to what the present preaching of the Gospel is intended
to accomplish. But whatever that may be, there can be
4:8 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
no doubt that the purpose of God in this proclamation of
the Gospel shall be accomplished to the very letter. "My
word shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing
whereto I sent it." If, therefore, it be the purpose of God
that it shall issue in the conversion of the whole world,
then, without doubt, whatever be the difficulties in the way,
these instrumentalities now in operation shall yet bring
about that glorious result. There is, most assuredly, no
lack of power in God, the Holy Spirit, nor of inherent
virtue in the Gospel to this end. And if, on the other
hand, it be the purpose of God that, in this present dis-
pensation, the preaching of the Gospel shall only issue in
the gathering out of an election from all nations, then also
that purpose of God shall be accomplished, and no more.
But it is plain that, in this case as well as the former, the
preaching of the Gospel will have been a success. In
either case, it will have accomplished all that it was
intended to accomplish, and that is what we call success.
It should be scarcely necessary to remark that the ques-
tion before us does not concern the absolute time of the
coming of the Lord. Concerning that, the testimony of
the word of God is most emphatic. " Of that day and
hour knoweth no man no, not the Son, but only my Father
which is in Heaven." It is a matter of the greatest regret
that so many have forgotten the explicit teachings of the
Scriptures upon this subject, and suffered themselves to be
led aside' into deliverances upon this matter, which, as a
matter of course, being falsified by the event, have served
to bring the most precious hope of the Church into disre-
pute, and deterred many good and earnest men from even
entering on the consideration of a subject which, to their
minds, seemed so fraught with evil consequences to the
sobriety of Christian life. We, one and all, can not do
CHRIST 8 COMING : IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 49
better in this matter than stand firm on the words of one
of the great historical confessions: "As Christ would
have us certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of
judgment, so will He have that day unknown to men, that
they may shake off all carnal security, and be always
watchful, because they know not what hour the Lord will
come." Nor is there any question between Millennarians
and others as to the essential nature of that resurrection
life upon which all agree that all believers shall enter at
the coming of the Lord. Millennarians have sometimes
been charged with holding that those who shall rise and
reign with Christ when He shall appear will enter upon an
earthly life, after the fashion of the life which we now lead
in the flesh. Thus an eminent theologian argues against
the doctrine of the Pre-Millenialists, that it is inconsistent
with what the Scriptures uniformly teach as to the nature
of the resurrection body; that it is to be spiritual, and not
natural, or flesh and blood. "Whereas, according to the
writer quoted, " it is an essential part of the doctrine ot
the Pre-Millennialists that the saints are to rise and reign a
thousand years in the flesh." This passage rests upon a
strange misapprehension of what Pre-Millennialists under-
stand the Scriptures to teach upon this subject. It is safe
to say that no Millennarian of any repute holds to a res-
urrection of the sort suggested in the passage cited. A
life of the risen saints in some special connection with this
earth, even as it is at present constituted, no more implies
that their resurrection bodies will not be in the sense of
the Apostle, " spiritual," or that their' resurrection life is
to be a life in the flesh, after the manner of this present
life, than the undoubted fact that the Lord Jesus Himself,
during the forty days after His resurrection, appeared in a
body of flesh and bones upon this earth, to men in the
flesh, implies that His life was at that time, in the sense of
4
50 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
our author, a life in the flesh. As was the body, and as
was the resurrection life of our Lord, so, beyond all doubt,
according to the abundant testimony of the word of God,
shall be the resurrection bodies and the resurrection life of
this people.
Still further, in order to reach the truth upon the sub-
ject before us, it is important to separate this question
from others closely connected therewith. For example,
the question before us is not whether or not the kingdom
of Christ be as yet, in any sense, present in the world, a
question to which, in passing, we may remark the parables
in Matt. 13 seem to give an affirmative answer. Neither is
the question before us in this paper whether there shall be a
first and second resurrection, nor whether Christ shall yet
reign personally upon this earth. These questions, indeed,
have been and are closely connected with the question of a
Pre-Millennial advent, but they are not so closely connected
but that, in instances, not a few men have rejected the doc-
trine of a converted world previous to the coming of the
Lord, while yet not affirming the doctrine of a first and
a second resurrection, nor that of a personal reign of the
Lord upon the earth. Such, indeed, appears to have been
the position of most of the reformers. In order to clear-
ness of discussion, it is important, for the present, to waive
all reference to these or any other related questions, and
confine our attention strictly to the precise point before us,
which we may state as follows : " Does the word of God
teach that, prior to the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
are to look for the conversion of the world to Him, and a
prolonged season of universal peace and prevailing right-
eousness, or does it teach the contrary?" According to
the opinion of the P?e-Millennialists, which prevails most
widely in the present century, and more especially in our
own country, the conversion of the world, both Jew and
CHRISTS COMING : IS IT P RE -MILLENNIAL. 51
Gentile, and the consequent establishment of the King-
dom of . Christ, is to precede the personal return of the
Lord Jesus. By the use of means at present employed,
accompanied by unprecedented operations of the Holy
Spirit, it is supposed that the world is to be totally trans-
formed, and in some sense converted. The Spirit is to be
poured out so abundantly that, as the result, righteousness
will prevail throughout the whole earth. As to how
extensively men shall be individually renewed and con-
verted, in the Gospel sense of those words, there seems to
be a great difference of opinion. Some have even sup-
posed that the expected conversion shall be literally univer-
sal. A greater number, probably, seem to think that very
many, in the aggregate, may remain inwardly unrenewed,
but that, on the whole, the great majority will be truly
converted unto God; and that, as the result of this, sin,
where it still remains, will be universally restrained, so
that " nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall men learn war any more." Others, again, seem to
expect little more than a merely nominal and outward pro-
fession of Christianity by the nations of the world, as
such, and the practical recognition of the principles of the
moral law in social and political life. As to how far such
an issue could, in the Scriptural sense of words, be called
a conversion of the world to God, we leave to others to
judge. The happy state of things to be brought about,
sooner or later, by the preaching of the Gospel, of what-
ever sort it be, it is believed, will continue for a very long
time, which is called the Millennium. Its duration it is
commonly argued from Rev. 20, will not be less than a
thousand years. After that it is understood" that the Bible
Caches that there will be a general apostasy from the faith,
^hich will be shortly and finally brought to an end by the
return of the Lord to judgment, when the present order of
52 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
things will pass away forever. If this is the teaching of the
Scriptures, then it is plain that the coming of the Lord is not
even possible for more than a thousand years to come, and
how much longer no one can tell.
As opposed to all this, Pre-Millennialists, believing,
indeed, with the Post-Millennialist, that righteousness shall
yet prevail over all the earth, understand the Scriptures to
teach that this is not to be expected before the Lord Jesus
shall return. That although the Gospel shall, indeed, be
ever more and more widely spread abroad, yet the word of
God gives us no reason to look for any radical and real spir-
itual change in the condition of the world till the glorious
appearing of the Lord. This, then, in a word, is the ques-
tion: "Do the Scriptures teach, or do they not, that the
world is to be, in any true sense of the word, converted
before the return of the Son of Man?" Before entering
upon the investigation of this question, it is well that we
bear in mind the following two considerations: It is of
the greatest importance, in dealing with this subject, as,
indeed, with any other question regarding the teaching of
the word of God, that we allow no preconceptions of our
own, whether derived from the natural reason or from any
traditional interpretation of the Scripture which we may
have received, even from good and devout men, to deter-
mine our judgment in the decision of the matter. The
question before us is purely and simply a question as to
the teaching of the word of God. Let us, therefore,
beware of determining, a priori, what, as regards the gov-
ernment of this world, God may or may not be expected
to do. The words of the Lord are ever to be borne in
mind: " My thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither
are your ways My ways." And, in the second place, it is
to be remembered that we can not, in this matter, any
more than in many other teachings of the ScriptureSi
CHRISFS COMING : IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 53
demand that all difficulties shall be removed. To insist that
every difficulty shall be removed, and every possible ques-
tion answered before we shall give our assent to a doctrine
of the Bible, is not the part of a wise Christian. In how
many matters, even more central and vital than that which
is before us to-day, are we shut up to a choice of difficulties.
Let us remember well that, although we may not be able
to answer every question or difficulty that may be urged
against a doctrine, it by no means follows that we are justi-
fied in rejecting it. On this principle, we should be justi-
fied in rejecting the doctrine of the Atonement itself. So,
in the present question especially, as it seems to me, are
we shut up to a choice of difficulties, which ever side we
take. We have simply to take that side which is encum-
bered with the fewest and least serious difficulties. What,
then, does the word of God teach as to the question of a
conversion of the world before the coming of the Lord?
It is oftea charged that the arguments of the Pre-Mil-
lennialists, on this subject, rest chiefly, if not entirely,
upon the more obscure and symbolical portions of the
Scriptures. It is even said by some that their case rests
chiefly, if not entirely, upon a certain interpretation of
Rev. 20, touching the first and second resurrection. It is
proposed, therefore, in the present inquiry, to waive refer-
ence to the prophecies of the Old Testament, and the sym-
bolical portions of the Bible generally. "We shall all agree
that in our interpretation of the Bible, the interpretation
of that which is obscure or symbolical is to be determined
by that of those portions which are evidently to be taken
in a literal and didactic sense. Especially must the New
Testament be ever allowed to determine the interpretation of
the Old, and not the reverse. On these principles, all wise
54 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
interpreters of every school must agree. What, then,
saith the Scripture on the subject before us?
1. The first notable fact bearing on the decision of the
question before us is the utter absence of any statement in
the New Testament that any such period of universal con-
version and long-prevailing righteousness is to be witnessed
previous to the Coming of the Lord. This fact is pecu-
liarly notable and significant in the case of the Apostle
Paul. In our day the expected conversion of the world
is constantly held up as the great motive and incentive to
missionary labor. We are even told by many who ought
to be able to judge, that if through the prevalence of the
contrary view people shall come to doubt this, a sad decline
in missionary activity of the Church must be expected as
the inevitable result. But here is the very Chief and
Prince of all Missionaries, holding His commission direct
from the Master, taught, as He tells, not by any fallible or
even inspired man, but directly by the Lord Himself and
His Spirit. More than once He tells us of the motives
that urged Him on, and filled Him with a zeal for the sal-
vation of men which has been rarely equaled and never
excelled, but never does He state that His motive was
found in the expectation that the world was to be con-
verted by His preaching or that of any other man. He
speaks, indeed, of a time when all Israel shall be saved.
But that does not affect the precise fact which we now
urge, that nowhere does He represent the subjugation of
the world to Christ as the motive which was the inspiration
of His unequaled labors and sufferings. On the contrary,
when He states His motives, He does it in language like
the following: u Knowing the terror of the Lord, we per-
suade men; the love of Christ constraineth us." 2 Cor.
5 : 11, 14. " Endure all things for the elect's sakes, that
they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus
CUBIST'S COMING : IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 55
with eternal glory." 2 Tim. 1: 10. "I am made all
things to all men that I might by all means save some."
1 Cor. 9: 23. Nor does it appear as if He expected the
conversion of the world as the final result of such labors by
His successors in the future. " The last times," He tells,
shall differ from the times before only in that they shall
be "perilous times." 2 Tim. 3:1. On one occasion in
particular the Apostle had very special reason, if he
expected a millennium of peace and holiness before the
Coming of the Lord, to refer to the fact. When the Thes-
salonian Christians on one occasion were greatly troubled
because they had been led to believe that the day of the
Lord had already come, Paul quieted their apprehensions
how? By telling them, as was most natural if the modern
doctrine were true, " that the day of the Lord would not
come except the world should first be converted unto
God?" If this were the truth, it was the very thing to
say. It were, indeed, simply inconceivable that the
Apostle, if he knew anything about this coming conversion
of the world as the necessary antecedent of the Lord,
should not have said so. But the fact, simply unaccount-
able upon the truth of the modern theory, is that he did
not. Nay, so far from this, he told them the exact reverse;
not that the Millennium must come first, the world be
converted, but that "the man of sin" must first be
revealed, whom the Lord would "destroy with the bright-
ness of His coining."
2. But we may go yet further. Not only does the
New Testament nowhere state that the intended result of
the preaching of the Gospel in this dispensation is the
conversion of the world to God, but when that object is
formally stated, as it is in two places, it is stated in terms
which imply the exact reverse of this. The first passage
we may note is in Acts 15: 14. The Jewish Christians
56 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
were greatly scandalized that Peter should have preached
the Gospel to the Gentiles, or heathen as we should call
them, and received them into the Church along with the
circumcision. Peter, it appears, felt it necessary to justify
himself for this before the council of the Church in Jeru-
salem. How natural it were, again, if that preaching of
the Gospel to the Gentiles were for the conversion of the
whole of the Gentiles to God, that Peter should have said
so. But here again we have no hint from him of such an
issue, though, if he knew about it, it was evidently the
very thing to say. His language, on the contrary, seems
rather to exclude any general conversion. For we read:
" God did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people
for His name." But some one may ask, is it not possible
that the preaching should go on until all mankind, in an
age to come, should be numbered among the people of
God? This question is explicitly answered in the other
passage, where, according to the usual understanding, the
object of the present ministration of the Gospel is formally
stated, viz.: Matt. 24: 14, where we read: "This Gospel
of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world," not
for its conversion. Why did not the Lord say so if that
were indeed the object? "but for a witness unto all
nations, and then " without waiting for a general conver-
sion of the nations " then shall the end come, all nations
must hear, and then shall the*end come." To sum up
this argument, we may safely say that in the whole Bible
among the formal statements of the object of the preach-
ing of the Gospel by Christ's ministers, there is not
a single one which states that object to be the conversion
of the world to God. If we are to expect a Millennium of
righteousness before the Lord's return, how is this fact to
be accounted for?
3. Again, any theory which, like the modern Post-
CHRIST 8 COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 57
Millennial doctrine, interposes a period before the Advent
so long that it should be known as impossible within the
lifetime of any individual generation of believers is
irreconcilable with the repeated statements of the Scripture
that we know not the day " when the Master will return
from the far country" whither He has gone; whether His
coming will be " in the first watch or in the second watch,
or at the cock crowing, or in the morning." According to
these words, it was far from being certain that He would
not come until almost the morning watch; that it was
represented as likely enough, for anything that His people
knew to the contrary, that He might come even in the first
watch of the night. So far from there being any revelation
which should warrant any generation of believers in
assuming that the Coming of the Lord was a thousand
years or more away, this postponement, as it were, of the
Coming of the Lord, is in utter opposition to all those state-
ments of the word of God that we know not the day of
Christ's appearing. On this subject Archbishop Trench
has well and truly said, " It is a necessary element of the
doctrine concerning the Second Coming of Christ, that it
should be possible at any time, that no generation of
believers should regard it as impossible in theirs." Those,
therefore, who fix a time in the distant future before which
Christ can not come, equally with those who fix a time in
the near present by which He must come, place themselves
in conflict with this word of the Lord.
4. And this argument becomes even more forcible when
we consider the duty which, in view of this utter uncer-
tainty of the time of the Advent, is everywhere urged upon
the disciples of Christ in all ages to watch continually,
(Matt. 24:42, etc.) We can not refer these words to death,
as is sometimes done, because in no place where these
words occur is there the slightest reference to death in the
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
whole context, but only to the return of the Lord Jesus.
Not an instance can be adduced in the whole Bible
where the phrase " the coming of the Son of Man " can be
proven to refer to death. Nor can we accept that exegesis
which, in certain places at least, refers the phrase to the
destruction of Jerusalem. For although undoubtedly the
chapter in Matthew's gospel, to which reference has been
made, does contain a prophecy of that event, yet that
coming of the Son of Man for which Christ bids His dis-
ciples to watch can not possibly be understood of the
destruction of Jerusalem, for the simple reason that the
coming in question is expressly said to take place " after "
that event, and therefore can not be the same thing. It
can only be that glorious coming of the risen Jesus in the
clouds of Heaven, which the universal Church expects
sooner or later, of which, in the passage cited, we are told
that no man knows the time, and for which all believers in
all ages are therefore bidden to watch until He shall come.
Now, on the common hypothesis that the entire world is to
be converted and continue in that happy state for centuries
before the Lord can come, how is it possible for any genera-
tion of believers receiving that theory as certain truth to
watch for the coming of the Lord . till that expected
Millennium shall have come and gone? It is too often
forgotten that theories as to the interpretation of prophecy
should never be allowed to affect our attendance to plain
precepts. It is quite safe to say that any interpretation of
prophecy which makes obedience to any command a moral
impossibility is ipso facto proven to be erroneous. But is
it a possibility for a believer who is assured that the Coming
of the Lord is at least a thousand years away, to watch for
that coming in his lifetime? If, for example, I take a
journey to another country, and on departing tell my son
that I shall not return for ten years, or for any other fixed
CHRIST S COMING : 18 IT FEE-MILLENNIAL. 50
and definite time, and then tell him to watch for me every
day, would I not seem to him utterly inconsistent? If, on
the one hand, he believes my assurance that I will not
return before a certain appointed time, will it not for that
very reason become impossible for him to watch for me till
that time is up? And, on the other, would not my charge
to watch for me every month and year inevitably suggest
to him a doubt whether after all I am sure that I will not
return much sooner than I had said? For it is plain that
the mental state or act of watching for a person implies
not only a general expectancy that the person will come
sometime, but, beyond a doubt, involves as a necessary
condition the belief that the person may come at any time.
Inasmuch, therefore, as no candid person will deny that the
Lord does command His disciples in all ages to watch for
His coming, it follows irresistibly that the Lord intended
that we should think of His advent as always possible, and
forbids us to interpose any such fixed period of time
between us and His coming as shall make it impossible for
us to believe that He may come in our own day.
The ablest work that has been written in defence of the
current theory on this subject is probably that of the Rev.
David Brown, on the Second Advent. He devotes several
pages to the consideration of the weighty argument derived
from this command of the Lord to watch for His appearing.
His argument is, in brief, after this manner: That the
New Testament is full of intimations, as of a predicted
apostasy in the church, a universal proclamation of the
Gospel, etc., which he says must have compelled the early
Christians to believe that the Lord's Coming was not to be
expected in their day because all these developments
required much time; nay, he reminds us of what no one
60 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST,
can deny that the Lord Himself, while telling the disci-
ples to watch, gave them distinct intimations that His
coming would be delayed. To all which we answer, that
although without doubt we do have such intimations of a
delay, yet it by no means follows that the Christians of the
first century were able to see all this. For there is not a
single one of the passages adduced which contains within
itself the slightest chronological note which might have
guided the early Christians to such a conclusion. Who
among them, any more than among ourselves, knew, for
example, how much time might be covered by the phrase,
"the times of the Gentiles," in the passage in Luke 21:24,
which Dr. Brown quotes as illustrating his position?
Those predicted times, for all we absolutely know to the
contrary, may have centuries yet to run before they shall
have expired; on the other hand, we know not but that
they may even now be closing. And certainly the words
could have conveyed no more hint of the time involved
to the Christians of the first century than to ourselves.
Even the phrase, u a long time" (Matt. 25 : 19), which is
much pressed, has no bearing on the question, which is,
not whether an intimation of centuries was conveyed in
these words, but whether the words necessarily conveyed
that meaning to those who first heard them. The phrase
" a long time " is evidently a purely relative term, and may
mean either days, years, or centuries, according to the scale
of time before the mind. As a matter of fact, in the
parable in question, the phrase could not denote a period
equal to the ordinary lifetime of a man. "After a long
time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckorieth with
them." The whole story of the parable was comprehended
in the lifetime of the nobleman who went on the far
journey, leaving his servants in charge.
But it is still more to the point, in replying to this
CHRISFS COMING : 18 IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 61
evasion of the argument for an Advent to be regarded as
ever imminent, as derived from the command to watch,
that as a matter of confessed historical fact, of which
Gibbon, for example, assures us, the primitive Christians
did not understand any of these words of our Lord as
precluding the possibility of His return in their lifetime.
On the contrary, so widely prevalent was the expectation of
the speedy return of the Lord in the glory of His Kingdom
in the first ages of the Church, that that historian assigns
this as -one of the various causes which, in his opinion,
serve to explain the astonishing progress of Christianity in
the first centuries.
But the most plausible argument against the statement
that the New Testament represents the Advent as ever
imminent, and, therefore, to be regarded as possible in any
and every generation, is derived from 2 Thess. 2 : 2, where
the apostle exhorts the Thessalonian Christians, according
to our version, "not to be troubled * * * as though
the day of Christ were at hand." Here, we are told, the
apostle expressly warns the Thessalonians against regard-
ing the Coming of the Lord as imminent; so that in His
mind, as he had already charged the Thessalonians to watch
for the Coming of the Lord, watching did not necessarily
imply that the Advent was possible in the lifetime of that
generation. On this objection we may remark first of all,
that it is certain that Paul did not mean to contradict
himself or weaken in the least the force of the exhortations
in the previous epistle in which he had reminded the
Thessalonians that " the day of the Lord so corneth as a
thief in the night." Nor can these words, by anyone who
believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures, be understood
really to contradict the many passages of the New Testa-
ment in which the Coming of the Lord is spoken of as
imminent. Nor can these words, however they may be
02 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
explained, touch the fact that, according to the common
use of the word, no man can be said to watch, except he
regard the event for which he watches as at least possible
at any time.
In the second place, if the rendering of our version be
correct, it assumes a state of mind among the Thessalo-
nians in regard to the advent of the Lord of which we have
no example in the Primitive Church, and which in partic-
ular is entirely exclusive of that eager desire to have a
share in the coming glories of the Advent which is
revealed in the first Epistle. For, according to our ver-
sion, it would appear that the apprehended nearness of the
coming of the Lord was an occasion not of joy but of
trouble to the Thessalonians. But there is not the slight-
est evidence that until the defection of the Church from
primitive apostolic truth Christ's coming was ever any-
thing but an object of intense desire and longing to His
people. When we regard these historical facts, we may
safely say that the apprehended nearness of the Advent
could by no means have been an occasion of trouble and
distress to the Christians of Thessalonica. So far from
this, it appears from the previous Epistle that so desirable
did the coming of the Lord seem to them that they were in
great concern of mind least any of their number who had
died might by their death be excluded from participation
in the glories of that day.
Again, we have from the lips of our Saviour and His
Apostles numerous statements as to the condition of the
Church between the Ascension and the Second Advent
which utterly preclude the common modern expectation in
the interim. The entire New Testament uniformly repre-
sents the condition of the Church on earth during this
period as one not of peace and prosperity, but on the con-
trary of sorrow and humiliation. First of all in this con-
CHRIST S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 03
nection we may note those words of our Lord in Matt. 9:
1-i. The disciples of John had complained that the dis-
ciples of Christ did not fast. Christ answers to the effect
that fasting, being an expression of sorrow, was as much
out of place while He, the Heavenly Bridegroom, was
with His disciples, as a piece of new cloth on an old gar-
ment; but that days were coming when He, as to His
bodily presence, should be taken from them, and those
should indeed be for the children of the Bridegroom days
of fasting. Here indisputably the entire period of the
personal absence of the Lord from His Church is repre-
sented as a time in which for them fasting shall be suitable
and proper, and therefore, by fair implication, as a time of
grief and sorrow for His people. But is a millennium of
universal peace of righteousness likely to have been
included in this representation of the period in question as
one of unbroken sorrow? But in perfect accord with the
intimation of this passage are all the statements of the
New Testament which refer indisputably to the state of
the Church in the present dispensation. In the very
beginning Christ sends forth His missionaries, not with
the grand promise that their ministry should at last issue
in the conversion of all nations of the world to Him, but
with the assurance that they have to expect the same
treatment from the world that He Himself had; that if
they had called the master of the house Beelzebub they
would even more surely call His servants the same. He
accordingly speaks of His people, most tenderly, as a little
flock; He tells them that in this world they shall have
tribulation; that is, as the whole context shows, tribula-
tion, not from causes common to all men alike, as sickness,
poverty and death, but tribulation at the hands of the
world, and because of their personal relation to Him; that
as the world had persecuted Him, so it would also, in one
64 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
way or another, persecute them, and be no more ready to
keep their saying than it had been to keep His. Indeed,
in Romans 8:17, and elsewhere, this fellowship in the
sufferings of a rejected Christ is declared to be the insep-
arable condition of sharing in His glory. The ministry of
the Church to the world has been, and still is, a ministry
of rejection and sorrow. Where in the New Testament is
there any intimation that in this present order of things
and before the coming of the Lord, there is to come a
time when all such representations as these si i all be no
longer true? We do indeed read much of a time when the
Church shall be delivered from her sorrows and tribula-
tions, but in perfect accord with that intimation of our
Lord with which we began, the promise is always and
only placed in connection with the return of the Absent
Lord, the Bridegroom of the Church. Rest is indeed to be
recompensed to the troubled Church, but only, says the
Apostle Paul, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from
Heaven with His mighty angels. 2 Thess. 1:7. It is
only, according to the intimation of the parable, when the
Son of Man cometh, the cry of the widowed Church so
long apparently neglected, shall at last be heard. Luke 18:
1-8. How are such passages as these, to the general tenor
of which no exception can be found, to be reconciled with
the modern theory of a Church of the future in the flesh on
arth, victorious over the world before her Lord's return?
Y. Again, as the state of the Church is uniformly
described in the New Testament as one of rejection and
humiliation until her Lord shall come, so also do the same
Scriptures describe the state of the world during the same
period, in terms which are simply exclusive of any general
conversion of the world to the true faith prior to the Ad-
vent. This gospel of the Kingdom, saith the Saviour, shall
indeed be preached in all the world but why ? For the con
CHRIST 8 COMING : IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 65
version of the world ? That is not what He says, but " for a
witness." And may not that witnessing go on until all
the ends of the earth shall hear and also obey Him? That
again is not what He says, but rather when this witness
shall have reached all nations, " then shall the end come."
Matt. 24:14. Thus also in the parable of the sower,
which sets forth the various results of the preached word as
historically experienced until the present time, we have not
the slightest hint of a time when this parable shall no
longer be a correct description of the various results of the
ministration of the Gospel. Of a time when the seed
shall all come up, when birds shall no more pick up the
seed, nor thorns spring up and choke it, nor the heat of
persecution burn it, the parable does not contain the
slightest intimation. If any one will say that this is
merely a negative argument, we have only to read further
on the parable of the tares and wheat. In this latter
parable, as expounded for us by the Saviour Himself, we
are explicitly taught that the tares, or children of the
wicked one, are to exist in the world along with the
wheat, or children of the Kingdom: that the two are to
grow and develop together, each after its own peculiar
manner until the end of the aio or age. The Lord indeed
represents the servants of the landholder as proposing to
do away with this unsatisfactory state of things; but they
are answered at once in terms which one would think had
been quite sufficient to preclude forever any hope of any
radical spiritual change in the condition of the world
before the Lord's return. Let both grow together till the
harvest. And the harvest, we are told, is the end of the
world or age. Where does this parable leave any place for
the interposition of centuries of a universal conversion of
the world to God before the Lord shall come? It tells us
indeed of a growth of the wheat progressing until the har-
5
66 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
vest; it therefore, in perfect consistence with the foregoing
parable of the leaven (if that be taken to represent a contin-
uous growth of the Church in the world), suggests the
expectation of a fuller and fuller growth in the true and
invisible Church as the centuries roll on, until the Lord
shall come; it therefore forbids us to join in those incon-
siderate and mistaken representations which one some-
times hears, as if the Saviour taught that there was nothing
in the future of the history of the world but a development
of sin. But at the same time, if the parable forbids us to
deny a continuous growth of the spiritual Church into
fuller and fuller fruit bearing, just as distinctly does it for-
bid us to expect that the wheat shall so grow and increase
as to choke out the tares. Just as clearly as the words of
the Lord point to a spiritual development in the Church,
just so clearly do they teach us to expect along with this a
continuous development of sin in the world, reaching its
final culmination at the same time as .the other. The
wheat and the tares are both to "grow together till the
harvest," the end of the ^Eon and the appearing of the Son
of Man. How, with an ever increasing growth of evil in
antagonism to a growing Church, we are to find any place
for a Millennium of universal righteousness and peace, we
must leave to others to explain. In entire agreement with
the teaching of this parable as to the matter before us is
the parable of the nobleman who went into a far country,
as recorded in Luke 19:12-27. In that parable the Lord
represents Himself, soon to depart from this world to the
Father, as a nobleman who went into a far country to
receive for himself a kingdom and to return. During his
absence, we are told there is a great difference in the con-
duct even of his servants; some are more faithful, some
are less so; some are grossly neglectful of their duty; out-
side of his own household, his citizens, we are told, hated
CHRIST'S COMING : IS IT PEE MILLENNIAL. 67
him, and angrily repudiated his dominion. After a while
he returns, rewards his servants according to their several
works, and visits the rebel citizens, who would none of his
rule, with a fearful punishment. The time of the noble-
man's return, by universal consent, refers to the second
coming of the Son of Man for the great work of judgment.
This is plain because it is the time when the loyal and the
rebellious alike receive their reward. Here, then, we are to
observe again that the parable does not give us the slight-
est hint that there was any change in the attitude of the
rebellious citizens during the whole period of the absence
of the king. But is it not plain that if the modern theory
of a universal turning of the nations unto God before the
coming of the Lord were true, we must needs have had, in
this parable, a very different picture? "We should have
rather read that at last through the earnest labors of the
servants of the nobleman, the most, at least, of the rebel-
lious citizens were led to submit to that rule which at first
they had rejected, and become loyal subjects of the coming
king? But that is not what the parable teaches. And if
not, then the question is at once forced upon us How
with the mass of men remaining as in the imagery of the
parable, at enmity to the Lord and His Christ, we are to
find time or place for a thousand years of millennial peace?
THE PERIOD BEFORE THE SECOND ADVENT.
But we may advance yet further. Not only do the Scrip-
tures of the New Testament give these representations of
the general state of things in the world during the period
between the first and second coming of the Lord; not only
do they speak of no general improvement to be expected
before the Lord shall come, as the time of His second
appearing approaches, but in several passages we have the
most formal and didactic statements that " the last times "
68 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
shall not be good, but evil times. To this fact we have no
exception. Thus in 1 Timothy we read as follows: " The
Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall
depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and
doctrines of devils." In 2 Timothy 3 : 1, 5, we read again:
" This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall
come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covet-
ous, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-break-
ers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those
that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of
pleasures more than lovers of God ; having a form of god-
liness but denying the power thereof." To the same effect
writes also the Apostle Peter, (2 Peter 3 : 2, 5), wherein
he charges the Christians of that day that they " be mind-
ful " of the words of the prophets on this subject, who
had so warned the Church that in the last days there should
come " scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying,
where is the promise of His coming?" So, also, the
Apostle John declares, in so many words (1 John 2 : 18),
that the prevalence of many Anti-christs was a sign of the
last time. If it be the truth of God that the latter days
before the Advent are to be distinguished by a period of
universally prevailing holiness, such as is described in the
glowing language of the Old Testament Prophets, how
are we to account for it that the writers of the New Testa-
ment, in all their description of the last times, never once
describe them in such, terms, but always as times in the
last degree perilous to souls? And in view of the expecta-
tions which so generally prevail in our day as to the com-
ing of a golden age of peace on earth before the coming
of the Lord, there is a most solemn significance in the very
peculiar emphasis of such phrases as introduce these im-
pressive descriptions of the state of the world in the last
CHKISTS COMING : 18 IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 69
days. The Spirit speaketh expressly : " This know, that
in the last days perilous times shall come; I stir up your
pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mind-
ful of the words which were spoken before by the holy
prophets, and of the commandments of us, the apostles of
our Lord and Saviour." And can we forget that the
Apostle warns the Church that, when at at last the Lord
should corne, He would find men not expecting Him, but
looking forward to years of peace and safety? (1 Thess.
5:3.) Nor can the argument derived from these descrip-
tions of the character of the last times be evaded by refer-
ring them to that short period after the so-called Millen-
nium, when, according to the Scriptures, Satan is to be
loosed for a little season, for more than one of these
descriptions of the latter days represent evil as continuing to
rule throughout all time until the Advent of the Lord. Thus,
for example, John, when declaring that the prevalence of
many Anti-christs was a sign of the last time, tells us, also,
that that sign had already begun to be fulfilled in his own
day. Of especial importance, in this connection, is the
account which the Apostle Paul gives, in 2 Thess. 2 : 1-8,
of the rise, development, and final destruction of the apos-
tasy and the Man of Sin, as covering the whole time from
the date of that epistle to the appearing of the Lord. In
that notable passage, he tells the Thessalonians that the
mystery of iniquity was already working, even in their
day; that something, which he does not precisely indicate,
was at that time hindering the full manifestation of the
apostasy ; that when that hindrance should be taken out of
the way, then the Man of Sin would be revealed, and con-
tinue his blaspheming and God-defying career until
destroyed by the brightness of the coming of the Lord. It
will be very clear to all that, if by the phrase, " the coming
of the Lord," in this chapter, we are to understand His
TO SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
personal appearing which the whole Church expect as
certainly in the future then beyond all doubt, as the rise,
development, and culmination of the apostasy cover the
whole time from the date of that epistle to the coming of
the Lord, it is perfectly certain that, during that period,
there can be no conversion of the world.
Does Paul, then, in this passage certainly refer to the
personal appearing of the Lord? In determining the
answer to this question, observe first of all that the Greek
word parousia, here rendered " coming," in every other of
the twenty-four places in' which it occurs confessedly
denotes a real, literal, and not a figurative presence of the
person referred to. Thus, for example, in 1 Cor. 16:17,
Paul writes that he was " glad of the coming of Stephanas."
In 2 Cor. 7:7, we read that " some said that the apostle
was in bodily presence (parousia) weak. So also it is con-
fessedly the word which is elsewhere used to denote the
personal return of the Lord to this world, in passages where
no one has ever claimed that there was the slightest ambig-
uity. Thus we read in 1 Cor. 15:23, that "the dead in
Christ shall rise from the dead at His coming." In the
first epistle to the Thessalonians the word occurs four times,
and in each instance it is admitted to refer to the personal
advent of the Lord. In 1 Thess. 4: 15 and 23, it is used in
connection with the apostle's statements as to the resur-
rection of the righteous and the translation of the living
at the Coming of the Lord. In the face of such facts as
these, to affirm that the word only refers to a so-called
presence or coming of the Lord by the power of His
Spirit, is simply to set at naught every rule of sound
exegesis. Of this alleged meaning of the word it is safe
to say that not a single example can be shown in the whole
New Testament.
Hence, again, all agree that there can be no Millennium
CHRIST'S COMING : IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 71
of holiness so long as the Jewish Nation remains cast out
in unbelief. Do the Scriptures say anything upon that
subject which may throw any light upon the question
before us? In Matt. 24:15-20, all agree that we have a
prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans,
and the consequent scattering of the . Jews among all
nations, which has been historically fulfilled. And it is
important to bear in mind that the prediction in question,
which our Lord calls the " great tribulation," comprised
not only the destruction of the Jewish capital, as is often
a&sumed, but, according to Luke's account of the same
discourse (Luke 21:24), was to continue, and is, in fact,
still continuing in the "Treading down of Jerusalem by
the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."
Keeping this in mind, we are now prepared to understand
the words in Matthew's gospel, which tell us in so many
words that " Immediately after the tribulation of those
days shall the sun be darkened, and then shall all the tribes
of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man
coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great
glory." That the coming of the Son of Man here referred
to can not be the so-called providential coming of the Son
of Man in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman
armies, as some have maintained, is plain, from the simple
fact that the coming here spoken of is expressly said to be
after the destruction of Jerusalem, and, indeed, after the
whole long tribulation of the centuries, and, therefore, can
not be the same thing. Nay, it follows from the very
terms of the prophecy, that this Coming, of whatsoever
sort it be, must still be in the future. In fact, it were easy
to show that this phrase, the Coming of the Son of Man
in the clouds of heaven, first used in the book of Daniel,
has a meaning perfectly definite and fixed. It is by com-
mon consent the phrase which is everywhere used to denote
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the future personal advent of the Lord for judgment. And
hence it seems unavoidably to follow that whenever the
long captivity of Israel shall end as to the time of which
the passage gives us not the slightest hint immediately
after that shall appear the solemn signs which at last
announce the near appearing of the Son of Man. Where,
then, according to this passage, does this prophecy leave any
room for centuries of universal righteousness after Israel's
conversion, and before the appearing of the Son of Man?
Once again, instead of representing the Kingdom of
Christ as triumphant in the earth before the Coming of the
Lord, in several places the word of God explicitly sets
forth the triumph of that Kingdom as synchronous with
the glorious appearing. We may refer to one notable
example. No words of the Scripture are more frequently
referred to as precisely expressing the object which every
Christian heart desires than these " the Kingdoms of this
world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His
Christ." But when we look at the context in which these
words occur, we find that this glorious event, instead of
taking place centuries before the Coming of the Lord, is-
expressly said to be synchronous with that event. For we
read, Kev. 11:15-18, that it was on the sounding of the
seventh trumpet, in which we are elsewhere told that the
mystery of God should be finished, that great voices in
heaven cried " the Kingdoms of the world are become the
Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." Immediately
the four and twenty elders gave thanks to God that He
had " taken to Himself His great power and reigned," and
then say " the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come,
and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and
that Thou shouldst give reward unto Thy servants, the
prophets, and to them that fear Thy name, small and great ;.
and shouldst destroy them that destroy the earth."
CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 73-
DOCTRINE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.
But the limits of this paper will not permit anything
like an exhaustive exhibition of the Scripture testimony
upon this subject. As the history of this doctrine is to be
presented in another paper, we need only to remark on
this occasion that the doctrine which has been argued in
this paper, according to the uniform testimony of the best
church historians, was the doctrine of the primitive Church.
In the first two centuries of the Church's history, cen-
turies distinguished above all others for their record of
evangelistic zeal and activity, there is not the slightest hint
that the Church was expecting any general conversion of
the world to follow as the result of her glorious labors and
sufferings. A careful comparison of Scripture with Scrip-
ture brings us out in accord with the practical belief of
the whole primitive Church. Ought not this, whatever
difficulties, through our ignorance of the future, may still
remain, to lead us to accept the results of that exegesis?
Are we not, therefore, bound to conclude that the Advent
of the Lord is to be regarded by us always as immediately
impending, and, therefore, that we are not at liberty to
interpose between the present and that event any period of
time which shall make the coming of the Lord in our own
day a thing impossible? And if this be not a popular
doctrine, in the boasting and self-sufficient age in which
we live; if, which is still harder, in taking this posi-
tion we are compelled to differ with many Christian breth-
ren and profound students of the word of God, who are by
us, none the less for this difference of opinion, honored
and beloved in Christ Jesus, yet it may help us to remem-
ber that, on this point, we stand with such men in the Church
as Martin Luther, Rutherford, Latimer, with a large part
of the divines of the venerable Westminster assembly, and
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
many others of equal standing in the Church of Christ.
And, if we may be permitted to refer to those who, in our
own day, hold to what seems to us to be the primitive and
apostolic faith upon this subject, we shall find them not by
any means among the ignorant and superficial, but most
notably among those who, by common consent, hold the
very highest place as learned and devout expositors and
preachers of God's word. "We shall find ourselves in such
company, for example, as Stier, Auberien, Luthardt and
Lange, among the Germans; Professor Godet, of Lausanne,
among the French; Bishops Trench and Ellicott, Dean
Alford, Mr. Spurgeon, and others, among the English;
the brothers Andrew and Horatius Bonar, among the
Scotch; Yan Oosterzee, Professor of Theology in the Uni-
versity of Utrecht, among the Dutch not to speak at this
time of well-known names among the living and the dead
in our own country.
With this we might leave the subject, but perhaps it
may not be amiss to refer to two or three of the more com-
mon and plausible objections to the doctrine which we have
argued.
A very common and somewhat influential objection to
the doctrine before us is that it " disparages the Gospel,"
in that the doctrine of the Pre-Millennial Advent makes
the subjection of the world to Christ to be brought about
by a stupendous display of the Divine wrath on the ungodly.
On which has been remarked: " Wrath never converted a
single soul, and never will."
To this it may be remarked in the first place, that the
objection rests on a misapprehension. Beyond all question
the Gospel heard and received by faith is the only way of
a sinner's salvation, whether in this present dispensation or
in any other. Nor, to go further, will any son of man ever
receive the Gospel except as he is thereunto disposed and
CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT FEE-MILLENNIAL. 75
enabled by the Holy Spirit. But the real question is not
upon these matters at all. Here we are all at one. "We
shall all agree that " wrath never converted a single soul."
The real question is as to the special means which God
intends to employ to introduce the Kingdom of His Son.
While neither wrath nor the Gospel itself, apart from the
energy of the Holy Spirit, can save a man, yet as a matter
of fact see that God often makes use of wrath and various
sorrows to awaken men and dispose them under the influ-
ences of the Spirit to receive the Gospel in true faith.
Xow, the Pre-Millennialist simply understands that He
intends to bring about the final subjection of the world to
the Lord Jesus instrumentally by unprecedented displays
of His wrath, and most notably by the revelation of the
Lord in flaming fire, taking vengeance on His adversaries.
As to what may be the Divine intention in the matter, it
is plain that we are not competent to determine this a
priori. This is simply a question as to what the word of
God reveals on this subject. It will be, for the present, suf-
ficient to remark that there is an awful uniformity and
emphasis in the numerous representations of the word of
God upon this topic.
But, it is again urged by many good and earnest Christian
men, that it must be admitted that the greatest extrava-
gancies and many very grievous errors in doctrine and
practice have historically connected themselves with this
doctrine of an advent ever possibly imminent. Thus there
are many, who, rightly jealous for the integrity of the
faith, think that they can see in the train of this doctrine
annihilationalism, restorationism, separatism, and a name-
less motley brood of such-like hurtful heresies pressing in
to disturb the peace and purity of the Church of Christ.
They accordingly argue that whatever a man may hold
upon this subject, if he is prudent he will hold it in quiet-
76 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ness. All admit that the reception of the doctrine as
argued at this time is not essential to salvation. Why,
then, not prudently leave the whole question alone? To
which we answer Just because of the extravagancies of
which complaint has so justly been made. Had the Church
been more faithful of late years in preaching the ascertained
truth of the Scriptures concerning this subject, we should
have probably had less to mourn over in this matter. As
it is, all the more need is there that trained students of the
Scriptures, well balanced and settled in the doctrine of the
Scriptures and disciplined in the interpretation of the
Scriptures, should not leave this most momentous doctrine
to be preached only by ignorant, ill-instructed, and
fanatical men. For what are the ministers of the word
appointed but for the defence of the truth of God from
error and misinterpretation? Is it defending the truth,
under a mistaken prudence to leave difficult doctrines to
be discussed and preached by incompetent men? Because
many, for example, pervert the precious doctrine of justifi-
cation by faith alone into antinomian licentiousness, are
we therefore to be cautious about preaching a free justifica-
tion? Is there not all fhe more need that we preach the
truth which is most often and mischievously misunder-
stood and thus labor against the abuse of the doctrines of
the word of God at the hands of ignorant and fanatical
men? How are the most of men who have little leisure to
study the Bible for themselves, to learn to distinguish the
truth of the word of God from the caricatures of that
truth, except from the lips of any who, set apart by the
Church to study and teach the word, by the grace of God
may be enabled to state and hold that truth free from the
distortions and perversions of ignorance?
With this we conclude our consideration of this most
momentous question. In holding the doctrine which we
CHRIST'S COMING : IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 77
have argued we admit that many things remain obscure,
that many questions may be put which in the present state
of our knowledge w.e may not be able to answer. But, in
general, we may urge that this fact does not prove the
doctrine not to be taught in the Scriptures. It is of
the greatest importance to bear in mind the principle
which is laid down by the late venerable Dr. Hodge,
p. 527, vol. II, of his Theology: "The only legitimate
method of controverting a doctrine which purports to be
founded on the Scripture is the exegetical." Thus in
regard to the doctrine of the Pre-Millennial Advent, as
every doctrine is affirmed to be taught in the Bible,
objectors are bound not merely to make objections and ask
hard questions, but in particular to show by the acknowl-
edged canons of interpretation, that the passages which
have been cited as directly or indirectly forbidding the
expectation of an era of universal peace and righteousness
before the coming of the Lord, have been misunderstood
and misinterpreted. Otherwise they have to show for
example how a millennium is possible with an apostasy
steadily developing from the days of the Apostles until the
" Brightness of the Lord's coming." Or again they have to
show how a millennium is possible with the great Jewish
Tribulation still continuing, of which we are told that
" immediately after its completion the Son of Man is to be
seen coming in the clouds of heaven to gather together
His Elect." They have to show how it is possible, if it be
really certain that at least a thousand years of universal
peace still lies between us and the Advent, for believers
to watch for the coming of the Lord. But finally, let us
remember that whatsoever our views may be, it must cer-
tainly be safe to obey Him who again and again has
charged us to " Watch, because we know not the day nor
the hour when the Son of Man cometh." To this may the
Lord give us all His grace.
78 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
THE FIEST KESURKEOTIOK
BY THE REV. DR. A. J. GORDON, OF THE CLARENDON STREET BAPTIST
CHURCH, BOSTON, MASS.
THERE are two distinct and radically opposite theories
concerning the order of the resurrection, viz.: the theory
which maintains that all the dead, the righteous and the
unrighteous, will be raised at. the same time; and secondly,
the theory which holds that the faithful dead only will rise
at the coining of Christ, those who have died in unbelief
remaining under the power of death for a thousand years
longer, at the expiration of which time they in turn will
be raised up and brought to judgment. In brief, the first
theory is that of one resurrection, embracing as its subjects
all who have died from the beginning of the world to the
hour of the sounding of the last trumpet; and the second, that
of two resurrections, distinctly separated in time, and totally
different, both in respect to their subjects and their issues.
It will be the aim of this paper to show the ground on
which the latter view rests, and to defend with what ability
we may be able to command, the theory which it presents.
It being purely a question of interpretation, we shall make
our appeal solely to the word of God, though we might
commend the doctrine very strongly by showing its anti-
quity and arraying the great names from all ages and
branches of the Church who have lent to it the sanction of
their scholarship. The first passage which we shall con-
sider is that in Rev. 20 : 4-6 :
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given
unto them: and / saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the
witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not wor-
THE FIRST RESURRECTION.
shipped 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 first resurrection: on
such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God
and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Now, it would seem on the face of it that here is an
unmistakable statement of two distinct resurrections of the
dead, with a thousand years between, in which risen
saints reign with Christ. But by a large class of inter-
preters this is denied. It belongs to a book that is highly
figurative, it is said, and, therefore, the statement must be
taken in a strictly figurative sense. Hence the whole
scene has been spiritualized, the death, the resurrection
and the reign with Christ, and the representation made to
apply not to bodily resurrection at all, but to the quicken-
ing from the death of sin.
Not for the sake of controversy, but in order to present
in the fairest and most candid way the view of the passage
most commonly held by the believers in one resurrection,.
I transcribe the comment of Bishop Wordsworth on the
text as given in his Lectures on the Apocalypse. If we
shall succeed in answering him we shall have answered the
largest and best class of anti-literal interpreters.* He say&
on the passage:
First let us observe that the words are not spoken of the bodies of the
saints but of their souls. " I saw the souls of them who have been
, beheaded for the witness of Jesus." This must be carefully borne in
rnind, because the error of the Millennarians is mainly due to a neglect
of this distinction. They imagine a bodily resurrection, whereas St.
John speaks of a spiritual one. Secondly, it is not said in the original
that their souls lived again^ut that they lived and reigned with Christ.
* He quotes Bishop Andrews, Archbishop Leighton, Lightfoot, and
others as holding the same view.
$0 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
It is clear, then, that what is here said is spoken not of a corporeal, but
of a spiritual resurrection. Thirdly, it is not said that Christ reigns
with his saints, but that they reign with Him. He is in heaven and
will there remain till He comes to judge, when all true believers will be
caught up to meet Him in the air. Therefore, what is here said is
spoken not of an earthly but of a heavenly resurrection. And what
now is the spiritual resurrection of the Christian? Our
natural condition is one of death. By nature we are spiritually dead;
but Christ, who is the prince of life, hath quickened us who are dead in
trespasses and sins. Therefore, our first or spiritual resurrection is
our death to sin and new birth into righteousness it is our engrafting
into the true vine, our incorporation into the body of Christ." Lec-
tures on the Apocalypse, pp. 58-9.
We wish, against this interpretation, to show why, in our
view, the first resurrection, as here described, must be lit-
eral and corporeal, and not spiritual. And in doing so we
would emphasize just the points that Dr. Wordsworth
-emphasizes.
First John saw "the souls of them who had been
beheaded." As the word, irenefoiua/uvw beheaded, unhappily
can not be spiritualized, we clearly have men literally
-dead as the subjects of the quickening. And, therefore,
we infer at once that the quickening is a literal quickening.
When, as in the Epistle to the Ephesians, we have men
described as " dead in trespasses and sins," and then are told
that these have been " quickened together with Christ," we
infer immediately and rightly that a spiritual revivifica-
tion has taken place, because the condition on which the
change took effect was spiritual. And so here, the condi-
tion of literal death having been so unmistakably pointed
out, the inference is immediate and inevitable that the
quickening is a literal and corporeal quickening.
Secondly It is agreed that we have disembodied spirits
as the subject of the vision, and we are told that these
lived. We infer this meant that they lived literally in
reunion with their bodies; because this word %wm> is
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 81
never applied, in any instance that we can discover in the
New Testament, to the soul in its disembodied state, while
it is constantly used to describe that reanimation by which
the soul is united again to its tabernacle of flesh. In say-
ing that the word is not used of the spirit disembodied, we
do not mean to intimate the Scriptures teach the non-exist-
ence of souls in the intermediate state, or their cessation
from consciousness. But the truth would seem to be that
the words " life " and " live," as employed in the Scrip-
tures, belong to man in his complex condition as possessed
of spirit and body united in one, and are not applied to him
in his imperfect dissevered state. We have a striking illus-
tration of this idea, in our Lord's discussion with the Sad-
ducees in regard to the Resurrection. They held that there
is no resurrection of the body. He replies: u If this
were so, God could not be called the God of Abraham, of
Isaac and of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead but
of the living." Abraham's soul continued indeed in a con-
scious existence, but as Stier puts it, " Abraham's soul
is not the entire Abraham, and without the body Abraham
is not entirely living. Abraham must be raised, therefore,
before he can be strictly said to live. So that as we have said
the word i^cav can not, according to Scripture usage, be ap-
plied to man while dispossessed of the body. That the word
is employed to denote physical reanimation in contrast
from death, a multitude of passages show, e. g., Acts
25-27. And, moreover, the cognate verb ZCJOTTOUV, is the
word that runs all through 1 Cor. 15 to signify resurrec-
tion from the dead. So we affirm that, if there were noth-
ing else to determine the meaning of the passage, the usus
loquendi of this verb of itself would fix it as teaching a
literal resurrection.
Thirdly Suppose, however, that there were still such
obscurity in the statement as to render it impossible clearly
6
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
to determine its meaning. We find immediately following
an explanatory clause, which defines and fixes this mean-
ing "afi7 T] avaoraaic TJ Kpurq." " This is Resurrection, the
First." Here is one of the few instances found in the
Apocalypse where the Spirit interprets His own words, tell-
ing us explicitly what they are meant to convey. For cer-
tainly no word is more definite in its signification than this
word avaaraais. It occurs forty-two times in the New
Testament, and, with one exception, where it is used in its
strictly etymological sense [" This child is set for the fall
and rising again of many in Israel," Luke 2: 34], it always
signifies the resurrection of the body. It is not a little
strange that Bishop Wordsworth should have overlooked
this fact when so confidently identifying this passage with
those in Colossians and Ephesians where a spiritual quick-
ening is spoken of. The term avaaraatf is used in none of
those instances, nor in any other instance in the New Test-
ament to denote spiritual quickening. Hence we affirm
that the use of the word here, as defining the previous
clause, fixes the meaning of the passage beyond question a&
teaching a literal corporeal resurrection. '
Fourthly It will be noted that we have in the text two
resurrections contrasted. In a passage closely connected, a
distinction is drawn between one class, who live at first,
and another class who do not live till a thousand years sub-
sequent. In the latter case, from the immediate connec-
tion of the statement with the judgment scene, the opened
books, the sea giving up its dead, and the dead, small and
great, standing before God, the conclusion is inevitable that
the reference is to a literal resurrection. Bishop Words-
worth admits this, as do all the authorities whom he quotes
in defence of his view. And maintaining that the first
resurrection is spiritual, therefore he has the difficult task
before him of showing how two things which differ entirely
THE FIRST RESURRECTION.
in their meaning, can be described in the same connection
by identical language; so that in interpreting the passage
we must pass from the spiritual to the literal and from the
literal back to the spiritual again, with nothing in the
terms to indicate or even suggest the transition. This we
believe is too adventurous a feat of exegesis for any one to
succeed in. It does such extreme violence to the natural
and most obvious uses of language, that we believe it were
far easier to run the spiritual interpretation entirely
through the chapter, than to attempt to use words in such
a flexible and double sense. The two resurrections are so
distinctly contrasted and their descriptions so intimately
blended and interlaced, that we believe it is well nigh im-
possible to take them in such opposite senses. The meaning
of the one fixes the meaning of the other. And to impose
a directly opposite meaning on them, can hardly fail to
awaken a suspicion of arbitrariness against the interpreter,
or of a divided allegiance between the obvious sense of
the language and a certain required sense.
Fifthly We call especial attention to the manner in
which this whole Apocalyptic scene is introduced: "I saw
an angel come down from heaven having the key of the
bottomless pit," etc. So generally has this been taken as
referring to Christ that Bishop "Wordsworth says too
strongly, "This angel, it is confessed by all, is none
other than Jesus Christ, the angel of God's presence, the
angel of the covenant." But when does Christ come down
from heaven? Put this passage with that in Thessalo-
nians 4:16, the prediction of Christ's return to raise His
saints, "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven,"
says Paul. "I saw an angel descending from heaven,"
says the revelator, the words in the Greek being precisely
the same. And if you say that the angel does not refer to
Christ, but is to be taken as a literal angel, which we are
84 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
inclined to admit, then remember that in Thessalonians an
angel is represented as accompanying Christ in His
descent to earth. " The Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and
the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first."
In either case the coincidence of language is so striking as
to identify the two scenes almost beyond a question. We
have thus given five arguments for the literal interpreta-
tion of the passage, any one of which, it would seem,
ought to be sufficient to establish the point. And if we
have answered Bishop Wordsworth's theory we answered
all others of the same class; for to prove that the two
resurrections are literal is to prove that they can not be
spiritual whether in the sense which we have been con-
sidering or in any other sense.
It only remains now for us to identify in a word the
subjects of these resurrections respectively, and then we
shall pass on to consider other texts. The words " blessed
and holy " applied to those first raised from the dead, and
the words " the second death " as described by the doom
of those afterward raised, would appear to fix beyond
question the two parties as embracing the righteous dead
on the one hand and the wicked dead on the other. But
it has been said that, admitting the first resurrection
to be literal, it only proves the awaking of the martyrs
from their tombs, since it is predicted only of those who
have been "beheaded for the witness of Jesus." To which
we reply, that if we have identified the "first resurrection"
here mentioned, with " the resurrection of the just," men-
tioned in other Scriptures, we know outside of this passage
and independently of it who its subjects are. " The dead
in Christ," whom the Apostle names as rising first at the
appearing of the Lord ; and " they that are Christ's at His
coming," whom he elsewhere- names as the subjects of the
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 85
same resurrection, every one, we suppose, concedes to mean
all the sainted dead who shall be in the grave when the
Lord comes. So that if " the first resurrection," described
in the Apocalypse, is the same as the resurrection of the
saints at the Parousia which is elsewhere described, the
subjects must be the same, viz.: all the faithful dead.
And thus by supplementing Scripture with Scripture, we
supply whatever knowledge our text fails to give in regard
to the participants in the resurrection scene. Summing
up the whole passage, then, and bringing it into connection
with the twelfth verse of the same chapter, when the " rest
of the dead " appear in judgment " I saw the dead, small
and great, stand before God," we see how distinctly the
dead are separated in their rising and destiny. There are
the dead who live, and the dead who do not live till
a thousand years later. There are the dead who sit with
Christ on His throne, and reign with Him; there are the
dead who stand before the throne to be judged. There are
the dead who have immortal bodies ; since upon them " the
second death hath no power." There are the dead who
have mortal bodies, since they are cast into the lake of fire,
which is the second death. And, as clearly as we discern
these two distinct classes, so clearly do we see a thousand
years stretching between their resurrections, and putting
them as wide apart, in the time of their rising, as in the
character and destiny of that rising.
The next passage which we shall consider is found in 1
Cor. 15:21-25. u For as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own
order; Christ the first fruit, afterward they that are Christ's
at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have
delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father; when
He shall have put down all rule and all authority and
power."
86 SECOND COMING OF
Here is, in the first place, the statement of the universality
of the resurrection, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ
shall all be made alive." Then the assertion is qualified
eKoarof 6e h ru 161^ ray/Mri " but every man in his own
order " ra///a meaning bai:d, cohort or division. The
word is a military term, and is applied for example to a
brigade or division of an army. So we have the figure of
a resurrection host, coming forth in solemn arid stately
march from the grave, the head of the column having
already appeared, and every one of the dead to follow, each
marshalled in the corps or grand division to which by his
character and works he belongs. Then besides this intima-
tion that there will be different bands in the army of the
quickened, there follows a statement of their order and
sequence J An-ap^ x/wardf " Christ the beginning. 'A-rrapxy
corresponding evidently to the rdy^i. This is his rank,
" who is the beginning the first born from the dead,
that in all things he might have the pre-eminence." He
is alone; the captain of our salvation, leading the van, in
himself a Host. Then comes the next division i ol
TOV Xpiarw " Afterward, they that are Christ's at His
coming." These are unquestionably identical with those
mentioned in the epistle to the Thessalonians. " Ihe dead
in Christ shall rise first," and the same we believe as those
in Revelation, who receive the benediction.
JN"ow, the question may be asked concerning this passage,
how do we know that this enumeration of the companies
and classes embraced in the resurrection does not refer
simply to the consecutive order, without indicating any
necessary separation in the time of the resurrection ? In
reply to this question we would call attention to the par-
ticles of sequence here employed ^n-emz and hra. We
think that after having, by the use of rdy//a, pointed out
the fact that there would be divisions in the resurrection
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 87
host by the use of these particles the Scripture points out
also the fact that there would be considerable spaces of time
between the respective divisions: " Every man in his own
order: Christ the first fruits 'A-napx?) afterward, e^eira
u they that are Christ's at His coming " then or next elra
" Cometh the end." Now, since i-xura marks a period,
as we know, of at least nearly two thousand years, the time
between the Lord's resurrection and that of His Disciples,
is it not natural to infer simply on etymological grounds
that its correlative dra marks a considerable period. Also
compare the uses of these particles in other passages. Take
the instance found in five verses of the same chapter: " He
was seen of Cephas then elra of the twelve: after that emcra
He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once: after
that ETreira He was seen of James, then elra of all the
Apostles." We know that in all these cases, particles mark
distinct and separate occurrences with considerable intervals
of time between; and we judge as a rule such intervals
will be somewhat proportionate to each other according to
the scale on which they are measured. And since in the
instance in question the first interval is known to be a long
one, it is fair to presume that the second will be, also.
But is there any thing in this passage, which, by com-
parison with other passages, will enable us to infer a dis-
tinct period between the resurrection of those that are
Christ's at His coming and that of others who come forth
afterward ? We reply:
We can not find a solution of the matter in the words
dra TO retoc when taken by themselves, because they might
mean the end of the present age, or the end of the mil-
lennial age, according to the theory which we hold of the
dispensations. But these words are defined and limited.
"Then cometh the end when He delivers up the Kingdom
to the Father." We are told distinctly, in the Revelation,
88 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
that the saints will " live and reign with Christ." It would
be most extraordinary if they should reign with Him after
He has delivered up the Kingdom. And yet we must
accept this conclusion if we take the end here referred to
to be the end of the present dispensation as the deniers
of two resurrections hold ; or else we must take it that this
reign of the saints has already begun, which certainly can
not be, since they are risen saints that share in it. If we
accept the exposition as correct which we have given of
Rev. 20, all is clear. The faithful dead rise at the Coming
of the Lord; this is the first resurrection. "And they
lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." The
rest of the dead live not till the thousand years were
finished. Then death and hell gave up the dead that
were in them, and they were judged every man according
to his works. And death and hell were cast into the lake
of fire. " Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up
the Kingdom to the Father; when He shall have put down
all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign
till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last
enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Thus not only
does the Apocalypse harmonize exactly with the Epistle to
the Corinthians, but supplements and explains it. In its
revelation of a thousand years between the first and second
resurrection, it gives us the time marked by the eira, in the
15th chap, of Corinthians, or the space between the second
and third divisions of the resurrection host. And thus we
find the end to be synchronous with the period of the
living again of "the rest of the dead."
We wish now to call attention to a class of passages
which are marked by this peculiarity, that they seem to
represent the resurrection of believers as eclectic and special.
It is plain, if the doctrine which we have drawn from
the texts already considered is correct, that the subjects of
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 89"
the first resurrection are called out from the general mass
of the dead, or, in other words, that the idea of priority in
the rising of the righteous involves necessarily the idea of
their being gathered out from among the great company
of those who have died. And certainly there is nothing
in this conception at variance with the general tenor of
God's dealings.* The doctrine of election, which we pro-
fess to hold, should not be a mere abstraction of theology;
an article of faith which we find it necessary to adopt in
order to insure a consistent and scriptural body of
Divinity, while we ignore and deny its practical applica-
tion. It is perhaps the most solemn and awful of all Scrip-
tural revelations. It certainly can only be discussed and
preached effectively by us in those rare states of mind
when the exquisite balance has been reached between ten-
der adoration of the sovereignty and holiness of God, and
pathetic sympathy with the helplessness and sinfulness of
man. " Who has not known passion, cross and travail of
death," says Luther, " can not treat of this theme without
injury to man or enmity to God." "While, therefore, it ia
the instinct of the truest piety to leave God to carry out
what belongs wholly to the domain of His will, it should
be equally the care of an exact and loyal theology to note
the application of this principle at the various stages of
redemption and to speak accordingly. Thus we speak very
constantly of our missionary enterprises as destined to con-
vert the heathen nations to Christ. The Holy Spirit says
that God hath visited the Gentiles " to take out of them a.
people for His name ^j3eiv ki- tdv&v fabv (Acts 15: 14.)
*" To grant a particular resurrection, before the general, is against no
article of faith ; for the Gospel tells us that at our Saviour's resurrec-
tion ' the graves were opened and many bodies of saints which slept
arose and went into the Holy City, and- appeared to many.' And how it
doth more impeach any article of our faith to think that may be true of
martyrs which we believe of patriarchs I yet see not." [Mede,
p. 770.J
$0 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
We speak about the world being converted and brought to
Christ. The Lord said to His first disciples what he says
to us, and what we will say we believe to the last that shall
be converted under this dispensation. " Ye are not of this
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, et-efogdiufv
i/Mf K rov n6afiov (John 15: 19.) We speak of Christ
as coming at the last day to a race that has been redeemed
and saved under the preaching of its Gospel. Christ, in
speaking of that event, says: *' That the Son of Man will
send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet to gather
together His elect from the four winds, " significantly
adding that, of two living together side by side on the
earth at the same time, " the one shall be taken and the
other left." We speak of all men being raised up together,
at the appearing of the Lord, to be judged. Christ speaks
of those who shall be " accounted worthy to obtain that
age and the resurrection out from among the dead." (Luke
20, 35.) [rJ7C avaardaeos rife EK ve/cpwv.] TilUS throughout the
whole extent of God's dispensations we find this solemn
law abiding, and learn that, from the first stage of redemp-
tion, the justification of the soul, to the last, the redemption
of the body, there is a " calling," and an " election," which
we are to strive to make " sure."
In connection with the passage just quoted, take the
words of Paul, Phil. 3: 11 "I count all things but loss and
* * * if by any means I might attain unto the resurrec-
tion OUt fl'Oin among the dead." \rfji> it-avdoraotv TJJV ka vc/cpwv.]
The words are very strong in the Greek. We do
not see how they can possibly refer to anything else than an
eclectic resurrection, a separation and quickening to life out
from among the dead. Especially would this seem to be so,
when, in addition to the very emphatic language describing
the resurrection itself, there is the expression of intense
desire and vehement striving to attain it. Why should one
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 91
strive to attain what is inevitable, as Paul's resurrection must
have certainly appeared to be had he held that all
men will be raised together ? And what can our
Lord's words "They which shall be accounted worthy
to obtain that age, and the resurrection from the
dead " mean on any other view than that which
we are defending ? the view, viz.: that there is a prior
age in which the rising of the saints will take place, and a
distinct and special and privileged dispensation of bodily
redemption which belongs to them.* And this phase of
our argument is set in very strong light by the additional
fact that this expression, avaarwnc k venp&v, is so inva-
riable throughout the New Testament in its application to
Christ as well as to His saints. There is only one instance
where the other phrase, OV&OTCUHQ venptiv the general
expression for the resurrection of the dead is applied to our
Lord, and that seems to be on account of a special require-
ment of the context. He, coming forth from the dead and
opening the doors for all believers to come forth with him
in the resurrection unto life, is described just as they are,
as rising eK venp&v. Hence, very significantly, we find it
said in the Acts that the apostles preached through Jesus
the resurrection from the dead, not the resurrection of the
dead. Now we will not dwell on the question whether the
eclectic conception is contained in the words to the extent
that we have claimed. We find it admitted even by
some who oppose the doctrine we are advocating.
Olshausen even goes so far as to declare that the " phrase
*" What special meaning," asks Prof. Stuart, " can this have unless it
implies that there is a resurrection where the just only, and not the
unjust, shall be raised ?" This expression, as well as the " every man in
his own order " and the evident " plain prose " character of the pas-
sage in Rev. 20, compells the learned man, though a strong post-mille-
narian, to concede most fully the doctrine of the first resurrection.
Stuart on Apocalypse, I. p. 175-178, 409-379, and II. 356-362, 474.
92 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
would be inexplicable if it were not derived from the idea
that out of the mass of the dead some would rise first."
And what if it be affirmed that even in the Old Testa-
ment we rind distinct traces of the idea of an eclectic and
precedent resurrection of the just? The passage in Daniel
12: 2, translated in our common version, "And many of
them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting con-
tempt," is undoubtedly a Messianic prediction concerning
the time of the end. This all admit. Some deny, indeed,
the application of the passage to a literal bodily resurrec-
tion. But we believe with Pusey and Tregelles that the
words " sleep " and " dust of the earth " and " wake" and
" everlasting life " connect the passage too closely with the
New Testament phraseology to leave much question of
that point. Now Tregelles translates the passage as fol-
lows, giving us not only the authority of his own accurate
scholarship for the rendering, but that of two eminent
Rabbis, Saadia Haggion and Eben Ezra, whose explana-
tions are quoted at length. " And many from among the
sleepers of the dust of the earth shall awake, these (that
awake) shall be unto everlasting life; but those (the rest of
the sleepers who do not awake at this time) shall be unto
shame and everlasting contempt." Here again, if our
authorities are correct, we have the idea of the first resur-
rection, with its eclectic and separative character, and its
distinct issue in life, most emphatically set forth. And how
solemnly applicable to the literal as well as to the spiritual
quickening of men are the words of our Lord : " The dead
shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear
shall live." One event awaits mankind: "Like sheep they
are laid in the grave; Death shall feed upon them." But
all will not hear the great first resurrection call. As now, so
then, the words of Jesus will be true, " My sheep hear my
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 93
voice." As now, so then", only those that have received the
spirit of adoption will cry "Abba Father" as the great
God shall call to the dead by the mouth of His Son. " If
the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall
quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in
you." That Spirit is the bond of life between Christ and
all that sleep in Him and the pledge of their redemption
from the grave. The witness, now, of our sonship He is the
witness that then we shall be children of the resurrection ;
responding and waking instantly at the sound of the
trumpet. " Thou shalt call and I will answer," while in
" that silence that terrifies thought " the rest of the dead
shall sleep on, waiting only in their conscious loss for the
Day of Judgment to consummate and manifest their doom.
Had we time to take up all the texts bearing on the
question, we should wish to notice some passages which
represent the resurrection as directly conditioned on faith
and regeneration and union with Christ, all which would
go to show that the redemption of the body is a distinct
inheritance of believers in some sense, and certainly not
unlikely in the sense we are claiming.
We wish, now, to refer to two texts which have been cited
as distinctly and unquestionably contradicting the theory
we have advocated. The first is in 2 Timothy, 4:1,
reading according to the common version: "I charge
thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who
shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and
His kingdom." It is said that we have here the living and
the dead without distinction or separation, brought together
at the coming of Christ. All that need be said in regard
to this passage is that, according to the latest text, we have
not, mra T%V eirujtaveiav " at the appearing," etc. but ml.
[This is Scholz's and Tischendorfs reading, adopted
SECOND COMING OF CUEIST.
by Alford.] And the words are translated, therefore,
according to Alford: " I charge thee before God and Jesu&
Christ who is about to judge the quick and the dead, and
by His appearing and His kingdom," etc. This change
not only relieves the passage of any seeming contradiction
of the doctrine which we are advocating, but makes it bear
emphatic support to it.
The other text is John 5: 28. "Marvel not at this; for
the hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall
hear His voice, and shall come forth, they that have done
good unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done
evil unto the resurrection of damnation." This, it is said,
teaches a simultaneous resurrection, since it declares that
in the hour that is coining both classes will come forth to-
their respective rewards. We answer that, in the first
place, we think it is clear that the word hour (fy a ) as here
employed, refers to an era or lengthened period of time.
This, we know, is not an unusual meaning of the word, a?
appears by referring to such examples as 1 John 2: 18
Horn. 13: 11; and, what is more directly to the point, oui
Lord had just used the term in this sense in verse twenty
fifth: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming
and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God, and they that hear shall live." This is generally
taken to refer to that spiritual quickening under the preach-
ing of the Gospel, which began with the time of Christ,
and is going on to-day. Therefore, the hour referred to
must have continued for at least nearly two thousand years.
This is the time for the quickening of the living who are
dead in sins. It is evidently synchronous with 1 John
2: 18 "It is the last time" [& ? a] ; and covers the whole
Gospel dispensation. Next follows, in our Lord's discourse,
a statement in regard to the time of the dead. The two
periods are set in contrast, as it would seem. The first, the
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 95
hour of spiritual quickening, had already begun. Hence
it is described thus : " The hour is corning and now is."
The second had not yet begun, hence only the words :
"The hour is coming" are used with reference to it. Is
it not fair to presume that the second era like the first is a
prolonged one ? We think no one can reasonabh^ deny
this. This is the way we take it : At the appearing of
the Lord from heaven, the age will open in which all that
are in their graves will come forth; but some at the begin-
ning and some at the end of the age. If it be said that it
is a strained and unnatural construction, to bring events
which are so far apart, into such immediate juxtaposition,
with no intimation of any time lying between them, we
reply that it is not at all uncommon in prophecy. Who,
for instance, in reading Isaiah's words concerning the
Messiah " to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord
and the day of the vengeance of our Lord " would have
imagined that in this single sentence two grand and dis-
tinct eras were brought together and spoken of in a breath
the era of grace and the era of judgment ? But our Lord
by His penetrating exegesis, cleft the passage asunder, we
remember, as He expounds it in the synagogue, and, break-
ing off in the middle of the sentence u to preach the accept-
able year of the Lord" He closed the book and sat
down, saying : " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in
your ears." We take it, that, in this prophetic passage of
His own, there is a similar conjoining of distant and
widely separated acts of the same resurrection drama.
And we are confirmed in this impression by noting how
exactly this passage, with its expressions "resurrection of
life," and the "resurrection of judgment," corresponds to
the passage in the Revelation, these being common points in
the two texts the latter seeming to fill out in detail what
is here presented in outline. And this leads us to remark
"96 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
that there is perhaps no doctrine of Scripture the references
to which are at once so fragmentary and so complemental
of each other as this doctrine of two resurrections. Except
in the passage in the Revelation it is nowhere presented in
a formal and complete statement. But what is very strik-
ing is, that almost every scattered allusion to it fits into
this passage at some point, confirming its literal signifi-
cance, and being itself confirmed by it. Like the famous
trilingual inscription on the Rossetta stone, which from
having one known language, though it had two unknown
ones, gave the clew and interpretation to the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, so these scattered texts, from containing
some known and unquestioned allusion to the literal resur-
rection of the body, furnish a key and confirmation to this
much-disputed and, as some say, enigmatical passage of the
Apocalypse. For example : All are agreed that John 5:
28, 29, and Luke 20: 36, have reference to the literal rising
of the body from the grave. Apply these to Rev. 20 : 1-6, and
note how perfectly they fit it : " They that have done good
unto the resurrection of life" (Gospel of St. John.)
" They lived and reigned with Christ; this is resurrection
the first." (Apoc.) " They that shall be accounted worthy
to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead
neither marry nor are joined in marriage, neither can they
die any more" (Luke.) " On such the second death hath
no power" (Apoc.) " They that shall be accounted
worthy to obtain the resurrection from the dead." (Luke.)
" Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resur-
rection." " They that have done evil to the resurrection
of judgment" |><W] (John.) "And they were judged
[enpidwav] every man according to their works." (Apoc.)
We do not see how any candid critic can fail to identify
these passages as referring to the same event, the literal
resurrection of the body. And putting all these texts
THE FIRST RESURRECTION.
together we find that one supplies what another omits
the Gospels and Epistles teaching the privilege and pre-
eminence attaching to the believer's resurrection and the
Apocalypse teaching its priority and separateness in time.
If now it be asked what is the practical significance of
this doctrine, and what its use for Christian edification and
hope, we answer, that in order to understand this we must put
ourselves back into the position of the early Christians.
The} r seem to have lived with their expectation constantly
bent upon the personal reappearing of the Lord. The first
resurrection was the immediate and most glorious accom-
paniment of this event. Therefore, to keep the command
of the absent Lord and to be always watching and waiting
for His retarn was to be living in the constant and joyful
anticipation of receiving back their sainted dead who were
sleeping in Jesus. The difference between their attitude
and that which generally prevails nowadays, is this: Now,
men wait for death to bring them into the presence and
companionship of the departed saints. Then, they waited
for the resurrection to bring their blessed dead back to
them. Now, they watch for the opening inward of the gate
of the grave to let them into the company of the redeemed
who, in their unclothed spirit, are with Christ in Paradise.
Then, they watched for the opening outward of the gate of the
grave that their dead; clothed upon with immortality, might
rejoin them in their transformed bodies, and, being caught
up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, might
be forever with the Lord. The first resurrection being thus
inseparably bound up with the Parousia, all the rewards
and hopes of discipleship were identified with the personal
appearing of the Lord. When his word was heard, u Behold,
I come quickly and my reward is with me," it was the most
exalted and inspiring stimulus to Christian activity and
consecration. When his promise was remembered, u Thou
7
98 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
sbalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just," it
was a most quickening and immediate motive to zeal and
steadfastness.
It can not be denied, we think, that the prevailing habit
of our time, so different from the apostolic, of looking for
the rewards of our labor so entirely at death, and for the
fruition of our hope in that intermediate state to which
death introduces us, has put the resurrection into a much
lower place than that which it held in the beginning.
Indeed, I may say that in the popular apprehension, death
has very largely usurped the place that belongs to the
resurrection. But death, we must remember, is an enemy.
It never was, and never can be, anything but an enemy.
It is cruel, repulsive and humbling, " Sin's great conquest
and Satan's chief work, the fulness of sorrow and affliction,
the triumph of corruption, the consummation of the curse."
But how has man learned to idealize this hideous enemy
into a good angel! How has he accustomed himself to
speak of the grim executor of the penalty of sin as though
it were his bony fingers that were commissioned to bring
us our reward, and unlock for us the gates of life! How
he has canonized him in poetry! "Oh how beautiful is
death," writes Richter, "seeing we die into a world of life I"
And the poet Young sings:
Death is the crown of life :
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost,
The King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace.
Indeed, I think it would be no exaggeration to say that r
in the apprehension of many Christians, death has been
thrust into the place that belongs to Christ himself, and
that the crown of welcome which we should ever be wait-
ing to put upon the head of Him who at His coming will
"swallow up death in victory" is put upon the ghastly
THE FIRST RESURRECTION.
brow of him who is daily swallowing up life in defeat.
"Oh, strange delusion of Satan," as one has indignantly
exclaimed, " to have made the capital cnrse of God eclipse
the capital promise of God! Satan's consummated king-
dom over the body to take the place in our thoughts which
Christ's consummated kingdom in the body and spirit, even
the resurrection, was meant to take." In saying all this
we do not ignore the meaning of such passages as "to die
is gain," and "to depart and be with Christ, which is far
better," and " absent from the body and present with the
Lord." Nor do we question for a moment the felicity and
blessedness of the disembodied saints. Only when these
passages and this state are held up, as they constantly are,
as embodying the supreme hope of the Christian, we must
put in this caveat from the Word of God: "Not that we
would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might
be swallowed up of life." There can be no question on
this point. When we have stood by the grave of Lazarus
and listened to Christ's words to the sorrowing sisters, and
when we have heard with what promises St. Paul enforced
his exhortation to the Thessalonian Christians that they
" sorrow not even as others who have no hope," it is per-
fectly clear what words we are to use in fulfilling the
injunction "Wherefore comfort one another with these
words" Life, not death, is henceforth the believer's hope;
the resurrection, not the grave, is the object of his joyful
anticipation. And for us to reverse the divine perspective
and thrust into the background what God has set so con-
spicuously in the foreground is to make sad the hearts
whom the Lord has bid to rejoice.
. But, it may be asked, how does the doctrine of two res-
urrections enhance the victory of the blessed over death,
above that of one general and promiscuous resurrection?
Chiefly in this, that instead of postponing the hour of the
100 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
saints' triumph to a remote eternity, or placing the scene
of death's subjugation upon the outer and far-off confines
of time, it brings it into a near and constantly impending
future- It is not that the rising of some of the dead is
postponed to a later era than we had thought, but that the
rising of others is brought forward, made a near reward of
faith, and the object of immediate comfort and hope. We
have, I think, a perfect illustration of this idea in the con-
versation of Christ with Martha. To her pathetic words of
sorrow and regret over her brother's death, Jesus answered:
" Thy brother shall rise again." Martha said unto Him:
" I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the
last day," her thought seeming to be this: "Yes, at the
last day; but that is a great way off, that is a long time to
wait." 45 " Jesus said unto her: U I am the Kesurrection and
the Life. And since I, who have power to raise the dead,
am standing here, thou hast not to wait. Even now this
great miracle is possible since I am here." I apply the
lesson of the Master to present times. I attempt to com-
fort a sorrowing group of mourners with the hope of the
resurrection. They have never heard of but one resurrec-
tion, as thousands have not. And when I say to them,
" Thy brother shall rise again," they reply, sadly, " Oh,
yes, at the last day; but that is so far away. The world
must be converted first; and then a Millennium of a thou-
sand years must elapse before the event can take place.
It is such a remote hope." But no! I say, Christ is " the
Resurrection and the Life." " The last day," indeed! but
it is the morning star that ushers in the day, and He is
" the bright and morning star." It is the sun that brings
the day-dawn. And He is " the Sun of Righteousness."
\ ou have not to wait for the world's conversion, or for the
lapse of a Millennium to bring in the longed-for hope, but
* Stiers' Words of the Lord Jesus, VI., 26.
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 101
only " till the day-dawn and the day-star arise." And that
may be to-morrow, so far as we know. " Quickly " is His
promise concerning His coming, and every sign of His
appearing is a token from your beloved dead that they
will soon rejoin you. In every sound of his approaching
footsteps you hear the footfalls of your sainted ones rising
up to meet Him as He comes. Say not concerning the
child whom you have lost as David said: "I shall go to
him but he shall not return to me." A better hope than
this is yours. Say rather, it is possible that even to-mor-
row my child may return to me. For the Master saith,
" Behold, I come quickly;" and we know that when Jesus
comes, God will bring with Him those that sleep in Jesus.
Thus the faith that intensifies and makes real the personal
and imminent appearing of the Lord, intensifies the hope
of the resurrection, and makes it a practical and immedi-
ate ground of consolation.
It is useless to say that it is the character alone of the
saints' resurrection, not its priority, that gives it its inspir-
ation. That expression that has passed into popular usage,
" the morning of the resurrection," tells more than is gen-
erally thought of by those who use it. " I will raise him
up at the last day," Christ says again and again when
announcing the rewards of discipleship. But that last day
that Millennial day, has a morning and an evening.
Shall we be content to wait till the twilight of that day;
till the shadows of impending judgment have begun to
gather before we hear our summons to come forth from the
grave, satisfied if only our rising be to life and not to con-
demnation? Nay, but the Scriptures stir us to emulation
by a " better resurrection " than this. Of Christ's rising
we are told that, " very early in the morning " the disciples
came to the sepulchre and found the stone rolled away and
the Saviour's body gone! So we believe it will be in that
102 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
glorious thousand-year day, to which we hasten " very
early in the morning,", while yet the great careless world
is sleeping on, and only the faithful watchers have sighted
the morning star '< in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye," the great transaction will have been accomplished,
and of the dead sleeping side by side in the grave, as well
as of the living sleeping side by side in bed, one will have
been taken and another left. Inexpressibly solemn is the
thought concerning those who are left behind, but unspeak-
ably glorious concerning those who have been taken. The
reward so much earlier as well as more glorious than we
have dreamed of ! The crown so much sooner as well as
brighter than we have imagined! The devout Lavater
meditating on this thought exclaims:
"How inexpressibly animating to the best exercise of our moral
powers must this idea be; to be a thousand years sooner in the enjoy-
ment of the full fruition of the blessed. So much earlier a thousand
years earlier to enjoy personal fellowship with the lovely Saviour, and
the noblest of the human family and along with Jesus, the prophets and
apostles to superintend the immediate concerns of the Godhead . . .
to be already raised, together with Christ on the Great Morning of the
general judgment, and triumph over death and be occupied in the
judgment of the world; to shine opposite the families of tiiese rising
from the dead, and among the unnumbered millions of the heavenly
inhabitants ; that is a happiness which none other than an insensible,
creeping soul can view with unconcern, and can think unworthy of his
most zealous strivings."*
* Referring to the words of this eminent man, reminds us of the testi-
mony of others on the point indicating how far this idea is from being
novel or modern. Chrysostom says, "The just shall rise before the
wicked that they may be first in the resurrection, not only in dignity,
but in time." (Comment on 1 Thess. 4: 15.) Jeremy Taylor says: u The
resurrection shall be universal; good and bad shall rise; yet not all
together; but first Christ then they that are Christ's and then ihere is
another resurrection, etc. Seven on 1 Cor. 15-23. Topi ady says: "I
am one of those old fashioned people who believe the doctrine of the
Millennium and that there will be two distinct resurrections rf the dead;
first of the just, and second of the unjust; which last resurrection of
the reprobate will not commence till a thousand years after the resur-
rection of the elect."- Works Vol. III. p. 470. See also, Van Oosterzee's
Dogmatics Vol. II. p. 786: Christlieb, "Modern Doubt," p. 452
Olshausen on 1 Cor. 15-23. Lange on Rev. pp. 343, 345. Auberlin on
Daniel, pp. 65, 67, 330, 331, 332.
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 103
The power of the first resurrection, then, as a doctrine,
rests on a close and inseparable connection of the event
with the coming of the Lord. It can be shorn of this
power in two ways:
First, by detaching the resurrection from the second
personal Advent of Christ. And it ought, we think, to be
the occasion of serious solicitude that this is done to so
great an extent among orthodox theologians of the present
day. Not infrequently have we heard preachers assert that
the Christian receives his resurrection body immediately
at death; not infrequently have we heard ministers stand-
ing over the coffin pronounce the words, " He is not here,
he is risen," thus actually identifying death with resurrec-
tion a doctrine we are free to say which not only bears no
appreciable resemblance to the teaching of St. Paul, but is
too strikingly like that of Hymeneus and Philetus " who,
concerning the truth, have erred, saying that the resurrec-
tion is past already, and overthrow the faith of some." It
is easy, however, to trace the genesis of this false doctrine.
The resurrection being so clearly set forth in Scripture as
the ground of hope concerning the dead, the perplexity
arises of making it a practical hope while connected with a
Post-Millennial Advent, since that Advent can not be
brought nearer than a thousand years at least. And so, in
order to make the resurrection an immediate ground of
comfort, it is cut loose from its connection with the Advent,
and brought forward to the nearer event of one's dissolu-
tion, and thus the hour of one's dying is made the hour of
his rising from the dead, and by the illusions of rhetoric,
as well as by floral decorations, it is attempted to disguise
.the odors of corruption, and change them into the fragrance
of the resurrection. But how clearly and unquestionably
is this event linked in Scripture to the second coming of
Christ. It is not by the power of the Son of Man alone
104 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
that this great transaction is to be effected, but by " the
power and coming of Jesus Christ." As in the raising of
Lazarus, which we hold to be typical of the final scene, the
Lord did not put forth His quickening power from a dis-
tance but came in person to the place of burial, and cried
with a loud voice, " Lazarus, come forth." So it will beat
the resurrection of all the blessed. " The Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the Archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead
in Christ shall rise first." 1 Thess. 4:16. And when the
trumpet shall have thus sounded at the descending of the
Lord, and when the dead shall have been raised incorrupt-
ible, and '" when this corruptible shall have put on incor-
ruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality,
then" says the Scripture, shall be brought to pass the say-
ing that is written, u Death is swallowed up in victory."
And we must emphasize this word then. Until then, how-
ever, the bitterness of death may be assuaged, and however
his terrors may be mitigated he is victor over the body,
not the vanquished. And let who can shout " victory," as
the grave opens, and the darkness and corruption creep on,
and the touch of the icy hand is laid upon the brow; but
we are sure that the Scriptures do not require us to commit
such a solecism. None can long more than we do to raise
that shout, but we must wait till the sound of the trumpet
gives the signal; and when the Lord Himself descends
from heaven with a shout, then we expect to shout, as we
rise to meet Him, " O Death, where is thy sting ? O
Grave, where is thy victory ? "
And, again, as we have already intimated, the power of
the first resurrection as an influential motive may be
weakened by putting the Advent afar off; "by thrusting it
from the foreground to the background of the picture, by
massing it up with the shadows of eternity instead o
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 105
bringing it prominently forward into the clear field of time;
by reducing it to a late effect instead of an early cause in
the great history." It is impossible that men should feel
the power of an event which is certainly remote, as they do
one that is even possibly near. Push the event of Christ's
return across the period of a thousand years, and by no
possibility can it continue to be an event of such startling
and solemn interest as when it is known that it may be
very nigh. And that which diminishes the power of the
Advent diminishes the power and influence of all the events
that attend it. And so we give expression to this earnest
wish, that if our gathering together in this Conference shall
not impress Christians with the duty of fixing their eyes
more strongly on the coming of Christ as the great hope of
the Church, it shall at least lead them to divide their interest
more proportionately between the two elements of that
double theme of prophecy u the sufferings of Christ and
the glory that shall follow." Profoundly holding that we
are nearer to the glory than to the sufferings, we would that
that glory were rising on our larger vision, and daily
kindling more and more our hope and expectation. Why
should it be deemed only safe to speak of the Lord's
epiphany as a far-off event, and only perilous and fanatical
to think of it as nigh even at our doors ? Surely it is the
expectation, not the putting away of that event, that is
most conducive to our preparation for it. And we know
not that Matthew Henry has put it too strongly in saying
that " our looking at Christ's second coming as at a dis-
tance is the cause of all those irregularities that render the
thought of it terrible to us" At all events we wish that
, it were possible for the Church to keep the Second Advent
as near to her spiritual consciousness as she keeps the first,
and that as by the reminiscence of a historic faith " Jesus
Christ is evidently set forth crucified among us," so by the
106 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
transfiguration of a prophetic faith He might be constantly
beheld appearing to us with His saints in glory. Surely
there is enough of sorrow and woe in the present evil
world to make us long for His coming; and enough in the
promises and admonitions which He has left behind to made
us hope for it. " The night is far spent, the day is at
hand." At each succeeding watch we hear the ringing
challenge of the great Sentinel, "Behold I come quickly."
As watchmen keeping guard with Him over the city of
God on earth, we at least ought to be wakeful enough to
give back the answer, " Even so, come, Lord Jesus," and
faithful enough to believe that in doing so we are sounding
no meaningless watchword and putting up no useless
prayer.
I close, by holding up before your eyes the glowing
beatitude with which my theme is crowned. " Blessed and
holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such
the second death hath no power." In that resurrection is
the consummation of our dearest hopes, both in respect to
Christ and his mystical body. If in the midst of prevailing
error and darkness we shall unhappily lose sight of this
hope, or displace it by some other, let us remember that
not only the Word of God, but even dumb, inarticulate
nature will rebuke us. For resurrection is nature's hope
as well as man's. " For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain togetlier until now."
' " Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemp-
tion of the body." Eom. 8: 22.
And how has nature, as though struggling to utter her
hope, been silently preaching of the resurrection since the
world began? Poets and preachers alike have delighted to
dwell on the countless types and analogies which she offers
of this great truth in the flower springing up from the
seed which has fallen into the earth and died; in the morn-
THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 107
ing opening the vast grave of night and summoning a
sleeping world to rise and meet the sun u as he cometh
forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber;" in the Spring-
tide, calling the earth from the tomb of Winter, loosing
her shroud of snow, and clothing her with life and beauty;
in all these what joyful parables and prophecies are there
of a resurrection! But let us observe this fact, lhat so feeble
are the voices of nature, compared with those of Scripture,
that she has been able to tell us absolutely nothing of our
resurrection the first resurrection. She, tells of a resur-
rection to be followed inevitably by death. For the
flower that blooms to-day fades and dies to-morrow; the
morning that dawned to-day will sink into the grave of
night again in a few brief hours; and the earth that decked
herself with Springtide flowers will soon be wrapped again
in Winter's winding-sheet of snow. And so nature, while
she kindles our hopes mocks them by telling ever of a
second death. But we turn to Christ, who has brought life
and immortality to light in the Gospel, and what a glorious
revelation meets us. " Knowing that Christ, being risen
from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more domin-
ion over Him." And that is not all; we are to have part
in His resurrection. " Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection ; on such the second death hath
no power" Rev. 20 : 6. " Neither can they die any more,
for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of
God, being the children of the resurrection."
108 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
THE REGENERATION.
BY REV. CHAS. K. IMBRIE, D.D., OF JERSEY CITY.
I AM to speak of " The Regeneration " or u The Restitution
of all things " foretold in the Scripture. It is a great
subject; weighty and most interesting. It comprehends
the grand result to which all else is but preliminary, the
outcome of the promise made in Eden, that the ruin caused
by Satan and sin should be fully repaired. It is also a very
difficult subject. To prove clearly from God's word a single
step in the process toward its accomplishment, may be done
with comparative ease. To show conclusively from the
Scripture that the personal and visible coming of the Lord
is plainly to precede and introduce the Millennial reign and
" the Regeneration " of all things, is a most important step
and opens indeed the door. But behind that door there yet
remains the glory beyond the finished purpose of God in
redemption, so far as it is portrayed in the Scripture. And
to exhibit this finished redemption, as it shines in the
bright lustre of " the world to come whereof we are to
speak," and when all is, at last, made new, needs painstak-
ing indeed. One must speak with carefulness and modesty.
Above all does it need this care, where long cherished pre-
judgments are to be met and overcome, and men are, if
possible, to be brought back from an interpretation which
is supposed to exalt this glory by substituting a dim, unde-
fined, though professedly spiritual, meaning for the Scripture
portrait of this scene, to the acceptance of the plain and
natural sense of God's own words.
The anticipation of some sort of blissful change to come
THE REGENERATION. 109
upon tliis sad and sinful earth after its long continued
storms and sorrows is, in one form or another, very general.
Even those who despise God's word and rely on human
prognostications or scientific researches for their date, pro-
phesy with greater or less distinctness of meaning a future
Millennium. This belief is indeed so general that the coming
of the Millennium has even passed into a current newspaper
phrase. With all those who take God's word for their
guide, the expectation of such a time of coming blessedness,
in some form, is universal.
But what is to be the character of the change? How
far is it to affect this earth and the race? What are its
attendants and its time? On these points there is
the greatest diversity of belief. And yet every one must
see that there can be but one true view of the case. For
God's thoughts and plan in this matter are fixed and not
changeful or doubtful; and all things are shaping, in the
hands of the King, to bring in just the result He has
all along intended and none other. It is impossible that
a millennium on the earth, and no millennium at all, can
be foretold in the Scripture. There can not be two sorts
of a u Regeneration " foretold in the Scripture. If the
plain meaning of the Scripture then foreshadows a Regen-
eration of this earth and of the race upon it, no evapora-
tion of the force of the language under a plea for spiritual
significations, as being more worthy, can justly put it
aside. If the grammatical sense of Scripture portrays
the distinct features of such a Regeneration upon the earth,
no process of interpretation can justly dissolve these
realities and substitute for them, something shadowy and
indefinite. God's thoughts are always best. God's plans
for this earth are best. And certainly He is competent,
when He gives us a revelation, to reveal by the language
which He uses and not to hide or merely set us a guessing.
110 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Surely God is competent and willing to state to our com-
prehension just what He means us to expect on the earth.
Every one must see, too, how vastly important it is to the
church's peace and patience of faith and hope and joy to
get the right view. No painstaking can be too great that
will lead to this result. For, if God condescends (as He
does in His prophetic word) to outline for us His one only
design for the earth and its race, how inexcusable must be
the slothful indifference which contents itself with ignorant
neglect or with mistaken notions under the plea of difficulty
in searching into the inspired testimonies.
Let no one suppose from this great diversity of views
that the Scripture expressions concerning this event are
meagre or doubtful. On the contrary, they are very strik-
ing and comprehensive. They arrest attention at once.
To say nothing just now of the vivid pictures of that bright
future day drawn in the Old Testament, and in which the
various features of the time are grouped together; the terms
used in the New Testament are very strong.
It is called first a " Regeneration" (Trafayyeveaia Matt.
19 : 28) a new creation, a second birth Palingenesia.
Surely this implies a vast and comprehensive and thorough
change, and a change on the earth.
Again: It is so vast and comprehensive that the whole
creation is depicted as groaning and travailing in pain,
waiting to be admitted into " the glorious liberty of the
children of God." (Rom. 8: 21, 22.) And it is represented
as so glorious, that even believers also with the first fruits
of the Spirit are groaning and waiting for this day; the
day of the redemption of the body; when they shall be
"manifested to be the sons of God." (Rom. 8: 19-23.)
It is called by the Apostle Peter a " Restitution of all
things," (Acts 3: 21) implying that there is no depart-
ment of creation that has been impaired which shall not
feel the influence of the restitution.
THE REGENERATION. Ill
It is represented both by the Old Testament prophets
(Isaiah 65: 17-66-22) and New Testament Apostles (2
Pet. 3: 13 Rev. 21: 1) as "a new Heaven and a new
Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness;" a complete, all
pervading, blessed, abiding change.
And to close all : In the prophecy which foreshadows it
as accomplished, the change is represented as total as it is
glorious; and we hear the voice of the King on the throne
saying, " Behold I make ALL things new." (Rev. 21 : 5.)
And yet, strange to say, comprehensive and glorious as
these Scripture expressions are, the results derived from
them by different minds differ greatly.
Four principal views of these Scripture expressions have
gained currency.
1. Some adjust these glowing descriptions of our future
about as follows: The church, as at present constituted, is
to make more or less progress in the earth in the future as
in the past; sometimes hindred, sometimes triumphing;
and reaching possibly in a measure, to all nations. This
varying fortune is to last until the Lord comes. Then the
earth is to be destroyed, the continuation of the race is to end
and, of course, all further application of salvation is to end.
And all these glorious pictures, by the prophets, of our
earth's future and the race's future are relegated to the scenes
of some distant place called Heaven. In fact, according to
this view, there is to be no proper Millennium at all, nor
any proper Regeneration of all things on this earth. This
view, more or less modified, has been held by many since
the Third Century; was held with modifications by some
of the Reformers; and is still held by a number of persons.
It is called the Anti-millennarian Theory.
The inseparable objection to this view, however, is that
"the Regeneration," according to Scripture, is constantly
identified with this earth; and with men and nations living
112 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
upon it. "The earth shall be filled of the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters cover the face of the deep."
" Nothing to hurt nor destroy in all God's Holy moun-
tain." "All nations serving Him." "The Kingdom
under the whole Heaven given to the people of the
Saints of the most High." "And that Kingdom an
an everlasting Kingdom." "God dwelling on the earth
and men on earth His people." And besides, it is impos-
sible, upon the principle which supports this view, to decide
at all from the Scripture what promises really belong to
the earth and what belong to this distant Heaven.
2. The second view admits the "Regeneration" to refer
to this earth; and accepts all the bright pictures of its
renovation and glory. But this view makes the race end
at the coming of the King, which is said to be the time
of general judgment.
It simply substitutes this earth renewed, for some differ-
ent, distant, sphere as the abode of the righteous after the
resurrection. This, with them, is the Palingenesia; the
earth renewed made the abode of the risen holy dead.
This view was held by some of the Reformers and others;
and is held by some in modern times.
The objection to this view is that the Scriptures draw
a plain distinction between the nations living in the
flesh during the Regeneration, and the Saints raised from
the dead. The one class reigns with Christ, the other does
not. The one class is spoken of as the Bride of the Lamb;
the other is not. The one class can not die any more, the
other class have not died at all.
Besides, the Scriptures state so many things of those
living in the flesh, in the Regeneration, which are entirely
incompatible with the condition of the saints who have
died and been raised again. For example, they who are
living on the regenerated . earth, continue from generation
THE REGENERATION. 113
to generation (Dan. 7: 13, 14, 18, 27; Gen. 8: 1217: 7);
their seed and their seed's seed continuing thus forever.
(Joel 3: 20; Isaiah 59: 21). Whereas, Christ says, "The
children of the resurrection in that world, neither marry nor
are given in marriage; neither can they die any more, but
are ecjiial unto the angels;" and exactly for the reason that
they, unlike the others, are " the children of the resurrec-
tion." (Luke 20: 34-36).
3. The third view also admits the application of these
glowing promises to this earth and expects them to be
realized only here. But these promises are all supposed to
indicate merely certain spiritual changes. The language is
taken as all symbolical. Mankind is to become universally
Christian, or to a greater or less degree so (for there is a
difference of opinion here); and this is to be brought about in
the ordinary progress of the Gospel. Suddenly the former
law of progress is to be changed and all nations are fully
to receive the truth. This view admits also the continu-
ance of this blessedness for a long time and calls it a proper-
millennium on earth. It is associated, however, with no
particular changes in the condition of the earth itself, and,
according to some, it does not foreshadow any residence of
Israel in his own land, and especially no supremacy of
Israel as a people in the renewed earth. And more than
all, this millennial day of earth's glory is to wane away
before the return of the King.
This view, though widely spread in this country, and in a
measure, throughout Great Britain, has been held only
about 175 years. It is the Post-Millennial view of the
second Advent of Christ.
The objections to this view are many, and they are fatal.
In the first place, it is an entirely modern view a novelty
in the Church. The Church has never until lately known
it. Again: It is built upon a total disregard of the plain
114: SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
grammatical sense of language. The laws of language are
ignored in the prophecies on this subject, as is done in no
other department of Scripture. This objection, indeed, is
largely true of the two former views. A third and fatal
objection is, that in Scripture the Regeneration is always
represented as effected through the personal presence of the
King returned to the earth and dwelling in the midst of
His people. Moreover, this view interposes a certain pro-
tracted state of blessed rest and holiness in the Church
universal between the present time and the return of the
Lord of which the Scripture says not one word ; and it thus
destroys the need of watching at all times for His return;
a duty which the Scripture, on the contrary, insists upon
with special emphasis. Further: It interposes a state of
blessedness upon the earth which may and ought to satisfy
the Church with its glory. It thus takes away from the
second coming of the Lord the marked characteristic set
upon it by the Scripture, that this coming and it alone, is
ever to be the pole star of our hope and expectation. No
glory for the Church, says the Scripture, till the time of
Christ's return. Great glory, for the Church, says this
theory, for a whole thousand years before that time. This
view also invalidates the grand words of Scripture
regarding the "Regeneration," so as to destroy their
meaning almost entirely. Or, if it insists that these grand
promises are to be accepted in all their fulness, and yet
that these pregnant words of Scripture are to be really ful-
filled before Christ's coming, it would be hard to say what
the Lord's coming is to effect. The Scripture expressions
cover all the ground; and, when fulfilled, they would leave
nothing to be desired. "What can the Lord add, at His
coming, to the Regeneration when every thing is already
regenerated ?
4. Finally, others take the passages which describe this
THE REGENERATION. 115
Regeneration, in their plain grammatical sense. They
interpret the prophetic language (I do not now mean the
symbolic language of prophecy) as they do all other Scrip-
ture language. Hence they understand this u Regenera-
tion " or "Restitution" to be a great and blessed change
in reference to this earth and the race upon it. They
understand it to comprehend the glorious appearing of
the great God our Saviour to accomplish this Regeneration ;
the resurrection by Him of His departed saints, and the
rapture of His living saints to take part in His dominion
over the living nations ; the overthrow and expulsion of all
forms of evil from the earth; the binding of him who is
the Prince of evil; the repentance and restoration of Israel
in honor and holiness to their own land; the outpouring of
the Spirit on all flesh that shall be spared from God's
signal judgments sent on the earth; the removal of all
physical evils as well as moral; the renewal of the earth to
more than its original beauty as the blessed home of the
race; finally, at the close of the Millennial period the resur-
rection, judgment, and condemnation, of the wicked dead ;
the casting of Satan into his own place of punishment;
the destruction last of all of death, and then the establish-
ment on the earth of the redeemed forever.
This is the view of the Regeneration usually held by
those who maintain the premillennial Advent of Christ;
although the two things are distinct. It was, in substance,
held in the Church universally for the first three centuries,
if we are to credit history, and it has ever since had a
great many adherents among the most learned and faithful
in the Christian church. It was received substantially by
a number of the English Reformers and the godly and
learned men who followed them in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, martyrs and others, and is held by
u large number, of high reputation as biblical scholars, in
116 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the present day, notwithstanding it has at times met with
opposition and even contempt.
What, now, are the Scripture grounds for expecting such
a Regeneration ?
If we look back at Eden and the fall, we see plainly that the
one man's sin brought death into the world. With death
came entire ruin. You have the whole picture in the trial
scene of Adam and Eve before Jehovah. This is the result:
Alienation from God. " They hid themselves " instead
of meeting Him.
The curse falls upon the earth; it is appointed to thorns
and briars.
Labors and pains, tears and toil, are the allotments for
man during life.
Then the end; body and soul to be sundered by death;
and there is the open Grave for the one, and Sheol or Hades
for the other. This is the curse brought on man and on
his dwelling place, by sin, through the devil.
Now, notice : Immediately the Deliverer is promised to
destroy the works of the devil. That Deliverer is a human
being, the seed of the woman, a coming One whom we know
as the God Incarnate, whose delight was always with the
sons of men from the beginning (Prov. 8), who was to
take on Him, not the nature of angels, but the seed of
Abraham, that, by " death, He might destroy him who
had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them
who, through the fear of death, were all their lifetime sub-
ject to bondage."
Take notice, I repeat, that He was to crush the serpent's
head. That is, He was to be a complete Victor over all the
evil which Satan had wrought ; gaining for Himself and
His brethren with Him a complete victory in all respects.
For the devil's work extended morally and physically to
man and also to his habitation.
THE REGENERATION.
All this was not wrought out at once. It was in the
future. It was in hope. Hence man was commanded to
believe in this grace of God, and hence the evils just men-
tioned, continued. The earth yet groaned. Pains and
labors were still man's lot (not so much now, perhaps, as a
punishment, as for discipline), and death, even to believers,
with the grave and Sheol still continued. The victory over
all was sure but future.
The believers in God "God's sons " and the unbelievers,
divided; and the world became so corrupt that the earth
was laid desolate by the flood. This was not, however,
without the sound of the Coming Deliverer, the Judge of
the earth, ringing in their ears. Enoch cries aloud of Him
and His saints " coming to judge the world." It is the
first clear note as to the time of the Regeneration. (Jude,
ver. 14: 15. Compare Matt. 13: 41-43.)
Soon after the flood, the world relapses again into
idolatry, and the sudden judgment of God on the plains
of Sodom tells of His indignation against the earth's unbe-
lief and crimes and sins.
And now a new step is taken. The nation of the com-
ing seed, who is to destroy the devil's works, is fixed, and,
further, with Him is associated (as an instrument for con-
veying salvation to all the earth from that time forward)
another agent, Abraham's natural seed, Israel. These are
the two appointed servants of God for bringing on the day
of glory: Christ and Israel. For as the Saviour Himself
said, " Salvation is of the Jews." So God says, " In thee
and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be
blessed," meaning the Christ who is the seed of Abraham.
So in Gen. 18: " Thy seed shall be as the stars and as the
sand on the sea shore, and in thy seed shall all the families
of the earth be blest."
I shall refer to this again. Let me say here only, that
118 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
from this point onward, every prophecy pointing towards
the coming " .Regeneration ;" every development towards
it, is associated with the sorrows or successes, the sins or
the piety, the falling or the rising again of that people.
" Theirs is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,
and the giving of the law, and the service of God and the
promises; theirs are the fathers, and of them as concern-
ing the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for-
ever."
At this point of God's revelation; inasmuch as this
earth (the place of the defeat and the curse) was to be the
place for the " Regeneration;" as the abiding victory was
to be achieved here; and as that people were to be forever
conspicuous in the " Regeneration " and the day of earth's
new glory, God begins to fix the bounds of their habita-
tion on the earth, and so speak of this habitation as perpet-
ual. Both are made sure by special covenant. " Arise, go
through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of
it, and from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates; for
unto thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee for an
everlasting possession," (Gen. 13: 15; 17: 8.) and this is
sworn to by God. (Gen. 17.) And when Moses predicts
their dispersion for their sins, he still foretells their certain
return to tneir own land. It is fixed as their land forever
by God's covenant, and he tells them they shall dwell
there as a renewed people " circumcised in heart." (Deut.
30:6).
Very soon after, we begin to see God pointing out the
very family from which the coming Victor and King shall
rise, and the very place on the earth which He, who shall
rule all the nations, shall make the place of His throne. He
is to be of the house of David, the son of Jesse, and the
place of His throne is to be the place of the throne of
David over Israel. That no solemnity may be wanting,
THE REGENERATION. 119
God covenants again and again with David that this shall
be. " When thy days shall be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep
with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which
shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his
kingdom, and thine house and thy kingdom shall be
established forever before thee; thy throne shall be estab-
lishcd forever." (2 Sam. 7: 12-16.) So in speaking of Sol-
omon: " I will settle him in mine house and in my king-
dom forever, and his throne shall be established forever
more." So David adds; " Now therefore let it please Thee
to bless the house of Thy servant, that it may be before
Thee forever, for Thou blessest O L< rd, and it shall be
blessed forever" (1 Chron. 17-14.) Thus the throne which
David occupied over the house of Israel is the throne on
earth of the seed of the woman, the Lord Christ. Hence
it is always spoken of as the THRONE OF THE LORD. " Then
Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord instead of David
his father." (1 Chron. 29:23.) " Solomon my son shall sit
upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord, over Israel."
(1 Chron. 28:5.) So Isaiah promises of the coming King,
that this throne of the Lord over Israel shall have an ever-
lasting permanency. (Is. 9: 6-7.) u For unto us a child is
born, and unto us a son is given; and the government shall
be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonder-
ful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government there
shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his
kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and
with justice, from henceforth and forevermore. The zeal
of the Lord of Hosts will perform this."
So Gabriel utters the same when the King appears in
the flesh. " The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne
of His father David. Thou shalt call His name Jesus.
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the
120 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Highest; and the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of
His father David, and he shall reign over y the house of
Jacob forever/ and of His kingdom there shall be no end."
Thus, this earth, as an abiding, regenerated abode, and
Israel's everlasting abode upon it, and Israel's dominion,
and the fixed throne of the coming Deliverer, were already
settled by Scripture.
At the same period God begins to show more plainly
that this King's rule in Zion shall go far beyond Israel,
and that all the nations of the earth, amidst peace and
plenty, shall share His beneficent dominion. The church
of that day sings it in the songs of the Tabernacle and
Temple. They sing of " His dominion from sea to sea,
and from the river to the ends of the earth." Yea, that
" all nations shall serve Him, and all kings shall bow down
before Him." " There shall be an handful of corn in the
top of the mountain, the fruit thereof shall shake like
Lebanon." And in correspondence with the truth of an
everlasting kingdom on the earth; they sing of the " earth
itself that it can not be moved but abideth forever," of the
earth as " given of the Lord to the children of men for
their habitation." Yea, they sing too of the Almighty's
determination (against all the rage of the peoples and the
opposition of kings) to set His King on that holy hill of
Zion, and to give him a sceptre to dash rebellious kings in
pieces, and then to win possession of all nations to the
ends of the earth as His inheritance.
Thus we have, up to this point of revelation, the earth
fixed as the place of " the Regeneration " and as the perma-
nent residence of redeemed and renovated mankind. We
have designated, for us, the very Seed of the woman who
is to be the Victor and Deliverer and King. We have II is
appointed instruments for conveying salvation to the other
nations. We have the permanent place of that Nation
THE REGENERATION.
established. We have the place of the royal and everlast-
ing throne upon the renewed earth ; and we have the whole
earth of nations united in their homage and their joy in
His everlasting reign; while the earth itself in her returned
fruitfulness sings in sympathetic joy; " say ye among the
nations, The Lord reigneth the world is fixed, it shall not
be moved; He shall judge the peoples with rectitude. Let -
the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea
roar and the fullness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and
all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood
rejoice before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness and the nations
in His faithfulness."
Thus far, up to the reigns of David and Solomon, we
have one unvarying view of the matter and one common
expectation of the church as to the coming day of glory;
as expressed by all her prophets and sung in all her joyful
songs in anticipation of its realization. And let us carefully
note that there is not one word or hint to intimate that the
church was in error in these expectations, nor that a higher
or different meaning was to be attached to these prophetic
statements from that which the plain and natural sense of
the language conveyed, and was understood to convey. And
therefore the church as a matter of course, joined together,
as necessary concomitants, God's emphatic blessing upon
the race of Israel the presence of the King Messiah
on the throne the salvation and holiness of all the
race to follow, and as a consequence also, the renovation of
the earth itself. And so they sang and so they prayed in
their songs. " God be merciful unto us; and bless us, and
cause His face to shine upon us; so that Thy way be
known upon earth, in all nations Thy salvation. The nations
shall acknowledge Thee, O God, yea, all the nations shall
acknowledge Thee. The nations shall joy and triumph
122 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
because Thou shalt judge the peoples in uprightness, and
shalt guide the nations in the earth. The nations shall
acknowledge Thee, O God, yea, all the nations shall
acknowledge Thee. The earth has yielded her increase and
God, our own God will bless us; God will bless us arid all
the ends of the earth shall fear Him." (Ps. 67).
Before opening the later prophets, let me again recall
that one great fact, already alluded to, which pervades the
Scriptures. I mean the fact that there are two instruments
recognized by God for convoying His salvation to the
nations, and restoring the world at length to His allegiance.
Two; the first, and above all, the centre of all, His own
Son, the seed of Abraham, the Christ; the blessing of all
the nations. And, secondarily, in subordination to Christ,
as an external means, God's first born Son, the seed of
Abraham the national Israel; the blessing to all the
nations. And this is true in every successive dispensation;
and in the last dispensation emphatically. Just as the
promise made to Abraham, " In thee and in thy seed shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed, had a primary and
pre-eminent reference to Christ, so it has also a secondary
reference to Israel. Says Dr. Addison Alexander, in his
commentary upon the 42d chapter of Isaiah, k ' The Messiah
and His church (Israel) are the representatives of God
among the nations. The term ' servant ' is applied to both
in this sense, and is rendered in the New Testament by
TraZf, pais; a word meaning both son and servant." "The
doctrine taught is that Israel's segregation from the rest of
mankind as a peculiar people was an act of sovereignty
independent of all merit in themselves, and not even
intended for their benefit exclusively, but for the accom-
plishment of God's gracious purposes respecting men in
general." "Hence the same thing might be predicated to
a great extent of both. As the Messiah was the messenger
THE REGENERATION.
and servant of God to the nations, so was Israel. It was
his (Israel's) mission also to diffuse the true religion and
reclaim the nations." "Xot only the Messiah, but the
Israel of God was to be a mediator or connecting link
between Jehovah and the nations." "From the very first
it was intended that the law should go forth from Zion and
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." And he goes on to
show how the different applications of this honorable title?
u my servant " are to be distinguished as applied to Christ
or to Israel, so as to avoid confusion. This commentator
does indeed, as is common, after all transfer the word
" Israel" in many passages to the church in general. But
the prophet's word, and the prophet's only word is Israel.
And it is the fact that the prophets do all along proclaim
the Messiah and Israel as God's two appointed means for
blessing the earth with salvation, to which I call attention.
That God has thus used Israel in all the past, is by general
admission clear both from Scripture and from experience.
It is, by general admission, clear in Scripture and experience
as to the present also. For all admit that it has been
" Israel's fall which has been the riches of the world," and
" their diminishing which has been the riches of the Gen-
tiles." All admit that the " casting of them away, has been
the reconciling of the world." And the fact is clear, from
Scripture at least, if not by general admission, that in
the future also, the receiving of them again will bring to
the world, at large, life from the dead.
Another consideration before opening the later prophets.
Up to this point in the Scripture, Israel, the appointed instru-
ment for the conveying the knowledge of salvation to the
nations, is in honor and prosperity. But now comes Israel's
decadence. Is there then any change to be made in the
nature of the future Kegeneration or its accomplishment?
We open the later prophets, and the scene widens and
124 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
brightens until the whole earth is filled with glory. Do
these later prophets in all this indicate any alteration of
God's plan, or do they clearly maintain the same views
respecting the Regeneration? Do they declare that Israel
shall be such an instrument of blessing to the nations, not
only before Christ's time: nor onlv during the time of their
v / O
own blindness and unbelief, but also in the Messiah's days,
and upon their return to him?
To answer this question intelligently, let me, before
referring to these later prophets, point you to an inspired
declaration on this whole subject. It is a declaration of
the New Testament which brings together the Regenera-
tion of the earth; the necessary presence of the returning
King to accomplish it, and the part depressed Israel is to
perform in the fulfillment. It is just the old song which
the church had always heard, but now sung in clearer
strains and more thrilling chords, under the brighter light
of the New Testament dispensation. I refer to the cele-
brated passage in Acts 3: 17-21.
I shall read this passage, not exactly as it stands in our
version, but with an amendment in the 19th and 20th
verses, according to the best criticism. This criticism
makes the words ttirus'av when followed by subjunctives, to
mean not " when," as in the English version, but " in order
that." It is thus that all the best scholars render the
passage. Let us observe now, that Peter the Apostle is
.speaking to the Jewish people. He has charged them and
their rulers (that is, Israel as a nation) with slaying the
Christ of God. He admits, that as rulers and people they
had done it in ignorance; and that by their error, the
counsel of God, that the Christ must, according to all the
prophets, suffer at their hands had been- fulfilled. To this
Jewish nation he now appeals; and His words accurately
rendered, ran as follows: " Repent ye, therefore, and be
THE REGENERATION. 125
converted that your sins may be blotted out, in order that
there may come times of refreshing from the presence of
the Lord; and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was
before appointed (rbv TrpoKex^p^evov ofuv Irjaovv Xpiarbv) to YOU",
whom, indeed, the heavens must receive until (the) times
of the restitution (or restoring) of all things which God
has spoken of by all His Holy Prophets, from of old "
Now, taking these words, in their plain sense, they teach
as follows:
1. That there is to be a time or " times " for the restitu-
tion of all things; an airoKaTdaraai^ a process of restoring;
or bringing these things back from a state of disorder or
decay.
2. That it shall extend to all parts of the creation wherein
the disorder has been felt; for it is an dTro/cardcn-amf Tnivrwv, a
rehabilitation of all things; and hence of the physical as
well as the spiritual condition of the earth and of its inhab-
itants, the wiping out of Eden's curse.
3. That this restitution of all things has been a theme
upon which God has been dwelling, by the mouth of all
His Holy Prophets from the very beginning, hence it must
be plainly discoverable and easily identified in the concur-
rent testimony of all the Old Testament Scriptures.
4. That this restitution is to take place in connection
with the return of Jesus the Christ from heaven ; the Christ
who was " before appointed " as the Messiah to the Jews,
and who having been rejected and slain by that nation, has
risen and gone into heaven.
5. That this restitution can not take place before His
return; because it is necessary (del) that He should remain
in heaven, whither He has gone, until the times for the
restoring of all things arrive; and when these times
arrive, God will " send Him."
126 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
6. That these " times " of the restoring of all things are
clearly associated with certain times of " refreshing," (as he
calls them) which are to come on the Jewish people; (aimfigeoc)
times of reviving, of bringing up, to life and vigor again,
that nation after a decline.
7. That these" times " of reviving or refreshing, which are
to come on the Jewish nation, are intimately associated
with their national repentance and conversion in reference to
the national crime of slaying their Messiah. For upon this
national repentance and conversion their sins (just spoken
of and charged upon the nation) shall be blotted out, and
the times of refreshing will come.
8. And finally, that when this national repentance and
conversion shall take place, and there come the times of
reviving to the nation, God will then send forth Jesus
Christ from heaven to that people whose Messiah He had
" before appointed " Him to be, and then shall commence
and go on that process of " Restitution " which extends to
the whole earth; the restoration of all things, by virtue of
the interpenetrating and glorifying power of the resurrec-
tion-life of Christ, when the last vestige of the curse will
be removed, and He that sitteth on the throne will say,
" See, I have made all things new."
Let us notice now, very particularly, that the Apostle
distinctly declares, that these important events are con-
stantly exhibited, and in this same connection throughout
all the pages of the Old Testament Scriptures. Certainly
then they must be so plain that he who runs may read
them there. Upon the surface of the Old Testament
Scriptures must lie these very things sanctioned by an
inspired apostle in the New. They are such things as
would naturally present themselves to any ordinary reader
of the Word. They are such as need no additional revela-
tion to disclose their true meaning. In a word, that mean-
THE REGENERATION.
ing can not certainly be different from the plain grammat-
ical sense.
Do we find these things then thus placed there? Israel
recognized as God's appointed channel for bringing in the
day of blessing to all the earth? Israel nevertheless des-
cribed so low down as to be below even other nations
in blindness and sin; cast out, abhorred by men; and their
land a desolation, at the very time when they are associated
with the great and final deliverance of the earth? Israel
penitent as a nation when lowest down; and then elevated
to more than their former glory and holiness? Israel thus
revived in the presence of their returned King the once
rejected Messiah? Shall we find all this associated with
the overthrow of all evil, and the prevalence of blessed-
ness and holiness, throughout the whole earth? Finally,
shall we find all this presented as the true realization of
the day of glory wherein " the heavens and the earth shall
be made new?"
We are now ready to open the later prophets; and we
shall see all these particulars just thus conjoined together
and confirmed throughout.
We turn first to the prophet Isaiah. I might point
briefly to his earlier prophecies, as for example, to that in
chapters 24 to 27. There we have a striking picture,
in which are set forth several of the features just men-
tioned.
1. The scattering of Israel, their great depression, and
their prayer in penitence.
11 Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord ; thou hast increased the
nation. Thou art glorified. Thou hast removed it far unto the ends of
the earth. Lord, in trouble have they visited Thee, they poured out a
prayer when Thy chastening was upon them." (26: 15.)
2. The time of their visitation by miraculous deliver-
ance, in order to their restoration and final glory.
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
" And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall beat off
from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be
gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel, and the outcasts shall wor-
ship the Lord in the mount at Jerusalem." (29: 12.)
3. The vengeance of God against all the nations at that
time to prepare the way for His Kingdom.
" Behold the Lord maketh the earth empty, He maketh it waste the
curse had devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate;
therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left;
and in that day, the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones on high,
and the kings of the earth upon the earth." (Ch. 24.)
4. The visible presence of the King reigning in glory.
" Then the moon shall be confounded and the sun shall be ashamed,
when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
and before His ancients gloriously." (Ch. 24:23.)
5. The effect of Israel's return upon the whole world.
" He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root ; Israel shall
blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit." (27 : 6.)
6. And, finally, the redemption of all the earth, the com-
plete deliverance from the curse.
" And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people
a feast of fat things, a feast of wine upon the lees, of fat things full of
marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And He will destroy in this
mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that
is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and
the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; and the rebuke of
His people will He take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath
spoken it And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God ; we
have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have
waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. (25 : 6-9.
I direct attention particularly, however, to what are
usually called Isaiah's later prophecies. These constitute
one continued prophecy. They begin with the 40th
chapter and run on to the close of the book. This con-
tinued prophecy brings out in strong relief all the several
features alluded to. It begins with the cry, "Comfort ye,
comfort ye, my people, saith your God; speak ye comfort-
ably to Jerusalem, and say unto her that her warfare is
THE REGENERATION.
accomplished." It traces the course of the Church of God
and of Israel to the end, and it closes with a view of
Jerusalem come up out of her unbelief and sin and sor-
row, a praise in " the new heavens and new earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness;" the mighty and rebellious of the
earth, finally, overthrown by God's judgments; the aboli-
tion of all evil from the earth; and the whole Gentile
world at last made holy worshippers before the Lord, and
rejoicing in Israel's glory.
" Behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall
not be remembered nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice
forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoic-
ing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in-
my people ; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her,
nor the voice of crying. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and
the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent's
meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saith
the Lord. For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with His
chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anuer with fury, and His
rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and His sword will the Lord
plead with all flesh ; and the slain of the Lord shall be many. And
they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord, out of
all nations, upon horses and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules,
and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord,
as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the
House of the Lord. And I will take of them for priests and for Levites,
saith the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I
will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed
and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new
moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come
to worship before Me, saith the Lord." (Ch. 65:17-25; 66: 10, 16, 20, 23.)
Now, in considering this prophecy, we are to notice how
God, in the outset, marks it as a wonder of wonders that
depressed Israel should be raised up to be such a means of
blessing, as a thing not only beyond human contrivance,
but a thing deemed impossible even when foretold; and
how this prophecy begins, therefore (chap. 40), by showing
that His almighty power is the only hope for such a change.
9
130 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
" Behold, the Lord God will come with a strong hand, and His arm
shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work
before Him. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His
hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the
dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales,
and the hills in a balance? Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard
that the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth
fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His UDder-
starding. He giveth power to the faint. * * * They that wait upon
the Lord shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not
be weary; they shall walk and not faint."
Note, next, how He shows (chap. 41) that He had already
done great wonders for 'Israel in the past (in leading them
out of Egypt), and that He would do like wonders for them
in the future (by Cyrus in Babylon), and that this would
be a pledge of God's arm being exerted for their final
elevation.
Then, after introducing His two servants for blessing the
earth Christ and Israel (chap. 42:1-16), see how He
admits the perverse blindness to which His servant Israel
would come. " Hear ye, deaf, and look ye, blind, that ye
may see. Who is blind but My servant ? or deaf as My
messenger that I sent ? Who is blind as he that is perfect,
and blind as the Lord's servant ? Seeing many things, but
thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not."
(vv. 18-30.) This is exactly that spiritual blindness of
which Christ so plainly accuses them an accusation which
Paul the Apostle again and again repeats. They were " a
people who had eyes and saw not, and ears and heard not,
and whose heart was waxed gross."
See how He admits and predicts their deep depression,
too, as a nation, ruled over without any redress. " But
this is a people robbed and spoiled, they are all of them
snared in holes; and they are hid in prison houses; they
are for a prey, and none delivereth; and for a spoil, and
none saith restore." (vs. 22.)
THE REGENERATION.
See how He foretells the utter unwillingness of men to
admit that this change can take place. " Who among you
will give ear to this ? Who will hearken and hear for the
time to come ? To what ?
First. To God's reason for Israel's depression: "Who
gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers? Did not
the Lord against whom we have sinned, for they would not
walk in His ways, nor were they obedient to His law; there-
fore, He hath poured upon him the fury of His anger, and yet
He knew it not; He laid it not to heart." (vv. 22, 23.)
And, secondly, to the certain assurance, on the part of
God, that, notwithstanding their depression and sin, Israel
should be restored to honor and blessing which is now so
clearly stated in the next chapter :
" But, now, thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He
that formed thee^ O Israel. Fear not ; for I have redeemed thee ; I
have called thee by My name; thou art Mine. When thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through the rivers, they
shall not overflow thee ; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt
not be burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am thy
Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour; I gave Egypt for
thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in
My sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee ; therefore, I
will give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not; for I am with
thee. I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the
west ; I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back ;
bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.
Even every one that is called by My name, for I have created him for
My glory; I have formed him, yea, I have made him. This people
have I formed for myself; they shall show forth My praise." (43:
1-6; v. 21.)
JS T ote, next, how He marks their sins, and shows that
their future pre-eminence was not to be for their holiness.
" Thou hast not called upon Me, O Jacob, but thou hast
been weary of Me, O Israel; thou hast made Me to serve
with thy sins, and hast wearied me with thine iniquities."
(vv. 22, 24.)
132 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Then comes the same cause for the reviving of Israel;
God's own honor and God's faithfulness shall overcome
their grievous unworthiness, and still give them restora-
tion, holiness, and elevation.
" I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own
sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put Me in remembrance ; let us
plead together ; declare thou, that thou inayest be justified. Thy first
father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against Me.
Therefore, I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given
Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches. Yet, now, hear, O Jacob,
My servant; and Israel whom I have chosen; thus saith the Lord that
made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee. Fear
not, O Jacob, My servant ; and thou Jeshurun, whom I have chosen ;
for I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry
ground ; I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon
thine offspring. And they shall spring up as among the grass, as wil-
lows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another
shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe
with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself* with the name of
Israel." (43:25-28; 44:1-6.)
And mark, finally, how God predicts that this elevation
of Israel will be such a wonder, that when it is accom-
plished that redeemed nation shall stand forth before all
the earth as the certain proof, the " witnesses " that
Jehovah alone who hath done it is God.
" Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and His Redeemer, the
Lord of "Hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside Me there
is no God. And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in
order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people ? And the things
that are coming, and shall come, let them show unto them. Fear ye
not, neither be afraid ; have not I told thee from that time, and have
declared it? Ye are even My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me?
Yea, there is no God ; I know not any. Bring forth the blind people
that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears. Let all the nations be
gathered together, and let the people be assembled ; who among them
can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring forth
their witnesses, that they may be justified; or, let them hear and say it
is truth. Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and My servants whom
I have chosen ; that ye may know and believe Me, and understand that
THE REGENERATION. 133
I am He ; before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be
after Me. I, even I, am the Lord ; and beside Me there is no Saviour.
I have declared, and have saved, and I have showed when there was no
strange God among you; therefore, ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord,
that I am God." (44 : 6-8 ; 43 : 8-13.)
From this point the prophecy goes on. He predicts
Israel's certain restoration after their captivity in Babylon
under Cyrus, and for the same reason, viz., God's faithful-
ness to that people and God's power to accomplish it; and
as illustrating (not as the main subject of the prophecy)
the real theme, their future restoration. (Chaps. 45 to 48.)
He then points forward to the time when all the earth,
Jew and Gentile, shall be redeemed by Christ. And now
he brings forward again God's two servants for accomplish-
ing the work.
First, we have the servant Israel speaking.
" Listen, O isles unto me, and hearken and hearken, ye people from
far ; the Lord hath called me from the .womb ; from the bowels of my
mother had He made mention of my name; and He hath made my
mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath He hid
me; and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver hath He hid me; and
said unto me Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glori-
fied." (Ch. 49 : 1-3.)
Then, we have introduced the other servant, the Messiah,
mourning that He had not accomplished the purpose of
gathering Israel to God, and receiving the certain promise
that He should not only do this, but in doing it, should
bless all the earth with salvation.
"Then I said, I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for
naught and in vain; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my
work with my God ; and now, saith the Lord that formed me from the
womb to his servant, to bring Jacob again to Him ; though Israel be not
gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God
shall be my strength; and He said, is it a light thing that thou shouldst
be my servant to rise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved
of Israel ? I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou
mayest be My salvation to the end of the earth. Thus saith the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, to him whom man despiseth,
134 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall
see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord that is
faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee. Thus
saith the Lord; in an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of
salvation have I helped thee; and I will preserve Lhee and give thee for
a covenant of (he people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the
desolate heritages." (Ch. 49 : 4-13.)
Next we have Israel's doubt of the probabilities of such
a use being made of him by the Lord, and God's answer:
" But Zion said : The Lord hath forsaken me, my God hath forgotten
me. Can a woman forget her sucking child ; that she should not have
compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may forget, yet will
I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee on the palms of my
hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make
haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of
thee. Thus saith the Lord God. Behold, I will lift up my hand to the
Gentiles, and set up my standard to the peoples; and they shall bring
thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their
shoulders; and kings shall be thy nursing fathers and queens thy
nursing mothers. (Ch. 49 : 14-23.)
And now the prophecy lifts the veil and discloses to us
the present dispensation. And here we sec predicted in
sad colors the coming of the Messiah and Israel's strange
rejection of Him in their unbelief and blindness; and, yet,
notwithstanding this, the Messiah's glory and triumph in
his very rejection and death. (Chaps. 52 and 53.) " Who
hath believed our report," etc. This brings us to the day
of the Gentiles profiting by Israel's fall our day of grace.
Here at length the tone changes, arid the prophet now
begins to sing of Israel's return and engagement and glory.
(Chap. 54.) " Sing, O barren, them that didst not bear,
break forth into singing and cry aloud thou that didst not
travail with child, for more are the children of the
desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the
Lord." Read it throughout. All the circumstances of this
chapter show that it refers not to Gentile nations contrasted
with Israel, but to Israel tinder the old covenant and
THE REGENERATION. 135
desolate, in contrast with Israel under the new covenant,
when Israel will be greatly blessed and fruitful. The
Apostle Paul (Gal. 4:25, 26) quotes the passage and shows
that it refers riot to the old Jerusalem and the covenant of
bondage, but to the new Jerusalem from above, and the
new covenant of freedom. And when the light of that
Jerusalem shines on the earth, it blesses all the earth, not
only Jews, but Gentiles; for it is the mother of us all; and
even we who are believers, and are waiting for that day, have
our blessed part in her. (See Meyer on Gal. 4: 25, 26, 27.)
It is therefore of that future day, of the u Regeneration,"
to which the prophet refers. Therefore, in order that Israel
may be encouraged to return, he next presents God's free-
ness of salvation and certain mercy to the penitent trans-
gressor (Chap. 55.) and tells Israel at the same time (Chaps.
56 to 58.) of his sins and of God's righteousness in his
depression.
At last there comes the sight of the returning Redeemer
and the day of glory. The u Redeemer comes to Zion to
turn away ungodliness from Jacob." (Chaps. 59: 16 21:
60: 1 22: 61: 1 11.) Let us observe now that this is the
passage which the Apostle Paul declares refers to the
r o r
national Israel, and testifies that all Israel, (Israel as a
whole) is then to be saved. That redemption then is yet
future. Paul's words are (Rom. 11: 26.) "Blindness in
part is happened unto Israel until the fullness of the Gen-
tiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is
written there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall
turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant
unto them (that is the new covenant, see Is. 59: 21 and
Jer. 31: 31) when I shall take away their sins."
We now read this prophecy; arid let us observe how it
places together in the day of Earth's redemption exactly
what the apostle Peter puts together, and declares to be the
136 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
burden of all the prophets as to the restitution of all
things; viz.:
That it is in the line of mercy, in which all the Earth shall
participate in glory and blessedness with Israel, as is shown
fully in the following chapters:
" Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to
bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the
name of the Lord thy God and to the Holy One of Israel, for he hath
glorified thee." " From one Sabbath to another all flesh shall come and
worship before me." "I will make an everlasting covenant with them,
and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles and their offspring
among the people ; and all that see them shall acknowledge that they
are the Seed which the Lord hath blessed." (Chap. 60 : 9 ; 61 : 8, 9 ; 66 :
23. et passim).
Now in this, the time of mercy to Israel and all the Earth,
we have in this prophecy, 59: 16-21, first,
The Deliverer, the Lord, arming himself and coming
forth for the overthrow of all the ungodly in the Earth.
" And He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no
intercessor; therefore His arm brought salvation unto him; and His
righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breast-
plate and a helmet of salvation on his head ; and he put on the garments
of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. Accord-
ing to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, fury to his adversaries,
recompense to his enemies ; to the islands (or Gentiles) he will repay
recompense, (v. 16-18).
Then we have the day of general holiness before the
Lord throughout the whole world.
" So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory
from the rising of the sun. When the Enemy shall come in like a flood,
the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." (v. 19).
Then, the coming of the Lord Christ and His deliverance
of repentant Israel.
" And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from
transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord." (v. 20).
Then, the holy consecration of Israel to God; and that,
too, through perpetual generations on the Earth.
THE REGENERATION.
"As for me, this is rny covenant with them, saith the Lord; my Spirit
that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall
not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out
of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for-
ever." (v. 21).
And, so also in the following chapter:
" Thy people shall all be righteous ; they shall inherit the land forever,
tne branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be -
glorified." (60: 21).
And finally, the attention of all the Gentile world to
Israel's risen glory.
" Arise ! shine ! for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is
risen upon thee ; for behold the darkness shall cover the earth and gross
darkness the peoples ; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory
shall be seen upon thee, and the Gentile shall come to thy light and
kings to the brightness of thy rising." "Thy sun shall no more go
down, neither shall the moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine
everlasting light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy
people also shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land forever, the
branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified."
And thus on to the end of chapter sixty-first. (60: 1-3;
20, 21).
Just because it is clear therefore that Israel's day of joy
must first come in order to the coming of the day of joy to-
the whole Earth, the prophet now pleads and summons
others to plead for the coming of that day of joy to Israel:
" For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace and for Jesusalem's sake I
will not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and
the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall
see thy righteousness and all kings thy glory, and thou shalt be called
by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name. (6.) Ye that
are tiie Lord's remembrancers, keep not silence, and give Him no rest
until He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth."
(Chap. 62: 1-7).
At the close of the prophecy we find portrayed the
Earth's final blessedness and permanent state the new
Heavens and new Earth wherein dwelletli righteousness.
And here is the picture plain to behold. (Chap. 65 : 17-25).
138 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Here is all the Earth restored and made new (v. 17)
Jerusalem a glory in the new Earth (18, 19) Israel acknowl-
edged bj all as a blessed seed (v. 23) the whole world
participating in the glory (v. 25) Earth brought again
to Eden's beauty and harmony (v. 22, 23-25) God himself
near to bless (v. 2). And all this when the Redeemer
shall have come to Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
(17.) For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth ; and the former
shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. (18). But be ye glad and
rejoice forever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a
rejoicing, and her people a joy. (19). And I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and joy in My people ; and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard
in her, nor the voice of crying. (20.) There shall be no more thence
an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not rilled his days; for the
child shall die an hundred years old ; but the sinner being a hundred
years old shall be accursed. (21.) And they shall build houses and
inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
{22.) They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant,
and another eat ; for as the days of a tree are the days of My people, and
Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. (23.) They shall
not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of
the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. (24.) And it
shall come to pass, that before they call I will answer; and while they
are speaking, I will hear. (25.) The wolf and the lamb shall feed
together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock ; and dust shall
be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy
mountain, saith the Lord."
And this is final and perpetual; for it is added:
" For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, shall
remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name
remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another,
and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before
Me, saith the Lord." (66 : 22-23.)
Thus we see how clearly this long and brilliant prophecy
presenting the salient features of the whole of earth's
future, sets forth on its very surface the same features of
the Regeneration, and in the same connection, which have
already been indicated.
TIIE HEGENERATION. 139
How exactly all this tallies with another picture which
Isaiah also draws of the same coming day of glory ! "We
have it in the eleventh chapter. Here are grouped together
the following. The King Messiah and His character:
" And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch
shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon
him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and
might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord ; and shall
make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord." (vv. 1-3.)
The Gentiles all acknowledging Him throughout the
earth:
" And in that day shall the root of Jesse stand for an ensign of the
peoples; to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest (or residence) shall
be glorious." (v. 10.)
His miraculous interposition to bring back dispersed
Israel to their own land at that time, as was donein former
days from Egypt:
" And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His
hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which
shall be left, from Assyria and from Egypt, and from Pathros and from
Gush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from
the islands of the sea. And He shall set up an ensign for the nations,
and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and shall gather together the
dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. And the Lord
shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with His
mighty wind shall shake His hand over the river, and shall smite it in
the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. And there shall be
a highway for the 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." (vv. 11, 12, 15, 16.)
The King, striking down His opposing enemies, and
especially slaying, by His own presence and power, the
lawless and wicked one; as the Apostle Paul predicts of
Christ, at His glorious appearing, slaying the Man of Sin.
(in 2 Thess., ch. 2:8.)
" He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the
breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked one." (v. 4.)
The righteousness of the King's reign over all the earth:
140 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
" He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, nor reprove after the
hearing of His ears; but with righteousness shall He judge the poor,
and reprove with equity, for the ineek of the earth. Righteousness shall
be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins.
(w. 3, 4.)
And the Millennial peace and holiness, and Eden blessed-
ness of all the earth and its inhabitants:
" The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie
down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling
together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear
shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall
eat straw like an ox; and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the
asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain ; for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
(w. 6, 9.)
Is it not plain from all this that Isaiah's prophecies
exactly set forth just the very features in " the Restitution
of all things," which the Apostle Peter declares all the
prophets have spoken concerning it?
Let us now turn to the other prophets, and take their
testimony. We have a series of pictures, and in them all
the apostle's declaration respecting " the Regeneration " is
confirmed throughout. It is the same scene, with the same
actors and events constantly passing before us; God's uni-
form testimony as to the coming day of glory.
Here is a picture to show that it is in the King
Messiah's days that Israel and Judah are to be thus blessed;
no longer cast out, but restored:
" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good
thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and the house of
Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the branch of
righteousness to grow up unto David; and He shall execute judgment
and righteousness in the land (or earth). In those days shall Judah be
saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is the name where-
by it shall be called to her: The Lord our Righteousness." (Jer. 33:
14-16.)
THE REGENERATION.
Here is another plain picture. You see in it the Messiah,
Jesus, reigning over all the earth, (v. 5.) At the same
time, Israel is gathered again from all their wanderings
and settled upon their own land (vv. 3, 4, 6,) and the
blessedness so great that all former deliverances are for-
gotten.
(V. 3.) "I will gather the remnants of iny flock out of all countries
whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds ;
and they shall be faithful and increase, (v. 4.) And I will set up shep-
herds over them, which shall feed them ; and they shall fear no more,
nor be dismayed ; neither shall they be lacking, saith the Lord. (v. 5.)
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a
righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth, (v. 6.) In His days Judah shall be
saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby He
shall be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, (v. 7.) Therefore,
behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say : The
Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of
Egypt; (v. 8) but, the Lord liveth, which brought up and which led
the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all
countries whither I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own
land." (Jer. 23:3-8.)
Here is a promise to show that this, being so necessary a
part of God's future plans for the earth, no sin or defection
in Israel will ever involve any irrecoverable or final rejec-
tion of the nation:
" Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and
the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which
divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar ; the Lord of Hosts is His
name. If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then
the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for-
ever. Thus saith the Lord : if heaven above can be measured, and the
foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the
seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord." (Jer. 21 :
35-38.)
Here, also, is a picture to show, for the same reason, that
the new covenant itself makes it sure that Israel must be
thus gathered and made a blessing :
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST,
" Behold, the clays coine, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of
Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of
beast; and it shall coine to pass, that like as I have watched over them,
to pluck up and to break down, arid to throw down, and to destroy, and
to afflict, so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the
Lord. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not accord-
ing to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took
them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt (which My
covenant they break, although I was an husband unto them, saith the
Lord); but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their
inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and
they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying : Know the Lord, for they
shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith
the Lord ; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their
sin no more." (Jer. 31 : 27-34.)
Let it be remembered, that it is according to this very
same new covenant, as the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews tells us, not only Israel, in his day of return, but
all of us, have forgiveness and salvation the new covenant
in Christ. Could words declare more plainly that, under
this new covenant, the nation, as a nation, is to be delivered
from its iniquities; and that national mercies, with all
other blessings to the world at large, before alluded to, are
to follow ? How plain Peter's words, therefore, would
sound in Jewish ears:
" Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins (as a nation)
may be blotted out, and the times of refreshing and of the restoring
of all things, spoken of by all the prophets, may come."
Here, again, is a picture from Ezekiel of the gathering of
Israel and their sanctiftcation, and the return of Eden's'
beauty to the earth in that day:
"I will take you from among the Gentiles, and gather you out of all
countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle
clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthioess,
and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I
THE REGENERATION. 143
give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My
statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them. And ye shall
dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and ye shall be My peo-
ple, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your unclean-
ness; and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine
upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase
of the field ; and ye shall receive no more reproach among the Gentiles.
And the desolate land shall be filled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight .
of all that passed by; and they shall say: This land that was desolate
is become like the garden of Eden ; and the waste and desolate and
ruined cities are become fenced and are inhabited. Then the nations
that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the
ruined places, and plant that which was desolate; I the Lord have
spoken it, and I will do it." (Ezek. 36 : 21-36.)
And all this He declares in the next chapter is to last
" forever," and " forevermore." (37: 25-28.)
Look, now, at this picture from the Prophet Micah. See
how plainly He groups together the same things, viz. : Zion's
desolation (ch. 3: 12). Zion's elevation again in the last
days after her desolation (ch. 4:1). All the nations drawn
to Zion as the centre of religious blessings in the earth
(v, 2). The King, the Lord's right hand, overthrowing the
opposing nations preparatory to His personal reign on earth
(v. 3). The subsequent peace and blessedness of all the
earth (vv. 4, 5). The exaltation of outcast Israel (vv.
6, 7). Jehovah Jesus reigning forever in Mount Zion
(v. 7). And Israel acknowledged as chief in the renewed
earth :
(v. 12.) " Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field,
and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as
the high places of the forest, (ch. 4:1.) But in the last days it shall
come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be estab-
lished in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the
hills, and peoples shall flow unto it. (v. 2.) And many nations shall
come and say: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
and to the house of the God of Jacob ; and He will teach us of His ways,
and we will walk in His paths ; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and
144 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, (v. 3.) And He shall judge
among many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall
beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword again st nation, neither shall they learn
war any more. (v. 4.) But they shall sit, every man under his vine and
tinder his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid ; for the mouth of
the Lord hath spoken it. (v. 5.) For all peoples will walk every one in
the name of his God, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our
Ood for ever and ever. (v. 6.) In that day, saith the Lord, will I
assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out and
her that I have afflicted, (v. 7.) And I will make her that halted a
remnant, and her that was cast off a strong nation ; and the Lord shall
reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even forever, (v. 8.)
And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion,
unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion ; the kingdom shall
come to the daughter of Jerusalem." (Micah, ch. 3 : 12 ; 4 :l-8.)
And behold this picture from Zephaniah. See how grandly
and certainly He repeats the same story. Just hear it: The
Lord's coming anger against the anti-Christian nations, in
.the same day; the united nations of all the earth with one
consent then serving God; the redemption and return of
outcast Israel; their entire renovation in heart never more
to backslide; the King Christ manifest in the midst of
them; and evil seen never again forevermore:
" Therefore, wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until the day that I
rise up to the prey; for My determination is to gather the nations, that
I may assemble the kingdoms to pour out upon them Mine indigna-
tion, even all My fierce anger; for all the earth shall be drowned with
the fire of My jealousy. For then will I turn to the nations a pure lan-
guage that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve Him
with one consent. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, My suppliants,
ven the daughter of My dispersed, shall bring My offering. In that day
shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast trans-
gressed against Me; for then I will take away out of the midst of thee
them that rejoice in thy pride; and thou shalt no more be haughty
because of My holy mountain. I will also leave in the midst of thee a
humbled and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.
The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither
shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed
and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. Sing, O daughter of
THE REGENERATION. 145
Zion, shout, O Israel ; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daugh-
ter of Jerusalem! The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, He hath
cast out thine enemy; the King of Israel is in the midst of thee; thou
shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem :
Fear thou not; and to Zion: Let not thine hands be slack; the Lord thy
God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save; He will rejoice over
thee with joy; He will rest in His love; He will joy over thee with
singing. I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assem-
bly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. Behold,
at that time I will undo all that afflict thee; and I will save her that
halteth, and gather her that was driven out ; and I will get them praise
and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that
time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you; for I
will make you a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth,
when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord."
(Zeph. 3 : 8-21.)
To close this testimony, hear the Prophet Zechariah.
The gathered nations assembled against Israel in that
coming day; and their doom:
"And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all
nations; all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces,
though all the peoples of the earth be gathered together against it."
(Zech. 12:3.)
God's deliverance of Israel; Israel's repentance for slay-
ing their Messiah who was pierced; and the fountain
opened for cleansing in that day.
" And it shall come to pass in that day that I will seek to destroy all
nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house
of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and
of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced,
and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and
shall be in bitterness for Him as one is in bitterness for his firstborn.
In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourn-
ing of Hadadriinmon in the Valley of Megiddon. And the land shall
mourn, every fam ily apart ; the family of the house of David apart and
their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart and their
wives apart ; the family of the house of Levi apart and their wives
apart; the family of Shimei apart and their wives apart; all the families
that remain, every family apart and their wives apart. In that day there
shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." (12: 9-14; 13: 1.)
10
146 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Their trials and their redemption at that time.
* And I will bring the third part through the fire and will refine them
as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried ; they shall call on
My name and I will hear them. I will say, It is My people; and they
shall say the Lord is my God." (v. 9.)
Then the Messiah's appearance for their deliverance, and
His overthrow of the opposing nations in the hour of
Israel's trouble.
" Behold the day of the Lord cometh, and the spoil shall be divided in the
midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle;
and the city shall be taken and the houses rifled and the women ravished,
and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the
people shall not be cut ofl' from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth
and fisrht against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle.
And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which
is before Jerusalem on the East, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in
the midst thereof toward the East and toward the West, and there shall
be a very great valley ; and half of the mountain shall remove toward
the North and half of it toward the South." (14 : 1- 4.)
The risen saints come with Christ to share in executing
these judgments.
" And the Lord my God shall come and all the saints with Thee."
(v. 4.)
Jehovah Jesus as King in all the earth; those of the
nations, who are saved out of the judgments, made a holy and
"blessed population of the earth; and earth's blessedness and
abiding peace.
" And the Lord shall be King over all the earth ; in that day shall
there be one Lord, and His name one. All the land shall be burned as
a plain from Geba to Rimmon, South of Jerusalem . . . and men
shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but
Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited .... And it shall come to
pass that every one that is left of all the nations which came against
Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King and
the Lord of Hosts (Compare Rev. 21 : 24.) and to keep the feast of taber-
nacles, and it shall be that whoso will not come up of all the families of
the East unto Jerusalem to worship the King and the Lord of Hosts, even
upon them sliall be no rain ... In that day shall there be upon the bells
of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD ; and the pots in the Lord's house
THE REGENERATION.
shall be like the bowls before the altars; yea, every pot in Jerusalem
and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of Hosts ; and all they
that sacrifice shall come and take of them and seethe therein, and in
that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of
Hosts." (14:9-21.)
Now, I add to all this testimony the clear declarations of
the prophet Daniel, on this subject, so familiar to all, and
so clear and full in his presentation of the very same par-
ticulars. The bringing, near the Son of Man to the Ancient
of Days to receive the Kingdom; that Kingdom to come
at the overthrow of the present world kingdoms, the thrones
set for His saints to exercise dominion with Him; the time
come for the deliverance af Daniel's people, Israel; the
kingdom under the whole heaven given to the people of
the saints of the Most High; the rule of the Messiah and
His holy ones over all the earth, and that Kingdom abiding
on the earth "forever, even for ever and ever." (Daniel
2:31-46;and7:9-2T.)
We have seen, now, how manifestly all the prophets of the
Old Testament speak one and the same language on this
subject. One song with varying strings of the harp, but
with a never-ceasing harmony, is sung by all of them the
same utterance, as the apostle Peter declares, by " all God's
holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3: 21.)
Reading, now, on the very surface of these Old Testament
Scriptures, what all the prophets have uttered in reference
to " the Regeneration," we see that they are in entire accord
in the following particulars, viz. : A renewed Heavens and
Earth made like the garden of the Lord; the presence of
the King, reigning in glory and the seat of His dominion
over all the Earth in Zion; His risen people seated on
the thrones of judgment with Him; "an honor given to
all His Saints;" nations living on the Earth, spared from
the desolating judgments of God, and then blest and made
the subjects of the Lord's rule. All these made holy ; all
0? T
fUHIVSESI
148 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
taught of God from the least to the greatest; Christ's
redemption applied to all on the Earth; the former things,
in the presence of this great glory, passed out of mind;
Israel redeemed as a Nation and gathered into his own
land, and known of all the Earth as the seed whom the
Lord has blessed; the reproach, the curse, all gone; and
God dwelling, indeed, in the midst of mankind as His own
people. And this blessedness of the Earth to last from
generation to generation, forever.
Let us pause now at this stage. Here are the events
respecting the coming day of glory revealed to the Old
Testament church; and the faith of God's people in the
Old Testament times so received them, and looked forward
to just such a fulfillment of them. There were, of course,
then, as there are now, many partly revealed particulars as
to time and circumstances which lay yet in the dark. As to
these the prophets themselves searched, to know what time
and what events the Spirit of Christ in them did signify, when
He spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the glory to follow.
But plainly these did not affect the great outline of pro-
phecy which set before the faith of the church certain
distinct and comprehensible events. And, as such, the
church of that day received them. Now, I will ask, Is it
conceivable that, by some subsequent revelation, all this
could have been declared to be a grand mistake a delusion
practised upon the church for a, time, when in its nonage?
and that no such expectations by Israel were ever to be
realized, on earth, as the Scripture statements had led them
to believe? Is it conceivable that the whole hope of the
church was to be entirely changed, not simply as to degree,
but in kind; and that, under the plea, of greater spirituality,
all this grand and inspiring vision of the future which all
the prophets had, from the beginning, been portraying, in
order to animate and stimulate God's sons and daughters,
. THE REGENERATION. 149
should vanish away, " like the baseless fabric of a dream,"
into some illusive, ideal, and incomprehensible glory, to be
unveiled in another sphere? Such a change seems impos-
sible. The church of God in every age is one; and her hope
so far as it is revealed, in every age is the same. Why should
the church, in our age, be deluded by certain expectations
which turn out at last to be only parables foreshadowing some-
thing else utterly different and utterly indistinct and unfixed?
What shows a change, so radical, to be the more unwar-
ranted, is the plea upon which it is based. Is the plea, that
there are plain statements, during the later dispensation,
of such a change being necessary? Not at all. If there
were such, some good ground would, indeed, be given for
insisting on a new view of the whole matter. But not one
word of New Testament Scripture calls for such a trans-
formation of Old Testament prophecy. What, then, is the
plea? Simply this, Gentiles have become believers. As
believers they are the spiritual seed of Abraham just as
truly as are believing Jews. As believers, Gentiles are
fellow heirs and of the same household of God. All which
is true. But from this premiss it is concluded that this
fact annuls all the distinctive promises made to the literal
Israel, and hence wherever Israel's name comes in for a
prophecy of blessing, Israel is no longer to be understood
as Israel, but the spiritual church at large, made up of Jews
and Gentiles. And thus all the Old Testament language
on this subject of Israel's future in the Earth, and indeed
of the day of glory itself, is sublimated away to suit the
fancy and preconception of the interpreter. What could
not be proved by such a process ? a process never resorted
to in the interpretation of any other part of Scripture;
never at all in the interpretation of any other writings; and
for the plain reason that the laws of language forbid a
method of interpretation so arbitrary and unjustified.
150 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Besides, how can such an application of these passages
to the church at large be made without confounding all
language, when in one line the Israel who is said to be
brought back, redeemed, renewed, and is presented as dwell-
ing from generation to generation in his own land, is in the
line preceding spoken of as the very Israel who was cast
out, depressed, blinded, and persecuted, by the Gentile
nations? Further, how can this interpretation be justly
allowed, when, on the contrary, all the sufferings of the
Messiah are interpreted as having been prophesied literally;
and why not the glory which is predicted? In the very
speech of the Apostle Peter, we have quoted, there is
another thing besides the restitution of all things, of which
he declares all the prophets have spoken. And what is
that? It is the sufferings of Christ. " But those things
which God hath spoken beforehand by the mouth of all His
holy 2?rophets* that Christ should suffer, He hath so ful-
filled " All agree that this record of all the prophets is to
be taken in its plain literal meaning; why not the other?
And still further. How is it possible thus to transfer
Israel's place to the Gentile church and thus involve every-
thing in confusion, when the inspired apostle quotes one of
these very declarations (Is. 59: 60) which presents the whole
together and declares to us that this Israel, so redeemed,
and so made a blessing and a glory in the whole earth,
means the natural Israel, and is to be clearly distinguished
from the believing Gentile church. (Rom. chap. 11.)
But still it is claimed that the language of prophecy is
poetical language; is full, therefore, of tropes and figures,
and that, interpreted as figurative language must be, the
plain or literal meaning we have educed from it, as
read on the very surface, is necessarily excluded. But this
is a great mistake. For this concurrent plain meaning of
the prophecies is not at all excluded by our accepting the
THE REGENERATION.
really figurative language of Scripture as figurative. There
is no objection to our doing this. The History of the
Bible is often expressed in language carrying figures.
What we object to is, first insisting that language is figura-
tive, where there are no figures; and secondly, the inter-
preting of language, which is plainly figurative, entirely
aside from the known laws of such a figurative language, and
in a way adopted for the interpretation of no other poetry or
figurative language whatever. The claim that the language
should be grammatically, or as some call it, literally, inter-
preted, is not by any means a claim that all figures should
be excluded. It is only this, that figures should be inter-
preted as such figures are always elsewhere interpreted; and
this being done, that the meaning, thus educed, shall be
accepted as the true meaning of the passage. The language
of prophetic symbols of course stands by itself. I am
speaking of the ordinary language of prophecy. By this
simple rule, which is applied to all the rest of the Bible,
the meaning is plain. It lies on the surface and it gives
one concurrent voice in the Old Testament and in the New,
for this blessed hope, the coming of the King and the Regen-
eration of all things.
We hold, then, that the true principles of exegesis will
lead us to adopt this natural meaning of the prophets as
the true meaning. And this being the case, we see what
the nature of that future holy condition of the earth,
revealed to the fathers by all the prophets, was understood
to be. And if this was their expectation, it is incredible
that this was to be suddenly exchanged for some new hope
entirey unheard of before.
But now, before opening the New Testament, we pause
to say, that if ever such a change in the church's expecta-
tion was to be made, now was the time, at the first advent
of the great Teacher, when the views of the church should
152 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
have been rectified. Is it not to be taken as a matter of
course, if there had been in the Old Testament church, in
Christ's time, a great and vital misunderstanding of the
prophecies concerning the Regeneration; the Kingdom in
its future glory, Israel's position in it, etc., that He, com-
ing as the great Teacher, and correcting and enlightening
at every point on other topics, would surely have disabused
the minds of His disciples on these misunderstood points?
Would not His Apostles afterwards also have done so? He
did nothing of the sort. They did nothing of the sort.
For ought He or they have said, the picture of the
Regeneration lying on the surface of the Prophetical
writings, as we have drawn it forth, remains just as
it was received. I am not now speaking of the mistaken
notions of many among them, as to the way of
entering the Kingdom; of their false ideas as to the saving
effect of mere descent from Abraham; their ignorance
that the Lord must first rule in the heart before a man,
Jew or Gentile, can inherit the Kingdom; nor of their mis-
taken ideas as to the time of setting up the Kingdom, nor
of the way in which the Gentiles were to be introduced
into it. But I refer to their views of the distinctive
features of that ungdom in its consummation, as thus
portrayed by their prophets; its introduction by the Messiah
in person; its presence on this earth under His rule; His
glorified saints ruling with Him; its universality and per-
fect blessedness; Israel's permanent residence under it, in
their own land, acknowledged by all as the seed whom the
Lord has blessed, and this continuing from generation to
generation. Nor am I. speaking of the views which the car-
nal and wicked among the church of that time may have
entertained; nor of the hope such may have cherished to
see a Kingdom like the godless Kingdoms of this present
evil world. When I speak of the sublimity of the Jewish
THE REGENERATION. 153
clmrcli I refer to the views wrought into the hearts of the
pious among that people by means of the Scriptures; of
persons like Simeon and Anna and Nathaniel and others
who waited for the Kingdom of God and looked, therefore,
for Him who was to be u a Light to lighten the Gentiles
and the Glory of His people Israel. It is, to be sure, by
no means uncommon, to speak even of these pious souls as -*
having entirely mistaken their own prophets, and to con-
sider the whole church's views as very worldly and tem-
poral and unspiritual, and to represent these Jewish children
of faith as looking forward, in their weakness, for some
prior imitation of the sinful and ambitious Kingdoma
of this present evil world, simply because the Kingdom of
glory was in their minds associated with this earth. And
it is not uncommon to imagine that Christ's words were
intended to rebuke such expectations of theirs. But where
did Christ ever really thus speak of them? And how can
His words be so interpreted, except by an exegesis which
simply assumes that there is such an intention in them.
We call attention then to this fact, that, with these views
of the prophecies before the ancient church, and accepted
by that church, there is not only, in all Christ's teaching,
not one word of correction as to this impression, but there
is not one word even of explanation which suggests the
possibility that He knew them to have taken a wrong view.
There is a mutual understanding on these points between
Him and His hearers. Any man would naturally suppose^
for example, whenever Christ alluded to the coming King-
dom, as He often did, its time, nature, or concomitants,
that He, if knowing they had received false impressions of
these things in reading their prophets, would have been
compelled to explain His own allusions, and set forth His
differing views, and put right their notions in so doing.
He does nothing of the kind. What are we to infer, but
that He accepted their views as, in the great outline, true?
154: SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
This fact is strengthened by the consideration that He
did very earnestly controvert and correct their mistakes as
to other things preparatory to the glory. For example,
they metaphorized away the plain and literal statements
as to the sufferings of Christ. He takes the greatest pains all
along to remove this error and to show them, from Moses
and all the prophets, how foolish and slow of heart they
were, not ' to believe all that the prophets had spoken of
Christ's suffering first before He entered into His glory.
Thus we see He corrected them on this point upon which
(as Peter puts it) all the prophets had also spoken; and if
the church had made a similar mistake, as to the glory, why
was He silent on that error?
Notice still further. That in His correction of their
views of the prophets' words about His sufferings, He by no
means convicts them on the ground of their having taken too
literal and natural a view of the prophecies. On the con-
trary, they had erred by refining away the slain Lamb; the
pierced Messiah; the Messiah wounded for our transgres-
sions, yielding His soul unto death; and hence had failed to
perceive all the prophets had spoken. Nor are we to
imagine that, because He did correct their views of the
sufferings and not their views as to the glory, the disciples
and others of the time received both in a spiritual or unliteral
sense, and that Christ corrected the one unliteral meaning
(as to the. sufferings), but left the other stand, because in
that case the unliteral meaning was the true one. Such a
conclusion is wrong. For it is notorious that the Apostles
took the plain, literal view of the glory at the rery time
they took the unliteral .one as to the suffering. They show
it in all their questions; even their very last one betrays
it, when they inquired whether the Kingdom was, at that
time, to be given to Israel. Nay, the fact is so plain, that for
this very reason they are often represented as carnal and
THE REGENERATION. 155
worldly in their views of the Kingdom, as we have already
stated. No. Christ corrected their unliteral views of the
sufferings, and not only allowed their literal views of the
Kingdom and glory to stand, but confirmed their literality
in many ways.
Still further is it to be noted that when our Lord did
make any corrections in reference to the Kingdom and
glory, it was not in regard to the Regeneration or the
Kingdom itself, but to certain errors in connection with
it. For example: As to the time of it. It was not, as they
had supposed, immediately to appear, but only after the
King had gone away and returned. Again, it was not
to be given Him without the cross, but in consequence of
it, and after which He would draw all men unto Him.
Again, He was not to be placed on the throne of the King-
dom by the hands of ignorant and sottish men who, in their
carnal hearts, looked only after the loaves and fishes; nor
by the will of the Devil, on condition that Christ would
fall down and worship him; but only by His Father's hand,
and when He had won the throne by the cross, and when
His Father's time for bestowing it had arrived. And
again, that it was not a Kingdom of this present age,
because it was plainly the one of the " age to come."
We desire that this fact may be properly weighed, viz. : that
while there is, throughout our Lord's discourses, the freest
reference made to the future Kingdom itself, there is not one
word of correction, nor of explanation given. The record
was plain in all the prophets. Why should they not receive
what the prophets said? They did receive it. They knew
and thought but little of the sufferings; they were scandal-
ized by the contemplation of a suifering Messiah. But of
the glory they understood much and well. There was never
any controversy between Christ and the men of His time on
these points. Everything is taken for granted on both
156 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
sides. What, now, I repeat, is the natural inference, but
that this view is sealed with our Lord's own approval? It
is the New Testament voice approving these plain pictures
of the prophets, as also approving the simple-hearted faith 01
the church which received them just as they were written,
and was waiting like Simeon, and Anna, and Joseph of
Arimathea, for that Kingdom of God.
Let us open now the New Testament and we shall find
how true is all this.
Our Lord, for example, speaks of this very theme, " the
Kegeneration," the Palingenesia. (Matt. 19:28.) All the
prophets had, as Peter declares, spoken of it. And the
disciples received the commonly held views of the time
respecting it. " Yerily I say unto you (says Christ to His
apostles) in the Regeneration, when the Son of Man shall
sit upon the throne of His glory, ye who have followed
Me shall also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel." Now, when He spoke thus, the disci-
ples at once understood Him. There was needed from Him
not a word of explanation, as was needed on so many other
points, and He gave none. Indeed, they not only under-
stood Him, but they were so eager to enter on the Kingdom
and receive the reward, that soon after they begin to contend
"who should be the greatest in the Kingdom." And James
and John, with their mother, even go so far as to ask Christ
to stipulate beforehand who shall occupy the " right " and
" left " hand places of honor in the Kingdom. Even then
He does not correct this view of the Kingdom. Even then
He admits there are to be these positions of distinguished
honor in it, just as they had supposed. Nay, He declares that
there are persons for whom these places are " prepared of
the Father." He does not pronounce who they are. But
He declares that these places will be given to these persons
and to none others than they. Even He, Christ the Lord,
THE REGENERATION.
will not assume the right to give them to any others than
those to whom they are given of the Father. But while
He does not correct this idea as to the Kingdom, or talk
about its being unfounded or carnal, reserving to John
himself the glory of picturing it in a bright Apocalypse,
He does show them the true way to attain greatness in the
Kingdom, viz.: not by means of the ambitious selfishness
by which the rulers of this world so often ride into their
places of power, but by following the Master in that service
of self-sacrificing love, to which He calls them during the
present time, and wherein He leads the way, and attains the
highest honor of the Kingdom. (Luke 22 : 24-30 ; Matt.
20 : 20-28 ; Phil. 2: 5-11.)
There was an occasion when Jesus uttered an extended
prophecy concerning all the future of the church and the
world, up to the very time of His coming. (Luke, chap.
21.) When Jesus omits entirely all mention of any time of
glory up to the day of His coming, and pictures Israel cast
out and desolate up to the very day of the King's return
and the expiring of the "times of the Gen tiles," Jerusalem
being all this time trodden down, He speaks to His listening
disciples, in entire accord with all the prophets had said.
For throughout the prophets, the salvation of Israel, the
return of the King, the deliverance of the earth from sorrow,
and the Kingdom in its glory, all come together. When
they asked Him, " Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the
Kingdom to Israel?" no explanation was needed and none
given on either side. Nor did He correct them in any
point implying a wrong expectation; but told them simply,
that the time was deferred; that it was in the Father's
own power, and pointed them to the immediate work given
them meanwhile to do.
Let us now pass on to the apostles. And here we shall
see there was the same mutual understanding between them
158 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
and Jewish believers of the time as to the meaning of the
prophecies respecting the Kingdom.
When Peter, for example, preached the words we have
already produced at large from Acts 3: 19-21, in reference
to the Restitution of all things: "Repent ye and be con-
verted," etc., there is no explanation needed or given. He
and his hearers were in accord. For it was plain to them
all, that all the prophets linked together Israel's repentance
and Israel's refreshing, the presence of the Messiah, the
Kingdom of the Messiah, and the Restitution of all things.
When the same apostle afterwards points the hope of the
waiting church, in his second epistle, to the new heavens
and the new earth, and to the longed-for power and coming
of the Lord, he just points back to the canvas on which
Isaiah had already painted the same glowing scene of the
Regeneration, with Israel made honorable and holy, and
all flesh blessed and all the earth like Eden, in the presence
of the Lord reigning in Mt. Zion and before his ancients
gloriously. It was the plain, though glorious, old picture,
known from the beginning.
When the New Testament writers all, with recurring
earnestness, point the churches, for hope, energy, spiritual
mindedness, patience, to the coming of the Lord, it was
just because it was already so plain in all the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures that the Regeneration, the Restitu-
tion of all things, the Kingdom in its glory, is alone grand
enough to fill every heart; that the church of God could
never see any perfect blessedness until that Kingdom was
come; and that it was understood that this Kingdom, so
glorious, could never be seen until the Lord Himself was
visibly present.
When the Apostle Paul declared of certain forms of
huge evil (e. g., of the Man of Sin) that these and he should
be destroyed only by the " brightness of the appearing of
THE REGENERATION. 159
the great God our Saviour," it was just in keeping with
the old doctrine of the " Regeneration" Isaiah had long
before portrayed (as I have shown) in his llth chapter,
and where he declares that the Root of Jesse shall " slay
the Wicked One with the breath of His mouth."
And when the Apostle John, in the Book of Revelation,
foreshows, in symbols with greater distinctness of detail, as
to time and circumstances, the King coining with the
heavenly warriors and overthrowing the opposing earth
powers, the binding of Satan for one thousand years, the
Resurrection of the saints and their session on thrones,
reigning with Christ, and then, at the close of the Millennial
day, the final attempt of Satan, his overthrow, the second
resurrection, and the judgment of the rest of the dead, the
destruction at last of Death and of Hades, and then the
appearance of the kingdom in its completed form of glory,
God dwelling with men, men His true people pain gone,
tears wiped away, death gone, sorrow and crying gone all
the former things passed away and He that sits on the
throne making all things new, what is it but a nearer view
and only a more distinct one under a fresh prophetical
insight of that same " Regeneration " which has been
spoken of, by all the holy prophets of God from the olden
time; the one faith and expectation of the church of God,
throughout every dispensation.
Thus the New Testament and the Old are in accord on
this great theme plainly written in all the prophets.
And what now, in the presence of all this concurrent
testimony, is the objection to this view so plainly written?
The objection is, alas ! that it is a carnal, earthly-minded,
view. Alas! Alas! Yes, says the objector, that plain mean-
ing is just the view which the old Jews in Christ's time held.
It is a carnal view, and as such was rebuked by Christ.
How strangely must the plain declarations of Scripture lead
160 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
astray, if this be the case ! But the objection is unfounded.
It is not a carnal view, nor was it ever rebuked by Christ.
Is it carnal to look for the return of the Lord from heaven?
or carnal to wish to see all the nations walking in holiness
before the Lord? or to see Israel pre-eminent in holy ser-
vice before the Lord? or the risen saints ruling with Him
in holy dignity? or all the earth like the garden of the
Lord ? What is meant by carnal ? Does it mean that all
this is associated with this earth, and, therefore, carnal ?
If this be meant, and if contact with the earth makes
carnal, then Christ must have been carnal in living here;
and Adam in his innocence carnal, simply because he lived
in Eden on the earth. But the earth was made good by
God; and the renewed earth will speak His praise as the
dwelling place of His people. If the souls of men are
holy, as they will be in the Regeneration, contact with the
earth can not make carnal.
There was, indeed, a carnal idea which some of the Jews
of Christ's time, and some, indeed, of all time have held.
And Jews are by no means alone in holding it. They
expected the Kingdom without any true renovation of
heart. They expected to be saved as mere descendants of
Abraham without regeneration of soul, without possessing
Abraham's spirit. This carnality Christ rebuked. And
so, indeed, all the way through the old Testament did their
own prophets rebuke it. In these very prophecies of the
future renovation and of Israel's renewal, return and glory,
the prophets told them at every pause, that this glory could
not occur at that time, because of the wickedness of the
people; and they assured them that it would come only
when this blindness and corruption of theirs was removed.
But the expectation of the " Regeneration " such as the
prophets painted it, did Christ ever rebuke this ? Never !
Every allusion to it by Christ and His apostles and His
THE FIltST RESURRECTION. 161
prophet John, only portrayed it again with greater dis-
tinctness and in brighter colors for faith and hope to dwell
upon, so that the Christian heart might be stimulated to
patience and duty.
This fourth view, then, we think, meets all the require-
ments of the Scripture. It accepts the plain and con-
sentaneous sense of the Scriptures. It is such as a plain
reader of the Bible would naturally infer. It shows a
harmony between the faith and hope of the Old Testament
church and the New Testament church. It requires no
departure from the ordinary rules of language. It brings
the Regeneration to the earth, and to man, just as the curse
was upon the earth and upon man. It alone meets all the
statements recorded in Scripture in reference to " the
Regeneration." It shows the all prevalent curse, here, on
the earth; the sufferings to meet that curse endured, here,
on the earth; and the glory to be revealed, here, on the
earth. It is elevating in its influence on the heart. It is
honoring to God.
We may sum up its results as follows: If we are asked
what that Regeneration is which the Scriptures foreshow,
it seems we must be " slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have spoken " of the glory to follow the sufferings
of Christ, if we receive not these things as truth.
1. That there is to be a thorough renewing, physical and
spiritual, of the earth and the race; "a new heaven and a
new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness;" " a Kingdom of
God under the whole heaven that shall abide forever." For
so the Prophets Isaiah and Daniel distinctly declare, and
the Apostle John sets it forth in symbol just as plainly.
2. That this Kingdom of God, promised from the begin-
ning, is identified with, and must not be expected inde-
pendently of, this earth on which we tread. For Isaiah
and all the prophets, in" every prophecy, speak of Israel
162 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
when restored, as abiding here forever. They testify that
all the nations of the earth from generation to generation
are to worship the Lord in this renewed earth, and the
Apostle John in Revelation makes no note of any other
condition of things up to the very last chapter.
3. That this Regeneration of the earth is to take place in
the visible presence of God's King, the Lord Jesus, who
"shall reign in Mount Zion and before His ancients glo-
riously." For to His presence, not only Isaiah witnesses
but Daniel also and Jeremiah and Zechariah, as already
shown speaking of Him sometimes as David's Son, some-
times as the true David, sometimes as the Lord our Right-
eousness. So does Christ Himself witness, for He says He
will personally come to the earth, and will cast out of the
kingdom all that offends; and "then the righteous shall
shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father."
And none can mistake the Apostle John's declaration that
it is in the visible presence of the returned Christ the reign
on earth shall take place.
4. That the saints of God from all ages shall reign with
Christ over the nations of the saved, the dead saints being
raised in the first resurrection, the living saints changed,
and both caught up and glorified. For so the Prophet
Zechariah declares: "The Lord my God shall come and
all the saints with Him." So Enoch testified before the
flood. (Jude 34 : 15.) And so Paul declares: " If we suffer
we shall reign with Him " that .is, reign when He reigns.
So Christ declares: " He that overcometh shall sit with Me
on My throne." So John declares: " They lived and reigned
with Christ."
5. That this Regeneration is to be preceded by a sweep-
ing away of all moral evil from the earth the almighty
act of vengeance on the part of the King against the
wicked powers of earth. For almost every prophecy 1 have
THE REGENERATION. 163
repeated, and which portrays the coming glory, testifies to
the "indignation of the Lord against all nations." (See the
prophecy in Isaiah, chap. 24 to chap. 27.) So also Christ
testifies, that at His coming, " He will send forth His
angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things
that offend and them who do iniquity." And so Ezekiel
shows at length. (Chap. 3D.) And so the Kevelation testi-
fies that Christ, attended by heaven's army, shall go forth
in battle against the Beast and the False Prophet and their
armies. (Rev., ch. 19.)
More especially, that these enemies shall be gathered
with intent against Jerusalem and the people of Israel
(possibly in the hope of proving the Scripture untrue by the
annihilation of that people), and that, there, shall be wit-
nessed the Lord's judgment against them. So Zechariah
testifies. (Ch. 13 and 14.) And further, that the last and
highest form of evil, Satan's masterpiece, the Man of Sin,
shall then be destroyed. So Isaiah declares. (Chap. 11:4.)
And so the Apostle Paul testifies to the Thessalonians. (2
Thess. 2: 8.)
6. That the earth is to be purified by fire. Isaiah the
prophet testifies: " The Lord will come with fire and with
His chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger with
fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and
by sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain
of the Lord shall be many." (Chap. 66:15, 16.) The
Apostle Peter also testifies " that the elements shall melt with
fervent heat," and thence the new heavens and new earth
shall emerge. And, lest any should doubt whether God can
save any alive under such circumstances, the apostle points,
in his second epistle, to Noah saved and to Lot saved
amidst a general destruction, in order to show that " the
Lord knows how to deliver (frveo-Sai e/c 7mpa<7//oi>) the godly out
of trial, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment
to be punished." (2 Pet. 2:4-10.)
164 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
7. That after the desolating judgments with which the
returning Lord and King will visit the nations, there will
still be some left when the storm has passed by, who will
doubtless form the source from which the nations will spring
who shall dwell on the earth during the Millennial era. For
so Isaiah testifies as to this spared remnant in the midst of
the wide-spread destruction on the earth. (Ch. 24: 5, 6, 13,
16, 21, 22.) And so Zechariah declares, also, that some shall
escape of the nations destroyed of the Lord when they come
against Jerusalem, and that these shall afterward serve Him.
(Ch. 14:16.) And so John declares in the Revelation:
That, after the desolating judgments foretold in chap. 19:
13, 21, there will nevertheless be nations living during the
Millennial era, who are not deceived by Satan then bound.
(Rev. 20:3.)
8. That this Regeneration shall be attended by the
national repentance and conversion of the Jewish people,
their gathering to their own laud, and their perpetual resi-
dence there, exalted as a people to be a blessing in all the
earth. This, many passages already quoted, declare. (See
Isaiah 61: 7-9; 60:9-14.)
9. That in the " Regeneration," therefore, there will be
living men in the flesh, distinct from the glorified saints
who rule with Christ, and these men will be organized as
nations. For so Isaiah speaks of the remnant who are
escaped of the nations after the Lord's judgment of the
ungodly. So John speaks of the nations of the earth (after
the curse is gone) as walking in the light of the New Jeru-
salem. So the prophets speak of Israel as being a gathered
nation from generation to generation; u their seed and
their seed's seed dwelling in the land forever." So they
tell us of the nations ever rejoicing in Israel's joy.
(Ezek.chap. 36, chap. 37; Is. 61: 9.) So they speak of the
King Messiah reigning " as long as the sun and moon
THE REGENERATION.
endure;" all kings meantime bowing before Him " through-
out all generations;" and "all nations calling Him blessed."
(Psalm 72: 5-11-17.)
10. That to bring about this blessed condition of things
the Spirit shall be poured out in an unprecedented manner
on all flesh. So the Prophet Joel declares (chap. 2: 28-32)
pointing, by his predicted signs to the end of this dispen-
sation of the Spirit, and to the conversion of the Gentiles
(that are spared) most probably by Jewish instrumental^
a pregnant prophecy that takes in the whole Messianic time,
as one vast period, the beginning and end of which, are
foreshortened into one and the same picture. And so
Isaiah intimates, as to the times of the new heavens and
new earth.
" I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of
them unto the nations to Tarshish, Pul and Lud, that draw the bow, to
Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame,
neither have seen my glory ; and they shall declare my glory among the
Gentiles." (Is. 66: 18-20.)
And so the Apostle James intimates:
" 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 David which is
fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it
up ; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the
Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all
these things ; known unto God are all his works from the beginning of
the world." (Acts 15 : 15-18.)
11. That Satan, the Arch Enemy, will be then bound so
as to deceive the nations no more until the thousand years
are past. So the Apostle John declares explicitly. (Kev.
20:1-7.)
12. That all the nations shall then be holy. So Isaiah
says to Israel:
"All thy children shall be taught of God." "None shall say to
another, know the- Lord, for all shall know Him." " They shall not
hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of
166 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." "All nations
shall come and worship before Thee." (Is. 54: 13; Jer. 31: 34; Is.
11: 9; Rev. 15: 4.)
13. That the race, on earth then made holy, will continue
on the earth, in perpetual generations. For so Psalm 72d
intimates, as already quoted, (vv. 5, 7, 8, IT.) So God
declares that the earth will abide safe from destruction by
flood under His everlasting covenant, throughout "perpetual
generations." (Gen. 9: 12-17.) So Psalm 145: 13, testifies,
that the Lord's Kingdom continues, as an everlasting
Kingdom (Heb. Kingdom of the Ages) "throughout
all generations" And thus generations continue as
long as the Kingdom continues. So Psalm 135: 13, tells
us that God's memorial is like His name, forever,
even from generation to generation." So Isaiah testifies,
that of the increase of Christ's Kingdom on the throne
of David there will be no end. (Is. 9: 6, 7.) And
as His Kingdom is to embrace all the nations of Israel,
and all the nations of the earth, its increase must, in
accord with these other Scriptures, be by the never-
ending generations which shall come under its beneficent
sway. So also Isaiah testifies (59: 31), and Joel with
him (3: 20), that Israel shall continue " from genera-
tion to generation, forever." So Daniel also declares
(chap. 7: 13, 14, 18, 27) that Christ's Kingdom on earth is to
be a Kingdom wherein " all peoples, nations and languages
shall serve Him," and that this Kingdom, embracing all
nations and languages, " shall not pass away nor be destroyed
forever." Paul also speaks of " glory being given to
God by the church in Christ, unto all the generations of
the Age of Ages" The rendering of our version, " through-
out all ages world without end, "-is a paraphrase and not
a translation. The words are, '?v TJJ 'vtKb/oip ev xptoru 'irjaov etc
yeveaf TOV aiuvoq ruv aiuvuv. (Eph. 3*. 21.) TllC u church"
THE REGENERATION. 167
is the one body of believers of Jews and Gentiles, fellow-
heirs in Christ, of which Paul had just been speaking.
They are to be raised from the dead and glorified together
as Christ's bride reigning with Him over the nations. And
Paul tells us that praise shall be rendered to God by this
glorified church, throughout all the perpetual generations
of men dwelling on the earth.
And so, finally, the Apostle John, in the Apocalypse,
gives not the slightest intimation of any cessation of the
nations on the earth. On the contrary, even after the
second resurrection is passed, and Satan cast out, and after
the Kingdom is established in its glory, these nations are
represented as still walking in the light of the heavenly
rule of Christ and His saints symbolized by the New
Jerusalem come down out of heaven to earth. (Rev. 21:
22-27; 22: 1-5.)
14. That the curse shall be removed from the earth itself,
and inanimate creation made to participate in the joy of
the " sons of God." So testify the prophets. The waste
places are to be made like Eden, and the deserts like the gar-
den of the Lord. (Ez. 34: 27; 36: 11,29, 30, 34-36. Is. 51:
3. Ps. 67: 4-6.) And so the Apostle Paul represents the
case in his account of the Palingenesia, towards which the
creature, "made subject to vanity for man's sake," looks
forward with ardent expectation. (Rom. 8: 18-23.)
Thus the Regeneration will be a blessed change affecting
the whole earth and the race living upon it. The long
"Winter has indeed stripped off the foliage and made it for
a long time look like waste and barren. But the reviving
Spring is soon to come and bring forth a "Summer" of
glory, forever. (Luke 21: 30.) The centuries of earth's
curse and earth's disorders and sins will indeed have been
among men endured. That fact must remain forever true.
And they " who knew not God, and obeyed not the gospel "
168 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
and died in their sins, must indeed be cast out from God
forever. But the race, as a race, is redeemed, and sees at
length all nations of the earth walking with God. Christ's
blood avails to the uttermost generation. "None need
say to another Know the Lord, for all shall know Him
from the least to the greatest." "All thy children shall
be taught of God and great shall be the peace of thy chil-
dren." " From generation to generation they shall come up
to Jerusalem to serve the Lord." "For all the ends of
the world shall worship God." So testify Isaiah and all
the prophets.
Doubtless, time will be needed, after the Lord comes to
introduce the Millennial reign, before His glory is com-
pleted. God's word declares so. Peter speaks, not merely
of the Restitution, but of the " times " of the Restitution,
a vast period. And the Apostle Paul testifies " He
must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet," and
that " the last enemy which shall be destroyed is Death."
(ICor. 15:25, 26.)
It would seem from this that during the Millennial reign
which is, indeed, a far brighter and more blessed era, and
immeasurably more glorious than the present; and while all
sorrow and care shall then be gone; and, as Isaiah declares,
the longevity of God's elect shall be " as the days of a
tree," (Isa. 65 : 22) yet Satan is not completely overthrown
until its close, and while other enemies are not destroyed
Death must still continue. For, as Paul declares, Death i&
the last enemy to be destroyed. At the close comes Satan's
final effort, his overthrow, the general judgment, the banish-
ment of the wicked dead to hell, and last of all, Death and
Hades are destroyed. And then the Kingdom is seen in its
final form of perennial blessedness the Regeneration is
completed.
Thus the Seed of the woman will have entirely destroyed
THE REGENERATION. 169*
all the works of the Devil, and the curse, uttered in Eden, is
wiped away. At the fall, there hung in hideous darkness
over man, alienation from God, a cursed earth, pains and
labors and tears, death, the grave and Hades. Now at last all
are gone even the last enemy, Death, gone- forever
and so the triumphant voice of gladness from heaven at
last announces its arrival.
" I heard* a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the taber-
nacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them ; and they shall
be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be
no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any
more pain. For the former things are passed away. And He that
sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new." (Rev. 21 : l-5.>
It is the glorious word of victory uttered by the Son, {nrarerdKrai ! all
things " subjected!' ykyovs \ " it is done!" the regenesis is accomplished t
Glory! Glory! Eternal Glory !
" One song employs all nations;
" Worthy the Lamb for He was slain for us.
" The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
" Shout to each other; and the mountain tops
" From distant mountains catch the flying joy,
" Till nation after nation taught the strain,
" Earth rolls the rapturous hosannah round.
"Thus heavenward all things tend. For all once were
" Perfect, and all must be at length restored.
" Come, then, and added to Thy many crowns
" Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth ;
" Thou who alone art worthy ! It was Thine
" By ancient covenant ere nature's birth ;
" And Thou hast made it Thine by purchase since
" And overpaid its value by Thy Blood.
" Come, then, and added to Thy many crowns,
"Receive yet one as radiant as the rest,
" Due to Thy last and most effectual work,
44 Thy word fulfilled the conquest of a world."
What a joy does it bring to the heart to contemplate the
blessedness which this earth, so long the abode of sin and
sorrow, shall one day see forever; True, indeed, many shall
170 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
never lift their eyes on that day of peace and blessing.
They are given up to this present world. Christ says,
" Except a man be born again he shall never see the King-
dom of God." How sad to have seen this earth only in its
sorrows and never in its bridal day of joy and gladness!
But to the holy nations dwelling on the earth in that time of
perfected glory, what words can describe the joy which the
scenes of that day will yield! What a contrast between
the earth at its best estate now and the redeemed earth then!
It is true, indeed, that even now, while the curse still hangs
as a blight upon us, God's mercy does soften the curse.
Like a bright star hung on the horizon, when clouds cover
the sky, still giving token of the glories of the concealed
heaven, so God's mercy-drops sweeten the bitter cup even of
the present. But what will it be when the light fills all the
heavens! Think of the households, for example, of the
earth redeemed. Ye mothers of the present world, tried
and anxious, think of them. There will be then no fear for
that lovely circle around the mother's knee, for the inhabi-
tants of that world shall never say, " I am sick;" no fear
of evil passions springing up within those young hearts,
for all temptation and sin will be gone; no doubt of their
future character, for " all their children shall be taught of
God;" no days of watching or nights of anxiety and weak-
ness. All the earth filled with homes of holiness and
peace! Oh, glorious day begin!
Think of the intercourse of the nations in that day
Even now, indeed, we have Christian civilization, and this
has meliorated the condition and the intercourse of the
world. We go to a foreign shore, and we are sure of
restraining laws and of mercy for strangers. We are sure
of a guard for our persons and the means of health, and
yet how every street and every abode, high and low, tells
of sore needs, and of poverty, and crime, and sorrow, and
THE REGENERATION. 171
sin. But what a brotherhood will the holy nations of that
day present! The wanderer from his own home will only
exchange one home and welcome for another. From North
to South, from East to West, all nations sing the same song
of redeeming love. All bow in fealty to the same glorious
King; all show the same fruits of the Spirit. Every appoint-
ment of government shall be in conformity with the right-
eous rule, to do honor to the King of all the earth and to
bless all under its sway. For, "A King shall reign in
righteousness and princes shall rule in judgment; and a
Man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert
from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
It is a blessedness to us now to know that God's holy
angels watch over us, " ministers to the heirs of salvation."
But in that day, when the Lord is here, shall not angels
visit men as they did in Eden? But even more than this;
what must be the blessedness of men to behold their own
flesh and blood raised to honor and glory with Christ, and
ruling and watching over angels! Nay, even more still; to
see God's own Son in their own nature, King of Kings and
Lord of Lords, ruling in the whole earth?
And to the Lord Himself, will that day of earth's Regen-
eration bring no special joy? Will He not see in it of the
travail of His soul, and be satisfied ? Will it be no joy to
behold this earth where Satan so long ruled as Prince of
this world, and Christ's fellow men were ruined, and where
His own blessed feet trod the thorny path of sorrow, and
where His heart was weighed down with grief for man's
sins, and where He hung on the cross, and where He lay
in the grave, become the place of His triumph and the
scene of His glory ?
And what of that precious blood shed upon Calvary ?
Will its virtue be expended in redeeming only a part of the
172 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
race; then to see that race cut short and no further appli-
cations of that precious blood? That would be but a partial
triumph indeed. Satan would, in this view, have led cap-
tive still the great multitude of men in all ages; and death
would still reign down to the very last generation. But to
see the end of sin on the earth come to see the blood made
availing before God for countless generations, never to lose
its power of adding new trophies to God's grace! That will
magnify Christ's blood and Christ's righteousness indeed.
Men look back to Eden sometimes, and sigh to think that
by Adam's fall the race lost the happiness they might
have enjoyed if Adam had stood. But what, at the
best, would this have been? A world standing in its own
righteousness, and hence probably exposed in every genera-
tion to fall. But the redeemed earth will see its millions
saved forever, beyond all fear of falling, for Christ's blood
and Christ's righteousness " perfects forever." (Heb. 10 :14.)
What God will do with this earth, regenerated, and with
its saved race, we know not. One thing we know: He
who will sit as King over all in human nature, our Brother,
is appointed of the Father, Head over all things the Head
of creation. We know, too, as the apostle tells us, that it
is God's design " to show in the ages to come the exceeding
riches of His grace, in His kindness towards us in Christ
Jesus." (Eph. 2-7.) But who may be the students of
these marvels of mercy we know not. God's word reveals
no more. Only let us be sure that a world redeemed by
the blood of God's own Son, and bound to Him, through the
requirements of the covenant of mercy in everlasting fel-
lowship, is not saved without some object worthy of
God who redeems it.
Let us then, brethren, hear the voice which comes to us
through all God's holy prophets. Amidst the temptations,
and the vain show, and the sorrows of this world, let us
THE REGENERATION. 173
cheer our hearts with a believing view of the coming glory,
when all the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord, and men shall say: "Behold, this land which was
desolate is become like the garden of Eden." Let us pray
for Israel, that the Lord may pardon his iniquities and
bring in the day of his deliverance. Let us diligently
spread the Lord's glorious " Gospel of the Kingdom " to all
lands under heaven, and by His aid gather out of every
nation a people to His praise. Let us keep our garments
white, that we walk not naked in the day of His coming, and
men see our shame. Let us beware of having " our hearts
surcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares
of this life, and so that day which shall come as a snare
upon all the earth," come upon us, too, unawares. Let
us rejoice over our dying ones, that they are soon to come
again with the Lord and see the glory of the Regeneration.
And let us never cease to pray, as our only hope for the
approach of that day of glory, "Come, Lord Jesus; come
quickly 1 "
174 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHUECH.
BY PROFESSOR H. LUMMIS, METUODIST, MONSON, MASS.
THERE are, doubtless, words in the Sacred Scriptures that
are very imperfectly understood, some that are not under-
stood at all. The meaning given in our version, for example,
may be the best that is known, and yet no careful student
of the Bible can safely accept these temporary substitutes
as the strict equivalents of the original words. The words
which name the theme now presented are not of this obscure
class. They are used so often and in so many different
connections that it is not a little surprising to find such
divergencies of opinion as to their real meaning. And
yet no more so perhaps than in a score of kindred cases
where differences depend less on the data than on the point
of observation, and on the wishes that fashion results. I
do not believe that differing views are both right where
they antagonize, but I think I do see why differences and
antagonisms exist, and also that they have a ground less
iu truth itself, than in circumstances. If the Spirit of truth
direct us, there is no good reason why we should not arrive
at substantial agreement.
The word basileia, uniformly rendered kingdom in our
version (with but a single exception, Rev. 17: 18,) occurs
in the New Testament 159 times in the received text. Two
of these, Matthew 6: 33, and Mark 1: 14, are wanting in the
critical texts, while two, Rev. 1: 6, (instead of basileia,
kings), and Rev. 5:10, are added by the critical texts.
This uniformity of rendering is almost remarkable in a
word occurring so often, especially when we remember that
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 17 5-
our translators so often varied a rendering for rhetorical
effect. Another point worthy of passing notice is, that no
word is rendered kingdom in the ^&w Testament. Basileia
occurs in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament 248
times as the rendering of some derivative of the root malak
of the verb itself. Such a multitude of occurrences under so
great a variety of circumstances gives so complete a key to
the idea, that any ordinarily bright child of ten years old,
if all verses in which the word kingdom occurs were
given to it, with this word obliterated, the child's wisdom
would be able to supply the proper sign for the idea. The
word as to its root-idea was one of the every-day words of
Hebrew life, and one of the common words to the Hellen-
izing Jew. That this is true is recognized by the foremost
scholars of the age. I quote but one, Dr. E. B. Pusey, one
of the very first Hebrew scholars of the English Church.
I give an estimate of his scholarship by Dr. J. J. Stewart
Perowne, the very able translator and annotator of the
Psalms, himself regarded as one of the most competent
exegetes in England. Dr. Perowne says of Dr. Pusey, in
regard to his Commentary on Daniel: "He has brought to
bear on this point (the genuineness of Daniel) a perfect
encyclopaedia of learning. It is by far the most complete
work which has yet appeared, no continental writer having
handled the subject with any thing like the same fulness or
breadth of treatment." Dr. Pusey thus speaks concerning
the expressions, "Kingdom of God," "Kingdom of
Heaven." These phrases occur in the gospels as words
as well known to the whole Jewish people as faith, hope,
charity, worship or any other religious term. They are
not explained, but are assumed to be understood. Of these
equivalent terms, the Kingdom of Heaven is especially
suggested by Daniel's words: "The God of Heaven shall
set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, as also
176 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
by the contract with those kingdoms of man which should
arise from the earth," pp. 84-85. " Daniel foretold, not a
kingdom in Israel only, not a conversion of the heathen
only, but that He who sat above, in form like a son of man,
should be worshipped by all peoples, nations and languages,
and that this kingdom should not pass away." Ib., p. 87.
It is generally admitted that the Jews of the time of
Christ, and for a time preceding, had been expecting,
eagerly, the coming of the Messiah, the establishment
of a kingdom on the earth and a sway over the nations.
"Why should they not? Had there been anything in the
prophecies already fulfilled that would lead them to expect
a mystical application of those glowing words that prom-
ised a deliverer and a king? Look over the pages of
prophecy. Ponder the historical record which relates to
the fulfillment of some of these. Remember, too, that
Israel as a Nation had been witness to many of the most
remarkable of them. I quote a passage from Isaiah,
13:17-22.
Take another passage from Jeremiah, 34:2, 3; also
24: 4, 5. Again, God speaks thus through Jeremiah:
" Behold I will send and take all the families of the North,
saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon,
my servant, and will bring them against this land, and
against the inhabitants thereof. . . . And this whole
land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these
nations shall serve the King of Babylon seventy years."
(Jer. 25: 9-11.)
ACCURACY OF THE PROPHECIES.
My limits forbid me to quote at length, as I might, the
foretold return; the declaration that Cyrus should perform
the Lord's pleasure in the restoration of Israel ; that Jeru-
salem should be rebuilt and the foundation of the temple
relaid. I note these striking predictions to show that the
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 177
Jews had full warrant to expect a King as literally such as
was David or Solomon, and a kingdom as literally such as was
theirs. I am amazed when men talk about the obscurity
of unfulfilled prophecy. If in the Book of Daniel and in
Revelation there be a difficulty and obscurity, it grows out
of the symbols used, and not out of the prophecy. History
recorded in symbols would be just as dark and hard to
understand without the key to the symbols.
If any man is familiar with the history that gives the
facts that followed these prophecies, and, as believers in the
Bible as a reliable record hold, in fulfillment of these
prophecies, he must see the marvellous correspondence with
the literal statements of the prophecy and the simple facts
that followed. God, through the prophet, declares that He
will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and the Medes are
actors in the taking of Babylon and the slaughters that
follow. The desolations of the laud harmonize so fully
with the prophecy that one needs only to change the tenses
to have the history. This the undersigned testimony of
iniidel writers fully confirms. The prophecy to Zedekiah
that he should see the eyes of the King of Babylon, and
yet that he should not see Babylon though he should die
there, that he should not die by violence, but that he should
die in peace, are literally in striking harmony with the
facts of history. To declare as some do that the prophecies
are designed in a general way to give consolation and hope
to believers under trial by a bright picture of future good,
shows an extraordinary ignorance of the prophetic Scrip-
tures, which are crowded with minatory as really as with
consolatory predictions.
The Jews had experienced in detail so literal a fulfillment
of the woes and bitterness of long-threatened captivity in
case they forgot God, that it would be astounding if they
did not read the prophecies as foreseen history.
12
178 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
If it be said that they evidently did misunderstand the
prophecies that referred to Christ, it will be fair to ask,.
" did they misunderstand the prophecy that spoke of the
place of His birth ? " When anxious Herod heard that one
had been born King of the Jews he evidently dreaded inter-
ference with his own claim on the crown of Palestine. But
when he asked where the Messiah should be born, unhesi-
tatingly the Scribes, conversant with the prophets, replied :
In Bethlehem, of Judea, for thus it is written by the
prophet: " And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judea, are
not the least among the princes of Judea, for out of thee
shall come forth a Governor, that shall rule my people
Israel." This place was Bethlehem, the very birthplace of
David, literal Bethlehem ; the birth was not mystical, but
literal ; was Israel to be mystical Israel, and the rule mys-
tical rule? Later in the history of the King Jesus, they
might have read, and some of them doubtless did: u He
made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His
death." Was the grave a figurative one, was the death
figurative? (Isa. 53:9.) Were not all the terms of the
prophecy wicked, rich, grave, death to be taken in the
strictest natural meaning? There was one respect in which
the willful and wicked Jews went wrong, but it was not in
taking the prophecies that spoke of Christ literally, as lit-
erally as if they had been simply written history. They
did not clearly apprehend, as they would have done if they
had sat at the feet of Jesus in a teachable spirit, and had
listened to His unfolding of the plan of His mission, that
the glory of the King was not to appear before He should
come to His Kingdom. They were right, entirely right, in
associating with the Messiah power and great glory, power
exerted, glory displayed; but they were wrong in expecting
royal dignity in the surroundings of His cradle, and royal
splendor in the associations of His boyhood. They over-
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 179
looked the foretold lowliness in the foretold glory. Had
they received Him meek and lowly, as it was foretold
He should be, they might have seen the King in His beauty,
as they will see Him at His return, after judicial
blindness and eclipse of their faith for almost twenty
centuries.
Is it presuming to suppose that if the people of Israel
had received their King when He came, and just as He
was, in the spirit of good old Simeon, that the world
would have waited through this long night of wretchedness?
Might not the Messiah with His sympathetic, energetic
subjects have wrought speedily the work that has been
done, so far as it has been done so feebly, so apathetically,
so inefficiently, by the Church? Israel delayed, as Chris-
tians have delayed, and are still delaying, instead of hasten-
ing, the coming of the day of God. No " hastening unto
the day of God," as our version unfortunately reads. It
was right that the Jews should expect in tfie Kingdom of
the Messiah prosperity. Stretch that word to its utmost
limit let it comprise all good it means, it can mean no
more than the prophecies implicitly or explicitly foretell.
No more than Israel might anticipate under their King,
the literal descendant of David, the lineal heirto his throne.
Do not let me be annoyed by the suggestions that all bless-
ings to the eye, to the ear, to the taste, that Paradise
restored on earth must be inconsistent with the spiritual
good higher good certainly God designs to bring to
men through His Son. The tithe of mint, and cummin, and
anise was a little thing; that it should take the place of
judgment, and mercy, and faith was a shameful thing. But
the perfect teacher put each in its proper place. " These,"
He says, "ye ought to have done, and not to leave the other
undone." (Matt. 23: 23.) The Messianic Kingdom would
be incomplete if that good which the pious Jew anticipated,
180 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
a glorious kingdom on earth, were left out, as, thank God,
it will not be.
The lofty eyes that overlook all physical good are less
broad in their scope than the eyes that look above and
below and around, beholding all. Not that seeing part
is seeing falsely it is seeing partially. Arraigning one
that sees other parts is judging falsely. Many a visitor
has ascended the slope of Mt. Washington, drawn by the
snorting iron horse whose neighings echoed back from cliff
and ravine, and has seen that rugged, rock-crowned summit
gray with the mosses and lichens of unnumbered centuries,
as the misty robe that draped the giant peak was lifted by
the careering winds. He has a right to speak of the sub-
lime view which he has seen. But he has made only one
ascent; he has looked from one position only, although a
favored spot it may be, and one that affords the finest view
of the monarch of New England hills. But if he forgets
or ignores the farriage road up from the Glen House; if
he overlooks the bridle-path that winds up through the
wooded hills and bending valleys and steep, precipitous
acclivities from the Crawford ; if he counts not the devious
foot-way of the lone pedestrian who, by some hitherto
untrodden course, has clambered to the crown of the moun-
tain king, he has not a complete picture of the loftiest of
the White Hills. The modern theologian who, conceiving
the Kingdom of Jesus, looks upward and views the blue sky
and gold and crimson clouds, and the brightness of the
resplendent sun, has a charming picture, even if it be a little
etherial. But to complete its beauty he needs the hills and
valleys, flowing as of old in the land of Canaan, with milk
and honey, the palace towers of Jerusalem the golden, the
white-robed company marching with crowns on their heads
and with palms in their hands to strains of celestial music,
the opening doors of the royal mansion and the broad table
THE KFXGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 181
spread with ambrosial viands, fit for the children and the
brothers and sisters of a king, and the seated guests, the
patriarchs and prophets, and all the godly race. No timid-
ity induced by skepticism within the nominal Church of
God, or without, shall make me minish aught of what my
Father's legacy warrants me to expect. I shall see the King
in His glory, and be fellow heir with Abraham. In com-
pany with the meek I shall possess the earth. An humble
and unworthy brother of Jesus Christ, I am to have the
body of my humiliation made like the body of His glory.
A KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD.
If there were but a single Old Testament prophecy of
this kingdom, one made definite by passing from its picture
form in which it was at first given to the great King of
Babylon, and afterward to that prince among the seers,
Daniel, of the Children of the Captivity, it would establish
on a foundation, not to be shaken, the doctrine of the king-
dom, a kingdom in this world, a kingdom embracing the
globe and to be possessed by the saints. A king, a realm,
a multitude of subjects are requisite to a kingdom in the
strict sense. I give the outline. Nebuchadnezzar dreams
a dream. It troubles him. He wishes to know its signifi-
cation, but before he can state it to his magicians and
astrologers and sorcerers, and to the Chaldeans, it escapes his
memory. He requires these men to tell the dream and its
interpretation. With good reason they reply to this strange
demand, that the requirement is beyond human power. In
anoer the monarch gives orders that all the wise men of
the kingdom be slain. As one of them, Daniel is threat-
ened by the decree. H seeks the King and asks time,
giving assurance that both dream and interpretation will
be given. God reveals the dream to the prophet, and he,
acknowledging the Most High as the source of his wisdom,
182 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
states before the King the dream and its signification. In
the dream is seen a great image of gold and silver and
copper and iron and clay. A stone cut out of a moun-
tain without hands smites the image upon the feet. The
shock pulverizes the image, and the dust is carried away by
the wind, like chaff blown from the summer threshing-
floor. The stone becomes a mountain and fills the earth.
In telling the meaning of the dream Daniel declares that
the different parts of the image represent successive king-
doms, the four metals and the clay signifying the strength,
and at the same time the weakness of the last of the four
sovereignties. Daniel closes his interpretation with these
remarkable words:
"And in the days of these kings, shall the God of Heaven set up a
Kingdom which shall never (to eternity shall not) be destroyed, and the
Kingdom shall not be left (transferred) to other people, but it shall
break in pieces and consume (grind up and make an end of) all these
Kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that
the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake
in pieces the iron, the copper, the clay, the silver and the gold ; the
great God hath made known what shall come to pass hereafter, and the
dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure," or trustworthy,
rendered " faithful " in Dan. 6 : 4.
The prophet declares to the king that God has made
known to him (not that something shall come to pass, but)
what shall come to pass. A parallel to this dream picture
and its simple prophetic meaning is given us in the first
book of the Bible. Pharaoh dreams of seven fat and
of seven very lean kine that come up out of the great river
of Egypt. The lean kine, after devouring the fat kine, are
still as lean as before. In his perplexity Pharaoh summons
Joseph, the Jewish captive, who at once interprets the
dream. The seven fat kine mean seven years of great
plenty. The seven lean kine, seven following years of very
grievous famine, which shall exhaust the abundance of the
years of plenty, and leave the people greatly straitened
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 183
by want. One advantage is found here. The history in
which the prophecy is fulfilled is recorded, and no com-
pleter evidence could be given that the prophetic meaning
given to the dream was in the strictest and most literal
sense of the words realized. Any intelligent grammar-
school-boy could understand Joseph's interpretation, and
could understand that the succeeding history records the
fulfillment of what Joseph foretold, what Pharaoh under-
stood; and therefore appointed Joseph to superintend the
storing of the abundance of the years of plenty to provide
for the corning famine.
Just so the interpretation given by Daniel to Nebuchad-
nezzar. It avails not to say the passage occurs in a confess-
edly obscure and difficult book this part of the book is no
more obscure than the following chapter which tells of the
image of gold set up on the Plain of Dura, and of the
.three Hebrew children thrown into the fiery furnace.
Nebuchadnezzar's dream, like that of Pharoah, was a pic-
ture prophecy, and without a key could not be understood,
could not be explained. The God of Heaven gives the
dream and the key to its meaning to Daniel, and Daniel
gives them to the King. If the King understood what
kingdom meant when applied to his own empire and sov-
ereignty, he understood what it meant when applied to the
Kingdom that the God of Heaven should set up. To
maintain that Kingdom, as used in the latter case, meant
an entirely different thing, is as worthy the charge of ter-
giversation, as assigning different meanings to aionios in
the last verse of the 25th chapter of Matthew is, " These
shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the right-
eous into life eternal." It has been pressed with great
force that the word must be parallel in duration in each
case. Let those who denounce the denial of this claim
.abide by their own rule in this second chapter of Daniel,
184 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
The implication in the interpretation, and this has been
generally admitted by commentators, is, that these great
empires represent universal world empires, each successive
one merging its predecessor in its own sovereignty.
With even greater force, the explanation of Daniel
implies the forcible reduction of all other political power
to nothing, and the occupation of absolutely universal world
dominion. Albert Barnes, in his notes on Daniel, remarks,
here: "The language would seem to imply some violent
action; some positive crushing force, something like that
which occurs in conquests when nations are subdued."
This is evident, even in a close translation. Adam Clarke
uses even stronger language. " Here He (Christ) is repre-
sented under the notion of a stone projected from a cata-
pult, or some military engine, which smote the image on
its feet, that is, it smote the then existing government at
its foundation, or principles of support, and by destroying
these, brought the whole into ruin." It is true that, with
astonishing incongruity, the stone from the catapult is
made to smite Constantine into a Christian. (The dust ha&
surely blown away very slowly.) It is still smiting by the
circulation of the Bible and by missionary societies. Gen-
tle crushing this! Exceedingly gradual pulverizing! Most
tender breaking in pieces, consuming slower than the con-
suming of iron rust! " Britain," writes the venerable,
charming, but most inconsequent commentator, " is Chris-
tian without the altering of her Magna Charta or her Con-
stitution," and I might add (if it did not shade on sacri-
lege in such a connection) without diminishing aught of her
rapacity in the expansion of her vast domain, without lift-
ing her heavy heel from the necks of subject or intimidated
nations. Alas for my ideal, if even England, in this year
of grace, 1878, is, or typin'es, the Kingdom of God!
It can not be! There is to be it has not yet come
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH.
breaking with a rod of iron shivering to pieces as a pot-
ter's vessel is shivered. The clang of the stone striking the
feet of the huge image has not yet been heard ; the crumbling
of dynasties and the sweeping away of their debris as with
the breath of a tempest has not yet been seen. But it
approacheth! When the history, whether it be seen but
not written, or seen and then written, shall transpire, there*
will not be need of 1,550 years to know whether the crushing
stroke from the catapult missile has smitten temporal
thrones out of existence. He who witnesses the downward
sweep of that stone cut out of the mountain, will hear the
last cry of human woe under human oppression before its
shivering shock takes place, and see every shackle that
human greed has forged and locked on the limbs of cringing
slaves shattered forever under the earthquake convulsion of
that approaching hour. Thereafter, under the sway of the
Son of God, will the gates of commerce be forced by the
enginery of war to thrust into a resisting nation's throat
and against a monarch's loud protest a drug that dwarfs
and poisons the body and degrades the soul? Will liquor-
leagues control legislators and bribe judges, after a mightier
bolt than Yulcan ever forged or Jove ever brandished shall
have been hurled ? Reason answers No ; and prophecy, from
the shores of the Euphrates, thunders down along the cen-
turies, over crumbling dynasties and regal dust, an author-
itative No. Christ's Kingdom established, iniquity can not
triumph !
Objections have been filed against this view of the
Kingdom. Some are entitled to consideration more from
the position and real ability of those who offer them, than
for any Bible support that has ever been found or even
offered for them.
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
HAS CHRIST'S KINGDOM COME?
It is maintained that Christ's visible Kingdom has come,
that it is already established. " The Christian Church is the
kingdom of God on earth viewed in its objective or institu-
tional form. God's Kingdom among men is as old as human
history." Dr. William F. Warren, President of Boston
University. If this bold statement be true, was John the
Baptist mistaken when he declared to the thronging multi-
tudes, from Judea and Jerusalem and the region around
about Jordan, " The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand?"
Was Joseph, of Arimathea, wrong in waiting for the King-
dom of God? He was a good man, and doubtless shared
in the common earnest looking for and expecting of the
Kingdom. Had no Apostle, had no word from the Son of
Man, enlightened his darkness? When the robber on the
cross with some apparent apprehension of Christ and His
character, cried: " Lord, remember me when thou comest in
Thy kingdom" was he altogether mistaken in deeming
that, a time to come, instead of a time gone by? And He
who was addressed by the penitent man knew the fact, if
the Kingdom of God on earth was already four thousand
years old and commencing on the fifth, might we not sup-
pose He would have thrown a ray of light along with the
word of comfort, and have said: " We are in my Kingdom
now, but I can Bay even a better thing to thee; to-day shalt
thou be with me in Paradise" Doubtless, it would have
seemed strange to this man, who unquestionably knew the
-conditions of authority and rule among men, to hear Christ
speak as a King in His own established Kingdom, while He
hung upon the cross as a malefactor with these two acknowl-
edged law-breakers. Was Paul wrong when lie declared,
" Flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God,
neither doth corruption inherit incorruption?" He spoke
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 17
as if the Kingdom of God was immutable, and as if the
mortal and perishable could not enter into it.
Even against Dr. AVarren, I judge, that John and Joseph
and the robber on the cross and Paul were right, and that the
Kingdom of God in the New Testament sense had not
then, at least, come. Even a higher than Paul had taught
his disciples to pray; u Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be
done on earth as it is done in Reaven. " Thy Kingdom " was
God's Kingdom. If the Kingdom was as old as the race
the prayer seems .a paradox more striking than any Paul
ever uttered. If the Doctor should say, " God is a Uni-
versal Sovereign and is ruler over the earth/' and confirm
the utterance by the sublime declaration of the Psalmist,
" the Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens and
His Kingdom ruleth overall," (Ps. 103: 19) or " Thy King-
dom is an everlasting Kingdom, and Thy dominion through-
out all generations,''' (Ps. 145: 13) it would be legitimate to
inquire, is the kingdom of which the Psalmist speaks and
the dominion associated with it, the Church? to which I
trow, the answer must be "Nay." The dominion of the
everlasting God and His Kingdom in the sense of the
Psalmist is not merely as old as human history, but as old
as creation itself, and antedates the day when "the morning
stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for
joy."
Is the Christian Church, or the Kingdom of God in its
objective form as old as human history? Dr. Charles
Hodge, clerum et venerabile nomen, seems to range with
the Boston theologian. In his magnificent work he writes:
" The Church under the new dispensation is identical with
that under the old. It is not a new church but one and
the same " (as the old). Speculative philosophy and theology
build slightly and lofty structures, but the artillery of the
word of God like a mighty Krupp gun turned against the
188 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
marble walls of some imposing palace built for beauty rather
than for strength at one discharge levels the lofty walls and
leaves the building a ruin. Christ addresses the fisherman
Simon thus : " Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build
my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against
it." At that moment in the ministry of Christ His Church
was a thing of the future. The " 1 will build " is in the
same tense as " shall not prevail." We can as easily
imagine the latter a retrospective declaration as the former.
" I will build." How the fragments of massive theories rat-
tle before this divine artillery. Good, and wise, and
learned men concur in a better exegesis that the church was
yet future, when Christ spoke; Dr. Philip Schaff (we thank
the Fatherland for such a gift) in his catechism puts and
answers this question: " Who founded the Christian
Church? Our exalted Saviour, on the fiftieth day after
His resurrection, by the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit
upon His Disciples in Jerusalem" References: Matt. 16:
13; 1 Cor. 3: 11; Eph. 2: 20; Acts 2: 1-11. See p. 52.
In his exposition on Matt. 18: 17, Richard Watson says:
" The apostles who followed Christ may be considered as
the elements of His church at the time, but it could scarce
be considered as constituted until after the day of Pentecost
when regular assemblies under Apostolic direction were
formed, the worship of God arranged, the Supper of the
Lord administered, and the terms of communion mutually
acknowledged. Christ must, therefore, be understood as
speaking prospectively." In harmony with these state-
ments of representative men, has been the general language
of the Christian world, always excepting the cases where
controversy springs up and a new vocabulary is made to
suit the emergency.
Wo speak of the early Christian Church. What do we
mean? Who goes back to th times of Abraham, to
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 189
the times of Moses, to the times of David, or to the
times of Malachi? I challenge the production of a case
free from the bias of controlling theories where men-
tion of the early Christian Church requires to be
referred to the Mosaic period or earlier. What have
Christian men in the Christian Church meant by it? The
church of the days of the apostles that nothing earlier.
As reasonably may we call the prophets the apostles, or the
great Jewish Lawgiver the founder of the Church of Christ.
The position that the visible Kingdom of God is already
established and is the Christian Church, is so prevalent
to-day that I shall be pardoned, I am sure, if I submit the
claim to a sharp scrutiny.
I say, then, that no more absolute separation of kingdom
and church could be made, without labored effort, than is
already made in the New Testament by the terms employed
in representing each. The word used by Christ to indicate
the origination of His church is olitodofilo as follows:
oiKtrfoufao pav rrfv e/ocA^'av. This word, although it is found
twenty-four times in the New Testament, is never
once joined with paaifaia a word occurring about
ninety times in the Gospels alone, in connection with the
expressions, " the Kingdom of God," " The Kingdom of
Heaven." If the visible kingdom is built at all, its building
is not indicated by the word that indicates the building of
the church. The word used in the Septuagint to express
the origin or establishment of this kingdom mentioned by
Daniel is dvaar^, from avfaniw we ll rendered by "set
up," or "raise up." On the other hand, this word, applied
to the kingdom, is never used of either the rise or progress
of the church, or of the church at all. It is worthy of
notice in this connection that the majority of the modern
words and phrases used to harmonize the idea of the identity
of the church and the kingdom do not dovetail at all with
190 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the Scripture words and phrases. I quote the following
from a New York contributor to a New England periodical,
the Ziorts Herald: "To all who love the Kingdom of
Christ, and pray for its world-wide extension, the progress
of the resurgent Greek Nation is full of interest." Praying
for the world-wide extension of Christ's Kingdom, or for its
extension in a less degree, is altogether foreign to the lan-
guage and thought of the Scriptures. The stone was cut
out of the mountain without human influence, it rolled
down from the mountain without human assistance and it
filled the earth so far as the symbolism gives us any light,
without human aid, and purely by an invisible and resistless
power.
The Rev. Jas. Freeman Clarke, a cultivated and vigorous
thinker, embodies a kindred thought in this fragment:
" All who desire to work with us in advancing the Kingdom
of God." If I had the ear of the distinguished divine, I
should feel as free to say to him as to the Herald corres-
pondent, "Dear sir, your language does not tally with Bible
thought." I pronounce these words, and all like them,
exotic both in thought and expression to the New Testa-
ment language and ideas. The recognized relationship in
the New Testament of godly men and women of the church
is altogether different from their relationship to the king-
dom. " Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchrea." (Kom.
16: 1.) " The messengers of the churches." (2 Cor. 8: 23.)
"The elders of the church." (Jas. 5: 14.) No such classes
or individuals under such names are ever mentioned as
engaged in the kingdom. On the other hand we have
mention made of heirs of the kingdom, but no apostle ever
penned, no evangelist ever suggested " heirs of the church?'
The mode of becoming a member of a church would seem
nowadays, at least, to allow the expression, "enter into the
church." But not a solitary instance can be found in the
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 191
New Testament where this familiar modern phrase is so
employed, although the word church occurs in our English
version 112 times, and its Greek equivalent about 115
times. But in the Gospels "Enter into the Kingdom" is
found ten times, half of them future, as shown by the tense
of the verb, and the rest indefinite; not one case occurring
in which any one is mentioned as having entered into the
Kingdom of God.
CONTRASTS BETWEEN CHURCH AND KINGDOM.
To " see the Kingdom of God " is spoken of as a privilege
in the Gospel. But an important prerequisite to the privi-
lege is named by Christ himself: "Except a man be born
from above he can not see the Kingdom of God." (John*
chap. 3.) Ananias and Sapphira found their way into
the early Christian Church, as we have every reason to
believe, without a spiritual regeneration. Not born from
above, they saw the church. To one who for the first time
carefully examines, in a good Concordance, the contrasts
and the correspondence between the Church and Kingdom, I
venture to predict some feeling of surprise, and a convic-
tion that these words are further separated there than in
ordinary parlance. The Kingdom a unit; the Church an
aggregate of churches; the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom
of Christ, is never once used in the plural. Wherever
" Kingdoms " is found reference is made to the Kingdoms of
this World, always recognized as transient. The churches is
a common New Testament expression. Luke writes: " Then
had the churches rest." (Acts 9: 31.) Paul sends thanks to
u all the churches of the Gentiles." (Rom. 16: 4), and writes
to the brethren at Rome, " The churches of Christ salute
you." (Rom. 16: 16.) He refers in his letter to the Cor-
inthians to "the church of Asia." (1 Cor. 16:19, and
also to "the churches of Macedonia." (2 Cor. 8: 1.) In
the epistle to the Galatians he mentions the churches of
192 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Galatia, and also of Judea. (Gal. 1: 2-22), and in one of
his earliest letters speaks of " the churches of God." (2
Thesss., 1:4.) The Kevelator designates the church of
Ephesus, the church in Smyrna, in Pergamos, in Sardis, in
Thyatira, showing that churches were local. The Kingdom
embraces the whole earth, and hence so far as the world or
man is concerned, is universal. Common usage here
accords with Scripture usage. We are wont to say: The
Episcopal Church; the Lutheran Church; the Presbyterian
Church; the Keformed Church; the Greek Church; the
Catholic Church; and I suppose we properly say Congre-
gational Churches, and Baptist Churches and Unitarian
Churches. But does any one venture to speak of the
Methodist Kingdom, or the Lutheran Kingdom. Do we
ever say Kingdoms of Christ, Kingdoms of God? Many
of the best thinkers and profoundest scholars of the age
incline to the position that the radical meaning of kKKhioia,
limits it to a single thing, and that the comprehensive
sense is a figurative one.
Dr. Christian Frederic Kling, in his commentary on
Corinthians, which is a part of Lange's great work, gives
us what is requisite to constitute a true church thus: 1.
" An assemblage before God and for God." 2. " It consists
of those who are consecrated to God in Jesus Christ." 3.
" It is thus consecrated through the mighty creative will of
God." 4. " Its members are such as call upon the name of
Jesus Christ." "These things may exist in connection
with many glaring faults in true professing believers, and
with many false professions (articles?) of faith, which yet
do not necessarily vitiate the claim to be called a true
church of God." Many among the masses escape some
at least of the errors of clerical theorizers. Few, perhaps,
of the common people identify the Church and the King-
dom. They speak of their becoming united with the church
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 193
as a thing of the past, but they talk about their entrance
into the Kingdom as a thing of the future.
I recall in my ministry an excellent English brother, an
unlettered man, hardly able to read, but a man whose good
sense and fluent, admirable use of quaint Anglo-Saxon,
always interested and often amazed me. Many a time have
I been astonished at his marvellous combinations of strong
expressive monosyllables, from ten to twenty in number,
with scarcely a dissyllable among them, perhaps not a single
one. He used to say: " I mean by the grace of God to
find a home in the Kingdom." He was right. To him
it is a thing of the future. I sincerely trust that he will
at least realize his aim and join the ransomed host in the
Kingdom of our God. But he had been in the church
forty years. The Kingdom is everlasting, the church tem-
porary. If, as has been maintained and we think proved,
the Kingdom is an end, as such it is to the everlasting.
On the other hand, the church, as means to an end, can not
be supposed to continue when it has accomplished its
design. Gabriel declared to Mary in reference to her Son:
" He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and
the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His Father David ; and
He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His Kingdom
there shall be no end." (Luke 1 : 32-33.)
Every Christian believer admits that the first part of the
prediction is literally true. He is great. He has been, and
is now, throughout Christendom, called the Son of the
Highest by all who accept the testimony of the Scriptures
as trustworthy. It is conceded, also, that of His King-
dom, in the strictest and most literal sense, there shall be
no end. Is it legitimate to pare the prophecy all around,
and insist that the part thus taken off is strictly literal,
and then demand that the very heart of the prediction be
made figurative, or rather mystical, or, if figurative, in a
13
194 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
figure refusing analysis and leaving one utterly at loss for
its real meaning? Not quite 1 Language has rights that
intelligent men are bound to respect. Thomas Huxley
never threw out a more biting satire than when he took
Milton's idea of the creation as unfolded in Paradise Lost.
He did not take the statement of Mo&es, because he well
knew that there would be a dozen modifications of the lan-
guage of Moses to prepare it for the exigency. The hit at
this protean flexibility of Genesis and the recognized inflex-
ibility of the Paradise Lost was a severe thrust with a sharp
rapier. When we render the laws of language in the Bible
as we do in Virgil or in Horace or in Plato or in Homer,
there will be a reasonable ground for anticipating some-
thing like unanimity on the interpretation of the Scrip-
tures. While we abuse the Hebrew of the Old and the
Greek of the New Testament, there ought to be, and I trust
there will be, differences. Peter confirms the words of
Gabriel in regard to the duration of the Kingdom: " The
everlasting Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ/' 2 Pet.
1:11. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in like
manner, speaks of the promise of eternal inheritance. Heb.
9:15. That figures do not enter at all into these precious
promises could probably not be claimed by any. But many
figures do not change the general direction of a statement
A throne is often used by metonomy to represent regal
authority and dominion. But if the throne of England
be named, it can not be the regal authority and dominion
of Russia that is signified thereby; it must be the authority
and dominion of England. The throne of David may be
a metonomy denoting the royal rule and domain of David,
but it can not mean empire on which mortal eye never
gazed, or be in some remote world of which human
imagination has but dimly conceived. When God prom-
ised to deliver Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 1<J5
we may admit that "hands " is not to be taken with strict
literalness, but granting that hands is but a metonomy for
power, it is the power of Nebuchadnezzar that must be
intended. If it be said that " the Church triumphant" is
everlasting, it may be conceded that if persons wish to use
a neat phrase and assign a certain meaning to it, no one
need object. If, however, it be claimed that the language
or the thought has Bible sanction, the evidence is respect-
fully solicited. We may call New York the London of
America. There is no good reason to object, but the bright
lad that shouts "Tribune " along the streets of the great
metropolis knows that it is only in a figurative sense that
New York is London.
The proof that the visible Kingdom is contrasted with the
Church rather than identified with it, is a great step toward
the removal of the claim that this Kingdom is already set
up in the world. If it is in the world and is not the
Church, what is it? Where is it ? A fair answer to these
questions will show that if the Kingdom be in the world
at all, it must be subjectively rather than objectively in a
spiritual rather than a literal sense. A few quotations
may help us: "For the Kingdom of God is not food and
drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost,"
Rom. 14 : 17, is definitely stated by St. Paul. None will
incline to deny that righteousness, peace and joy in the
Holy Ghost exist on earth. Will any maintain that this is
the Kingdom into which the Lord Jesus will bid His saints
enter after the judgment? Or, that this is the Kingdom
which Joseph of Arimathea waited for, or that this is the
throne of David ? Probably not.
Men do not enter into righteousness, peace and joy in
the Holy Ghost. These enter into them. Of this subjec-
tive Kingdom, or fitness of spirit for the objective Kingdom,
Christ could, indeed, say the Kingdom of God is within
196 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
you, or, as the margin suggests, is among you. (Luke 17:
21.) One can hardly avoid querying how those who are dis-
posed to identify the Church and the Kingdom dispose of
these passages. They do not, of course, hold that the
Church was within those whom Christ addressed, or even
among them, except in a figurative sense. If ivroq be ren-
dered within in this passage, we must not understand that
Christ meant to emphasize "you," as He addressed those
scornful hearers. In no literal sense was the Kingdom
within them. It would rather mean, you will now find this
Kingdom when you find it not by your methods of observa-
tion, but within. But such a case can no more be deter-
minative of the general sense of the term Kingdom, than
can Christ's words to His disciples in reference to Lazarus:
" Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but I go that I may awake
him out of sleep," make the literal sense of the word sleep
properly descriptive of the condition of their common
friend. When the disciples do not understand the Saviour,
He says unto them plainly, "Lazarus is dead." Before He
had spoken figuratively. So when He said of Jairus'
daughter : "The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth " (Mark
5 : 39), they laughed Him to scorn. They misapprehended
His figurative language.
LITERAL MEANING OF KINGDOM AND CHURCH.
Without doubt, the Kingdom of God and the Oh arch are
in a few cases used figuratively, but even then, one is never
put for the other. And these figurative uses, fewer than
in most words employed as many times, can not militate
against those cases which treat unmistakably of an objec-
tive kingdom in space and time and on earth.
Another claim as to the meaning of the Kingdom is
held by a considerable class. These deny that the King-
dom is the Church, or that it is or will be on the earth.
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 197
They hold that it is heaven itself, and that the righteous
pass into it at death. There are fewer difficulties in this
than in the church -kingdom hypothesis. And yet it has
insuperable difficulties. It completely reverses the terms
of that prayer which is upon more lips every day than all
other prayers together. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven." Matt. 6: 10. These
theorists would need to remodel the prayer thus: " Let us
go into Thy Kingdom in heaven, and there do Thy will as
the angels do." If this is really the meaning of this par-
agraph, which has been repeated by thousands ever since
the early days of the Christian Church, and by tens of mil-
lions in later times, we have not yet learned the alphabet
of Scripture truth, for who, soberly and thoughtfully, ever
inferred that this was what Christ designed by this sen-
tence? "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven." Alone it constitutes a sublime prayer.
Has it been answered? If so, it need not be our prayer
longer. In the mind of the great Christian Church it is
not yet answered. Some sanguine souls are sure that the
present economy of Christian work will soon secure that
" consummation devoutly to be wished." About 300,000,-
000 of the earth's 1,350,000,000 are nominally Christians.
But nominal Christianity is not the genuine Christianity.
A generous estimate of the number of actual Christians
would not go beyond 30,000,000. And more than eighteen
centuries have been spent in reaching this. At such a rate,
through how many score of centuries is the slow work to
dragon? " How long! Lord, how long! " The missionary
spirit of earnest men and women is noble. God be thanked
for it. God bless it. But alas, this Christ-like purpose of
theirs seems like a skiff urged up some mighty rapids and
scarcely stemming the torrent. I heard Dr. Macauley say in
Boston, a few years ago, that not 3 per cent of the working
198 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
men of London attended any church regularly on the
Lord's day. It is better than that in New York; but what
multitudes never enter a church even here, and what is
more to be deplored, what multitudes are as destitute of
religious teaching as if they were in Central Africa!
And while a few noble spirits are toiling and praying for
the success of mission work, what profound apathy possesses
the church as a whole in regard to this vast enterprise! I
said just now that a generous estimate of the actual Chris-
tians in the world would not be above thirty millions.
What do these do on this line, counting to their credit all
that is done fitfully and without method and without high
religious motive among the other two hundred and ninety
millions of merely nominal Christians?
Do these thirty millions give enough to make all the gifts
of all the rest average a cent a week for the thirty millions
for mission effort, properly so called? Is there a missionary
secretary here to-day prepared to answer me? Do the
aggregates of all the missionary contributions in the world
amount to $15,600,000 per annum? Is the amount paid
over by actual Christians, that Christ's mandate "Go ye
into all the world and preach my gospel to every creature,"
may be obeyed, as great as is the amount expended in
the Church of God for needless nay, for dangerous
and degrading luxuries, such as wine, beer, tobacco, and
even stronger stimulants? God forbid that I should
decry the zeal of the Church where that zeal is great and
grand, but God forbid equally that I should boast of great
things, when in this direction, except in a relativelv few
cases, there is nothing great to boast of. The meagreness
of missionary contributions in our own land is a thing to
blush nay, to weep for.
And Christ will come before it is large enough to make
any broad-minded, far-sighted Christian contented with the
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHUHCH. 199
state of the missionary treasury. Some have deprecated
the proclamation of the imminent coming of the Son of
Man in His kingdom as paralyzing missionary effort.
Would it enervate or stimulate the servant who had heard
and was heeding the words of his Master, u Occupy till I
come," to learn that the Master was already on His return
to take account with him? The danger lies always in the
other direction. When men say and believe that the Lord
" delayeth His coming " as Christ shows in one of His para-
bles, why begin to eat and drink with the drunken, and to
neglect every duty ? Some have been embarrassed to
reconcile the text, " My Kingdom is not -of this world,"
with the doctrine that Christ's Kingdom is to be in this
world. There is no conflict between them. The Church
of Christ is not of this world, but it is in the world. And
there is not a hint the church will ever be transferred
elsewhere. Christ in that most wonderful prayer reveals
glimpses of a life and history prior to this, and scatters
light over all the earth pathway of the Child of God ; says,
as he prays for his disciples, " They are not of this world,
even as I am not of this world." Yet they and Christ
were in this world. The declaration " If any man love the
world the love of the Father is not in him," does not make
it criminal to admire and love the globe as the handiwork
of God. You and I may as legitimately delight in the
wonders of hill and vale, of forest and plain, of spring and
rivulet as did the Psalmist in the splendors of the firma-
nent. Christ's Kingdom is not to be of the world which
we may not love, but is to be on this world which He
Himself made and declared very good.
Another class of texts has occasioned trouble in the
minds of some. John the Baptist and Jesus declared:
" The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." " How," it is
asked with some force certainly, " could the Kingdom be
200 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
said to be at hand then, if 1,800 years have gone, and it i&
still not here? " If the word rendered " is at hand " had been
rendered " draweth near," as it is in Luke 21: 8, and some
dozen other passages, it would have relieved the apparent
difficulty somewhat. If it had been rendered " approach-
eth," that is " approaching," as in Luke 12: 33, Hebrew 10:
25, the difficulty would have hardly appeared at all. Since
the same expression is used of events then expected, which
have not yet transpired, it shows that the word may have
a wider scope than we naturally give to the first of these
translations. Paul says, in speaking to the Church at
Rome: "The night is far spent, the day is at hand."
Eengel, in his note upon the passage, interprets thus: " The
day of Christ, the last day." Adam Clarke comments :
" Heathenish darkness is nearly at an end." Dean Alford
says: "The day of the resurrection." If Paul used the
word understandingly, either in reference to the disappear-
ance of heathenism or of the resurrection day, it is certain
that " is at hand " was 1,800 years distant. James uses
the definite expression, " the coming of the Lord is at
hand," or, as our translators have rendered it here, " draw-
eth riigh." The meaning of the original word is the same
in both places. If it be said that James must have meant
"death is at hand," a just reply is: "No such sense of
the phrase has ever been established, nor ever can be. It
is in the most positive conflict with the thought of the
Apostolic age, whatever it may be in regard to the thought
and terminology of our age. When Peter inquired of Jesus
about John: "Lord, what shall this man do?" Jesus
responds: "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is
that to thee ?" When the saying went forth that that dis-
ciple should not die, wherefore ? Jesus had not said, "He
shall not die," but, "What if I will that he tarry till I
come?" The inference in that age was if a man lived until
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 201
Christ came he would not die at all. It is in violation of
every principle of interpretation to suppose that James could
mean " death " by the coming of the Lord.
Notwithstanding the drift away from the directness and
simplicity of thought in those days, even we have kept
something of the idea that sprang up in the minds of the
disciples when Jesus answered Simon's question. Has it -
not been the general opinion of the Church through the
centuries even until now, that those who live until the
return of Jesus will not pass through death? Peter in his
first epistle has an expression if anything more extractable
than that of James. He writes: " Ihe end of all things
is at hand ; be ye sober, therefore, and watch unto prayer."
(1 Pet. 4:7.) If I were meeting an infidel opponent he-
might consistently object that the discovery of other cases
increases rather than relieves the difficulty. He would
probably point to each case as an evidence of either ignor-
ance or of mendacity. But we are meeting the objections
of those who ask, " How could it be said that the King-
dom of Heaven was at hand when 1,800 years and more
were to pass away ere it came?" By quoting Peter'a
unmistakable declaration: "The end of all things is at
hand," when we both agree that in the latter case, at least,
at hand was 1,800 years distant. We ought, indeed, to
recollect that we are little skilled in celestial arithmetic.
The term, which applied to terrestrial distances may seem
a great measure, when applied to stellar distances may
appear very small. A year, which is to many a child a
long period, and is long enough for our earth to journey
578,000,000 miles, is relatively to the vast reach of cen-
turies that measures the period of some of the sextuple
stars like one vibration of a pendulum to a lifetime. Let
me impress, if I may, the fact that the single rendering of
a Greek word oftens gives a very inadequate notion of it&
202 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
full sense. When we read of the raising of the daughter,
and use the word damsel in reference to her, we think of a
girl nearing the line of early womanhood. But when we
read in Matthew 18: 2, of Jesus calling a little child and
setting him in the midst, we think, and it may be rightly,
of a far younger child. The translation has become a kind
of commentary, telling us that the one person is a miss,
verging close on womanhood, while the other is only a
child. And in like manner the oft-quoted words of the
Saviour, " Suffer the little children to come unto me."
After the resurrection Jesus finds the disciples Peter,
Thomas, Nathaniel and the two sons of Zebedee by the
lake shore. They had been fishing but had caught nothing.
Christ says to them, " Children," or " Sirs," as the margin
has it, "have ye any food?" (John 21:5.) Does it not give
a little surprise when we find out first, that there is only
one Greek word to stand for these greatly varying English
ones, damsel, little child, sirs. The word iraidiw reaches
from the new-born babe up to the married man, Simon
Peter.
The true attitude of the Church must be one of expec-
tancy of the coming Kingdom. In the best days of her
history such has been her attitude. The fear of weakening
feeble hands by preaching the Kingdom of Heaven is
drawing near, is a needless if not a foolish fear. " Blessed
is that servant whom his Lord when He cometh shall find
watching/' (Matt. 24:46.) Watching for what? For the
Master's return. Almost 2,000 years must have made
some difference in the proximity of the Kingdom. If
James could urge as a motive to diligence and an incentive
to watchfulness "the coming of the Lord drawetli nigh,"
how much more we? If Paul was right in preaching
" the night is far spent, the day is at hand " surely the
night is farther spent, the day is nearer. Is it unwarrant-
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 203
able to watch eagerly for the first gray of the morning, the
spring of the day ? In nature, God gives us some indica-
tion of coming Spring besides the calendar, and some note
of approaching day besides the clock that has told the
passing hours. Disappearing stars and appearing stars tell
that the earth still rolls on, and unless they" make an
unwonted halt the day must soon burst in the East. Are
we looking thither? There are heralds upon the mountain
tops, they will see the dawn before those who abide in the
valleys. "Watchman, what of the night?" Let not the
unbelief intense as that that shadowed the world on the
eve of the deluge, when the current jest about the " old fool "
that had been waiting for a flood 100 years, and yet it had
never come, passed from lip to lip to evoke a scornful laugh,
as it finds expression now dishearten you. Watch till
the light streams up, and shout " the morning cometh."
204 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
THE PRESENT AGE AND DEVELOPMENT OF
ANTI-CHRIST.
BY HENRY M. PARSONS, PASTOR IAFAYETTE STREET PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH, BUFFALO, N. Y.
THE purpose and object of tlie present age, as set forth in
the Scriptures, require brief definition, in order to see the
relation of this theme, to the general subject before us, the
personal, and pre-millennial coming of our Lord. The
word of God reveals an age or period, of distinct limits and
laws on this earth, before the Flood.
Revelation is seen at the gate of Eden, in the smoking
altar of sacrifice in the overshadowing cherubim and in
shekinah flame guarding the closed way to the tree of life.
In the expiatory offering the way of access and return to
God for the guilty was clearly arid plainly opened. The
brief record of that age marks the advance of revealed
truth in the preaching of Enoch and Noah. Along with
this we find the marked increase of wickedness and violence
from the corruption of the Sons of God, through their
intercourse with the children of this world. (Gen. 6:2-5.)
In that first age, a few general principles are affirmed,
which are repeated in each subsequent age. We find man
in sin and ruin, under sentence of death, receiving com-
munications of mercy from God. This revelation increases
in quantity and power to the end of the age. It encounters
resistance and hindrance, increasing with great rapidity,
after the world-force entered the company of the Sons of
God.
The revelation of judgment in store for the rebellious
and ungodly intensified the spirit of evil, and excited
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANTI - CHRIST. 205
greater opposition to the remedy God provided and ordered
Noah to build.
The crisis occurred ; the family of God, a little flock,
were delivered in His provided and predicted way and the
flood of desolation and death swept from the globe the proud
and defiant nations. We have here in order, First the rev-
elation of Grace, increasing in fullness and light to the end
of the age. Second The same principle of sin which de-
stroyed the peace and life of Eden is seen in its bitter
opposition increasing in power and strength, by the side of,
and among the children of God. Third This contest in-
creases till, to save the Divine Seed, judgment supernatur-
ally interposes destroying the wicked and the ark carries
over the flood the seed of the race to enter a new Age.
Substantially, these ' principles will be found ruling
through the Patriarchal and the following Mosaic age.
"With such accuracy do we find the history of these two ages
repeating the same divine order, that we thus discover and
derive the analagous order of our own age. For in the
command given by our Lord to His disciples, and the at-
tending manifestation of His presence by the Holy Spirit
a distinct limit is assigned to the Jewish age, and the begin-
ning of the new Christian age declared.
"Go ye, therefore, and teach (make disciples of) all na-
tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost." " Lo, I am with you always
(literally, all the days), even unto the end of the world"
literally, completion of the age. And this comparison of
the ages is justified from Col. 1:26, where the great apostle
speaking of his ministry in fulfilling the word of God, says :
" Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and
from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints."
The beginning of the present age is also distinctly defined by
our Lord in His reply to the question of the disciples as they
206 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
stood with Him on the Mount of Olives. They are the last
words from His lips on earth. The disciples had inquired in
regard to restoring the kingdom to Israel at that time. " He
said unto them, It is not for you to know the times, or the
seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. But
ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come
upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Je-
rusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost parts of the earth." (Acts, 1: 7, 8.) During forty
days after His sacrifice, the Lord Jesus revealed Himself,
preparing his disciples for the great Ascension gift. Obedi-
ently they waited in prayer and faith till the morning of the
fifth day, then " suddenly there came a sound from Heaven,
as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house
where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues like as of fire" (lit. tongues as of fire, dis-
tributed to them were seen); " and it sat upon each of them "
i. e., the tongue-shaped flame of fire. This was the opening
of the present age. This was a revelation in advance of all
that had come before. This distinguishes the present age,
as the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Thenceforward for
near a century, he moved upon holy men to speak and write
the Scriptures of the New Testament. The law of increas-
ing revelation according to the object and need of the age
is observed in this, as in the past ages. In nearly a century
the revelation of God, for the direction and growth of His
Church in this age, was completed, collected, and gradually,
under the enlightening wisdom of the same spirit, was com-
pacted into the present form. And from that day to this
the same spirit of wisdom and grace and light has caused
the truths of God to be brought forth from the sacred
oracles, with increasing clearness and fullness, by His in-
dwelling, illuminating and enlightening presence. May He
bestow on us who are here assembled the humility and wis-
TEE DEVELOPMENT OF ANTI- CHRIST. 207
dom and knowledge and courage, needful at this time to set
the most important and pressing truth concerning the per-
son and glory of Christ our King so before the minds of
His people that, all hearts being fired with holy love and
longing for the " appearing of the glory of the great God
and our Saviour, Jesus Christ," new incentives to holy ac-
tivity and gracious diligence may be received by all true
witnesses and workers for Christ throughout the earth.
The great mission of the Holy Spirit in this age is described
by our Lord in the promise He gave His disciples before
leaving them. (John 14: 16.) " I will pray the Father, and
He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide
with you forever, ' for the age. 5 ' And this Paraclete, v. IT,
" the world can not receive, because it seeth Him not, neither
knoweth Him." A distinction made by our Lord and con-
firmed throughout the New Testament. (John 15: 26;
John 16: 13-14.) The work of the same spirit on the world
is to " reprove " or " convince " or " convict " " of sin," of
" righteousness," and of "judgment." The age thus entered
by the Holy Spirit has at the outset fully recognized the
disciples of Christ and the world opposed to Him and
them.
It becomes now an important inquiry. What is the
object of the Holy Ghost, thus sent down from the Throne
of God, and thus outlined in the promise of the Saviour,
in His mission to our race? Evidently we have a period
or dispensation for His official action here, which is to end.
For our Saviour promises His presence in this form with
His people, from the beginning to the end of this age.
The declared source of the commission to all disciples to
teach and to evangelize all nations, is the fact of Christ's
power on His present mediatorial throne. ."All power
(efowfe, authority) is given unto me in heaven and in
earth. Therefore, go ye." This power is emphasized and
208 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
exerted through the Holy Spirit the Paraclete of the dis-
ciples the Convictor and Reprover of all who are not dis-
ciples. It follows then that there is one party in whom
the Holy Spirit dwells for our Lord says, " He shall be in
you " and another party upon whom He acts. There is
one party through whom He acts upon the other, and there
is another party which opposes Him and those in whom
He abides. This distinction is so apparent and so
essential to a right understanding of the present age that
we call attention briefly to the scriptural assertion of the
purpose of the present age, in God's economy of the ages.
We have seen that the first age of rebellion resulted in the
deliverance through the crisis of judgment of eight s'ouls.
The Patriarchal Age concludes with the deliverance of the
separated people of God from the bondage of Egypt. The
Mosaic Age ended with the manifestation of Christ the
Divine One, in human form the gathering out of the
Jewish fold a company who were the nucleus of the
church the distinctive, called out, separated body of
Christ. The Jews as a nation, were rejected and dispersed
abroad, according to the threatened penalty of their refus-
ing and slaying their King. In the Ecclesia of the New
Testament no distinction of nationality appears. Upon the
confession of Jesus Christ, the Jew and Gentile, Greek and
Scythian, bond and free male and female alike are incor-
porated and enrolled, in that holy company, called in the
Kevelation, the Body of Christ, " the Bride," the " Lamb's
Wife."
PUEPOSE AND LIMITS OF THE AGE.
In the council convened at Jerusalem, A. D. 52, "Simon
Peter declared how God, at the first, did visit the Gentiles
to take out of them a people for his name" (Acts 15: 14),
and then the record follows, from the prophets, in agreement
THE DE VE LOP ME NT OF ANT I- CHRIST. 209
with this great object. "After this (the taking the people
out) I will return and will build again the Tabernacle of
David," etc. (Amos 9: 11, 12.) And in accord with this, the
Apostle to the Romans says (11: 25) : " Blindness, in part, is
happened to Israel until the fullness (complement or
appointed number) of the Gentiles be come in." 26, "And
so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall
come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungod-
liness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them, when
1 shall take away their sins." (Isa. 59: 20, 21, Sept.) In
accord with this purpose is the song of redemption uttered
by the ransomed church in the vision of the prophet John
(Kev. 5:9.)
This song declares the purpose of the age to be the
gathering out of the nations a people who shall afterward
reign on the earth. And that the gathering is not the con-
version of all men but the evangelizing of the nations
is plain, from the teaching of our Lord in the 13th of Mat-
thew's gospel. There He says tares and wheat "grow
together until the harvest." " The harvest," He adds in
His interpretation is, " the completion of the age." This
chapter contains the History of the Kingdom of Heaven in
mystery during this present age. The above parable refers
to the corruptions aroused within it by Satan. The parable
of the leaven represents the results which will be manifested
in the same kingdom during the age, from the corruptions
introduced by those who are within the church. The meal
will be leavened with heresies, a id perversions during all
this dispensation. The heat of the Lord's chastening and
discipline, and judgment, has arrested this process, during
the age thus far, to bring the bread out of each generation,
and will continue so to perfect His own work until the end.
The gathering of the fish out of the gospel net is at the
completion of the age. Then a separation occurs. The
14
210 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
good are gathered. The bad are cast away. These declara-
tions of our Saviour clearly limit and define the boundaries
of this age. They can not be denied, without denying the
word of God. The distinction of the good and bad does
not hint at any universal conversion of men previous to the
close of the age. On the contrary, it expressly predicts
what has already been confirmed by history, and is patent
all over Christendom at this moment. Not for one moment,
in the nineteen centuries nearly passed, has a single spot on
the globe presented the glorious spectacle of an entirely
converted population. And it must be a marvellous im-
peachment of the power and love of the Holy Spirit to say
that His mission in this dispensation is to convert all sin-
ners of our race and yet in all this time, He has not been
able to affect and influence a tenth or a hundredth part of
the population of the globe. There must be a fearful mis-
take somewhere. If this dispensation is for the conversion
of the whole world to Christ, then, for more than 1,800
years, any one can see, it has been a stupendous failure.
But if the Paraclete has come to reveal Christ to those in
every generation of the ago who would receive Him, and if
the Lord has commanded His disciples to preach the Gos-
pel in all the world " to every creature," to accomplish this
blessed and glorious end, then there has been no failure, but
in every nation and each generation, from Pentecost to the
present moment, " he that feareth God " and " worketh
righteousness " has been accepted by Him. The only fail-
ure has been on man's part. Instead of dispersing the
church in its representatives to the end of the earth, to
preach the Gospel to every creature that the seed of Christ
might be speed ily gathered we have been massing the best
forces upon a few favored spots, to convert all the people,
without success, hitherto, in a single case. Conversion of
men, by the instruments he is pleased to use, is God's work.
THE DE\ T ELOPMKST OF AXTI-CUm$T.
And He has commanded us to evangelize the world that He
may do it on whom He ; iC -
The aw of pr -.1 in regard to tlie power and
resul: uiity in the ages of the world dose.
notice. Each age ha- cater fruits, and a vast
increase of the numbers of the saved. Each age has also
presented the similar rapid growth in the elements and
forces of evil opposed to the Kingdom of God. 1
had its assigned work in the recovery of this earth. Our
its section. It is to gather fr .it of, the
us (Gentiles) the redeemed people of God. It is a mis-
:o Gentiles as distinct from Jews. In this mission the
search and the appeal of the Spirit is for the individual
and no condition, or character, or nationality can exclude.
* man must be saved as a lost sinner, and not as a Jew.
There are many large and precious promises that apply to
a period or age to follow the present These promises affirm
the ingathering of all nations, the prevalence of knowledge
and holiness to such an extent as to fill the earth. But
we are now concerned with this one age, and we are not
left in doubt Let us dwell for a few moments on its pre-
dicted character.
The parables of our Lord to which we have alluded, all
betoken a mixed and corrupted state of things to the end
of the age. The spirit confirms this in the revelation of
great apostacy. 1 Timothy, 4: 1-3: Also, that thru
great peril shall be in the last days, that formality and
hypocrisy will abound, that all who adhere to godliness
shall suffer persecution, that " evil men and seducers
shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being decei
2 Timothy, 8: 1-13: The world is declared to be the enemy
of God, and as evil men constitute the world as that term
ripture the world around us is growing worse
and worse every year. This is not saying that gross and
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
rude forms of barbaric sin may not disappear under the
increasing light of Christianity, but it declares that civil-
ization without Christ, and refinement without the Gospel,
are as much greater sins in guilt and condemnation, as the
light under which they have been born and have grown is
greater than the darkness of heathendom. This is not say-
ing that pure Christianity does not increase and have great
power in the world. But it declares what God declares of
the works of the flesh, and of the world. They are abom-
ination in His pure eyes. And Christianity is so saturated
with this abomination to-day that only the power of rebuke
which the Spirit of God can exert through faithful and
loyal witnesses, will prevent its overthrow by the united
hordes of lawlessness and infidelity. Pure Christianity, in
the fact of sinners arrested and saved by the Spirit of God,
was never so rapidly advancing as to-day. The evangelist
work of preaching directly to the unsaved, all over the
world is showing evidence of the Divine favor. Sinners
who have hitherto been unreached are now coming to the
Lord in large numbers. And one omen of good is that, as
they take the Bible to be the revealed will of God to them,
they are rejoicing in the blessed hope and eager to know
more of the coming King. On every hand the signs of the
times fit the words of the prophecy I have cited. The boasted
powers and promises of this age, to which even Christian
men vauntingly point, are not the power of godliness, nor
the presence of Divine Life in the multitude of those who
are filled with the progress of arts and science and new
inventions.
A recent editorial of a religious paper asks this question:
" As a question of historic fact, is the world, under the
preaching of the k Gospel of the Kingdom,' the < glad tid-
ings of great joy for all people,' gi owing worse and worse?
What country is it, in orbis terrarum^ which is to-day
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANTI - CHRIST. 213
worse off, in a less hopeful condition than it was one hun-
dred, two hundred, four hundred years ago? Or, glancing
at the whole of contemporaneous history, what vast trend
and fatal momentum of influence is it, which shows that
the world is frustrating the total potency and efficacy of
the ' Kingdom of Heaven,' and rendering nugatory all that
6 the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and
the fellowship of the Holy Ghost ' can do, as a world-
redeeming power?"
In answer we say: The Word of God declares that the
purpose of preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom in the
world is to save the people out of it called the Church, and
not to make the world better. The same Word declares
"a friend of the world is an enemy of God." (James 4:4.)
If the world is a world growing better, and is in a more
hopeful condition, every year, then it is strange to read these
words, from 1 John 2 : 16, " For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life, is not of the Father but is of the world." If his-
toric fact " predicates these things of the world when pol-
ished, made decorous, enchanting, and more deceiving
and deceitful by the perversion of the light that has come
into it, and they constitute a more hopeful condition of the
age than when they had less power, then " historic fact "
contradicts the Divine Word, which declares that " evil
men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and
being deceived." We prefer to believe God's Word.
" What vast trend and fatal momentum of influence is it,
which shows that the world is frustrating the power of the
Gospel?" To answer this let us look at the development
of Antichrist in this age.
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
POWER AND FORMS OF ANTIC HEIST.
It is quite usual to regard Antichrist as a personifica-
tion of anything that opposes Christ. As it is the great
power on which Satan relies to forward his cause in this
age, he has continued to throw around the word a specula-
tive or mystical, or spiritualized sense that takes away the
literal and personal power of this mighty adversary. As
against the confusion of Satan, let us look at the Anti-
christ of Prophecy. Antichrist is not an abstract prin-
ciple of evil. Many talk of the fact and thought of evil,
and deny the personality of Satan, the grand and subtle
enemy of God. So, as the devil has invented many works
for the Son of God to destroy, his last masterpiece is this
Antichrist, who fills up the prophetic outline of Satan's
campaign in this age. The first feature of the prophetic
account of Antichrist we notice is suggested by the word
itself, in Greek, for, or in the place of Christ; and in
Latin, against Christ. If he is predicted as opposing
Christ, we may expect that there will be an adroit and
plausible attempt to imitate Christ, in order to deceive, if
possible, His own disciples. In the finished work of
Christ, wherein He defeated Satan and all his hosts, as
arrayed against Himself, He so obtained victory as to fur-
nish us with all needed defense against the future attacks
of the same foe on His Church.
1. Prophecy reveals Antichrist under various forms and
separate titles. Just as our Lord is predicted by prophets
and priests of the Old Testament, each one presenting some
significant trait of His character, some form of His oifice,
some distinct picture of His person, of His coming and
His reign all which are completed and compacted in
His incarnation so the pen of inspiration sketches the
portrait of this adverse and opposing person, Anti-christ,
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANTI- CHRIST.
215
under various forms, and separate titles. The Apostle
John, in his Epistle, speaks of the spirit of Antichrist as
then prevailing, and that, whoever denies that Christ is to
come in the flesh is Antichrist. (1 John 2:18; 4:3.) He
does not call any name in thus describing the spirit of
Antichrist. It will be more suggestive than any labored
exposition, to reveal the truth of Scripture on this subject
to turn our attention to several inspired portraits, and see
how they fit the thought we are* urging, that under separate
names and titles the same person is always meant. Thus,
in Revelation 13th, the Beast is described; in 7th and 8th of
Daniel the Little Horn; in llth of Daniel, King of Fierce
Countenance; and in 9th the Prince that shall come; the
King of Assyria of 10th; and Lucifer, of 14th of Isaiah.
The Man of Sin and Son of Perdition. (2 Thess. 2.) With-
out explanation, let us compare a few of the accounts of
these separate titles:
Thus as the Beast.
Revelation 13:6: " He opens his
mouth in blasphemy against
God, to blaspheme His name,
and His Tabernacle, and them
that dwell in Heaven;" 13:7:
" He makes war with the saints
and overcomes them."
Revelation 13:5: "Authority was
given unto him forty and two
months," i. e. 1,260 days.
Of these separate symbols the same things are declared
and thus,, presumably, one person is identified by both.
As the Little Horn.
Daniel 7 : 25 : "He speaks great
words against the Most High."
Daniel 7:21: "He makes war
with the saints, and prevails."
Daniel 7:25: "The saints are
given into his hand until a time
and times and the dividing of
time," i. e. 1,260 days.
Again we read that Antichrist
As the Little Horn.
Dan. 7 : 25 : " Speaks great words
against the Most High."
7:22: "Shall prevail until the
Ancient of days came, and judg-
ment is given to the saiuts of
the Most High; and the time
came that the saints possessed
the Kingdom."
As the King of Fierce Counte-
nance.
Dan. 11 : 36 : " Speak marvellous
things against the God of gods."
Dan. 11 : 36 : ' Shall prosper till
the indignation (against Israel
and Jerusalem) be accom-
plished."
216
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Here we observe a similar identity in the symbols and
further read that
As the King of Fierce Counte-
nance.
Dan. 11:4: "He shall enter also
into the glorious land."
Dan. 11 : 40 : " Enters the glorious
land at the time of the end."
11 : 36 : " He shall prosper till the
indignation (against Israel and
Jerusalem) be accomplished."
And again,
The Second Little Horn.
Dan. 8:11: "Takes away the
daily sacrifice."
Dan. 8:19: " Shall prosper in the
last end of the indignation."
As Second Little Horn.
Dan. 8:9: "He waxes great
toward the pleasant land."
Dan. 8 : 17 : "At the time of the
end shall be the vision."
Dan. 8 : 19 : "He shall prosper in
the last end of indignation"
(against Israel and Jerusalem).
The Prince that shall come.
Dan. 9 : 27 : " Causes the sacri-
fice and oblation to cease."
Dan. 9 : 27 : " Till that determined
is poured upon the desolator."
These prophetic statements seem conclusive against the
theory of a growing increase of holiness, and peace, and
purity, that shall be universal, previous to the coming again
of the Lord. For instead of a gradual victory over the foe
they describe his vaunted resumption of power, until a given
time when the "indignation" against Israel shall be
accomplished, and the end of the age be at hand.
Another prophetic statement in 2 Thess. 2: 4, describes
Antichrist " as exalting himself above all that is called God,
or that is worshipped." And this has currently been
applied to the apostate Roman Church, in the assumptions
claimed and exercised by the Pope. Without doubt there
is here an illustrious and conspicuous and continued
representation of the spirit of Antichrist manifesting itself
through the age, within the Christian Church, and in the
name of Christ. For we must look for this manifestation
not outside, but within the organized Christian fold. Yet
in the prophetic statement of the final Antichrist, in Daniel
11:45. it is said: " He shall plant the tabernacle of his
palace between the seas in the glorious Holy Mountain,"
and in 2 Thess. 2:4, he is represented as "sitting in the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANT I- CHRIST.
217
Temple of God, showing himself that he is God." While
this last feature of the reign of Antichrist finds its shadow
in the pretensions of the Papacy, we still believe that a more
concrete future fulfillment, springing out of present and
patent channels of blasphemy and corruption, will be seen
in the literal temple yet to be built in Jerusalem.
There is another prophecy in the vision of John which
bears upon this view, Eev. 17: 12-14 : the ten kings which
are to come receive power one hour " the same hour "
with the Beast, or Antichrist, and they give all their power
and strength to him. And then occurs the war with the
Lamb and His victory.
2. The personality of this Antichrist who has been pre-
dicted and foreshadowed by many persons as types, is seen
to be real and finally visible in human form. From noting
the contrasts of personal and moral qualities in Christ, the
true Prophet and Yictor King, we see
Christ
John 8:31: " Comes from above."
John 5 : 43 : " Comes in His Fath-
er's name."
Phil. 2:8: " Humbled Himself and
became obedient."
Isa. 53 : 3 : " Was despised and re-
jected, and we esteemed Him
not."
John 6 : 38 : " Comes to do His
Father's will."
John 17: 4: "Glorifies God on
earth."
John 10 : 14, 15 : " The Good Shep-
herd that giveth His life for the
sheep."
Phil. 2 : 9, 10 : " God highly exalts
Him, and gives Him a name
above every name, that at the
name of Jesus every knee should
bow."
Matt. 24 : 30 : " Shall be seen com-
ing in the clouds with power and
great glory."
Rev. 11 : 15 : " Shall reign forever
and ever."
Heb. 1:2: "The heir of all
things."
Antichrist
Rev. 11:7: " Comes from below."
John 5 : 43 : " Comes in His own. 1 '
2 Thess. 2:4: "Exalts himself
above all."
Rev. 13:3, 4: "All the world
wonder after the beast, saying,
who is like unto Him ?"
Dan. 11:31: " Does according ta
His own."
Rev. 13 : 6 : " Blasphemes the name
of God."
Zech. 11 : 16, 17 : " The evil shep-
herd or idle shepherd who shall
tear the flesh."
Isaiah 14 : 14, 15 : " Exalteth him-
self above the heights of the
clouds, yet is brought down to
hell." '
Isaiah 14: 16: "They that see thee
shall narrowly look upon thee,
saying, Is this the man that,
made the earth to tremble, that
did shake the kingdoms."
Dan. 7 : 26 : " They shall take away
his dominion, to consume and
destroy it to the end."
2 Thess. 2:3: The son of Perdition.
218 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ANTICHRIST NOT A MYTH.
Antichrist is not a mere principle, nor a myth. If Chri st
be a real person in human form, so is he. If Christ is
declared and spoken of as endowed with all grace and
humility and glory, and having a glorious retinue of the
saved and glorified ones Antichrist is the embodied reality
of the very opposite principles and their malignant sup-
porters, which shall be utterly destroyed in all their usurped
empire, and in the very person of their boastful and
blasphemous king, in that day when the Faithful and True
shall ride forth from the opened heaven with His armies to
" judge and make war." (Eev. 19: 11-14.) (3.) There is
a preparation now going on for this grand and glorious
issue, on the part of the enemies of God. In Eev. 16: 13-
14, we have a description of three unclean spirits, like frogs,
coming out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the
false prophet. These are spirits of demons working mira-
cles, going forth to the kings of the earth and of the world
to gather them to the great battle of which we have spoken.
We must remember that the analogy of the ages to
which I have referred, bids us expect an interval of time in
the preparation for the closing and opening of the age.
Thus Noah warned his age 120 years before the deluge.
Moses was refused, and for forty years, the patriarchal age
lingered, and forty years elapsed before they were ready for
Canaan. Thirty years, from birth, Christ was manifested,
and forty years after Jerusalem was destroyed. One
spirit came out of the mouth of the Dragon. This may be
infidelity, in its various forms, now so fashionably prevalent,
atheism, pantheism, skepticism, rationalism, and all the
forms and phases of intellectual speculation'which deny the
word of the living God to-day. These are recruiting the
forces for Antichrist. Satan's stronghold of delusion from
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANTI -CHRIST. 219
the first has been the denial of God's word. "Ye shall not
surely die." The next demon comes out of the mouth of the
Antichrist, and represents that alienation from God, inde-
pendence of God, and opposition to Him, which in these
days is so manifest, a worldly spirit, secretly or openly
infusing itself in the Church. That lawlessness spoken of
in 2 Thess. 2: 7, which is so rapidly developing in this and
other lands as a lawless and godless socialism. And then
a third demon from the mouth of the false prophet. When
men cast oif the superstitions of the Harlot they will have
some religion. When men throw off the external garb of
a formal godliness they will seek some refuge of lies. And
so Spiritualism is a widely extended phase of modern
infidelity.
These three unclean spirits are recognized by all the
children of God. We can not, my brethren, reason them
down, or coax them, with the flatteries of a miscalled Chris-
tian charity, to cease their dreadful work of preparation for
the empire of the final Antichrist. The sword of the Spirit,
the Word of God, used in faith not with superstitious
fear is the only weapon that can prosper against them.
And with this in hand we shall not lean upon the arm of flesh,
and cry " peace, peace," when there is no peace but rad-
ical hate and determined warfare upon the Son of God. The
calculation, which, by arithmetical process, would convert
this world to Christ in fifty or a hundred years, falls to
the ground when we consider the number and extent of the
enemies of our Lord, within the very Church professing to
receive and obey His last command. The age of the Church
among the Gentiles will find the same appalling intrusion
from conformity to the world, which we have recorded in
every experiment before. God will be glorified in His
creatures. In every age, thus far, the revelation from heaven
has been taken, and with all its uplifting aid, man has
220 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
started upon his first sad venture of being as God, and
capable of guiding himself. His failure is demonstrated
in each dispensation so wonderfully, it would seem that
man should accept the word of his Lord, and rest only on
Him.
But the power of Gentile civilization, the supremacy of
Christianized thought and institutions, is so powerful and
dazzling that men will not believe the Word of God. The
Church is following the path of the Jews in their view of
the First Advent. They looked at the coming glory, until
dazzled with the sight, they overlooked the humiliation and
suffering of our Lord that was made essential to His appear-
ing in glory. To-day the Church at large look for the
recovery of this earth and this human race by means which
nowhere in God's Word can be found appointed to that end.
The destinies of our age are plainly declared. As one
has well said: " When this, our Gentile dispensation, shall
have run the vast round of earth, and have reached again
its starting point, the land of its nativity, and, returning
home in grief, as it were to die, its cradle will become its
grave." But " in these days the God of Heaven shall set
up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed." Thus will
set in divided glory and gloom, the Saturday evening's sun
of the present dispensation, briefly preceding the millennial
dawn of the new Judaic dispensation, when Jerusalem shall
at last dwell safely at rest from her Gentile foes; when " her
light shall go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof
as a lamp that burneth " to all the families of the earth,
with none to molest or make afraid in all God's Holy
Mountain.
Thus shall Antichrist arise and prosper and practice and
pass away, and the groaning and travailing earth, now at
last relieved, enter upon a Sabbath of peaceful and blessed
rest, and Satan be bound for a thousand years.
THE DE VELOPMENT OF ANTI - CHRIST. 221
How boundless a source of comfort, support and repose,
the prospect of that millennial rest, with its earthly felicity
and its heavenly ministrations, to those destined to pass
through the perilous scenes of that coming tribulation, the
very threshold of which we are treading even now ! (Briefs of
Prophetic Themes, p. 168.)
Brethren and friends, we are called to preach the Gospel
to every creature during this age, that from every nation
and tongue and people, the Lord Jesus may gather His
dear Bride! Now, in the wilderness, we often loiter and
linger in some enchanted bower. Let us go forth with
renewed energy and consecration to the work. A perishing
world demands our faithful testimony for our absent Lord.
Let us be true and loyal to our coming King. u It is high
time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer
than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is
at hand." (Rom. 13: 11, 12.)
Soon will be " heard as it were the voice of a great mul-
titude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of
mighty thunderings saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord God
Omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give
honor to Him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and
His wife hath made herself ready." (Eev. 19:7.) " Blessed
are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the
Lamb. And he sayeth to me: These are the true sayings
of God." (Kev. 19:9.)
222 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL.
BY BISHOP W. B. NICHOLSON, OF THE KEFORMED EPISCOPAL CHUBCH r
PHILADELPHIA.
BY Israel is here meant, as the Scriptures speak, " Both the
houses of Israel " (Isa. 8: 14); or " The house of Israel and
the house of Judah " (Jer. 31 : 31) ; or Judah and Ephraiin
(see Hosea); or the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and
the ten remaining tribes. " Both the houses of Israel " is
interchangeable with " the house of Israel," one house (Jer.
31:31, 33) in which usage "the house of Israel" is con-
terminous with " the house of Jacob " (Psalm 114: 1.) By
the gathering of Israel is meant the gathering back of all
the twelve tribes of Jacob from their dispersion, continued
through so many ages, to their own covenanted land, Pales-
tine, and the resettlement of them there as one nation. Is
this restoration of Israel a foreshown fact in prophecy?
And if so, what circumstances of the regathering, if any,
are at the same time predicted ? This is our subject.
1. As regards the prophetical fact of the restoration.
In giving answer to this question I find myself in the midst
of an embarrassment of riches. It is impossible to exhibit
within the limits of this paper the full strength of the
prophetical proof, since in that case I should have to quote
an immense proportion of the Bible. We can consider
but a very few references, a mere sample of the whole;
these, however, shall be in themselves exhaustive and all-
sufficient.
We turn to Ezekiel 36:22-28: " Say unto the house of Israel, Thus
saith the Lord God * * * I will take you from among the heathen,
and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own
THE GATHERING- OP ISRAEL. 223
land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean;,
from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A
new heart, also, will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you,,
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
you an heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you, and cause
you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do
them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and
ye shall be My people, and I will be your God."
Here, how positively stated is the purposed fact of their
restoration. But this restoration can not be the return
from the captivity in Babylon; for, besides that it takes
place "out of all countries," instead of only one, it ia
attended with the converting power of the Holy Spirit, giv-
ing new hearts to the restored ones, and causing them to
walk in all obedience to God; blessings of the Spirit, which
were not fulfilled at the return from Babylon. Nor is it
the setting forth, whether typically, symbolically, or other-
wise, of the conversion of the Gentiles and their restoration
from Satan to God, or the establishment of the Christian
church among the Gentiles and its spiritual prosperity; for
it is expressly "the house of Israel" whom God here
addresses, and the land to which restoration is effected i&
identically that which " God gave to the fathers " of that
house, a land which, as God goes on to say in the subse-
quent verses, has been " waste and desolate," and filled with
44 ruined cities," but which is now to be u tilled," and to
abound in " corn, and the fruit of the tree, and the increase
of the field;" literally the land of Israel, then, and not
typically or symbolically something else. Thus the regath-
ering of Israel spoken of in this passage can possibly refer
only to the literal Israel, and to their restoration to Pales-
tine. And since, as we have seen, it did not take place at
the return of Babylon, by the same token, there never hav-
ing been any other restoration of that people, it has, as yet,
never taken place at all. It is yet in the future.
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Ezekiel 37:15-22:
" The Word of the Lord came again unto me, saying : Moreover, thou
son of man take thee one stick, and write upon it, for Judah and for the
children of Israel his companions; then take another stick and write
upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephrairn, and for all the house of
Israel his companions ; and join them one to another, into one stick, and
they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy
people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not show us what thou
meanest by these ? Say unto them : Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I
will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the
tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the
stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine
hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before
their eyes. And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will
take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be
gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own
land; and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains
of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all ; and there shall be no
more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any
more at all."
Anything more conclusive than this it is not possible to
put into language, or even to conceive of. Both divisions
of Israel are expressly mentioned, Judah and his compan-
ions, and Ephraim and his companions; they shall be taken
" from among the heathen (the nations)," and be gathered
" on every side " (out of all nations); they shall be " brought
into their own land, the land upon the mountains of Israel,"'
and in that land the two divisions shall be made "one
nation," and never more shall they become " two nations,"
or be " divided into two kingdoms;" the reference being to
the rebellion of the ten tribes under Rehoboam, Solomon's
successor, and their secession from his authority under Jer-
oboam. Reference to literal Israel could not be more dem-
onstrated, nor the fact of their restoration to Palestine
more positively stated; meanwhile the impressive effect of
both the literalness and positiveness is made superlative,
by means of a symbolism of the two sticks, bearing each
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL. 225
the name of one of the two houses of Israel respectively,
and joined together in the hand of the prophet. And that
this restoration is not the return from Babylon is beyond
question, from what follows in the chapter; for God
immediately proceeds to say, that, upon the occurring of
this restoration of Israel to their own land, He will make
a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant
with them, and " will set His sanctuary in the midst of
them forevermore," and " they shall walk in His judg-
ments, and observe His statutes," and " they shall dwell
in the land that Pie has given unto Jacob, wherein their
fathers have dwelt, they and their children, and their chil-
dren's children forever;" none of which things were true of
their going back from Babylon. Both houses of Israel
are yet to be gathered out of all nations to their own land.
In the ninth chapter of the prophecy of Amos, at the
ninth verse, the Lord says: " For, lo, I will command and
I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as
corn is sifted in a sieve " a vigorous description of their
divinely inflicted dispersion, which, beginning so many
ages ago, has continued to the present moment; "yet shall
not the least grain fall upon the earth" an equally vigor-
ous description of their divinely wrought marvelous pres-
ervation as a people, although scattered through all nations
during all those terrible ages of suffering. Now, for what
purpose have they been so preserved? The Lord Himself
answers, in the fourteenth verse, "And I will bring again
the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build
the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant
vineyards, and drink the wine thereof ; they shall also make
gardens, and eat the fruit of them ; " that is, He would pre-
serve them in their national identity on purpose to return
them to their national territory; to a land, their entrance
into which would be His "bringing them again;" a land
15
226 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
whose soil they should cultivate into vineyards and gardens,
and whose grapes and vegetables they should enjoy; liter-
ally a land, then, and their own land; literally the tribes
of Jacob gathered back to where they had nationally dwelt
long centuries before. Has this restoration of that people
ever been effected? Nay, for the Lord continues: u And I
will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be
pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith
the Lord thy God." But their dispersion among the
nations is a living experience before our eyes to-day; there-
fore, never did occur their restoration as spoken of in this
passage from Amos ; they have yet to be so planted in their
land, as that they shall no more be pulled up out of it. The
land is still waiting for them, and they are being kept of
God for the land.
So far we have but tasted of Old Testament teaching, on
the point before us. Isaiah and Jeremiah are full of testi-
monies every whit as strong as the ones we have examined;
and so are many others of the prophets. But we now pass
to the New Testament Scriptures, wherein is clearly recog-
nized that there is yet to be a regathering of Israel to their
own land; although consistently with the purpose and
character of what we call the Christian dispensation, it is
not so pervasively there as in the Old Testament.
In Romans 9:4, 5, St. Paul, having mentioned the
" Israelites," says that to them appertain " the adoption,
and the covenants, and the promises, and the fathers." He
expressly identifies the Israelites of whom he is speaking
as "his kinsmen according to the flesh;" therefore, literal,
national Israel. Theirs is " the adoption," he says. But
if their adoption or sonship as a people be only a past fact,
having no influence for the yet future, how can it still be to
them, as a people, a matter of privilege and blessing?
Theirs are "the covenants," he says. But one of those
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL. 227
covenants is it not God's arrangement with Abraham to
give to him and his seed " all the land of Canaan for an
everlasting possession." (Gen. 17.) Must they not, there-
fore, be reinstated in that land? Theirs are "the promises,"
he says. But what promises can belong to them as a dis-
tinct people, save such as those of which we have had a
sample from the Old Testament? Theirs are " the fathers,"
he says. But what are Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob to
them as a people, if they, the descendants of those fathers,
are forever nationally defunct? So inevitably implied in
St. Paul's enumeration of the privileges of his kinsmen
according to the flesh is the prophetical fact of the gather-
ing of them back to their own land. In Romans 11: 1, the
Apostle exclaims, " I say, then, Hath God cast away His
people? God forbid. For I, also, am an Israelite, of the
seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin." That is, the
literal, national Israel are God's ancient people; and as
such He has not cast them away. In Luke 21:24, Jesus
said: "They shall be led away captive into all nations; and
Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." When this fulfillment
of the times shall have taken place, then shall Jerusalem be
no longer trodden down ; it shall be in the possession of ita
ancient owners, even of those who have been led away cap-
tive into all nations. And did not the Lord Jesus advert
to the same prophetical fact, when He said to His apostles
(Matt. 19: 28), "In the regeneration, when the Son of Man
shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye shall also sit upon
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel!" For
how shall the apostles rule over the twelve tribes, if, as
twelve tribes, they shall then have no existence, or if they
be not gathered together as a nationality?
Let these instances suffice, as regards the New Testa-
ment, for the prophetical fact of Israel's yet future restora-
228 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
tion. Other citations might be given, especially almost the
whole of one entire book, the great prophetical Apocalypse,
in which this fact is the underlying element, the very
centre around which revolve its terrors and its grandeurs.
As, however, I shall have occasion to refer to that book in
another part of our subject, I here conclude the direct argu-
ment for the general fact. Limited though oar selections
of proof have been, they yet are ample. Undeniably, both
houses of Israel, as one nationality, shall yet be re-estab-
lished in Palestine, the land of their ancient inheritance.
Moreover, the argument for the fact will be continually
expanding and strengthening, while we shall be considering
the predicted circumstances of the fact.
II. The gathering of Israel will be accomplished in two
installments .
1. One movement in the process of their restoration will
have taken place previously to the Lord's Second Coming.
" Behold," saith God, in Zechariah (14), " the day of the
Lord cometh. For I will gather all nations against Jeru-
salem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and half of the
city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the
people shall not be cut off from the city." Now, if Israel
be not there, why are the nations there to fight against
them? for that it is Israel against whom this battle is waged
is sufficiently suggested by the wor^l " nations," as designat-
ing the attacking party; in fact, however, the whole chapter
is express as to the presence of Israel. But it is in con-
nection with this battle that " the day of the Lord cometh."
And the prophecy proceeds: " Then shall the Lord go forth,
and fight against those nations. And His feet shall stand
in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before
Jerusalem on the east." This is the Second Coming, and
lo, Israel are already in their own land. Again (Zechariali
12) : " Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL. 229
unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the
siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem." Here
the presence of Judah is expressly noted; meanwhile, in
the last verses of the chapter, others of Israel besides those
of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin are mentioned as
being present, as " the family of the house of Levi,"
and the family of Shimei" (or, according to the read-
ing of the Septuagint, " the family of Simeon.") Kepre-
sentatives of the ten tribes, also, are there. But when
is it that God will make Jerusalem this cup of trem-
bling to the nations? When (8) " the Lord shall defend the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the house of David shall be
as God, as the angel of the Lord before them;" when the
house of David shall have as its chief representative, visibly
present, the incarnate God, Christ in His second coming,
who is David, the Eternal King.
Nor, as it would seem, will it be more than a very few
years before the Lord's coming, that this restoration of
Israel will have been effected. It is in the last of Daniel's
Seventy Weeks that they are presented to our view as
nationally established in their own land; and that seven-
tieth week is the seven years immediately preceding the
Advent. It must be borne in mind, however, that some
several years may be required before the beginning of that
last week, in order to their regular settlement as a State.*
*The Futurist theory of the Apocalypse regards this Book as a " Book
of the Time of the End "the last world-week i. e., the 70th of the 70
weeks of Daniel, the whole period between the First and Second
Advents being a parenthesis between the 69th and 70th of these pro-
phetic weeks. In this last week Israel's history is resumed for the final
tribulation and glory. The Jew is the key to the Apocalypse. The first
three and one half years of this world-week are occupied with the rise
of Anti-christ; the second three and one half with the fall of Anti-
christ. The albeit critical exposition of this theory is by Kliefot\
Qfferibarung Johannis, Leipzig, 1874. See also Keil on Daniel, Clarke's
For. and Ev. Library, p. 337. The 1,000 years fallow the Destruction of
Anti-christ. N. W.
230 SECOND COMING OF CUEIST.
2. But all Israel will not have been gathered back to
their land before the Advent; a second and finally complete
movement in their restoration will occur subsequently to
that great event. (Isa. 11: 11, 12, 15, 16):
* And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His
hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people,
which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros,
.and from Gush, and Elam, and from Shinar, and from Harnath, and
from the islands of the sea. And He shall set up an ensign for the
nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together
the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. And the
Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian Sea; and with His
mighty wind shall He shake His hand over the river, and shall smite it
in the seven streams, and make men go over dry-shod. 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
Egypt."
At what time is it appointed for this magnificent descrip-
tion of Israel's restoration to be realized? As we learn
from the fourth verse, After the Lord with the breath of
His lips shall have slain the Wicked One. Now from 2
Thess. 2:8, we learn that "the Lord shall destroy that
Wicked with the brightness of His coming." After the
coming, then shall this restoration of Israel have place.
Again (Isa. 66:20):
"They shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord, out
of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon
mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain, Jerusalem, saith
the Lord."
When? After the Lord shall have "come with fire"
(15), and after He shall have " pleaded by fire and by sword
with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many "
(16). Nay, the very persons who shall thus bring all Israel
out of all nations, are those who escape the great destruc-
tion, which the Lord at His coming shall infiict on the
besieging armies around Jerusalem, and whom He will
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL. 231
send on that errand back from Jerusalem to the nations (19).
This recovery of Israel, then, is subsequent to the Advent.
Thus there will be two distinct stages in the process of
their gathering; the first, before the great Epiphany of the
Lord Jesus; the second, after it; the first, partial; the
second, complete. How utterly vain to attempt to make
the passages which describe this second gathering apply to
the return from the Babylonish captivity!
III. Particulars of the first gathering :
1. The number of them will be considerable. This is
indicated by the immense armies which Antichrist will
bring together for the siege of Jerusalem (Joel 3:1, 2, 9,
14). But also Ezekiel describes the land as being, by reason
of this first gathering back of the people, a land of villages,
and the people as having silver and gold, and cattle and
goods (38: 11-13). See also Isa. 2: 7.
2. They will be gathered back in their unconverted
state. According to Zechariah 12:10, it will be only
at the Lord's coming only in connection with u their
looking upon Him whom they pierced," that " the spirit
of grace and of supplications " shall be poured out upon
them. Previous to the coming of the Lord, therefore, it
will be still as rejectors of Christ and rebellious to God,
that they will occupy their land. And it is as speaking of
them at that very time, that Isaiah ascribes to them pride
and haughtiness, the loftiness of the cedar of Lebanon, and
the stiff sturdiness of the oak of Bashan (2.)
3. They will have rebuilt their temple and re-established
their temple services, before the corning of the Lord. For,
according to the words of Jesus in the twenty-fourth of
Matthew, they will " see the Son of Man coming in the
clouds of Heaven with power and great glory," only after
" the Abomination of desolation," spoken of by Daniel the
prophet, shall have stood " in the holy irfa<5e. w OF THJB "
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
4. The object of their gathering is ultimately their con-
version, but primarily, their chastisement and suffering.
In connection with the setting up of the abomination of
desolation in the temple, Jesus said (Matt. 24) :
" Then shall be great tribulation, such as was cot since the begin-
ning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." "Alas! " says
God, in Jeremiah (30:7), " for that day is great, so that none is like it;
it is even the time of Jacob's trouble." " Therefore thus saith the Lord
God (Ezek. 22 : 19-22), because ye are all become dross, beho'd, there-
fore, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather
silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the fur-
nace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it ; so will I gather you in mine
anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there and melt you. Yea, 1
will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye
shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted in the midst
of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall
know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you."
5. Their terrible sufferings, when ended, will have
reduced them to a remnant. " Except those days should
be shortened," said Jesus (Matt. 24), "there should no
flesh (no Israelites) be saved; but for the elect's sake those
days shall be shortened." Those elect ones will be but a
remnant. Only " the third part shall be brought through
the fire, and be refined as silver is refined." (Zech. 13: 9.)
This elect remnant, spoken of so frequently by the prophets,
is not to be confounded with " the remnant according to the
election of grace," spoken of in Romans 11: 5. That elect
remnant consists of all those individuals of Israel who-
have, or will have, believed in Christ, during our Christian
dispensation, and who, in company with all believers from
among the nations, will constitute, together with the true
people of God in Old Testament times, the church of the
glorified at the time of the Lord's coming. But the elect
remnant with whom we now have to do is the comparatively
few of Israel who will have survived, in their own land>
the terrors of the great day. They are identical with the
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL.
" hundred and forty and four thousand sealed " ones of the
seventh of the Kevelation. For those sealed ones are all
Israelites, it being expressly said that they are taken from
among " the tribes of the children of Israel," and, besides,
the twelve tribes being all enumerated by their names, as
" the tribe of Judah," " the tribe of Keuben," " the tribe
of Gad," etc. If that is not a description of the literal
Israel, then is there no way of certainly identifying them
at all? I stop not to discuss whether the number of the
sealed is to be interpreted literally or symbolically, but,,
however interpreted, that there are only twelve thousand
out of each tribe presents the idea of a remnant. And, as
it is said they are sealed, in whatever way the sealing may
be done, on purpose that they shall be discriminated from
others, and so be preserved through the judgments of the
awful day; be brought to the end of, and beyond those
fiery sufferings of their people and themselves on the occa-
sion of the Lord's Advent. Thus they are precisely the
elect remnant of whom the Old Testament so often speaks.
And preserved they will have been, when the dread grand-
eurs of that Epiphany from heaven shall have passed.
There they stand in their Divine deliverance, God's chosen
Israel, a wondrous company.
6. And now comes to pass their conversion to God.
" They will have witnessed the terrors of the reign of Anti-
christ, will have seen the plagues of the Kevelation poured
out upon the nations under his control, will have beheld
the heavens darkened, the Lord descend in glory, the graves
open, the saints taken, the Day of the Lord come upon
Jerusalem, the heavens and the earth shaken. They will
see, and yet find themselves protected through all these
things." [B. W. Newton.] " They will look on Him whom
they have pierced." God will pour upon them " the spirit of
grace and supplications; " they shall mourn for their sins;
234 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
and " there shall be a fountain opened to them for sin and for
uncleanness." They will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and they shall be forgiven; and not forgiven only, but
accepted in all the preciousness of that Name which they
and their nation had rejected and abhorred.
IV. Particulars of the gathering subsequent to the
Advent:
1. It will be effected by both human and divine agency.
Partly by human. (Isa. 49: 22, 23; 66: 19, 20.) Partly by
Divine. (Isa. 11:15, 16.) In this latter circumstance it
will contrast with the first gathering, for it is the unvarying
implication of Scripture that Israel's recovery before the
Advent will come about in a natural and ordinary way. As
has been said by a late writer (Molyneux), " India will be
parceled out of the world's map, by common consent, for
the occupation of its ancient possessors. The conviction
of its expediency, and the stroke of a pen, on the part of one or
two of the leading Continental powers, and the deed would be
done." Even now we may almost speak of England's pro-
tectorate of the Holy Land. God's providence is moving
apace, and evidently is rapidly nearing the crisis of Israel's
first recovery. But their second restoration will be effected
as well by miracle as by human agency.
2. In this second gathering, as in the first, returning
Israel will as yet be unconverted. (Ezek. 36: 24-38.)
3. Immediately upon their restoration, however, they
will be converted. See Ezekiel as above. Also the Better
Covenant. (Jer. 31:31-34.) "And so," exclaims Paul,
46 all Israel shall be saved." Then it is that that glorious
anthem, the twelfth of Isaiah, will peal from the lips of an
entirely converted nation.
4. And Israel's land in that day shall answer back to the
gospel holiness of its inhabitants. In extent it will be
according to the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15 : 18),
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL. 235
wherein the Lord said, " Unto thy seed have I given this
land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the
river Euphrates." As to fertility and beauty, " The wilder-
ness and solitary place shall be glad for them, and the
desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blos-
som abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing.
In the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in
the desert." (Isa. 35.) "Instead of the thorn shall come
up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the
myrtle tree." (Isa. 55.) " The mountains shall drop down
new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the
rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall
come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the
Valley of Shittim." (Joel 3: 18.) "The plowman shall
overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that
soweth seed." (Amos 9: 13.) As to universal harmony:
" The wolf, also, shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion,
and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall
lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's
den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain; for the earth (land?) shall be full of the knowl-
edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Isa. 11:
6-9.) And as to duration, God said to Abraham, " 1 will
give to thee and to thy seed after thee all the land of Canaan,
for an everlasting possession." (Gen. IT: 8.) "Thou shalt
no more be termed Forsaken," says God to the holy inhab-
itants, " neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate;
but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah;
for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be
married." (Isa. 62: A.)
236 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST,
5. The spiritual blessings of millennial Israel will be the
same as are ours now. They will be sons of God (Hosea
1: 10); so are all Christians now. They will be under the
mediatorship sacrifice and priesthood of the New Cov-
enant (Jer. 31:31; Heb. 8:6); so are we. They will please
God, and therefore must have been brought into living
union with Christ, through the Spirit, even as we, for " they
that are in the flesh (unregenerate) can not please God."
(Horn. 8: 8.) They will say to Him, " The Lord our right-
eousness " (Jer. 23: 6); so do we. They will be raised in
His likeness, at the last resurrection, in virtue of being in
Him; we shall similarly be raised at the first resurrection,
in virtue of being in Him. (1 Cor. 15.) At the same time,
however, the imprisonment of Satan and his angels, the
presence of the visible glory of Christ and His saints, His
investiture with the sovereignty of earth, the release of
creation from its groan, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
upon all flesh, these and other like things will give to the
millennial age a glorious difference and superiority, as con-
trasted with our present age.
6. Great and exalted will be millennial Israel's position
and influence in the earth. " And thou, O tower of the
flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee
shall it come, even the first dominion ; . the Kingdom shall
come to the daughter of Jerusalem." (Micah 4: 8.) u Thou
shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and
a royal diadem in the hand of thy God." (Isa. 62:3.)
" 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." (Jer. 3:17.) u Out of
Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem." (Isa. 2:3.) "He shall cause them that come
of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and
fill the lace of the world with fruit." (Isa. 27:6.) The
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL. 237
children of Jerusalem shall be made princes in all the earth
(Ps. 45:16), and the nations shall at last be regulated
according to God.
I have said nothing of the relations of millennial Israel
to the Church of the glorified. But I must close. "What
a vast subject we have been surveying, yet only as by light-
ning glances! How strong the proof, from God's Holy
"Word, of these gatherings of Israel! And have we not
confirmation superabounding, in the miraculous preserva-
tion of that people through well nigh a score of centuries
of transcendent sufferings?
Can the world show anything like it? Twice 1,800 years
old, they saw the proud Egyptian perish in the waters of
the Red Sea; they heard the fall of great Babylon's power;
they witnessed the ruins of the Syro-Macedonian conquests.
And now they have outlived the Csesars, and outlived the
dark ages. They have been through all civilizations, shared
in all convulsions, and have kept pace with the entire progress
of discovery and art. And here they stand to-day, as dis-
tinct as ever, occupying no country of their own, scattered
through all countries, identical in their immemorial phys-
iognomy, earth's men of destiny, before the venerableness
of whose pedigree the proudest scutcheons of mankind are
but as trifles of yesterday. But have they suffered severely ?
One convulsive groan of agony breathing through eighteen
centuries, and heard in every land but our own. At the
siege of Jerusalem by Titus, besides the tens of thousands
led into captivity, it was as if in a single action of a great war
the slain on one side should amount to 1,300,000; and when,
the remaining Jews having been expelled from their country,
they attempted, sixty years afterward, to return, a half
million more were slaughtered. For centuries they were
forbidden, on pain of death, even to set foot in Jerusalem.
Under King John of England, 1,500 were massacred at
238 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
York in one day. Under Ferdinand and Isabella 800,000,
by a single decree, were forced out to sea in boats, and the
most of them perished in the waves. They have been fined
and fleeced by almost every government known to history.
They have been banished from place to place; banished and
recalled, and banished again. By the Code of Justinian,
they were incapable of executing wills, of testifying in
courts of justice, of having social and public worship. The
Koran of Mahomet stigmatized them as wild dogs; the
Romish Church excommunicated any one who held inter-
course with them; the Greek Church uttered anathemas
still more severe. They have been forced to dissemble to
save their lives, and in Spain and Portugal have even
become bishops, and have governed in convents. In the
prophetic words of the Old Testament, they have been " a
reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse;" they have
been " taken up in the lips of talkers," and have been " an
infamy of the people;" and the general estimate of them
has ripened into the intense contempt of that dramatic con-
ception Shy lock, the Jew of Yen ice. And now in this
nineteenth century they are a suffering people still, but still
as indissoluble as ever.
But now all this is not according to the established course
of nations. The northern tribes came into Southern
Europe, and are now not at all distinguishable. No
Englishman can say that he derives from the Britons and
not from the Romans, or from the Saxons and not from the
Normans. On the contrary, the Jew is a Jew still. Even
our own all-appropriating country, which denationalizes
Germans, Irish, French, Spaniards, Finns, Swedes, has left
untouched this wondrous people. Here they are, holding
fast to that one tell-tale face, keeping up the sacred learning
of their traditions, self-conscious in their isolation, irre-
pressible in their love of Jerusalem, sublime in their sin-
THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL. 239
guJar patriotism, evermore looking and longing for their
Messiah, the same intense individuality as when, lord of the
soil, he plucked his olives from the trees of Judea. And,
what is more, these world wanderers of the centuries, these
tribes of the weary foot, have not only survived, but have
now risen again as an element of power among mankind.
The Jew is the banker of the world ; he is among the fore-
most, whether in science, or literature, or government. In
witchery of song unsurpassed, he enchants the world with
some of the sweetest music it ever heard. Surely he is the
standing miracle of the world's current history; the bush
of Moses, ever burning, yet never consumed; an ocular
demonstration of how God may energize the secret springs
of a people's life, yet without disturbing individual freedom
or social characteristics; an unanswerable refutation of that
godless philosophy which would turn the Almighty out of
His own universe. And for what have they thus been borne
in the hands of God, all along the ages? Beyond a peradven-
ture, if so literally have been fulfilled the prophecies which
foretold their sufferings and their preservation, equally sure
are the predicted grandeurs of their future.
But let us not take leave of our subject without making
application of these two thoughts. First, it will be, as we
have seen, their own true faith in the cleansing blood of
Christ that shall open to them the golden gates of their
millennial nationality. On what a flood of illustration i&
thus brought to our own hearts the exact truth of that Scrip-
ture, "He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth
not shall be damned." Have we now that faith?
Secondly, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. "For if the
casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what
shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?"
(Horn. 11: 15); life from the dead in the resurrection bodies
of the saints, since then shall occur the first resurrection
240 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
(Isa. 25: 8, and 1 Cor. 15: 54), and life from the dead in the
spiritual quickening of the nations. Oh, this restoration
of Israel is the very centre of God's gracious purposes
concerning the world. "For Zion's sake will He not hold
His peace, and for. Jerusalem's sake He will not rest, until
the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the
salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth." Therefore, "Ye
that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give
Him no rest till He establisheth, and till He make Jerusa-
lem a praise in the earth " (Isa. 62: 1, 6, 7).
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS.
THE JUDGMENT, OK JUDGMENTS."
BY THE REV. DR. J. T. COOPER, OP THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN SEM-
INARY, ALLEGHENY, PENN.
I HAVE been requested to give expression to my views on
a topic the very mention of which ought to awaken in the
heart a most profound feeling of awe, namely: The Judg-
ment, or Judgments. The importance and solemnity of
the subject have almost deterred me from engaging in its
discussion, yet I attempt it with the conviction that it is
our duty, with diligence and reverence, to study and to
confer with each other on the events of unfulfilled proph-
ecy; for, in the words of Dr. Yan Oosterzee, Professor of
Theology in the University of Utrecht, " the stammering
language of faith is preferable to the powerless silence of
unbelief."
In my inquiries on this subject I have sought to be
guided by the Word of God and by that alone. Isaac Tay-
lor has well said, in his "Natural History of Enthusiasm,"
u Christianity being, as it is, a religion of documents and
interpretation, must utterly exclude from its precincts the
adventurous spirit of innovation." If this be true of every
subject embraced in the Christian religion, how pre-emi-
nently true is it of the one before us for examination ? Here,
surely, it becomes reason to step aside and give place to
faith. She may, indeed, give us some hints of a judgment
to come, as she does of the awful fact that we live under a
retributive government, and that cognizance is taken of our
actions by an invisible and ever-present being, whose attri-
butes render Him the determined foe of vice and the stead-
fast upholder of righteousness. Experience and observation
16
242 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
show that there is no accurate proportion at present main-
tained between conduct and condition that the wicked
often triumph in their iniquity, while virtue is despised;
her humble votaries borne down by the gloom of adversity,
or reared in the midst of sorrows and tears. These facts,
taken in connection with the foregoing suggestions of rea-
son, seem to justify the conclusion that a crisis is before our
world in which there will be a glorious vindication of the
justice of the moral Governor of the Universe, or, in other
words, a last judgment. But, while it becomes us thus far
to listen to the voice of reason, she has nothing to say as to
the mode of God's procedure in this judgment, the time of
its occurrence and the circumstances or events connected
with it. For information on these topics, as well as for a
confirmation of the fact itself, we must look to the Word of
God, and to that word alone. Let us, then, with reverence,
open this word and hear what it has to say on this all-im-
portant theme.
I. What do the Scriptures teach us in relation to the
import of the word judgment or judgments, viewed as an
act or series of acts performed by the God of Heaven ? It
is a matter of importance that we have Scriptural" ideas on
this subject. In answer to the question just propounded,
the following facts are clearly indicated:
1. The word is sometimes used where the prominent idea
is that of rule or government. Thus we speak of the
"Judges of Israel" as Gideon, Sampson, Jephtha, Samuel,
etc. Of each of these persons it is said " he judged
Israel." Here the idea of rule or government must be
regarded as prominent, with, perhaps, a special reference
to the condition of those judged as exposed to enemies.
When Israel wanted a king they said: "We will have a
king over us, that we also may be like all the nations; and
that our king may judge us and fight our battles." In Acts
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 243
10:4-2; 2 Tim. 4:1, and 1 Pet. 4:5, Christ is said to be
" Judge of quick and dead." Compare these with Kom.
14: 0, where He is called "the Lord both -of the dead and
the living." In Psalms 72:1-4, the Messiah is spoken of
as one who should "judge Thy people with righteousness,
and Thy poor with judgments." And again, " He shall
judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of
the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor." These
passages, and they are only specimens of what might be
adduced, clearly show that the word judgment is employed
in the Scriptures not simply to denote a single act in which
a sentence is passed upon a culprit, either in the way of
acquittal or condemnation, but a series of acts in which are
involved the exercise of lordship in the way of ruling, gov-
erning, saving, vindicating, protecting and taking ven-
geance. These ideas are doubtless included in such
expressions as the following in the Psalms:
41 Arise, O God, judge the earth ; for Thou shalt inherit the nations."
(Psalms 72 : 8.) " For He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth:
He shall judge the world with righteousness and the people with His
truth." (Psalms 96 : 13.)
2. In harmony with the foregoing, the term judgment is
sometimes employed to express those dealings of God with
the children of men in which there will be a revelation of
their fixed character and a determination of their everlast-
ing destiny. In the language of the author of Christian
Dogmatics, we may say: "That the history of the world
is a continued judgment of the world," is acknowledged by
all who attentively and believingly observe it. But it is
equally manifest, that it can by no means yet be termed a
final judgment, although it is unceasingly preparing the
way for this last. This awfully momentous fact has been
made the subject of repeated prophetic announcements.
Jude, ver. 14, by the spirit of inspiration, lets us know
244 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
that " Enoch, the seventh from Adam prophesied. Behold
the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints to execute
judgment upon all."' Here we have at least the culmina-
tion of all past judgments. The Apostle Peter in Acts 10 :
42, speaks of the judgment not only of the "quick" or
living, but of the " dead," language which carries us for-
ward to a final day of reckoning. The Apostle Paul, in
Acts 17:31, speaks of "a day in which God will judge the
world " (ten oikoumenen, the inhabited world). To this
day, doubtless, he refers, in Acts 24: 25, as " the judgment to
come." This day of judgment to come is no doubt to be
identified with that which, in almost all the prophetic
writings, is spoken of as "the day of the Lord." Not,
indeed, that judgment is the only scene which that day is
to disclose; but it will doubtless constitute one of its char-
acteristic features. The impression must be made upon the
mind of every reader of the foregoing passages that this
"day of judgment " is to be final to the party or parties
judged. There are two passages, at least, which unmistak-
ably indicate this awful fact. One of these is Matt. 25:
31-46, in which such sentences are pronounced by " the
King," who sits upon His throne, as fix the eternal destiny
of the two great parties there referred to under the name
of " sheep " and " goat." That scene ends the matter for-
ever with each of these classes, exalting the one to the
possession of a kingdom, and dooming the other to " ever-
lasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels." The
other passage is Eev. 20:11-15, where the "dead, small
and great," are said to " stand before God," and " the dead
were judged out of those things which were written in the
books, according to their works." We are further told that
<< whosoever was not found written in the book of life was
cast into the lake of fire " a lake from which the Word of
God tells us of no recovery. Here the scene ends.
"THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS: 1 245
This final judgment involves, to use the language of Dr.
Yan Oosterzee, u the manifestation of that which has been
done for ages concealed, and jet could not fail ultimately to
become manifest; the separation of that which was here,
for wise reasons, combined for a time, but which was never
inwardly united, and therefore can not always remain
together; the final retribution both of the greatest and the
least thing which was done or left undone here on earth,
with an impartial justice, which in itself leaves no room for
the thought of an appeal to a higher tribunal."
II. To whom does the work of judgment belong? I
answer, it is to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the
God-man Redeemer. This matter is indisputably settled
by the Spirit of God, in the fifth chapter of the Gospel
according to John. Two actions in that chapter are ascribed
to our Lord. One of these, namely, that of raising the dead,
He is said to perform in conjunction with the Father. Thus
it is said in verse twenty-first: "As the Father raiseth up
the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth
whom He will." The other action, ascribed to Him in the
next verse, is that of judging; but this is declared to be
His work to the exclusion of the Father. See how explicit
is the statement there: " For the Father judge th no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." The rea-
sons for this are given in verses 23 and 27. It is a matter
of special importance to mark the carefulness with which
the Scriptures keep this fact before us. See Matt. 25 : 31-46 ;
Acts 17:31; 2 Cor. 5: 10, etc.
III. How long shall the work of judgment last? I shall
give the answer to this question in the words of James
Glasgow, D.D., " Irish General Assembly's Professor of
Oriental Languages; late Fellow of the University of
Bombay, and late member of the Royal Asiatic Society,
Bombay." Being a decided post-millennarian, he can not
246 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
be supposed to be influenced by any leading toward pre-
millenniarianisra in the remarks which I am about to quote.
In " The Apocalypse Translated and Expounded" he thus
expresses himself on page 511:
"Various views of the final judgment are presented in the Bible as to
time and circumstances. It is a day (John 6 : 39) ; a time (1 Cor. 4 : 5 ; 1
Peter 1:5); a personal inspection of a flock (Matt. 25:31); a harvest
(Matt. 13: 39, 11, 12); and in this vision a census, according to the sta-
tistic evidence of books. The 'hour' of the Lord's coming is also
repeatedly mentioned. Now in the text there is nothing said whatever
as to the length of time to be occupied ; but popular thinkers, with a
presumption equal to their ignorance a sinful presumption fix it down
to a human day of twenty-four or twelve hours. Learned theologians,
expositors, and enlightened preachers are more cautious. Of these I
can not find one (and I have searched libraries) makingthe time a human
day or any brief human period. In various other places of Scripture
besides prophetic visions, a day means, according to the radical sense of
the word, a period, as when Paul calls the Gospel age a day of salvation.
(2 Cor. 6 : 2.) The other terms a season, a harvest, etc., render a human
day impossible; and it appears equally impossible when we consider
the work and the means. Angels are employed to sever the righteous
from among the wicked. (Matt. 13: 41.) While Jesus could do it all in
a moment, and without any instruments, such is not the divine arrange-
ment. But the angels, or saints, honored as instruments, could not do
their work without adequate time. To separate the righteous from the
wicked, which Christ informs us He will seud forth His messengers to
do, they must see and know all men, and be made acquainted with their
characters individually, recognizing those who have the image of
Christ, and removing those who want it. To do this, they will receive
divine guidance ; but their doing of it must be to them a work of what in
human affairs would be reckoned a long time. And if we rightly con-
sider what is here said of the books, it can not fail to bring us to the
same conclusion."
Again, on page 514, he says: "There seems much more rationality
in the interpretation given by Mode, that the time of judgment is a
thousand human years, than in that of those who, without a shred of
Scriptural authority, restrict it to a human day, or some such little span
of secular time. * One day,' says Peter, ' is with the Lord as a thousand
years.' Whitby quibbles idly about the word ' as.' The very minimum
of meaning that can be taken from this is, that a day in God's reckon,
ing of His own works is as a thousand years of human reckoning."
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 247
I accord with the view expressed in the foregoing extract
from the commentary of this distinguished professor of
the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. It seems to me that
it is in perfect accord with the Scriptures to represent the
whole of the millennial dispensation as " the last day," " the
day of the Lord," and " the day of judgment," just as the
present dispensation is called "the day of salvation." (1
Cor. 6:6.) One of the distinguishing features of " that
day " is judgment. It opens with judgment, it has judg-
ment running through it and it closes with the judgment
of the great white throne. The Parousia or coming of
the Lord introduces that day, but there is no authority for
confounding it with it, and it should by no means be done.
IY. Who, according to the Scriptures, are the persons or
parties judged? These 1 shall proceed to specify.
We have the judgment of Christians or true believers.
To this the Apostle refers in 2 Cor. 5: 10: " For we must
all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every
one may receive the things done in his body, according to
that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." This pas-
sage has been regarded by both pre-millenriarians and post-
millennarians as indicating simply a general judgment
without reference to any particular class of persons. My
opinion is that the Apostle here has an exclusive reference
to believers. The following are my reasons:
1. The use of the personal pronouns in this chapter.
See the verses preceding the one before us. It is utterly
impossible to find other than believers in those verses.
There is such a thing (and is it not a precious thought?) as
the family pronouns of believers. They are " We," " Us "
and " Our." Rarely does the Spirit use these pronouns in
a larger sense as including unbelievers. When this is done
the reference is so plain that there is no danger of mistak-
ing it.
248 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
2. Nothing is said expressly in this passage of judgment,
but simply of their manifestation before the seat of Christ.
(j>avepcjd?]vai 6ei eftirpocBev rov fifaaToc rov Xptorov, 1. ., ' We must all
be made manifest before the seat of Christ." Hence there
is in the passage nothing which requires us to understand
the reference of the Apostle to be to others than believers.
A passage very similar to the one we have been consid-
ering is found in Rom. 14: 10 "We shall all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ." This passage, however, is
no stronger than the other. They both imply nothing
more than that the conduct of believers will be brought
under review at the last day " that every one of us shall
give an account of himself to God." There is then to be
a judgment of believers.
As to the nature of this judgment, it can not, con-
sistently with the Scriptures, be regarded as involving a
judicial trial or investigation of their claim or title to
eternal life. That question was forever settled for the
believers at the cross, and, actually and formally determined
by the Judge of all when he believed on the Lord Jesns
Christ. Eternal life was not held out to the believer as
something to be realized in the future, but as a blessing of
which he became possessed the moment his faith rested
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the solemn declara-
tion of the Master " He that believeth on Me hath ever-
lasting life." (John 6: 47.) Nor is this all. We find Him
saying in John 5: 24: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he
that heareth My word and believeth on Him that sent Me,
hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation
(or judgment, as the world means), but is passed from death
unto life." The word $piaif in our version, here ren-
dered " condemnation," occurs forty-eight times in the New
Testament, and is rendered judgment in forty-one of these
instances. It is so rendered in the 27th and 30th verses of
THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS.
this same chapter. No good reason, we are persuaded, can
be given for translating it in this verse condemnation and
in the 29th verse " damnation." The Scriptures, however,,
clearly teach us that there is to be a judgment of believers
in relation to their faithfulness. Paul, the Apostle, says in
1 Cor. 3: 14: "The day shall declare " the work of Gos-
pel ministers, and that " the fire shall try every man's work
of what sort it is. The same apostle, in Korn. 14: 10, .dis-
suades the Christian from "judging his brother, or setting
at naught his brother," by the consideration that " we must
all stand before the judgment seat of Christ," and that
" every one of us shall give account of himself to God, n
clearly showing that our conduct is to be brought under
review. The same important truth is most impressively
brought before us in the parable of the talents. In the
language of the professor of Theology in the University of
Utrecht, I may remark: " Nor need we feel surprised that,
according to the constant representation of the New Tes-
tament, even the chosen and believing ones shall appear
before the judgment seat of Christ, although the Lord has
said in another place that His people are already in sub-
stance judged here on earth. They come not into the judg-
ment of condemnation, but yet appear in the presence of
the Judge, before whom they have boldness, and by whom
they are now made manifest, in order to receive before the
eyes of all a gracious reward of tried fidelity."
2. There is a crisis or hour of judgment awaiting both
the houses of Israel in the latter days. The ten tribes are
at present hidden from view, but under the judicial wrath
of God. The awful extent of this wrath, as it hath rested
and still continues to rest upon the house of Judah, ha&
been the theme of historians without number. In Hos.
3: 4, 5, we are told that " the children of Israel shall abide
many days without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and
250 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
without an image, and without an ephod, and without tera-
phim." For " image," "ephod," and " teraphim," the
Seventy have altar, priesthood and manifestations. What
a remarkable description of their present condition! The
next verse shows us that " afterward shall the children of
Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and David
their king; and shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the
latter days." In harmony with this prophecy of liosea,
Jesus, to whom all judgment had been committed, utters
in the midst of His tears the following judgment: "Behold,
your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you,
Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is
he that cometh in the name of the Lord." The probability
is that this return will be made by them principally in an
unconverted state. The Gentile nations are to besiege them
and make a terrific assault upon them. In Jer. 30 : 7, the
prophet looks forward to that time and exclaims: "Alas!
For that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the
time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it."
In Dan. 12: 1, we have these words: "At that time shall
Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth forth for
Thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as
there never was since there was a nation , even to that same
time; and at that time Thy people shall be delivered, every
one that shall be found written in the book." In Zech. 12:
8, 9, the prophet thus speaks: " It shall (Some to pass that
in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be
cut off and die, but the third part shall be let therein, and
I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine
them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried;
they shall call on my name, and I will hear them; I
will say, It is my people, and they shall say, The Lord is
my God." In Isaiah 4:3, 4, it is said: " It shall come to
pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in
"THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 25:
Jerusalem, shall b3 called holy, even every one that is
written among the living in Jerusalem; when the Lord
shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion,
shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst
thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of
burning." How this deliverance will be effected for the
Jews after they have been thus terribly judged may be seen
in Zech. 14: 1-4: " Behold the day of the Lord cometh, and
thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will
gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city
shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women rav-
ished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and
the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations,
as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall
stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives." The spirit
of repentance shall come upon them with great power. In
proof of this read Zech. 12: 9-12: "And it shall come to
pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations
that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the
House of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the Spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall
look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall
mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall
be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his
first born." Ah, brethren, will not the tearful prophecy of
the pierced and crucified Galilean have its fulfillment then?
But what about the house of Israel? To what extent
they shall share in the judgments of which we have been
speaking I am not prepared to say. It is clear, however,
that a day of fearful reckoning is before them, also, though
the scene of this judgment will most probably not be their
own land. In proof of this read Ezek. 20: 32-38. Here,
after assuring them that He would rule over them "with a
252 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury
poured out," Jehovah solemnly declares to them, " and I
will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there
will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with
your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will
I plead with you, saith the Lord God."
3. The Scriptures speak of a judgment of the nations.
A description of that judgment we have in Matt. 25: 31-46.
It is there said u When the Son of Man shall come in His
glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit
upon the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be
gathered all nations, and He shall separate them one from
another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.
And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats
on the left." Our Lord has been giving a series of parables,
that of the fig tree, the ten virgins and the talents. Some
have, therefore, thought that this might with propriety be
called the parable of the sheep and the goats. However
that may be, it would be certainly improper to subject the
imagery here imployed to a rigidly literal exegesis. The
whole scene is doubtless designed to set before us the sol-
emn fact that there is a day of reckoning before the nations
of the earth, and that that day is the time of our Lord's
glorious advent. The separation which is here represented
as being made by the King, the words addressed by Him
to the two parties before Him, and the replies which they
respectively make, are each designed to set before us the
characteristics and the issues of that judgment scene which
is here so impressively described. How sublime, how
majestic the scene!
The popular and prevalent idea attached to this scene is
that it is descriptive of a grand assize in which not only
those who shall be alive at the time, but all who have died
and will yet die, shall be judged, they, of course, having
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 253
been raised to life. It is, therefore, in their belief, a judg-
ment of the quick and the dead. This view can not be
maintained.
The following considerations are sufficient to show that
the judgment scene does not embrace any of the resurrec-
tion, but only those who are alive at that epoch:
1. The passage contains no reference whatever to a res-
urrection. The presumption is that an event so important
and calculated to add so much interest to the scene would
have been mentioned had our Lord intended to include the
dead as well as the living. We have here, then, a mere
assumption and that, too, against a strong presumption.
2. The fact that these here judged are called " nations,"
is conclusive against the admission of any others but the
living. There is no instance in all the Scriptures in which
the word WVOG nation, is employed with any reference, direct
or indirect, to those who have died. There are upward of
150 texts in which this word occurs in the New Testament,
and among all these there is not one instance of its denoting
any who were not or are not to be the inhabitants of the
earth at the time to which the passage refers.
3. There are other places in the Scriptures in which
similar expressions are employed in connection with the
infliction of terrible judgments, and which probably point
to the same events, which are universally admitted to have
no reference to a judgment of any but those who are alive.
We shall quote a few out of many passages which might
be adduced. Isa. 34: 1, 2; "Come near, ye nations, to hear;
and hearken, ye people; let the earth hear, and all that is
therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it.
For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations (the
Sept. KavTd ra 0w?), and His fury upon all their armies.
He hath utterly destroyed them ; He hath delivered them
to the slaughter." Joel 3:2: "I will also gather all nations
254 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
(Sept. <7wd Trdvra ra lOvrj and will bring them down into
the Yalley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there."
And again in verse 11: "Assemble yourselves, and come,
all ye heathen (n&vra ra Wvri) and gather yourselves
together roundabout; thither cause Thy mighty ones to
come down, O Lord!" Terse 12: "Let the heathen
(Sept. Trdvra ra Mhtj) be wakened and come up to the Yal-
ley of Jehoshaphat ; for there will I sit to judge all the
heathen round about." Auutpivai Trdvra ra edvrj KVidddev. In
Ezek. 39, after calling upon every beast, etc., to come
and eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the
princes of the earth, we have these words in verse 21
" And I will set My glory among the heathen, and all the
heathen shall see My judgment that I have executed, and
My hand that I have laid upon them." Read Zech. 14:
1, 2: "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil
shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather
all nations against Jerusalem to battle," etc. And then in
the 5th verse it is said : " The Lord my God shall come,
and all the saints with Thee." Now, I ask, if these passages
where Jehovah is represented as coming with all His saints,
and gathering all the nations and sitting to judge them, and
where it is said He shall set His glory among the nations
and they shall see His glory if, I say, these passages are
regarded by no one as having any reference to a judgment
of any but the living, on what ground can it be alleged
that "the nations" mentioned in the 25th chapter of
Matthew, include not only all the living, but all, both old
and young, who have died ?
4. Another consideration which shows that the persons
here judged are not all the dead, as well as those who may
be alive at that time, is the reasons given by the Judge for
His decision in relation to the two respective classes into
which He has arranged them, namely, the sheep and the
"THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 255
goats. These reasons were the kindness shown by the
one class and the kindness not shown by the other
class to His brethren, even to the least of them. It
requires no words to show that, not to mention infants,
there are millions upon millions who have died, to whom
these reasons would have been wholly inapplicable. What
multitudes, in the ages of the past, have passed away who
never heard of the name of Jesus or his brethren!
5. The form in which this judgment is presented seems
to be altogether distinct from the one contained in Rev. 20:
11-15. Here there is no mention, as in that case, of a
formal trial no opening of books and judging out of those
things that were written in the books, according to their
works. We have here a " King " sitting upon " the throne
of His glory," and calling up rebellious or obedient subjects,
upon whom a sentence of reward or punishment is passed.
They are divided into classes in a way which presupposes
their previous guilt or innocence, and then the sentence is
pronounced with a declaration of the ground on which it
is based.
The foregoing considerations, it is humbly thought,
demonstrate that, whatever may or may not be the refer-
ence in that solemn scene brought before us in this chapter,
that reference can not be to a universal judgment both of
the living and the dead.
I now proceed to remark that there is a strong probability
that Jesus by all the nations (x&vra rd tdvjj) refers simply to
all Gentile nations, that is, to all those among the Gentiles
who had shown kindness or had failed to show kindness to
the brethren of Christ.
1. In favor of this view may be urged the following
considerations: This is the most general reference of the
original word here rendered " nation." This word, with
the article, as in the passage before us, occurs, we think, not
256 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
less than one hundred and thirty-two times in the New
Testament. It is rendered u the Gentiles " ninety-two
times; " the nations " ten times; " the heathen " live times,
arid simply u nations" twenty-five times only, in this
sense it is employed in Matt. 6:31: "Take no thought,
therefore, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink,
or wherewithal shall we be clothed. For after all these things
do the Gentiles seek." In the parallel passage in Luke 12:
31, the word is rendered " nations." In the following pas-
sages the word is rendered "Gentiles," Acts 11: 1; 13: 46,
48; Acts 14:2, 5; 18:6. As instances in which as used
by our Lord, it is rendered " Gentiles," refer to Matt. 20: 25:
"Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles," etc.; Luke
21: 24: "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles
till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." These are
merely given as specimens. If now we attach this idea to
Matt. 25 : 42, we have simply a declaration on the part of
Jesus that He will come to sit in judgment upon the
Gentiles. Had the passage been rendered, " And before
Him all the Gentiles shall be gathered," does any one
believe that the idea which is now generally attached to
these words would have taken such a hold upon the popular
mind? The fact that the Gospel according to Matthew is
universally admitted to have been designed primarily and
specially for the Jews, gives no little weight to this con-
sideration.
2. In favor of this view, may be urged the fact that it
brings this passage into striking harmony with numerous
other prophecies. Some of these have already been quoted,
and, therefore, need not be restated. In them we are assured
that there would be a day, spoken of repeatedly as " that
day," and as " the day of the Lord," in which He would
" gather all nations and bring them down into the Valley
Jehoshaphat, and plead with them there for My people and
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 257
My heritage, Israel;" and that he would there "sit and
judge all the heathen round about." What have we here
in Matthew, but another solemn warning, and that in the
same words, from u the Shepherd and Judge of Israel " as
to this " day of vengeance " that was before the nations. If
we read the 25tli chapter of Jeremiah we shall find a descrip-
tion of desolating judgments under the figure of a "wine
cup," which the prophet is directed to present to the nations
in succession. In the 25th verse it is said: "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 " shall drink of this cup. In verses 30 and 33 we
have these solemn words : " Therefore prophecy against
them all these words, and say unto them, The Lord shall
roar from on high, and utter his voice from His Holy habi-
tation; He shall mightily roar upon His 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 said
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 to the other end
of the earth; they shall not be lamented, neither gathered,
nor buried ; they shall be dung upon the ground." In con-
nection with these passages let Daniel 2: 31-45 be considered.
Here we have the four successive Kingdoms of the earth
represented as being broken in pieces and consumed by that
Kingdom which the God of Heaven shall set up. So also
in the Tth chapter the world-powers, including the kings of
the earth and their adherents, are symbolized by four beasts.
The last of these makes war with the -saints and prevails
17
258 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
against them " until the Ancient of Days came and judgment
was given to the saints of the Most High,'' when it is said,
verse 26, " the judgment shall sit and they shall take away
his dominion to consume and destroy it unto the end."
In correspondence with these Old Testament prophecies
we have in Rev. 19: 11-21, a vivid- representation of the
same terrible scene of judgment upon the nations, where
we are told that " The beast was taken and with him the
false prophet, etc., and cast alive into a lake of fire burning
with brimstone," a punishment similar to that to which
those who are on the left hand of the King are doomed.
In connection with these passages it would be well carefully
to point 2 Thess. 1:7-9; Jude 14-15; 2 Thess. 2:8.
In view, therefore, of the fact that the scene described in
the 25th chapter of Matthew, if understood to be a prophecy
of a judgment to which the Gentiles are to be subjected at
the coming of the Lord, harmonizes with numerous other
prophecies, both of the Old and New Testament Scriptures,
it is, with deference, submitted that is most probably the
idea that is to be attached to it.
There appear to be three distinct classes referred to the
"sheep," the " goats," and, as distinguished from both these,
the " brethren of Christ." Some have thought that by his
brethren, as distinguished from the others, we are to under-
stand his brethren according to the flesh the Jews. Consult
Horn. 9: 5, where the apostle tells us that Christ, as concerning
the flesh, came of the fathers, referring to the Jewish patri-
archs. In Rom. 11: 16, Paul speaks of the Jews as, though
cast off, being a "holy," that is, a consecrated, "lump,"
and in verse 28 as " beloved for the fathers' sakes." Balaam,
in Numb. 24:19, is forced to exclaim in relation to the
Jewish nation, " Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed
is he that curseth thee." These and other similar passages
seem to afford sufficient ground for the application by
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 259
Christ to the covenant people of the endearing name of
brethren.
This view, we have no disposition to press, especially
when we recall the words of Jesus: "My brethren are these
who hear the word of God and keep it."
But though this, is a judgment of Gentiles, and is to take
place here on earth, it does not follow that the punishment
inflicted or the reward conferred is merely of temporal
character. The issues of the judgment are final in the case
of both those on the right hand and the left hand of the
Judge. The last verse declares : " These shall go away into
everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal."
The former are made the heirs of a kingdom, while the
latter are banished into everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and his angels. Some have doubtless been led by a
superficial view of the language employed by the king in
this sentence to identify this judgment with that of the great
white throne which takes place after the millennium, when
the " dead, small and great," are said to appear before God.
If, however, we refer to Jude 7, we shall find that " Sodom
and Gomorrah, and the cities about them " are said to be
" set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire." If these cities could suffer eternal fire many ages
before the millennium, why could not the unrighteous be
sent into everlasting fire? A similar punishment is (Rev.
14 : 10) inflicted and confessedly, too, before the millennium,
upon those who " worship the beast and his image, and
receive his mark in their foreheads, or in their right hands."
If they could be u tormented with fire and brimstone in the
presence of the Holy Angels and in the presence of the
Lamb," why not those who have persecuted the brethren of
Christ? And if the beast and the false prophet can be, as
all agree will be the case, cast " alive into a lake of fire
burning with brimstone" before the millennium, why
200 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
should there be any hesitation in admitting that this awful
doom may be inflicted upon the enemies of Christ and His
suffering brethren ? (Rev. 19 : 20.)
Notwithstanding the most fearful judgments shall thus
be visited upon the nations of the earth, the result, it would
appear, is not a total destruction. On the contrary, we are
told in Isa. 66: 18, 19, that " it shall come that I will gather
all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my
glory, and I will set a sign among them, and I will send those
that escape of them (mark the words) unto the nations, to
Tarshish, Pul and Lud that draw the bow, to Tubal and
Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame,
neither have seen my glory among the Gentiles." Thus
there is a remnant both of Jews and Gentiles.
In the destruction of those nations that shall then be
found in rebellion against the Lord and against His Christ
are brought to a final consummation the overthrow of every
wicked organization, whether of a religious or civil char-
acter. Then, too, will come to end all those Christless
associations that have been begotten and nurtured by the
dark spirit of secrecy. Oh, yes, they will vanish amid the
blazing fives of that " great and terrible day of the Lord."
The dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, with the
unclean spirits that went forth from their mouths, have met
their final doom.
4. The Scriptures speak of a judgment of the dead. An
account of this we have in Rev. 20: 11-15. This judgment
takes place after the thousand years are expired. The
apostle tells us that he " saw the dead, small and great,
stand before God; and the books were opened; and another
book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead
were judged out of those things which were written in the
books, according to their works." Here you will notice
that the dead are twice specifically mentioned. But that
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 261
is not all. In the very next verse it is said: "And the
sea gave up the dead which are in it; and death and hell
delivered up the dead which were in them; and they
were judged every man according to their works."
Those who introduce the dead among " all the nations,"
in Matt. 25, do not hesitate to introduce the living as
among the number that are to be judged on this occasion.*
The one is as unauthorized as the other. This results from
an identification of these two judgments. As before shown,
however, they are clearly distinct as well as separated from
each other by a thousand years. A t all events, whether
separated by such a period or not, they are not the same.
The very place of the judgment here is altogether different
from that in the Gospel. There the judgment is on the
earth; for, according to the universal belief of Christians,
" when the Son of Man shall come in His glory," it shall be
from heaven to earth. Here, however, " the earth and the
heaven " are said to have "fled away; and there was no
place found for them." The great White Throne, therefore,
is not on the earth at all. As expressly predicted by the
Apostle Peter, they have been " dissolved, and their ele-
ments have melted with fervent heat."
We have here symbolically set before us an assize in
which there is a strict judicial trial made and a sentence
given according to the law and the evidence. The design
of the whole scene is evidently to bring before us in an
impressive manner the idea that the claims of justice will
at last be vindicated.
The question here presents itself: Are there any believers
among those who are judged on this occasion? We do not
*Let it not be inferred that the ''nations " here mentioned are treated
simply in their collective or corporate capacity. Whatever may, or may
not be the true interpretation of this difficult passage, it must be admit-
ted that those who "go away into everlasting punishment," and those
who enter " into eternal life" are individual persons. The separation
which the Shepherd is exhibited as making seems evidently to imply this.
262 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
wish to dogmatize on this point; yet, to us, the presump-
tion appears to be against the admission of this idea. This
opinion is based on the following reasons: 1. There is no
reference to any as having been rewarded, while there is
express mention of the dreadful doom that fall upon such
as " were not found written in the Book of Life." How
account for such a remarkable omission? 2. The analogy
of faith, the union of believers with Christ, the fact that
they are exhibited in this Apocalypse as " the Bride, the
Lamb's wife," their acknowledged state of freedom from
the law as a covenant of life, and above all the express
declaration of Jesus Himself in John 5 : 24, would seem to
indicate that they would not appear in such a judgment as
the one here described, that is, a judgment to eternal life
or death.
The fact that the " Book of Life " is represented as being
consulted, led me for some time to entertain the idea that
believers are to be included among "the dead" who were
judged. The following statement, however, has had the
effect of lessening, if not entirely removing, the difficulty
founded on the reference here to the Book of Life:
" We need scarcely say," observes the writer, " that previous to all
investigation, God knows that the names of the wicked are not there,
even as without any trial He knows the character of their works. But
according to His gracious dealings with men, none are necessarily con-
demned for evil works, pardon being offered to the guilty. For this
reason, there are two solemn stages in this judgment. First, a reference
to the 4 other books,' to show that the works of the wicked deserve
death. Secondly, the opening of ' the Book of Life,' to show that by
unbelief they have rejected life. And then, their names not being there,
the execution of the sentence follows which is ' the second death.' "
Prior to this we have an account of the casting of the
devil, at the close of the thousand years, into the " lake of
fire and brimstone." This appears to be that final judg-
ment that is in reserve for " Diabolos," the leader of those
THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS."
" angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own
habitation," and who are said to be " reserved in everlasting
chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great
day." Into this " lake of fire, burning with brimstone,"
the beast and the false prophet are said, before the thousand
years begin, to be both cast alive. This was consequent
upon the descent of Him " who hath on His vesture and on
His thigh the name written, KING- OF KINGS, AND LORD OF
LOKDS," and who was followed by " the armies which were
in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean." That
scene may, therefore, be identified with the judgment of
the " nations " depicted in the 25tb chapter of Matthew. It
is worthy of notice that the everlasting fire into which those
on the left hand of " the King" are sent is said to be " pre-
pared for the devil and his angels." Here it is said " the
devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and
shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." How
striking: the harmony here !
We have thus specified several distinct judgments. These
judgments, however, may all be regarded as one^ the whole
period being called the Day of Judgment. Those which
we have been considering may be viewed as different acts
or scenes in that one judgment.
Y. 'What is the order of these judgments? Here, breth-
ren, it becomes me to speak with the greatest deference and
caution. A spirit of dogmatism is especially unbecoming
here. I have no sympathy with it in others, and I would
devoutly desire to avoid it myself. I believe, with that
distinguished Professor of Theology in the University of
Utrecht from whom I have previously quoted, that " while
the path of eschatology is traced over the highest moun-
tain heights, the loftiest peaks are bordered by the deepest
chasms." Into these chasms I shall deem it the part of
264 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
wisdom not to enter. Questions may be started touching
not only " the times and the seasons which the Father hath
put in His own power," but touching the exact character
and extent of the events of unfulfilled prophecy, and espe-
cially their relation to each other, to which the only proper
answer is, " ignorantiam fateri optima scientia to con-
fess ignorance is the choicest wisdom."
Impressed deeply with the difficulties attending the sub-
ject, and my own inability to solve them to the satisfaction
of myself or others, I shall try to bring before you the
order of these judgments and the relation they sustain to
each other.
1 . The judgment of the nations is expressly declared to
be at the Coming of the Son of Man. It is then " that
He sits upon the throne of His glory and gathers all nations
before Him."
2. Before proceeding to the work of judgment the Lord
Jesus exalts to thrones and associates with Himself in the
judgment those who had fallen asleep in Him and those
who are alive and waiting for Him, but who are changed
by the same power as that by whom the dead are raised, 1
Thess. 4: 17. Hence He is presented as " coming with
them. 19 The passages in which the saints are exhibited as-
associated with Christ in judgment are very explicit.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, say-
ing: " Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His
saints, to execute judgment upon all," etc. (Jude 14.) " The
Lord my God shall come and all the saints with Thee."
(Zech. 14:5.) David says (Ps. 149:5-8), that to execute
the judgment written is an honor which all the saints are
to have. In the vision of Daniel (ch. 8), a judgment scene
is presented; the thrones or seats are set, and "judgment,"
we are told, " was given to the saints of the Most High."
The Apostle declares that " the saints shall judge the
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 265-
world," and he tells the Corinthian believers that they
" shall judge angels." Our Lord gives this solemn assur-
ance to His disciples (Matt. 19:28) : " In the regeneration,,
when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory,
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel." The judgment so repeatedly ascribed to
the saints includes the idea of rule and authority according
to the promise of the Master in Luke 19: 17-19, in which
one of the faithful servants is declared to be a ruler over
ten cities, and another over five cities, etc. It is with a
view to this exalted position of judges and rulers with
Christ, that they 'are caught up to " meet " their returning
Lord in the air. This is unmistakably shown in Rev. 19 r
where the King of kings and Lord of lords " is represented
as riding upon a " white horse." " Out of His mouth
goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the
nations; and He shall rule them with a rod of iron; and
He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of
Almighty God." But let it be noticed that He does not
come alone; for it is said: "The armies which were in
heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine
linen, white and clean. This accords with His gracious
promise in Rev. 2:26 : " He that overcometh and keepeth
My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the-
nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the
vessels of a potter shall they be broken to pieces."
In the 20th chapter of Revelation we have exhibited to
us the formal investiture of the risen saints with judicial
powers. It is there said that "judgment was given unto
them," that is, as Alford expresses it, " They were consti-
tuted judges." I can not consent, after a most careful con-
sideration of the passage, to regard this in any other light
than a literal resurrection. My opinion is of little account*
I will, therefore, introduce to you the testimony of that dis-
266 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST,
tinguished critic, Dean Alford. Here is his testimony on
Revelation 20:6 ("This is the first resurrection "):
" It will have been long ago anticipated by the readers
of this commentary that I can not consent to distort words
from their plain sense and chronological place in the
prophecy, on account of any considerations of difficulty, or
any risk of abuses which the doctrine of the Millennium
may bring with it. Those who lived next to the Apostles,
.and the whole Church for 300 years, understood them in
the plain literal sense; and it is a strange sight in these
days to see expositors who are among the first in reverence
of antiquity, complacently casting aside 'the most cogent
instances of consensus which primitive antiquity presents.
As regards the text, no legitimate treatment of it will
extort what is known as the spiritual interpretation of it
now in fashion. If, in a passage where two resurrections
are mentioned, where certain ^v X at %aav at the first, and
the rest of the vexpbt e&aav only at the end of a specified
period after that first if in such a passage the first resur-
rection may be understood to mean spiritual rising with
Christ, while the second means literal rising from the grave
then there is an end to all significance in language, and
Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to anything."
What part the risen saints will take in the judgments
with which they are associated with Christ we do not. know.
The fact a fact most clearly revealed in the Scriptures is
all with which we have at present to do.
3. By means of those that pass through these great
tribulations that will overtake both Jews and Gentiles, the
Lord Jesus Christ will form his Millennial Kingdom on the
-earth, over which Christ and His risen saints shall reign.
The kingdom will be on the earth, but it does not follow
that those who reign will be there. Queen Victoria reigns
over India and the Canadas, but she has never seen, and
" THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 267
probably never will see, these countries. The discussion of
this subject does not, however, fall within our range. What
we affirm is that there are to be nations on the earth during
the Millennial period. These terrific judgments of which
we have been speaking have not resulted in a total destruc-
tion of its population. It is true that " the Lord will come
with fire and with His chariots, like a whirlwind, to render
His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire.
For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all
flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many." This is
true; but the same chapter that records this solemn truth
assures that there are those who escape these judgments
and who are to be employed as missionaries to those who
had not heard His fame nor seen His glory, and who will
assist in the restoration of the Israelites to their own land.
(Isa. 66: 15-24. Consult, also, Isa. 59: 20, 21; 65: 17-25.)
As for the Jews, though they shall be fearfully wasted and
subjected to the most appalling sufferings, yet a " third
part " even of those in the land shall escape, as we have
seen, and will doubtless herald forth the glory of the Lord.
The question may be asked after the saints are caught
up to meet the Lord in the air, and the judgment is given
to them, are there any degenerate persons left on the earth?
Here is a question, brethren, which I can not satisfactorily
answer. It has been to me the most serious difficulty in
the way of accepting the Pre-Millennarian system. It
would greatly stumble me were there not on the other side
difficulties incomparably more serious. I wait for light on
this, as on many other subjects, if it please the Lord to give
it. How long the interval may be between the rapture of
the saints and the judgment of the nations we are not
informed. It will doubtless be long enough for many souls
to be converted and called out into active testimony. The
matter of this testimony will be of such a character and
268 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the work of the Spirit of God upon the heart so powerful
that it may not be long before the whole earth is vocal with
the praises of Jehovah. Thus, that bright and glorious
state of things so often depicted in the Word of God will
be maintained for one thousand years.
4. At the expiration of the thousand years, a sad apos-
tacy takes place. If our first parents, though made in the
image of God, fell by transgression, shall this last apostacy
be thought incredible, especially when we take into consid-
eration the fact that man, though greatly advanced in holi-
ness, will still be but imperfectly sanctiiied. We have only
to suppose that anew generation has come into existence;
that the Spirit of God has been withdrawn; and that Satan,
the deceiver, has been let loose, to find a solution of this
awful fact which stands recorded in the page of prophecy.
5. This is followed by the infliction of an awful judgment
upon the revolters and their leader. Fire descends from
heaven upon them, while Satan is cast into the lake of fire,
to be forever tormented.
6. Then we have the judgment of the dead, small and
great, the nature, character and issues of which we have
already considered. Here the work of judgment ends, and
with it must end the discussion of this solemn subject.
Dear brethren in the Lord, some of you have perhaps
read that most interesting work entitled "John Knox and
ike Church of England* by Dr. Lorimer, Professor of
Theology in the English Presbyterian Church." Among
the many deeply interesting letters of this illustrious
Scottish reformer which that work contains, there is one
written by him in 1554, in one of the darkest hours of his
wonderful career. It is addressed " to the faithful in Lon-
don, New-Castle and Berwick, and to all others within the
realm of England that love the coining of our Lord Jesus
Christ." Hear how this valiant soldier of Christ draws
"THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS." 269
courage and comfort as lie anticipates, by faith, the coming
of our Lord as a judge to vindicate the cause of His
oppressed people. He says, in those burning words which
he knew so well how to use: " Has not the Lord Jesus, in
despite of Satan's malice, carried up our flesh into heaven?
And shall He not return? We know that He shall return,
and with expedition. Flee from idolatry and stand with
Christ Jesus in this day of His battle, which shall be short
and the victory everlasting, for the Lord Himself shall
come in our defence with His mighty power. He shall
give us the victory when the battle is maist strong; and He
shall turn our tears into everlasting joy. He shall consume
our enemies with the breath of His mouth, and He shall
let us see the destruction of them that are now maist proud,
and that maist pretendeth to molest us. From God alone
we abide redemption." Surely a faith and hope that could
thus inspire the heart of this brave old reformer in the day
of battle may be of use to you and me.
Can I more appropriately close this address than by
repeating the very last section of the last chapter of that
venerable symbol to which some of us have declared our
adherence? I refer to the Westminster Confession of Faith.
These are its closing words: " As Christ would have us to
be certainly persuaded that there shaM be a day of judg-
ment, both to deter all men from sin, and for the greater
consolation of the godly in their adversity; so will He-
have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all
eternal security, and be always watchful, because they know
not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever pre-
pared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen."
270 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
THE COMING OF THE LORD IN ITS RELATION
TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
BY THE BBV. DR. JAMES H. BROOKES, PASTOR OF THE WALNUT STREET
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ST. LOUIS.
DR. DA.VID BROWN, in his well-known book against Pre-Mil-
lennialism, truly says, " It is a school of Scripture inter-
pretation, it impinges upon and affects some of the most
commanding points of the Christian faith ; and, when suf-
fered to work its unimpeded way, it stops not till it has
pervaded with its own genius the entire system of one's
theology, and the whole tone of his spiritual character, con-
structing, I had almost said, a world of its own; so that
holding the same faith, and cherishing the same funda-
mental hopes as other Christians, he yet sees things through
a medium of his own, and finds everything instinct with the
life which this doctrine has generated within him." (P. 6.)
Again, he remarks of the opposite doctrine: "Are there
no Anti-Premillennial tendencies, which require to be
guarded against? I think there are. Under the influence
of such tendencies, the inspired text, as such, presents no
rich and exhaustless field of prayerful and delighted inves-
tigation; exegetical inquiries and discoveries are an uncon-
genial element; and whatever Scripture intimations regard-
ing the future destinies of the Church and of the world
involve events out of the usual range of human occurrences,
or exceeding the anticipations of enlightened Christian
sagacity, are almost instinctively overlooked or softened
down." (P. 9.)
Again, he declares that " Pre-Millennialists have done the
Church a real service, by calling attention to the place
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 271
which the Second Advent holds in the Word of God and
the scheme of Divine truth. If the controversy which they
have raised should issue in a fresh and impartial inquiry
into this branch of it, I, for one, instead of regretting, shall
rejoice in the agitation of it. When they dilate upon the
prominence given to this doctrine in Scripture, and the
practical uses which are made of it, they touch a chord in
the heart of every simple lover of his Lord, and carry con-
viction to all who tremble at His word; so much so, that
I am persuaded that nine tenths of all who have embraced
the Pre-Millennial view of the Second Advent, have done
so on the supposition that no other view of it will admit of
an unfettered and unmodified use of the Scripture language
on the subject that it has its proper interpretation and full
force only on this theory. * * * With them we affirm
that the REDEEMER'S SECOND APPEARING is THE VERY POLE-
STAR OF THE CHURCH. That it is so held forth in the New
Testament is beyond dispute. Let any one do himself the
justice to collect and arrange the evidence on the subject,
and he will be surprised if the study be new to him at
once at the copiousness, the variety and the collusiveness
of it." (Pp. 12, 13.)
Once more, at the close of his elaborate argument he
beautifully writes: " Nor is it in regard to the personal
appearing of the Saviour only that Pre- Millennial! sts will
and ought to prevail against all who keep it out of sight.
There is a range of truth connected with it which neces-
sarily sinks out of its Scriptural position and influence
whenever the coming of Christ is put out" of its due place.
I refer to the RESURRECTION as a co-ordinate object of the
Church's hope, and to all the truths which circle around it,
in which there is power to stir and to elevate, which nothing
else, substituted for it, can ever possess. The resurrection
life of the Head as now animating all His members, and at
272 SECOND COMING OF CHfilST.
length quickening them from the tomb, to be forever with
Him these, and such like, are truths in the presentation
of which Pre-Milleunialists are cast in the mould of Scrip-
ture, from which it is as vain, as it were undesirable, to dis-
lodge them." (P. 488.)
It is somewhat singular that one who made admissions
so candid and so creditable alike to his head and his heart,
could at the same time labor with so much ability and zeal
to divert the thoughts of God's people from a doctrine
which, according to his own confession, " is THE VERY POLE-
STAR OF THE CHURCH." It ID ay be confidently asserted that
those who read and receive as satisfactory the reasonings of
his book, either entirely dismiss the subject of our Lord's
coming from their attention, or remand it so far to the
background of their contemplation, that it utterly fails to
exert any direct influence on their character and conduct. If
they believe that it is fanatical and foolish to expect the
Saviour's personal appearing before the conversion of the
world, or until the close of a period more than a thousand
years in the future, obviously they will not dwell upon it as
immediately affecting themselves, or as an event possessing
any conceivable interest for the generation now living.
Hence, however frequently they may speak of Death, or the
Judgment, or Heaven, they never allude to Christ's return
as a hope animating them amid the vicissitudes of their
own experience, and both in their public and private dis-
course they maintain a silence about it as profound as
though it were never mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures.
Yet Dr. Brown acknowledges that " it impinges upon and
affects some of the most commanding points of the Chris-
tian faith;" that in its rejection, " the inspired text, as such,
presents no rich and exhatistless field of prayerful and de-
lighted investigation;" that when Pre-Millennialists " dilate
upon the prominence given to this doctrine in Scripture,
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 273
and the practical uses which are made of it, they touch a
chord in the heart of every simple lover of his Lord;" and
that " there is a range of truth connected with it, * *
from which it is as vain, as it were undesirable, to dislodge
them." Such an acknowledgment from such a source may
seem strange, but that it was demanded will be apparent,
when it is remembered that, apart from the book of Revela-
tion, more than one twentieth of the New Testament is
occupied with the doctrine of our Lord's second coming.
If the last book of the Bible is included, as all bearing upon
the last days, of course the proportion is much larger. In
the Old Testament certainly more than one hundred verses
announce His second coming to every one verse that proclaims
His first coming; and while the second is often mentioned
without any allusion to the first, the first is never revealed
without ample reference to the second, as if the Holy Ghost
wished to hasten over the humiliation and sufferings of the
former, and rejoiced to dwell upon the glory and grandeur
of the latter.
I. RELATION TO THE TEACHINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
It is impossible, within a brief hour, even to notice the
important connections in which the Second Advent of our
Lord is presented in the Old Testament, and only a glance
can be given at its relation to the general teachings of the
New Testament. But only a glance is needed to convince
the attentive reader that no other truth whatever is so
largely and so variously used to strengthen the faith and
quicken the interest of God's dear children in all that He
has been pleased to make known to them of doctrine and
of duty. It may almost be said to form the basis of every
argument, to give direction to every appeal, to fill out every
exhortation, to terminate every warning ; so that it is to
other truth as a foundation to the building, as a feather to
18
274 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the arrow, as ripened fruit to the bud and blossom, as eter-
nity to time.
1. Are ministers reminded that they must present some-
thing more than professions and brilliant achievements to-
commend them to the Master's favor? "Many will say
to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in
Thy name ? And in Thy name have cast out devils ? and in
Thy name done many wonderful works ? And then will I
profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, ye
that work iniquity." (Matt. 7: 22, 23.)
2. Are the disciples, when they resume their special mis-
sion to Israel, cheered amid the trials to which thy shall be
exposed? "When they persecute you in this city, flee ye
into another; for verily I say unto you, ye shall not have
gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come."
(Matt. 10: 23.)
3. Are His servants put on their guard against the pleas-
ing delusion of expecting the triumph of His cause during
the interval of His absence in the heavens? " But a fourth
part of the scattered seed takes effect, and this in various
degrees of fruitfulness; the tares grow with the wheat until
the harvest, at the end of the age; the birds of the air,
which He Himself explains as meaning the Wicked One,
lodge in the branches of the great tree ; a Woman conceals
that which is incipient putrefaction in three measures of
meal, until the whole is leavened ; and not until the coming of
Christ will the wicked be severed from the just." (Matt. 13.)
4. Is the gain of the whole world worse than worthless
if purchased at the price of losing the soul? "What is a
man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his
soul ? The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His
Father, with His angels, and then He shall reward every
man according to his works." (Matt. 16: 26,27.)
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 275
5. Are the Apostles told of the dignity that awaits them?
" Yerily, I say unto you, That ye which have followed me,
in the Regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit in the
throne of His glory, ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judg-
ing the twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt. 19: 28.)
6. Is Israel meanwhile to be forsaken for the rejection of
the Messiah ? " Behold your house is left unto you deso-
late. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth,
till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name
of the Lord." (Matt. 23: 38, 39.)
7. Is the close of Israel's troubled history in unparalleled
tribulation the speedy precursor of another and far more
momentous event? "Immediately after the tribulation of
those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall
not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and
the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and then shall
appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; and then
shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see
the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power
and great glory." ( Matt. 24: 29, 30.)
8. Is the moral condition of the world at His coming
described? "As the days of NOG 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 drinking, mar-
rying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered
into the ark, and the flood came and took them all away; so
shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." (Matt. 24:
37-39.)
9. Is a warning uttered against the error, now so com-
mon in the Church, of saying, " My Lord delayeth His
coming," with its consequent worldliness? " The Lord of
that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for
Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut
him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypo-
crites." (Matt. 24: 50, 51.)
276 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
10. Is the spiritual state of the Church at the second Ad-
vent portrayed? "Then shall the Kingdom of heaven be
likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went
forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise
and five were foolish. * * * While the bridegroom
tarried they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight
there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go
ye out to meet Him." (Matt. 25: 1-13.)
11. Is an account to be rendered of all the talents re T
ceived by the followers of Christ? "After a long time, the
lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them."
(Matt. 25: 19.)
12. Is judgment in store for the nations, as the result of
their conduct toward those designated as the brethren of
Christ? " 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. " (Matt. 25: 31-36.)
13. Does Jesus, before the high priest, and in the face of
death, assert His claims as the Christ, the Son of God?
"Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right
hand of Power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."
(Matt. 26: 64.)
14. Does He warn men of the danger of being ashamed
of Himself and of His words, including, of course, His words
about His second Advent?' "Whosoever, therefore, shall be
ashamed of Me, and of My words, in this adulterous and
sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be
ashamed when He cometh in the glory of His Father, with
the holy angels." (Mark 8: 38.)
15. Does He urge the necessity of unwearying watchful-
ness? "Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not
when the time is. For the Son of Man is as a man taking
a far journey, who left his house and gave authority to his
ITS RELATION TO CHRIST TAN DOCTRINE. 277
servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the
porter to watch. Watch ye, therefore, for ye know not
when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at mid-
night, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning; lest
corning suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say
unto you, I say unto all Watch/' (Mark 13: 33, 37.)
16. Does He enjoin upon His servants to stand with
girded loins, and burning lights, and hands upon the door?
" Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;
and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord,
when He will return from the wedding; that, when He
cometh and knocketh, they may open unto Him immedi-
ately." (Luke 12: 35,36*.)
17. Does He promise high honor to those who keep the
posture of constant watching? "Blessed are those servants
whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching;
verily I say unto you, that He shall gird himself, and make
them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve
them. And if He shall come in the second watch, or come
in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those ser-
vants." (Luke 12: 37, 38.)
18. Does He press the need of continual readiness for
His personal advent? " Be ye therefore ready also; for the
Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not." (Luke
12:40.)
19. Does He teach the universal prevalence of worldli-
ness at His appearing? "As it was in the days of Lot; they
did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted,
they builded ; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom,
it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed
them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son
of Man is revealed." (Luke 17: 28-30.)
20. Does He foretell the sad and sudden separations
that shall then occur? " I tell you that in that night there
278 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken and the
other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together;
the one shall be taken and the other left. Two men shall
be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left.''
(Luke IT: 34-36.)
21. Does He predict universal apostacy as the conse-
quence of the failure of the Church to watch for Him,
according to His repeated commands? "When the Son of
Man cometh, shall He find [the] faith on the earth?"
(Luke 18: 8.)
22. Does He charge us to be occupied with Himself,
and for Himself till He come? "A certain nobleman went
into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to
return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them
ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come."
(Luke 19: 12-27.)
23. Does He distinctly inform us of the events that
shall follow, when the times -of the Gentiles are fulfilled?
" There shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the
stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplex-
ity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing
them for fear, and for looking after those things which are
coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be
shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming
in a cloud, with power and great glory. And when these
things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your
heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." (Luke 21: 25-
28.)
24. Does He beseech us in view of all this to keep our
hearts " with all diligence," or, as it is in the margin, " above
all keeping?" (Prov. 4: 23.) "Take heed to yourselves,
lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with sur'eiting
and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day
come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 279
them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye,
therefore, arid praj 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. (Luke 21:34-36.)
25. Does He exult in the anticipation of the time when
the rebellious province of earth shall be brought back into
communion with heaven, and His own royal person shall
be the link of restored fellowship? " Yerily, verily, I say
unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
(John 1: 51.)
26. Does He reveal Himself as the resurrection of His
people who die, and as the deliverance from death of His
people who shall be living at His advent? " I am the res-
urrection and the life; he that belie veth in Me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever hveth and be-
Keveth in Me shall never die." (John 11:25, 26.)
27. Does He cheer the hearts of His disciples, saddened
by the announcement of His departure? "In My Father's
house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go
and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive
you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."
(John 14: 2, 3.)
28. Does He set forth the offer of the Holy Spirit in re-
lation to Himself and His second appearing? "Howbeit,
when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you
into all truth ; for He shall not speak of Himself; but what-
soever He shall hear, that shall He speak; and He will shew
you things to come. He shall glorify me; for He shall re-
ceive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." (John 16: 13,
14.)
29. Does He seek to impress the Apostles with the im-
portance of looking for Him constantly by His remarkable
280 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
statement concerning John? " If I will that he tarry till I
come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went
this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple
should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not
die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to
thee?" (John 21: 22-23.)
30. Does He give an intimation, as a powerful stimulus
to what is called missionary effort, when the age of conflict
and cross-bearing, so dark without the light of his mani-
fested presence, shall close? " This Gospel of the Kingdom
shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all na-
tions; and then shall the end come." (Matt. 24: 14.)
31. Meanwhile, were the disciples to be animated in the
midst of their toil by an assurance that would gladden their
hearts, and nerve their energies? "While they looked
steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men
stood by them in white apparel; which also said. Ye men
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This same
Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come
in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven. ' r
(Acts 1: 10, 11.)
32. Did they hail the day of Pentecost as a type and
pledge of the mightier outpouring of the Spirit, that like a
sea of glory shall spread from pole to pole, when Jesus
comes? " This is that which wag spoken by the prophet
Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,
I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons
and your daughters shall prophecy, and your young men
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;
and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour
out, in those days, of rny Spirit; and they shall prophecy;
and I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the
earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun
shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood,.
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 281
before that great and notable day of the Lord come." (Acts
2: 16-20.)
33. Did they seek under the guidance of the Spirit for
the most searching and arousing motive to induce men to
turn unto God? "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out, when [in order that] the
times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the
Lord; and He (the Father) shall send Jesus Christ, which
before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must
receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God
hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the
world began." (Acts 3: 19-21.)
34. Did they tell believers what to expect from an un-
friendly world? It is their testimony, not for that day only,,
but for the entire age in which we live, " that we must
through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God."
(Acts 14: 22); and there is not a hint that it will be other-
wise till Jesus comes.
35. Did the whole college of Apostles announce the
divine purpose with respect to the times of the Gentiles, and
the order of His procedure in the conversion of the world?
" God, at the first, did visit the Gentiles, to takeout of them
a people for His name. [This is all He intends to do in
the present dispensation.] And to this agree the words of
the prophets, as it is written, After this I will return
[that is, after He has taken out of the Gentiles a people
for His name], and will build again the tabernacle of
David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the
ruins thereof, and I will set it up. [So He takes Israel
again into national and covenant relations to Himself after
His personal return; and then the grand and ultimate pur-
pose is stated:] That the residue of men might seek after
the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is called,
saith the Lord, who doeth all these things." (Acts 15: 14-17.)
282 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
36. Is the curse hat is eating like a cancer into the bosom
of the lower creation to be removed? " The earnest expec-
tation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the
sons of God [at the second coming of Christ; see Col. 3: 4;
1 John 3: 2]. Because the creature itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. For we know that the
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together
until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which
have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to-wit: the re-
demption of the body," at the second coming of Christ.
[See 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17; 1 Cor. 15: 33] (Rom. 8: 19-23).
37. Is the curse to be lifted from Israel, of whom it is
eaid, " even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is
upon their heart?" (2 Cor. 3: 15.) "Blindness in part is
happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come
in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There
shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away
ungodliness from Jacob." (Rom. 11: 25, 26.)
38. Do we desire to reach the climax and crown of Chris-
tian attainments in grace and in knowledge? It is declared
by the Holy Ghost to be "waiting for the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ; who shall also confirm you unto the end,
that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ." (1 Cor. 1: 4-8.)
39. Are we forbidden to judge one another, and com-
manded to be indifferent to the decision of man's day?
" Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord
come." (1 Cor. 4: 5.)
40. Are we raised above the ways of the world by the
assurance of association with Him in the judgment at His
coming? u Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the
world? * * * Know ye not that we shall judge angels?"
<1 Cor. 6: 2, 3.)
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 283
41. Is it the privilege of believers to come to the Lord's
table, and are all believers there at least the witnesses, con-
sciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, to the
truth of His second coming? "As often as ye eat this bread,
and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He
conies." (ICor. 11:26.)
42. Is the resurrection of the body a cardinal article of
their belief? " Every man in his own order; Christ the
first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming."
(1 Cor. 15:23.)
43. Does a tremendous curse await those who withhold
their affections from the Son of God? " If any man love
not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha."
[the Lord cometh.] (1 Cor. 16: 22.)
44. Is there to be mutual joy between faithful ministers
and their people in His presence?" " Ye have acknowl-
edged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also
are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus." (2 Cor. 1 : 14.)
45. Should it be the aim, ambition, point of honor, with
believers to be well pleasing unto Him? " For we must all
appear [be made manifest] before the judgment seat of
Christ." (2 Cor. 5: 10.)
46. Are they confidently expecting the complete fulfill-
ment of God's promise to His children? u We through the
Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith;" (Gal. 5:
5) the hope of the New Testament being always associated
with the second coming of Christ. See Acts 23: 6; 26: 6,
7; 28: 20; Romans 5:2; 8: 24; Col.l: 5; Tit., 2: 13; 1 Pet.
1: 3; 1 John 3: 2, 3.
47. Has God marked us as His own by sealing us with
the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our in-
heritance, and so gives us the enjoyment of His love. It is
" until the redemption of the purchased possession," at the
second coming of Christ. (Eph. 1 : 14.)
284 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
48. Does this make it the more incumbent upon us to
walk in unhindered communion with our abiding Comforter?
" Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed
unto the day of redemption.' (Eph. 4: 30.)
49. Will the purpose of the Saviour in His atoning work
be accomplished? " Christ also loved the church, and gave
Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with
the waghing of water by the word, that He might present it
to Himself [at His coming] a glorious church, not having
spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be
holy and without blemish." (Eph. 5: 25-27.)
50. Can we depend upon the perseverance of theLordin
the work of Salvation? "Being confident of this very
thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you, will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Phil. 1: 6.)
51. Does His persevering love demand the response from
us of lofty aims and truthfulness and blamelessness? " That
ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be
sincere and without offence till the day of Christ." (Phil.
1:10.)
52. Is the thought of His coming an incentive to minis-
terial fidelity and zeal? " Holding forth the word of life;
that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run
in vain, neither labored in vain." (Phil. 2: 16.)
53. Is the government to which our allegiance is due
clearly defined? " Our conversation [citizenship, or coun-
try, or commonwealth] is in heaven; from whence also we
look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change
our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glori-
ous body." (Phil. 3: 20,21.)
54. Is it becoming in us to exhibit gentleness and
patience of spirit? " Let your moderation be known unto
all men. The Lord is at hand." (Phil. 4: 5.)
55. Are we called to put to death our fleshy appetites?
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
" When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye
also appear with Him in glory. Mortify, THEREFORE, your
members which are upon the earth." (Col. 3: 4, 5.)
56. Are believers, converted from heathenism, described
by the Holy Ghost? "Ye turned to God from idols, to
serve the living and true God: and to wait for His Son
from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus,
which delivered us from the wrath to come." (1 Thess.
1: 9, 10.)
57. Will there be a glad recognition of those who have
been led by our testimony and service to trust in the Saviour
of sinners? " What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoic-
ing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus
Christ at His coming?" (1 Thess. 2: 19.)
58. Should brotherly love increase and abound? It is
" to the end He may establish your hearts uublameable in
holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." (1 Thess. 3: 13.)
59. Is the dark cloud of sorrow hanging over the grave
that hides our precious dead tinged with the golden light
of hope? "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring
with Him." (1 Thess. 4: 14.)
60. Have we the assurance of being with them again in
a bright and happy day? " 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 we which are alive and remain, shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1
Thess. 4: 16-18.)
61. Were recently converted heathens taught by the in-
spired apostle, during his brief visit among them, what to
286 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
expect? "Of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have
no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know per-
fectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the
night. For when they shall say, peace and safety, then
sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a
woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye
brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake
you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the
children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of dark-
ness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others ; but let us
watch and be sober." (1 Thess. 5: 1-6.)
62. Is practical and entire holiness to be sought with
unceasing diligence? "The very God of peace sanctify
you whol/y ; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and
body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ." (1 Thess. 5: 23.)
63. Is a terrible punishment awaiting the despisers and
neglecters of God's grace and God's Son? "The Lord
Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
in flaming fire taking vengeance upon them that know not
God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ;
who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from
the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power;
when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be
admired in all them that believed (because our testimony
among you was believed ) in that day." (2 Thess. 1: 7-10.)
64. Are Christians distinctly told of the course of events
from the apostles' times to the personal appearing of the
Lord? " Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto
Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled,
neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as
that the day of Christ is at hand," literally, is present, has
come, has set in. That day can not come except that there
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 287
first comes the apostacy, for the mystery of iniquity already
working then like leaven shall spread more and more, until
the Antichrist is developed, whom the Lord shall consume
with the spirit [or breath] of His mouth, and shall destroy
with the brightness [everywhere else translated appearing]
of His coming," or presence. (2 Thess. 2: 1-8.)
65. In the knowledge of this do we need to stay our
minds upon Him who can never fail? " The Lord direct
your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient wait-
ing for Christ." ( 2 Thess. 3: 5.)
66. Is the note of warning again sounded against the
error of expecting the triumph of good till He comes?
" Now 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 witli a hot iron. * * * If
thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things,
thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ." (1 Tim.
4 : 1-6.)
67. Is steadfast obedience enforced by the most solemn
considerations? " I give thee charge in the sight of God,
who quickeneth all things, and before Jesus Christ, who
before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; that
thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable,
until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Tim.
6: 13, 14.)
68. Are the characteristic features of the last days as un-
like the common anticipation of the progress of truth and
righteousness, as darkness is unlike light? "This kn>\v
also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For
men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,
proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, un-
holy, without natural affection, true breakers, false accusers,
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors,
288 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of
God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power
thereof * * * But evil men and seducers shall wax worse
and worse, deceiving and being deceived." (2 Tim. 3: 1-5.)
69. Because of these abounding evils in the Church are
ministers to be doubly on their guard against the tempta-
tion to preach sensational and unscriptural sermons? "I
charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead, and by his appear-
ing and kingdom [so Alford on the authority of all the
oldest MSS.] preach the Word." (2 Tim. 4: 1, 2.)
70. Is there something left to cheer the heart of the
faithful witness for Christ, even when the people will no
longer "endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts
shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears,
and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall
be turned unto fables? I have fought a good fight; I have
finished my course;" "I have kept the faith; henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and
not to me only, but unto them also that love his appearing."
(2 Tim. 4: 7, 8.)
71. Are ministers told what to preach? "The grace of
God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we
should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present
world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious ap-
pearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. *
* * These things speak." (Tit. 2: 11-15.)
72. Does God intend that His son shall be crowned with
glory and honor on the very theatre of His humiliation and
death? " But when he again hath introduced the first
begotten into the world, he saith. and let all the angels of
God worship him." (Heb. 1: 6.) Alford's translation.
ITS DELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 289
73. Is faith in the second Advent essential to salvation?
"Christ was offered to bear the sins of many; and unto
them that look for Him shall He appear the second time,
without sin, unto salvation." (Heb. 9: 28.)
74. Has it pleased the Comforter to console His people
in the midst of reproaches and afflictions, and despised com-
panionships and the spoiling of their goods? "Yet a little
while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry."
(Heb. 10:37.)
75. Is a spirit of resolute endurance required under the
pressure of temptation? " Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation; for when he is tried [everywhere else rendered
approved], he shall receive the crown of life (at Christ's
second coming; see Tim. 4: 18, Rev. 2: 10), which the Lord
has promised to them that love Him." (Jas. 1: 12.)
76. Is the heart burdened by the crimes and cruelties
that meet the eye, and by the cries of the oppressed that
reach the ear every day? " Be patient, therefore, brethren,
unto the coining of the Lord. Behold the husbandman
waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long
patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of
the Lord draweth nigh." (Jas. 5: 7-8.)
77. Is murmuring against one another unseemly while the
world's destruction lowers, and glory is dawning for believ-
ers? "Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye
be condemned; behold the Judge standeth before the door."
(Jas. 5: 9.)
78. Is there cause for great rejoicing even when in heavi-
ness through manifold temptations? "That the trial of
your faith, being more precious than of gold that perisheth,
though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and
honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." (1 Pet,
1: 7.)
19
290 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
79. Was the completed salvation, to be brought at our
Lord's appearing, the subject of diligent inquiry by the
holy men of old, who spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost? "Searching what, or what manner of time
the Spirit of Christ which was in the^n did signify, when
it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the
glory that should follow." ( 1 Pet. 1: 11.)
80. Is this completed salvation an object set before us in
the Gospel to arouse and to strengthen? ""Wherefore gird
up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for
the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation
of Jesus Christ." (1 Pet. 1: 13.) .
81. Are we to live with His promised revelation con-
stantly in view? "The end of all things is at hand; be
therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." (1 Pet. 4: 7.)
82. Does His expected revelation turn the sufferings to
which we are exposed as Christains into an occasion of re-
joicing? " Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's
sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may
be glad also with exceeding joy." ( 1 Pet. 4: 13.)
83. Are pastors urged to fidelity and self-denying labor,
and conduct forming an example to the flock? "When
the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown
of glory that fadeth not away." (1 Pet. 5: 4.)
84:. Have we more sure the prophetic word by the signifi-
cant and typical scene on the Mount of Transfiguration?
" We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we
made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of His majesty." (2
Pet. 1: 16.)
85. Are Christians warned that there shall be false
teachers among them, and that a sign of the final apostacy
will be the denial of Christ's coming? "Knowing this
first, that there shall come in the last days, scoffers walking
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 291
after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of
his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things con-
tinue as they were from the beginning of the creation."
(2 Pet. 3 : 3-i.)
86. Is the reason given for the tarrying of the Lord at
the right hand of God? " The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men count slackness; but is long
snifering to us-ward, but not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance." (2 Pet. 3: 9.)
87. Should the certainty and the suddenness of His
coming keep us ever on the alert, armed against sin? " The
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, * * what
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation
and godliness; looking for and hasting the coming of the
day of God." (2 Pet. 3: 10-12.)
88. Is the only safeguard to remain in unclouded com-
munion with Christ? "And now, little children, abide in
Him; that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence,
and not be ashamed before Him at His coming." (1 John
2 : 28.)
89. Do we wait for the manifestation of our high call-
ing and dignity, as those who have been through grace made
partakers of the divine nature? "Beloved, now are we the
sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be;,
but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like
Him; for we shall see Him as He is. (1 John 3: 2.)
90. Would we know the spirit of deceivers and of Anti-
christ? " For many deceivers are entered into the world,
who confess not that Jesus Christ is come (coming) in the
flesh. This is a deceiver and an Antichrist." (2 John 7.)
91. Would we know the testimony and preaching of a
man who walked with God, and pleased God? "Enoch, also,
the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, " Be-
hold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to
execute judgment upon all." (Jude 14: 15.)
292 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
92. Would we strike the key-note of the last book of the
Bible? "Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye
shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all kin-
dreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so,
Amen." (Rev. 1:7.)
93. Amid increasing perils are we to keep the attain-
ments hitherto made in grace? "That which ye have
already, hold fast till I come." (Kev. 2: 25.)
94. If in the midst of these perils we have slipped, are
we to return to Him from whom we have wandered?
" He in ember therefore how thou hast received and heard;
and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not
watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not
know what hour I will come upon thee." (Rev. 3: 3.)
95. Is there danger of growing disheartened by the sore
conflict, and thus of losing His approval? "Behold, I come
quickly; hold that fast which thou hast that no man take
thy crown." (Rev. 3: 11.)
96. Would we walk in shining raiment with the
redeemed? "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that
watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked,
and they see his shame." (Rev. 16: 15.)
97. Does the Lord, for whom the weary Church has
long waited, and for whom suffering creation has groaned,
at last come forth in glory and majesty? "I saw heaven
opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon
him was called Faithful and True, and in righteous-
ness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as
a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He
had a name written that no man knew but He Himself,
And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and
His name is called The Word of God. And the armies
which were in Heaven followed Him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean. * * * * And
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 293
He hatli on His vesture and on His thigh a name written,
KING OF KINGS, AND LOKD OF LORDS." (EeV. 19 I 11-16.)
98. Is it most important that we give heed to the prom-
ises and threatenings and teachings of God's final reve-
lation to man? "Behold, I come quickly; blessed is lie
that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book."
(Eev. 22:7.)
99. Do we desire the reward which our returning Lord
will delight to bestow upon His faithful servants? " Be-
hold, I come quickly; and my reward is with Me to give
every man according as his work shall be." (Rev. 22: 12.)
100. Above all, do we desire Himself? u Surely I come
quickly; Amen." And surely He expects to hear from
every heart that is true to Him the eager response, even so,
come Lord Jesus." (Rev. 22:20.) With these sweet
words of promise falling from His lips, His voice is heard
no more on earth, and the Sacred Scriptures are sealed as
complete.
ADMISSIONS OF POST-MILLENNIALISTS.
Very many similar texts might be quoted, but enough
has been said to show that this great truth runs like a golden
cord through the entire New Testament from beginning to
end, touching every doctrine, binding every duty, arousing,
consoling, directing, guarding, inspiring the believer at
every step of his pilgrimage. As a motive, an incentive
and an end, it has a prominence assigned to no other thought.
Wherever we turn it arrests the eye; whatever the subject
of inquiry, it engages the attention by its commanding
presence. In the fine language of the Rev. John Ker, it is
"in the New Testament the great event that towers above
every other. The heaven, that gives back Christ, gives
back all that we have loved and lost, solves all doubts and
ends all sorrows. His coming looks in upon the whole life
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
of His Church, as a lofty mountain peak looks in upon every
little valley and sequestered home around its base, and be-
longs to them all alike. Every generation lies under the
shadow of it, for whatever is transcendently great is con-
stantly near, and in moments of high conviction it absorbs
petty interests and annihilates intervals. It may surely be
for us to consider whether our removal of Christ's coming
further from us in feeling does not arise from a less vivid
impression of its reality and surpassing moment." (Ser-
mons, p. 176.)
It is one purpose of this Conference, with His blessing,
to change these " moments of high conviction " into the
life-time posture of the soul; and, as far as He may be
pleased, to own our testimony for the good of other Chris-
tians, in the words oi Professor Hackett, to " bring both
their conduct and their style of religious instruction into
nearer correspondence with the lives and teaching of the
primitive examples of our faith." Again he says, referring
to the return of Christ at the end of the age, u that event
was always near to the feelings and consciousness of the
first believers. It was the great consummation on which
the strongest desires of their souls were fixed, to which their
thoughts and hopes were habitually turned. They lived in
expectation of it; they labored to be prepared for it; they
were constantly, in the expressive language of Peter, ' look-
ing for and hastening unto it.' The Apostles, the first
Christians in general, comprehended the grandeur of that
occasion; it filled their circle of view, stood forth to their
contemplations as the point of culminating interest in their
own and the world's history; threw into comparative in-
significance the present time, death, all intermediate events,
and made them feel that the manifestation of Christ, with
its consequences of indescribable moment to all true be-
lievers, was the grand object which they were to keep in
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 295
view as the end of their toils, the commencement and per-
fection of their glorious immortality. In such a state of
intimate sympathy with an event so habitually present to
their thoughts, they derived, they must have derived, their
chief incentives to action from the prospect of that future
glory; they hold it up to the people of God to encourage
them in affliction, to awaken them to fidelity, zeal, and per-
severance, and appeal to it to warn the wicked and impress
upon them the necessity of preparation for' the revelations
of that day." [Hackett on Acts, pp. 63, 64.]
That it was indeed " always near to the feelings and con-
sciousness of the first believers" is admitted and proved by
all post-millennial expositors and writers, as Drs. Hodge,
Barnes, Brown and others; that the Lord Jesus and the
Holy Ghost presented it as an object of hope to those who
lived in the days of the Apostles must also be apparent to
the careful reader of the New Testament; and this is the
fact that sets forth in the clearest and strongest light the
relation of Christ's coming to Christian doctrine. It is a
profound remark of Trench, speaking of the tarrying of
the bridegroom, that u we may number this among the
many hints, which were given by our Lord, that it was pos-
sible the time of His return might be delayed beyond the
expectation of His first disciples. It was a hint, and no
more;, if more had been given, if the Lord had said plainly
that He would not come for many centuries, then the first
ages of the Church would have been placed in a disadvan-
tageous position, being deprived of that powerful motive to
holiness and diligence supplied to each generation of the
faithful by the possibility of the Lord's return in their
time. It is not that He desires each succeeding generation
to believe that He will certainly return in their time, for He
does not desire our faith and our practice to be founded on
an error, as, in that case, the faith and practice of all gener-
296 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ations would be. But it is a necessary element of the doc-
trine concerning the second coming of Christ that it should
be possible at any time, that no. generation should consider
it improbable in theirs." (Notes on the Parables, pp.
207, 208.)
ITS RELATION TO THE UNITY OF THE CHUKOH.
First, then, it illustrates and manifests the unity of the
Church with a distinctness to which the Post-Millennial
theory can lay no claim. It is not our province to make
this unity, but we are responsible to keep and to exhibit it
amid the distractions and divisions of the world. But of
what does the Church on earth consist? Not simply of the
number in any one generation who have been linked by the
Holy Ghost to the risen Christ, but of the entire number
of believers between the ascension and return of our Lord;
" for as the body is one and hath many members, and all the
members of that one body, being many, are one body; so
also is [the] Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized
into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we
be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one
Spirit." (1 Cor. 12: 12, 13.) Christ is exalted to be
" the head over all things to the Church, which is his body,
the fulness of Him that tilleth all in all " (Eph. 1: 22,23);
and if His second coming is the hope of one member ot
that body, it is the hope of all the members. It did not
please God to reveal the time of His coming, because
lie would set it as a beautiful bow in the dark cloud, over-
shadowing the entire interval of His Son's absence from
the earth, that from one end to the other of the dispensa-
tion all faces might be turned up in faith and expectation.
Hence our Saviour could bid His immediate followers watch
for Him, and Paul could say, " Then we which are alive and
remain shall be caught up together " with the risen dead,
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 297
and all of the Apostles could represent the Advent as nigh*
for its nearness to one believer is the measure of its near-
ness to the entire body, viewed in its unity. Moreo'ver, the
conviction of its nearness necessarily sinks out of sight the
minor differences that separate Christians, and as Saul of
Tarsus, dazzled by the brightness that flashed upon him on
the road to Damascus, declares, " I could not see for the
glory of that light," so we can not see the motes in the eyes
of our brethren while gazing upon the splendor of that ap-
proaching Advent. The Assembly now convened furnishes
striking evidence of its power to bring believers together
on a common ground, to bear a common testimony to the
blessedness of a common hope,
RELATION TO THE DIVINE PURPOSE.
Second The Pre-Millennial coming of our Lord alone
vindicates the Divine honor and sovereignty. Those who
reject the doctrine constantly affirm that it disparages the
Gospel by representing it as a failure, and the work of the
Holy Spirit by intimating that it is inadequate to the con-
version of the world. But a moment's reflection is sufficient
to show that it exalts the Gospel by proving that it accom-
plishes all it was designed to effect, and the work of the
Holy Spirit by demonstrating that He saves all He intended
to save during the present dispensation. It is not a ques-
tion of what God might do, but of what He proposes to do, as
revealed in His word. It has already been seen, as an-
nounced by the Apostles, that God's purpose is not to con-
vert all the Gentiles before the return of Christ, but to take
out of them a people for His name; and if one verse of the
Scripture from the first of Genesis to the last of Revelation
can be found to assert the conversion of the world previous
to that return, pre-millennialists will agree to hold their
peace forever after. On the other hand, the post-millennial
298 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
heresy disparages the Gospel and the work of the Spirit by
forcing the conclusion that they are unable to reach the end
they were ordained to attain. If it was God's purpose to
bring in the millennium by agencies now employed, the
most careless observer can see that it has been signally de-
feated for more than eighteen hundred years, and, judging
the future by the past, the only way of judging apart from
prophetic testimony, there is little prospect of achieving
greater success in the time to come.
Where are the churches planted by apostolic hands and
watered with the blood of martyrs? They have long since
perished. Where are the countries over which the disciples
of Jesus, in the first and second centuries, swept as an army
with banners? Under the black pall of spiritual death.
Where is the city or town or village in the most highly
favored portion of Christendom, all of whose inhabitants
even profess to believe in the Son of God? According to
Professor Hitchcock's statistics in his Analysis of the Holy
Bible, of the earth's population, there are 195,000,000 Ro-
man Catholics, 160,000,000 Mohammedans, 310,000,000
Buddhists, 460,000,000 Pagans and other heathen religion-
ists, and 97,139,000 Protestants in name. Of these last,
so few comparatively, what a "little flock" follow the Good
Shepherd; what an overwhelming majority remain utterly
indifferent to His voice, or fiercely oppose His claims?
Wars and rumors of wars, famines and pestilences, anxiety
and unrest everywhere, scientific men burning incense to
their own vanity, the masses upheaving with mad efforts to
destroy the foundations of all governments, appalling crimes
and shocking villianies loading the columns of our daily
journals, infidelity garrisoned within the Church, the world
blaspheming in its rage and pain, the virgins asleep such
is the picture our Lord Himself drew of the course of the
present age, " till He come." It is a picture true to the
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 299
facts of human experience and observation, and it is submit-
ted to the consideration of the candid inquirer, whether the
hope of His coming to quiet this confusion and to quell this
turbulence does not glorify Him more than the boast of a
religious progress, which even ungodly men can see is a
delusion and a snare, and a mirage of the desert.
RELATION TO THE CURSE,
Third This leads us to glance at His coming in relation
to the promised removal of the curse from the face and
bosom of suffering creation. " By one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned." Rom. 5: 12.) To fallen
Adam it was said: " Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in
sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." (Gen.
3: 17, 18.) From that day to this the curse has smitten the
old and the young, the rich and the poor, the king and the
peasant, the philosopher and the savage alike, and diffused
its virulent poison through the whole system of nature.
The winds with their ominous moan, the lower animals that
once crouched lovingly at man's feet, the dumb earth
reluctantly yielding her riches to his toil, and the waves with
their resistless might, seem to have conspired against the
destroyer of their peace, as if they would hurry him into
the grave. But the word of God that liveth and abideth
forever tells of a time, and that, too, while nations exist,
when " there shall be no more curse" (Rev. 22 : 30) ; when
a the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young
lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead
them." (Isaiah 11: 6.)
It is obvious that the spread of Christianity, however
widely extended ; personal devotedness to the Saviour, how-
300 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ever fervent; the suppression ot moral evils, however thor-
ough, can never arrest disease and decay and death, nor
extract malaria from the soil, nor cause the fir tree to grow
instead of the thorn, and the myrtle tree in place of the
brier, if, however, post-millennialists insist that the cow
and the bear feeding together, the lion eating straw like an
ox, the sucking child playing unharmed on the hole of the
asp, the desert rejoicing and blossoming as the rose, and the
thirsty land becoming springs of water, are to be under-
stood spiritually, being nothing more than poetical meta-
phors to show the transforming power of the Gospel, they
are forced to conclude that the curse will rush onward in
its desolating career through the entire period of their
anticipated millennium. Storms will continue to burst in
unsparing fury upon earth and sea; creation will continue
to groan in her travailing throes; plague and pestilence will
continue their work of destruction; sickness and pain will
continue to invade every household; death will continue to
lay his ruffian grasp on every quivering form, hard labor,
corroding care, bitter poverty, darkened homes, blighted
hopes,
"The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,"
will continue to harass, and waste and kill, as the thousand
years roll on, until a great cry would ascend to God to bring
such a millennium to a speedy end.
But He is better than men think, for " He shall send
Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom
the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all
things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the
holy prophets since the world began." It is reserved for
the Second Man in person, and on the very earth that held
His cross, to remove the curse inflicted by the first man;
and it is strange that one loyal to Him can wish it to be
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 301
otherwise. When the expectation of His personal coming
dropped out of the faith and hope of the Church after
three hundred years of blessed testimony and successful
service, she did little through the dark ages to bear His
name to the perishing millions; and this was dishonoring
to Him as the Prophet and Priest of His people. But
since the era of modern missions, she boasts that she can
and will repair the ruins of the fall, and reign on the earth,
while He has gone into a far country to receive for Himself
a Kingdom, and to return; and this is no less dishonoring
to Him as the Anointed King of the nations. Some, at
least, thank God, do not desire her coronation until His
own royal hand shall seat her beside Him on the throne,
for they are singing day by day, with full intelligence of its
meaning,
" Bring forth the royal diadem.
And crown HIM Lord of all!"
RELATION TO JUSTIFICATION.
Fourth His pre-millennial coming sustains a relation
to the doctrine of Justification equally direct and impor-
tant. Owing to the prevalence of the unscriptural theory
that by the combined efforts of civilization and religion the
world grows better as it grows older, not only is the sover-
eignty of God in the bestowal of His grace banished from
the emasculated theology of the day, but men are thrown
upon their own resources for salvation. According to the
preaching too frequently heard, even where there is no bold
denial of the plain statements of Scripture concerning the
future punishment of the wicked, conversion is regarded as
a long and laborious process, a result of culture under self-
imposed restraints, or a conformity to ecclesiastical rules
and regulations, with a vague and indefinite hope that all
this may purchase a title to heaven. According to the
302 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Gospel, "He that believeth on the Son HATH everlasting
life." (John 3: 3.) " By Him all that believe ARE justi-
fied from all things." (Acts 13: 39.) " To him that work-
eth not, but believed on Him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counteth for righteousness/' (Romans 4:5,)
and "Being justified by faith we HAVE peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:1.) All is
simple, clear and pressing, &8 if there were urgent need of
haste in delivering the message, and of haste no less urgent
on the part of those who listen to receive it, and straight-
way rejoice.
Those who spoke knew that Christ might come while
they were speaking, and they would have those who heard
to know it likewise, that they might lay hold of eternal
life without a moment's delay. They must be like the
dying thief, who had no time to make himself better, but
was shut up to the necessity of believing the promise of
Jesus; they must be like multitudes of Christians on a
dying bed, of whom it is said they received dying grace,
because at last they are forced to turn from the trying to
trusting, when it ought to have been living grace all along;
they must have been like those of whom the Master spoke
in view of His coming. "He which shall be upon the
housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come
down to take it away; and he that is in the field, let him
likewise not return back." (Luke 17: 31.) No one can
really look for His Advent as possible every day, as not
improbable any day, without being cast upon His finished
work alone for justification, and upon His faithful word
alone for assurance. Nor will it answer to substitute death
for His personal coming, because death is not mentioned in
Scripture as that which is set before believers, and because
it is notoriously the most powerless and the most fruitless
argument that can be addressed to men. It is something
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 303
far more impressive than a solitary death that demands
immediate attention, and that sends out the stirring words,
"Come; for all things are NOW ready (Luke 14: 17); "Be-
hold NOW is the accepted time; behold, NOW is the day of
salvation " (2 Cor. 6: 2); "There is therefore NOW no con-
demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus " (Rom.
8:1); "NOW, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far
off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ" (Eph. 2: 13;)
"Beloved, NOW are we the Sons of God; and it doth not
yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He
shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as
He is" (1 John 3: 2).
RELATION TO SANOTIFICATION.
Fifth His second coming has a bearing, that can be
scarcely noticed, upon the doctrine of Sanctification, not
only in its power, when heartily received, to separate us from
a doomed world, to make us watchful over our own hearts,
and to consecrate us with sustained energy and enthusiasm
to Christ, but as indicating the point at which sanctification
is completed. There is a sense in which believers are already
sanctified, for we read, " To them that ARE sanctified in
Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1:2); "Who of God is made unto
us wisdom, and righteouness, and sanctification, and redemp-
tion," (1 Cor. 1: 31); "But ye are washed, but ye ARE
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and by the spirit of our Lord" (1 Cor. 7: 11); "By
the which will we ARE sanctified, through the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all " (Heb. 10: 10); " For by
one offering he hath perfected forever them that ARE sancti-
fied " (Heb. 10: 14). But using the term at present in its
commonly accepted sense, as implying progressive holiness,
or the increasing ascendency of the new man over the old
man, of the spirit over the flesh, what thoughts cluster
304 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
about it in the light of our Lord's second Advent! Post-
millennialists invariably make it end at death, and thus
turn our attention to that which is the curse, the conse-
quence and the conquest of sin, to the clammy sweat, the
glazing eye, the labored breathing, the coffin, the grave, the
worm and corruption, as the goal to which the Holy Spirit's
discipline and teachings conduct the believer. It is need-
less to say that no such view is presented in -Scripture.
There, a far higher and nobler object is set before us : " To
the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holi-
ness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints" (1 Thess. 3: 13);
u And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I
pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ " ( 1
Thess. 5: 23); "And now, little children, abide in Him; that
when he shall appear, we may have confidence and not be
ashamed before Him at His coining" (1 John 2: 28). This,
and not death, is the appropriate and glorious termination
of our growth in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ; and that coming accounts for the
two-fold form in which sanctification, and other doctrines of
God's word, are revealed. We are sanctified now through
the cleansing blood, should He come to-day ; should He be
pleased to tarry yet a little longer we will have larger and
still larger experiences of His sustaining and sanctifying
grace amid trials and conflicts here below.
RELATION TO INSPIRATION.
Sixth the relation of the Second Coming to the inspi-
ration of the Sacred Scriptures must not be entirely over-
looked, even in so imperfect an outline of the connection in
which the great truth stands in the New Testament. Those
who witness for this truth have fought the battle with its
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 305
enemies on the ground of ecclesiastical history, and on the
ground of Biblical exegesis, and have triumphantly carried
both points, proving that the early disciples looked for the
Advent of Christ, and that this Advent was nothing but
His literal and personal return to the earth. Forced to
abandon their former position, Post-Millennial ministers
and writers are now taking a new stand, far more dangerous
to the souls of men, and far more dishonoring to the Lord.
They are boldly asserting that holy men of old, who spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, were mistaken
when they taught the people to look for His coming. Thus
in a recent and popular work it is said: " This expectation
is expressed by all the Apostles in terms which fairly admit
of no other interpretation. It is found in Paul (Horn. 13:
11, 12; 1 Cor. 7: 29-31; 10: 11; Phil. 4: 5; 1 Tirn. 6: 14).
* The same expectation is expressed in the Epistle
to the Hebrews (10: 25, 37); in the Epistle of James (5:
3, 8); in the Epistles of Peter '(1 Peter 4: 7; 2 Peter 3:3);
in the First Epistle of John (2: 18); and in the Apocalypse
(1: 1; 2: 11; 22: 7, 22, 20). To put any other construction
on these passages, as if the Parousia to which they refer was
anything else than the Second Advent of the Lord to
Judgment, would introduce a dangerous license in interpre-
tation, and one which might be employed to subvert the
principal doctrines of the Christian system. Under the
general expectations of the Apostles, mistaken though it
might prove to be in the one particular of time, there lay a
fundamental truth. * * * It is not strange that this
expectation, which appears so distinctly arid frequently in
the Epistles, should tinge the phraseology in which the
Evangelists record the prophetic utterances of Jesus. That
a verbal exactitude belongs always to these reports of the
Saviour's teachings is claimed by no intelligent person who
has compared the Gospels with one another. Jesus taught
20
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
in the Aramaic dialect; His teaching was transmitted orally^
for a time, before it was embodied in a written form; His
sayings are often condensed by the Evangelists, and given
in an order not corresponding precisely to that in which
they were uttered." (The Beginning of Christianity, pp.
366-9.) Is it possible that those who oppose the truth of
our Lord's pre-millennial coming are pushed to an extreme
BO frightful as this?* Was Jesus incorrectly reported? But
where meanwhile was the Holy Ghost?
It is astonishing that the distinguished author' says the
Apostles were mistaken in the one particular of time, when
in the very next paragraph, referring to the teachings of
Christ, it is stated, " that the time of the Second Advent
and consummation of the kingdom, he declares to be not a
subject of revelation." How could they be mistaken in that
which was not a subject of revelation? They were not
taught that He would, or would not, come at any fixed time,
but they were taught to look for Him continually, and,
should they die before His Advent, to hand down their
believing expectation of it as the most precious legacy they
could bequeath their successors, that so His coming might
lie the one radiant star of hope in the firmament of revealed
truth for the entire Church. But if it " would introduce a
dangerous license in interpretation, and one which might be
employed to subvert the principal doctrines of the Christian
system," to refer the numerous statements of Scripture on
this subject to anything else than the Second Advent of
the Lord, it is a much more dangerous license to say that
the Apostles were mistaken in their teachings. If hey
were mistaken on this point, they may have been mistaken
on other points, and infidelity is the logical and inevitable
result of affirming either the one or the other. It is
becoming quite the fashion to treat lightly and irreverently
* So Marteiisen, Christian Dogmatics, p. 468.
ITS DELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOGTRINE. 307
the authority of the Bible, whenever it runs counter to
some popular theory, or scientific assertion, or humanitarian
scheme; and to one who knows that the very words of
Scripture were given by the Holy Ghost the tendency of the
pulpit in this direction is exceedingly alarming. It is sad
to see the author just quoted fostering such a tendency by
declaring that the Apostles were mistaken in their expec-
tation, though he admits that it was "an expectation that
was not extinguished by the disappointment of it in the
first age of Christianity, but is expressed in most of the
Fathers in the second century; for Origen, who died A. D.
254, seems to have been the first to suggest that the Gospel,
by its new moral power, through the Spirit, would overcome
heathenism in the Koman Empire." (9. 369.)
RELATION TO THE RESURRECTION.
Seventh The relation of our Lord's second coming to the
doctrine of the resurrection is too' well known to require ex-
tended remark, even if time permitted. The two are inti-
mately and indissolubly associated in the Scriptures, though
the fatal habit of spiritualizing away the one has, to a fear-
ful extent, led to the denial of the literality of the other.
Nor is this result surprising, painful as it is to see the
abandonment of a doctrine so prominent in the word of
God, and so peculiar to Christian faith. If the frequent
allusions to the Advent of Christ, running all through the
New Testament, can be perverted to mean a thousand dif-
ferent things, it is not strange that those who are perplexed
by scientific arguments against the reality of the resurrec-
tion should seek to explain it as referring only to some
spiritual change at death. But one is as literal as the other,
and both stand or fall together: "Christ the first fruits;
afterward, they that are Christ's, at his coming." (1 Cor.
15: 23.) "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven
308 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
with them in clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so
shall we ever be with the Lord." (1 Thess. 4: 16, 17.)
Hence in His sublime announcement to Martha, " I am the
Resurrection and the Life." He includes the whole dispen-
sation within the sweep of the statement that follows: " He
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he
live;" then reaching on to the time of His advent, He
adds: " and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never
die." (John 11: 25, 26.)
Hence, too, there is nothing, and in the very nature of
the scheme of redemption there can be nothing, between
believers and that promised Advent, with its attendant
resurrection of the righteous dead. The first step is to be
in Christ, of whom it is said, "Ye are complete in Him "
(Col. 2: 10); the next step is to be with Christ in the glory;
for " whom he justified, them he also glorified." (Rom. 8:
30.) The first step is to receive Christ by faith, the next
step is to wait for Christ from heaven. There is no need of
delay, either to secure additional title to the incorruptible
inheritance, or to acquire fitness for its possession, since
that cry which shook earth and hell was heard ascending
from the dying Saviour, "It is finished." (John 19: 30.)
The atoning work is done; the debt is paid; the law is satis-
fied; the vindicated justice of God demands no more; " and
the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin."
(1 John IT.) Judgments are in store for Israel and for
the world; but there is no judgment for those who are
already in a risen and ascended Christ.
" God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith
He loved us, even when we were dead in sins HATH quick-
ened us together with Christ (by grace ye are [vyere] saved);
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 309
and HATH raised us up together, and made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:4-6). " Giving
thanks unto the Father, which HATH made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who
HATH delivered us from the power of darkness, and HATH
translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son; in whom
we have redemption through His blood" (Col. 1: 12-14).
" He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent
me HATH everlasting life, and shall not come into condem-
nation [judgment] but is passed from death unto life " (John
5: 24). "He that believeth on Him is not condemned," or
judged (John 3: 18). " Herein is love with us made per-
fect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,
because as He is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4: 17).
It was to be expected, therefore, that even the first pagan
converts having turned to God from idols, to serve the Liv-
ing and True God, would be taught " to wait for his Son
from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus,
which delivered us from the wrath to come" (1 Thess. 1:
10). There was nothing else, there could have been noth-
ing else, set before them as the hope of the Gospel; for, if
the grave intervened, it was only in the touching words of
the inscription on Dean Alford's tomb, "The inn of a trav-
eler on his way to the New Jerusalem."
Should the objection be raised that they waited in vain,
and that their hope met with a cruel disappointment, the
reply is, their bodies are waiting still in the assurance of a
glorious resurrection in His coming. They laid their dead
to rest, comforted with the thought that before they left
the place of burial the Lord Himself might descend from
Heaven with a kingly and conquering shout to His own
sleeping and living saints to awaken the former and to
change the latter, " in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye;" for had He not in the last chapter of the Bible three
310 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
times repeated the promise, "I come quickly? " There is no
revolution of the earth upon its axis in that bright world of
which it is said, "there shall be no night there" (Rev. 21:
25); and ages fly swiftly where all is glory and gladness.
When the voice sounds from the celestial city, " Surely, I
come quickly, "it is counting time as it is reckoned by Him
with whom a thousand years are as one day (2 Peter 3: 8),
and, according to the chronology of heaven, not two days
have yet passed since the risen Jesus, with uplifted hands
in the act of priestly blessing, ascended from the Mount of
Olives. The evident purpose of the constant representa-
tions in the New Testament of the nearness of His advent
is to keep His Church in the attitude of eager expectation
and unceasing watchfulness, like Rebekah under the wise
guidance of Eliezar, who was a type of the Holy Spirit.
Charmed with the story and with the proof he gave of the
bridegroom's love and wealth, she left her father and mother,
and brother and childhood's home for a distant land.
But no account is placed on record of the long journey.
"The servant took Rebekah and went his way;" and the
very next statement is " and Isaac came " (Gen. 24: 61, 62).
Brethren in the Lord, we are not prophets, we are only
humble students of the prophetic word; and, while it is not
for us "to know the times or the seasons which the Father
hath put in His power " (Acts 1: 7), it certainly becomes
us, after the lapse of more than eighteen hundred years, to
shout with increased earnestness and urgency the midnight
cry, " Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet
him." "This gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in
all the world for a witness to all nations; and then shall the
end come." (Matt. 24: 14.) When the times of the Gen-
tiles shall have been fulfilled " there shall be upon the earth
distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves
roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking
ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 311
-after those things which are coming on the earth; for the
powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see
the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great
glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then,
look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draw-
eth nigh." (Luke 21: 25-28.) The long and perilous jour-
ney is almost finished; the conflict of centuries will soon
close in songs of victory. Xenophon relates that the Greeks,
after the death of Cyrus, were exposed to innumerable hard-
ships in their retreat through hostile countries. They were
forced to face the bitter blasts of Winter, and marched
through snows, and were scorched by the burning sun, and
crossed pestilential marshes, and scaled steep mountains,
and stormed forts and citadels, and were harrassed at every
step by their wary and relentless foes. At last the van-
guard ascended a mountain and gave a great shout, which,
when Xenophon, and those in the rear, heard, they concluded
that some other enemies attacked them in front. * * *
The noise still increasing as they came nearer, and the men,
as fast as they came up, running to those who still contin-
ued shouting, their cries swelled with their numbers so that
Xenophon, thinking that something more than ordinary had
happened, mounted on horseback, and taking with him
Lycius and his horse, rode up to their assistance, and pres-
ently they heard all the soldiers calling out, "Sea! Sea!"
and cheering one another. At this they all set a running,
the rear-guard as well as the rest, and the beasts of burden
and horses were driven forward. When they were all come
up to the top of the mountain they embraced one another,
and also their generals and captains, with tears in their
eyes." (Expedition of Cyrus, p. 250.)
Courage, fellow-soldiers, for we shall soon behold the sea,
with its placid bosom kept in millennial repose by the
divine "Peace, be still" of Jesus; and upon its "shining
312 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
shore" we shall ever be with the Lord. "We must expect
reproach and ridicule, for no great truth of God's word that
had sunk into obscurity has ever been restored to its appro-
priate prominence except at the cost of suffering and strug-
gling to its witnesses. We must expect that some who
advance with us to the battle, discouraged by difficulties
and intimidated by dangers, will throw away their arms, or
desert to the enemy. But supported as we are by the
authority and example of the Captain of our Salvation, and
of all His inspired apostles, by the faith of the Church for
three hundred years, by the teaching of men eminent for
their piety and learning through the centuries that are past,
by the felt power of "looking for that blessel hope" to
raise our thoughts above the world, let us press on, cheered
by the assurance that, if we gain not the applause of men,
we receive the approval of the Master, arid at a our gather-
ing together unto Him" (2 Thess. 2: 1), we shall hear Him
say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." (Matt.
35: 22.) "The night is far spent, the day is at hand"
(Rom. 13: 12). It is not for us who are gazing through the
gloom for the appearing of the Morning Star to take counsel
of our fears, or to be governed by a time-serving policy in
our testimony, "For yet a little while, and He that shall
come will come, and will not tarry." (Heb. 10: 37.)
"Brother, up to the breach,
For Christ's coming and truth,
Let us act as we teach,
With the wisdom of age, and the vigor of youth,
Heed not their cannon balls;
Ask not who stands or falls ;
Grasp x the sword
Of the Lord,
And forward !"
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 313
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLEJST JSTI AL
DOCTRINE.
BY THE REV. NATHANIEL WEST, D.D., PRESBYTERIAN, CINCINNATI, OHIO.
CHRISTIAN Chiliasm, or Pre-Millennarianism, is the doc-
trine of the personal reign of Christ, on earth, 1,000 years
after the Beast, False Prophet, and Apostate Christendom
have been judged and perished in a common doom. (Rev.
5: 10; 11:15; 19:20, 21; 20:1-6.) It is the doctine of a
visible and external sovereignty of Christ, upon earth, as
the outcome of history, the redeemed Church of all ages
rejoicing in the fullness of a resurrection-life in the actual
presence of Him who is the u Only Potentate " and " Prince
of the Kings of the Earth " a kingdom of outward glory,
established upon the ruin of the polities of all nations, wide
as the canopy of heaven. It is a kingdom spiritual, though
of outward form, in which carnal beatitudes have no place,
the beggarly elements of Judaism no honor; a kingdom
terrestrial yet celestial, not of this world but of heaven;
one in which Jew and Gentile, incorporated together, share
the victory, blessedness, holiness, dominion, and communion
of their Lord. Redeemed humanity has another goal than
that of common zoology, and that goal is the kingdom of
the resurrection. As Dorner has beautifully said, " Com-
plete victor Christianity never can be, until Xature has
become an organ of its service, a willing instrument of the
perfect man, that is of the righteous who are raised from
the dead." (Person of Christ I. 412.) " Man and the
creature," says Ellicott, " bound together in one common
feeling of longing and expectancy, are awaiting that
redemption of the body which shall be the immediate
314 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
precursor of the restitution of the world, and the consum-
mation of all things in Christ." (Destiny of the Earth,
p. 18.) So Lange. " The expectation of the future trans-
formation of the earth into a heavenly establishment, of the
conjunction of the spiritual kingdom in the other world
with that in this, nay, of the reuniting of that world itseli
and this, is to many a mere fancy, but to every earnest
Christian a great hope, an assurance of faith, a certain pre-
diction." (Bremen Lectures, p. 251.) Even Dr. Fairbairn
avers the same belief. " The internal links itself with the
external, . . . the bodies of the saints shall be trans-
formed, and the whole material creation shall become a fit
habitation for redeemed and glorified saints." (Hermeneu-
tics, p. 367.) Lechler is as clearly right when saying, " To
an earthly kingdom of glory, a mass of utterances refer in
the letters of the Apostle (Paul), if we have an open eye
for them, and this is, at the same time, that eschatological
point in which all his letters harmonize." (Apostt, und
Nachap. Zeit. p. 141.) Tholuck was only right when say-
ing, " The idea that the perfected Kingdom of Christ is to
be transferred to heaven, is properly a modern notion.
According to Paul, and the Revelation of John, the King-
dom of God is to be placed upon the earth, in so far as this
itself has part in the universal transformation." (Quoted
by Lee. Eschatology, p. 247.) Pre-millennialism, there-
fore, looks upon the old genesis as an apocalypse of the
past given to Moses, the new genesis as an apocalypse of
the future given to John, crowned with redemption. Its
eye sweeps the whole field of development from Paradise
lost to Paradise restored. The relation of the dispensation
of Promise to that of the Law is the analogue of the rela-
tion of the Present dispensation to that of the Millennium,
after which is the consummation and Eternal Glory, when
Christ shall have surrendered the Kingdom to the Father,
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 315
that God may be All in all." Thus does pre-millennialism
become a protest against the doctrine of the unbroken
evolution of the Kingdom of God to absolute perfection on
earth, apart from the visible and miraculous intervention
of Christ. And equally is it a protest against that vapid
idealism which volatilizes the perfect kingdom into a spir-
itual abstraction, apart from the regenesis of the earth. It
asserts that the literal is always the last and highest fulfill-
ment of prophecy. It adopts the deep truth, expressed by
Oetinger, that glorified " corporeity is the end of the ways
of God," working from within outward, from the spirit to
the body of the believer, and from both to the renovation
of the planet. The millennium is the transition-stage ia
this process of "the Regeneration," succeeded by the
everlasting state.
The evolution and history of the doctrine run parallel
with the development and progress of all revelation. It
does not rest upon an isolated passage in the Apocalypse,
as many suppose, but upon the whole covenant of God in
Christ for the redemption of man and earth from sin and
its curse, and is the central point of eschatology. "Were
but one verse all that announced its existence, it would
still be equally valid as that other solitary verse, in all the
Bible, which announces the surrender of the jurisdiction of
the Kingdom, by Christ, to the Father, that God may be
All in all (1 Cor. 15:24). But six consecutive times, in
six consecutive verses, John emphasizes the Kingdom as the
reign of 1,000 years, to make it sure to our understanding.
Above even this six-fold repetition, it was, in connection
with the sufferings of Christ, a chief part in the burden of
" all that God had spoken by the mouth of all His holy
prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:21.) The cir-
cumstance that some, who in ancient, as in modern, times,
have abused the doctrine to a carnal sense, were called
316 SECOND OOMINO OF CHRIST.
" Chiliasts" or " Millennarians," no matter how perverse
their doctrine might be, vacates not the fact that a true
Christian Chiliasm was the orthodox faith of the primitive
church in its purest days. " Christian Chiliasm showed no
favor to the fleshly Israel, nor even to its Holy City."
(Robertson, Chh. Hist. I., p. 116.) "Christian Chiliasm,"
says Dorner, " so far from being derivable from, may in part
be more justly regarded as a polemic against, Judaism, on
the part of Christianity. This is, in particular, its charac-
ter, where it has apparently borrowed most features from
Judaism." (Person of Christ, I., 408.) It was no device
of " later Jews " sighing for temporal deliverance from a
Syrian or Roman yoke. They never admitted a " Second
Advent " in any case. They knew no millennium save a
kingdom of Solomonic and carnal splendor, under a tem-
poral prince, with the Levitical cultus revived. Their
motto was " Moses forever." They believed in a resurrec-
tion of " gross and corruptible bodies, as are here upon earth,
to eat, drink, marry, and be given in marriage, and afterward
to die again." (Cud worth, Intel. Syst., II., 606.) Of such
were the Ebionite Christians teaching a gross Apoc-
ryphal view of the 1,000 years, "alter the resurrection,
in an earthly Kingdom of Christ, according to the carnal
desires and lusts of the flesh." (August. De Hceres, ad
Quod vult, etc., cap. 8. De Civit Dei XX. 7.) Unfor-
tunately, for the holders of the truth, their doctrine not
yet wholly free from the sensuous images of that age,
the name " Chiliasts" derived from the 1,000 years, com-
mon to both, was indiscriminately applied to both. But
Christian Chiliasm is not carnal. It is no " materializing
interpretation" of spiritual prophecies by which Jewish
Christians were naturally "infected," as with some plague-
spot of sensuality. It is no convenient heretical comfort,
graciously permitted for a " distressed condition " of the
HISTORY OF THE FEE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 317
church. It is no Gnostic conceit, nor Patristic invention.
Not Cerinthus nor Papias were its authors, but John the
Apostle. Not John alone, but Peter and Paul, Isaiah
and Ezekiel, Daniel and Zechariah, Moses and David and
Enoch, " holy men of God who spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost." (2 Pet. 1 : 21.) That it has an inspired
Jewish origin, so far being a prejudice against it, only
entitles it to universal acceptance, for "Salvation is of the
Jews." That it should be denied because traduced or
perverted, or grossly and, in some cases, willfully misrepre-
sented by its enemies, or that it should be held responsible
for the indiscretion of its friends, is a method of estimation
that files us, at once, in funeral procession to the grave of
all Christian doctrine. That it is beset with difficulties and
suggestive of questions none may resolve, and productive,
at times, of seemingly irreconcilable contradictions, is only
what is common to all the doctrines of grace, cherished by
the whole church as the inspired word of God. The ques-
tion "How can these things be? 5> is not of faith, but of
puny reason, baffled by a mystery of glory no less than by
a mystery of grace. Nicodemus would have been an Anti-
Pre-Millennarian! As the doctrine stands in the Scripture,
it is the flower of the Protevangel in Eden, the glorious
outcome when the veil that is spread over all nations is
destroyed, and death is swallowed up in victory; the Future
Age, after Patriarchal, Jewish, Pagan, and Christian, ages,
muffled in their gray mantles, with shadowy faces, have
flitted forever away. It is a Symposium with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, the Bridegroom's Wedding, the Angels'
Delight, the Overcomers' Keward, the Martyr's Joy. It is
the doctrine of the " Day-Dawn" and "Phosphor" of Eternal
Glory, more sure than the vision on Tabor's height, or
audible voice from heaven; part of the "Sabbatisrn" that
remains for the people of God; the earthly bloom of a
318 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST,
" kingdom that can not be moved " when the Yoice that
once shook the earth shall shake once more, " not the earth
only but also heaven." (Heb. 12: 26.)
H. THE DOCTRINE IN THE APOCALYPSES OF DANIEL AND JOHN.
The history of the Pre-Millennial Doctrine grounds itself
eminently in the visions of Daniel, and so far as inspired
record of it goes, completes itself in the visions of John.
The visible Kingdom of God on earth, apostate from the
dynasty of promise, was blotted out under the third raid of
Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, upon Jerusalem.
Tributary, at first, to the Gentile power, like a Danubian
principality to the Turkish Empire, then the walls of the
Holy City demolished, and towers of Zion dismantled like
the fortress of Shumla, it existed as an independent external
polity no more. Shall God have a visible kingdom, an ex-
ternal sovereignty no more, forever, on earth ? While the
exiles weep, it is given their conqueror to see a proud Col-
ossus, in vision, the symbol of his own glory and that of his
successors. It is given Daniel to interpret the vain splen-
dor, the time of its duration, the catastrophe that shall
signalize its fall, and the new kingdom that shall rise on its
ruins. (Dan. 2: 31-46; 7: 1-27.) By the same Spirit it is
given the beloved John, 600 years after, to portray the steps
by which that catastrophe is reached, and that new king-
dom established a kingdom no more bounded by the sea
and the river, but extensive as that which David sang when
resigning the ensigns of sovereignty to Solomon, the type
of his greater son. (Ps. 72, Apoc. 5: 9, 10; 11: 15-18; 12:
10; 15:4; 19:11-21; 20:1-6.
On such foundations, supported by instruction from our
Lord and His Apostles, did the Church of the Apostolic
Age rear its doctrine of the Millennial Kingdom, and the
Pre-Millennial Advent of Christ to inaugurate the same.
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 319
(Acts 3 : 19-21; Kom. 8: 23; Kom. 11 : 26.) The prophetic
page of Daniel was regarded as a sacred calendar of the
future, measuring the range of successive Gentile empires
from the captivity date to the finishing of the mystery of
God under the seventh trumpet, embracing the conversion
of the Jews or recall of Israel to the covenant, the over-
throw of Antichrist, the first Resurrection, and the Millen-
nial Reign and Final Judgment. (Rev. 10:7; 11:15;
Rom. 11 :26; Rev. 19: 20; 20 : 1-7) a course of history
spanning 490 years of the later Jewish dispensation, all the
Christian dispensation closing with the overthrow of the
Beast and Little Horn, and the erection of Daniel's fifth and
everlasting Kingdom as an external polity, upon the extinct
polities of all nations. The whole time thus covered, by
this scope, was the long period of Israel's expectation, run-
ning parallel with the Captivity, Restoration, Rejection, the
times of the Antichristian Apostacy all this the "Times
of the Gentiles," together with the " Time of the End," and
of the 1 ,000 years. The prophetic page of John, too, was
regarded by the early Church as a compend, not of the
details, but of the chief events and results of history in
their relation to the coming Kingdom, a further develop-
ment of the vision of Daniel, depicting the rise and prog-
ress of Antichrist, the final over throw of the Roman Empire,
and the judgment on Antichrist at the end of the 1,260
days the Great Image no longer standing on its feet,
Beast and False Prophet no longer existing, the Millennial
Kingdom coming with One who comes in the clouds of
Heaven. With such a view it was impossible for the early
Church not to be Pre-Millennarian, for the visions of Daniel
(chap. 7) and John (Apoc. chaps. 4-22) were one. The carnal
hope of a Jewish Kingdom having perished with the death
of Christ, the Apostolic Church addressed itself to the
work of winning souls to Christ, in a present spiritual
320
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
kingdom of inward hidden virtue, a life with Christ in God,
vet destined hereafter to bloom into glorious visible domin-
ion, at the manifestation of the sons of God. (Rom. 8 : 18-
2; 1 Pet. 1:3-8; Acts 3 : 3-19, 21.) The certainty of the
" Appearing and Kingdom " coming both together, in out-
ward splendor on earth, was never doubted by any save
such as Hymeneus and Philetus, who denied the resurection.
The whole dispute in the early Church gathered around
the order and relation of certain events and the time of
their occurrence a dispute terminated by the declarations
of Paul and the visions of John. The early Church saw a
complete identification between the vision of Daniel (7 : 7-
27) and the Apocalypse of John (chaps. 6-21). It was
impossible to avoid the conclusion that Daniel 7 : 9-15, 18,
22, 26, 27, described the scenes attending the Second Advent,
.and was parallel with Apoc. 19 : 11-21; 20 : 1-7, the apostle
simply introducing the 1,000 years, and separating certain
events according to their relations, in the remainder of the
chapter events which, in Daniel's vision, are crowded
together irrespective of these relations, both ends of John's
vision being pressed together into one plane in Daniel. This
is manifest if we compare the parallel expressions of the two
visions parallelisms which have attracted the attention
of so many critics.
DANIEL SAYS:
1. As to the Cloud Corner: u I went
on gazing in the night's visions,
and behold! One like a Son of
Man came in the clouds of
heaven," etc. Dan. 7: 13.
2. As to the Persecuting Anti-
Christian Beast : " I went on gaz-
ing, and the .same Horn made war
with the saints and prevailed
against them until the Ancient of
Days came," etc. Dan. 7 : 21, 22.
JOHN SAYS:
1. As to the Cloud Comer: " Be-
hold! He cometh in clouds, and
every eye shall see Him; they also
that pierced Him." Rev. 1 : 7.
2. As to the Persecuting Anti-
christian Beast: " The Beast that
ascendeth out of the bottomless
pit shall make war against th'-m,
and shall overcome them, and kill
them.'' " War with the saints and
overcome them." Rev. 11 : 7 ; 13 : 7 ;
17:14.
HISTORY OF THE PEE -MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 321
3. As to the time of the Domi-
nancy of the Beast : '' They shall be
given into Ins hands for a time,
times, and the dividing of a time."
Dan 7 : 25.
4. As to the Judgment on the
Anti Christian Beast: " I went on
gazing till the thrones were placed
and the Ancient of Days did sit,"
etc. " The judgment was set and
the books were opened." "And
judgment was given to the saints
of the Most High." "The judg-
ment shall sit," etc. " I went on
gazing till the Beast was slain,
and his body destroyed, and given
to the burning flame." Dan. 7:9,
10, 22, 26, 11.
5. As to the Kingdom and Reign
of the triumphant paints: " The time
came that the saints possessed the
Kingdom." "The saints of the.
Most High shall take the King-
dom forever, even for ever and
ever."^ "And the Kingdom and
dominion, and the greatness of the
Kingdom under the whole heaven
shall be given to the people of the
saints of the Most High, whose
Kingdom is an everlasting King-
dom," etc. Dan. 7 : 18, 22, 27.
6. As to the Blessedness of the
Millennial Reign: " Blessed is he
that waiteth and cometh to the
thousand, three hundred and five
and thirty days." "Thou shalt
rest and stand in thy lot at the end
of the days." Dan. 12: 12, 13.
3. As to the time of the Domi-
nancy of the B ast: "For a time,
times, and half a time." u Forty
and two months." "A thousand,
two hundred and threescore days."
Rev. 12:14; 11:2,3.
4. As to the Judgment on the
Antichristian Beast: " I saw heav-
en opened, and behold a white
horse," etc. " I saw thrones and
they sat upon them, and judgment
was given unto them." "And I
saw a great white throne, and the
books were opened." " And I saw
the Beast," etc. " And the Beast
was taken, and with him the False
Prophet that wrought miracles
before them," etc. "These both
were cast alive into a lake of fire
burning with brimstone. And the
remnant were slain with the sword
of Him that sat on the horse," etc.
Rev. 19:11; 20:4,12; 19:20,21.
5. As to the Kingdom and Reign
of the triumphant saints: " We
shall reign with thee on the earth."
" The Kingdoms of this world are
become the Kingdom of our Lord
and of His Christ; and He shall
reign for ever, and ever." " And
I saw the souls of them that were
beheaded for the witness of Jesus,
and for the Word of God," etc.
" And they lived and reigned a
thousand years. This is the first
resurrection." Rev. 5 : 10 ; 11 : 15 ;
20:4,5.
6. 'As to the Blessedness of the
Millennial Reign: " Blessed and
holy is He that hath part in the
first resurrection; on such the
second death hath no power. But
they shall be priests of God and of
Christ, and shall reign with Him
a thousand years." Bev. 20 : 6.
Nothing is clearer to the scholar than that the Apoca-
lypse of John is but the expansion of the Apocalypse of
Daniel, and that all the seals, vials and trumpets of John are
included in the time of the " Chazeh Haveith" the U I was
21
322 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
gazing," or " I went on gazing " of Daniel ; his imperfect
tense. Nothing is clearer than that the announcement of
one like the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven
relates to His " Second Advent," and not to His First, and
that the early church was not in error when identifying
these visions as one the latter only an expression of the
former, developed under the light of a later eschatology.
It was the view of Justin, saying : " He shall come as the
Son of Man, on the clouds, even as Daniel hath showed."
Of Tertullian, saying : " Concerning the Second Coming,
the same prophet writes : And, behold, One like the Son of
Man came with the clouds of heaven." Of Chrysostom,
Cyril, and all the fathers before Constantino's day. Alle-
gorical coming in the clouds was unknown to the ancients.
" I challenge," says Cunninghame, of Laiushaw, " the oppo-
nents of these views to produce a single passage from any
writer of authority in the three or four iirst centuries, in
favor of the modern figurative interpretation of the words
of Dan. 7: 13, and of our Lord in Matt. 24: 30, and Luke
21: 27. The prophecy describes the same events." (Polit-
ical Destiny of the Earth, p. 35.) So all the best exposi-
tors, ancient and modern. " I shall never believe," exclaims
Mede, " but that all those places of the Son of Man's com-
ing and appearing in the clouds of heaven, mentioned in
the Gospels and in the Apocalypse, are the same with the
Coming in the clouds prophesied by Daniel." (Works IV.,
Epist. X.) So Keil, who is one instance among the great
host of later interpreters of this period : " This passage
forms the foundation for the declaration of Christ regard-
ing His future Coming, which is described after Dan. 7: 13."
(Keil on Daniel, 236.) The early church was right. Cer-
tain events, combined in one and the same scene in Daniel,
it saw, sundered 1,000 years apart, by the same revealing
Spirit, in the vision of John. A new vista is opened in
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 323
the bosom of the later Apocalypse. Daniel's vision embraces
all at both ends of the 1,000 years in John's vision. It is
the very vision to which Christ referred a vision familiar
to the Sanhedrin when, April 7, A. D. 33, the morning
of His crucifixion, He said to the High-Priest: " Hereafter
ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Matt. 26:64.
Another Sanhedrin of the Holy Ones should sit, God, the
Father, not Caiaphas, presiding, the Son of Man coming
with the saints to receive the Kingdom. It settles the
question forever, that the vision of the " Beclouded One,"
in Daniel, refers to the " Second Advent," and that the
earthly Kingdom set up * 4 under the whole heaven," or over
the whole earth, and "given to the people of the saints of
the Most High," and received by Christ, is a Kingdom not
given Him at His Ascension to heaven, but upon His
return from heaven to earth ; a Kingdom received at the
Judgment upon the Antichristian Beast and False Prophet,
after the 1,260 days are expired ; in other words, the Mil-
lennial Kingdom described by John. I may add, in vindi-
cation of this identity seen by the early church, that if, as
Dr. David Brown holds, in his work on the " Second
Advent," the vision of Daniel, in chapter 7:9-27, " has
nothing to do with the Second Advent of Christ" then the
vision of John (Rev. 19: 11-21; 20: 1-6,) has nothing to do-
with that Advent, for both are confessed to be the same
vision, alike by himself and Dr. Fairbairn (Brown, Sec.
Adv., p. 349; Fairbairn on Prophecy, p. 303.) But, if the
vision of Daniel does relate to the Second Advent, as
Christ's words to Caiaphas clearly show, then the vision of
John relates to the same Advent, and, by consequence, the
outward Kingdom described by both is the same ; erected
at the same time the time of the smiting of the Image
on the Toes; the time of the Judicial Yerdict executed on
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Beast and False Prophet; the time of the Second Coming
of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven. The " Blow "
and the " Yerdict " fall together. The " Stone of Israel "
coming in power and grinding to powder, or scattering as
chaff, is the " Judge," the " Shepherd," too, of the little
flock, to whom it is the Father's good pleasure to give " the
Kingdom." (Luke 12: 32; Matt. 9A: 31-46.)
These Apocalypses were not, to the eye of the early
church, mere scenic exhibitions; "high ideal and poetical
delineations " of what Drs. Brown and Fairbairn call " the
agency of second causes," clothed in judicial drapery, hav-
ing no reference to the personal advent of the Heaven-
Descending Stone, to Judgment. Pre-Millennarianism
could have flourished in no such soil. They were symbols
of the judicial appearing of Christ to set up His Kingdom.
From the vision of Daniel the Jewish Church derived its
assurance of the outward establishment of the Kingdom of
God, at the visible "Appearing" of the Messiah. His
coming on a cloudy throne with flame, and pouring a
stream of wrath from its fire-scattering wheels upon the
guilty nations, was not to annihilate their existence, but
abolish their dominion, subjecting them to the visible sov-
ereignty of His own scepter, and to the dominion of His
saints. Expecting but one advent, and contemplating the
external form of the Kingdom alone, the Jew lost sight of
the spiritual internal form, and rejected Christ and all salva-
tion. The opposite error to that, they indulge, who, con-
scious of two advents, yet reject the coming and visible
earthly Kingdom, because receiving now the inward, invis-
ible and spiritual. Not so did the primitive church. From
Daniel it learned the source of our Lord's title, the
" Son of Man," and of Christ's language as to His coming
" in the clouds of heaven," and as to this future " King-
dom." Here, Paul learned that " the saints shall judge the
HISTORY OP THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 325
world." Here, too, lie learned how to correct the Thessa-
lonian error, by expounding the " Little Horn " as the
" Man of Sin," the persecutor of God's saints, sitting in
" the Temple of God." Here it was he saw that the " Day of
the Lord " began with the Judgment on Antichrist, whom
the Lord would destroy, at His Second Advent, by the
" breath of His mouth," or a sentence of judgment from
His lips, and consume with the " brightness of His Coin-
ing," or the shining of His personal presence a gleam of
which he had once seen on his way to Damascus! The
vision of Daniel is the effulgent torch that blazes over
the whole Pre-Millennial eschatology of Paul, John, and
Christ Himself. It flames through the whole New Tes-
tament.
Nor was the early church in error when regarding the
1,000 years of John, though symbolical, as a measure of
time, dividing the great events of a vast transition period
a Future Age or World to come, between the close of
the present dispensation and the Age that is endless.
Clearly, it noted the contrast between the four great events
marking the opening, and the contrasted four marking the
close, of the 1,000 years. These events are :
AT THE OPENING.
1. Satan bound, shut up and sealed
in the Abyss for 1,000 years.
2. The nations deceived no more
till the 1,000 years are lulfilled.
8. Thrones and Judgment given
to the saints living and reign-
ing with Christ 1,000 years.
4. The first resurrection of the
blessed and holy dead, who are
priests of God and of Christ,
AT THE CLOSE.
1. Satan loosed out of his prison
when the 1,000 years are ex-
pired.
2. The nations deceived, which
are in the four corners of the
earth, Gog and Magog.
3. The camp of the saints and the
Beloved City compassed about.
4. The resurrection of the rest of
the dead after the 1,000 years
are finished.
326 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
III. NO CONTRADICTION IN THE DIFFERENT REPRESENTATIONS.
The antithesis is perfect. It is not possible to escape the
conviction that these years express actual duration.
The apparent contradiction arising from the interca-
lation of the 1,000 years created between the representa-
tions of the Apocalypse concerning the " Last Things,"
and the earlier representations of the same things, thus
dividing events in the later view, which, in the earlier
one, are bound together, or seemingly so bound, or
spoken together in the same breath, or combined in one
and the same picture, and tied to the same hour of
fulfillment, all circling round the Parousia, presented
no difficulty either to the faith or the understanding
of the early Church. They knew that Daniel beheld, as a
single act, in a single point of time, while he " went on gaz-
ing," what required centuries for historical fulfillment.
Only the high points of the distant landscape are seen in
the prophetic or symbolic picture, when the Seer beholds it
in a right line, or in front; not the intervening valleys, or
spaces between. It is what critics call the " apotelesmatic
character " of prophecy and symbolism. It was given to
John, who beheld these same events, sidewise, as they passed
in panorama before him, to supplement the earlier eschatol-
ogy, by the seals, trumpets, vials, and the 1,000 years, so
describing the special events and distances involved, but
unseen, by Daniel as he " went on gazing." The whole
Apocalypse of John, from chapter 4th to the end, is but a
development of Daniel's imperfect tense. For the early
Church, well knowing that " one day with the Lord is as a
thousand years," the Millennial Day was olamic time, an
seonian period (Taylor Lewis, Six Days, p. 372), including
all the judgments and mercies embraced in the " times of
the restitution," that day in which both the judgments, the
one on the Beast and False Prophet, the other on Gog and
HISTORY OF THE FEE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 327
Magog, and also both resurrections, occurred, the one in the
41 morning " for the dominion of the righteous, the other in
the u evening" for the final doom of the wicked. The
apparent contradiction vanished at once, in view of that
prophetic glance which, in earlier and less developed repre-
sentations, swept the whole field of the future in a moment,
and combined in the same picture, without distinction of
time, events historically separate. The variations between
the representations of the later Apocalypse and the other
earlier Scriptures, so perplexing to many, received a satis-
factory explanation, inasmuch as they were seen to arise
from the fact that, while, on the one hand, the other Scrip-
tures contemplated the great events of the " End," or " Last
Day," in mass, foreshortened in perspective, compressed
and unsundored by time, and uttered in one breath, the
Apocalypse, on the other hand, divided the same and dis-
posed them according to their successive temporal relations
and order, under the light of a higher illumination and the
angle of a new beholding.
This rule of interpretation simply recognizes what Yan
Oosterzee calls " the grouping together of that which shall,
inreality,be realized, not side by side, but in succession," and
is abundantly vindicated by the ablest scholars. (Van
Oosterzee, Dogmatics II, 786; Stuart, Hints on Prophecy,
p. 131; Auberlen, Daniel, pp. 74, 75, 225-229; Keil, Daniel,
pp.226, 227; Kliefoth, Offenbar, Joh. Ill, 273; Zockler,
Hofmann, and Delitzsch, in Lange on Daniel, p. 164; Dor-
ner, Person of Christ, I. p. 407.) Thus did a true Chris-
tian Chiliasm root itself in the consciousness of the early
Church, the Millennial Kingdom being ever regarded as
beyond the Second Advent, and on earth.
Such was the basis of primitive Chiliasm. The beloved
disciple bequeathed to the martyr-church a proposition
which, interpret it as it might, still remained, viz. : that
328 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
after the seals, trumpets and vials are fulfilled, Satan shall
be imprisoned 1,000 years, during which the risen saints
shall reign with Christ on the very scene of their suffering
an event signalized by the resurrection of the just, which
other Scriptures taught them could only occur at the
Appearing of Christ. But one interpretation was possible
the corning of Christ before the 1,000 years. And all
the more tenaciously was it held because given the strug-
gling Church by one who was a " brother and companion
in tribulation and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus
Christ." (Rev. 1:9.)
" In the midst of persecution," says Neander, " it was a.
solace and support to the Christians to anticipate that even
here on earth, the scene of their sufferings, the Church
was destined to triumph in its perfected and glorified state.
They framed to themselves a spiritual idea of the happiness
of this period perfectly corresponding with the essence of
the Gospel, conceiving under it nothing else than the
dominion of the divine will, .the undisturbed and blissful
reunion of the whole community of saints, and the restora-
tion of harmony between a sanctified humanity, and all
nature transfigured to its primitive innocence." (Hist.
Chr. Rel. I, 650.) Frequently marred, as was unavoid-
able, in that age, by the radiant coloring of an Asiatic im-
agination, as also by sensuous images under which, at
times, it was presented, and by the fanatical extravagance
of heretical men, it nevertheless lost none of its divine
authority and power. " Christian Chiliusm," says Dr.
Schaff, " if we leave out of sight the sensuous and fanatical
extravagance into which it has frequently run, both in
ancient and in modern times, is based on the unfulfilled
promises of the Lord, and particularly on the Apocalyptic
figure of His 1,000 years' reign upon earth, after the first
resurrection, in connection with numerous passages respect-
HISTORY OF THE PRE -MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 3
ing His glorious return which declare it to be near, and yet
uncertain and unascer tamable as to its day and hour, that
believers may always be ready for it. This precious hope r
through the whole Age of Persecution, was a copious foun-
tain of encouragement and comfort under the pains of that
martyrdom which sowed in blood the seed of a glorious-
harvest for the Church." (Hist. Chr. Chh. I, 299).
IV. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS.
Consentient, is the voice of the Apostolic Fathers, for
the pre-millennial advent, as also the earliest literary Chris-
tian monuments that remain to us wherever they have
spoken on the subject. Everywhere, in their view, the
stages of development of the Kingdom of God are the
stages of the Parousia of Him who ever is, as He ever was,
the Coming One, until the development culminates in the
visible Second " Appearing and Kingdom " together.
Everywhere the future Parousia is the visible appearing of
Christ, for in the Sacred Scriptures, the term " appearing "
is only affirmed of the Second Person of the Trinity,
incarnate, never of the Spirit, never of the Father, never
of Providence, never of Death. For the Fathers, and the
Christian writers of the Apostolic Age, the Appear-
ing and Kingdom were the object of their hope, and
next to the cross, the greatest motive for their work. The
intermediate state was for them but a span ; the interval
between death and the Second Advent but a moment; the
grave a slumber, how brief, if so be that the Bridegroom
tarried and their flesh might rest in hope. Already Paul
had told them that the Gospel had " gone into all the earth^
even unto the ends of the world." (Rom. 10:18.) The
"Mystery of Iniquity " already worked, and for aught they
knew, the " let " might be removed in their day, Anti-
christ appear and Christ come. (2 Thess. 2:1-12.) Their
330 SECOND COMING OF CHItlST.
eyes and hopes were fixed on the coming Kingdom on earth.
The words of the Lord in Matt. 12:32, 6 al&v OVTOC, they
understood as meaning this present Age, or world, and
6 a!v fi&faw the future Age or world, both on the earth, the
viKovftev, or inhabited place, the former the Kingdom in its
present mixed state, the latter the Kingdom of the resur-
rection, in its purity, when all things that offend are taken
out. Many of them had Apostolic instructors, at whose
feet they daily sat listening to their inspired words.
Barnabas teaches that the " Sabbath Rest will come when
the Son of God shall appear and destroy the Lawless One.
The true Sabbath is the Sabbath of the 1,000 years. Then
all will be sanctified completely, when we shall have become
perfectly righteous, that is, when Christ comes back to
reign." The Jewish carnal hope, he declares to be u utterly
vain." " The righteous man waits for the Holy Age, rdi> a-ytov
1dwo. He who does God's commandments shall be glorified
in the Kingdom of God. He shall rise from the dead."
(Donaldson Apost. Fath. 230, 240. Dressel, Patr. Opp.
24, 34.) These words are meaningless, if they do not teach
a Kingdom of the resurrection, on this e*-,rth, introduced by
the Second Advent. So Clement of Rome, whose " name
is in the Book of Life," (Philip 4: 3), believing, as all did in
the speedy coining of Christ to set up His Kingdom.
Clement, the companion of Paul and John, declares that
the apostles, assured by the resurrection of Christ, and con-
firmed by their converse with Him, " all went forch pro-
claiming the good news that the Kingdom of God was about
to come, ptJfatv ipxeaOat, the righteous be made manifest in
the Kingdom, and martyrs received their reward from Him
who is the Fashioner and Father of the Ages, rwv humn>"
(Don. Apost. Fath. 143, 150. Dressel 86, 88.) Polycarp,
pupil of John, and who told Irenseus what familiar inter-
course he had with the beloved disciple, contended with
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 331
the Marcionite Gnostics who denied the resurrection, the
return of Christ, and the judgment, and affirmed that who-
ever so held was the "First born of Satan." " If we obey
Christ and please Him in this Age, T& vvv alun, we shall
receive the Age to come, rbv ptzfovra. He will .raise us from
the dead, and we shall live and reign with Him. The
saints shall judge the world." (Don. Apost. Fath. 183, 192.
Dressel 382.) In the absence of any literature from
Ignatius on the subject, yet who can doubt that his faith
was that of his fellow-martyrs? Papias, too, the com-
panion of both John and Polycarp, and of whose lost five
books but one extract has survived, that not his own, a man
whom the Antichiliast Eusebius first applauds as of com-
manding influence, " wellskilled in all manner of learning,
and well acquainted with the Scriptures," (Euseb. Eccl.
Hist. 3:36), then, afterwards invidiously describes as
" limited in comprehension," because he was a pre-millen-
narian and taught the common martyr doctrine, holding
that " there will be a millennium after the resurrection
of the dead, when the personal reign of Christ will be
established on this earth." (Eccl. Hist. 3:39.) Among
the traditions, he collected, of what Christ is reported
to have said, one is preserved, fanciful enough, concerning
the fertility of the Yine in a renovated earth, and which
Irenseus repeats, adding another concerning the Sheaf ol
Wheat, and so, enlarging in Oriental style, upon the possi-
bilities of nature when the curse is removed. Pastor
llermas, too, looked forward to a renovated earth, the
Age to come, following the resurrection of the just.
"The elect of God," he says, "will dwell in the future
Age, 6 aibv epxb/usvoc, and remain pure and unstained.
They will be all joyful then. All things will be smooth to
them if they keep His commandments. They shall obtain
victory and reward, but the world that now is shall be
332 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
destroyed by fire. This Age is winter to the just, the future
or coming Age is Summer." (Don. Apost. Fath. 305.
Dressel 586.) Thus, do all these men speak in concert. It
is a fact of no mean significance, that the very men who
lived next the apostles, some of whom conversed with them
every day, felt the pulse-beat of their inspiration and shared
their martyrdom, should have left so much, in the scanty
materials that survive, to attest their common faith in the
pre-millennial return of Christ to earth. If, while holding
this great truth, the tincture of their Jewish times colored
some of their expressions and illustrations, still their testi-
mony is not thereby impaired. Better proof we could not have
of what was the belief of the Apostolic Church in reference
to this matter; better we could not desire. No higher eccle-
siastical authority, none more impressive than that of holy
men standing as they did, in the front rank with Stephen,
Peter, James, Paul, John, and their companions. " They
shine with the evening red of the Apostolic Day, and
breathe an enthusiasm of simple faith and fervent love and
fidelity to the Lord which proved its power in suffering and
martyrdom." (Schaff. Chh. Hist. 1:457.) "All were at
one," says Dorner, " men of the Johannine school, like
Polycarp and Papias; of the Pauline, like Ignatius and
Clement of Rome; of the Petrine, like Barnabas; of that
of James, like Hennas and Hegesippus," (Dorner, Person
of Christ, 1:143.) Chiliasm was the common inheritance
of both Jewish and Gentile Christians, and passed from the
Jewish Christian to the Gentile Christian Church precisely
in the way the Gospel passed. It was fragrant at Antioch as
at Jerusalem, at Rome as at Ephesus. History has no
consensus more unanimous for any doctrine than is the
consensus of the Apostolic Fathers for the pre-millennial
advent of Christ.
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 333
V. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOLOGISTS.
Consentient, too, is tlie testimony of all the early Chris-
tian Apologists who have spoken on the subject. Some,
like Tatian, Athenageras, and others, devoted to the special
field of polemics against pagan mythology and philosophy,
or some special feature of apologetics, have recorded no
word as to the millennium. Any " inference," from the
mere circumstance of silence, and in absence of proof, that
they were opposed to Chiliasm, or had a different eschatol-
ogy from their contemporaries who asserted the Chiliastic
doctrine to be universal among the orthodox, is so transpa-
rently fallacious as to effect its own refutation. Otherwise,
some of them would stand convicted of unbelief in the way
of salvation, for, on this subject, one of them is absolutely,
and several are well nigh absolutely, mute. But wherever
they have spoken on the subject, prior to the time of Con-
stan tine's victory, their voice has been harmonious in favor
of Chiliasm, save Origen and his transcendental school. The
very school that turned the symbols of the Apocalypse into
mere metaphors, impugned its divine authority, attributed
it to another John, invented every one of the rationalistic
arguments repeated, ad nauseam, in modern times against
its canonicity, indirectly encouraged Gnosticism, and, at one
time, well nigh wrecked the doctrine of the resurrection.
Justin Martyr, renowned in learning and in the knowledge
of the Scriptures, testified to Trypho the Jew, the faith of
the orthodox church in his day. To the question of the
Jew, u Do you confess that this place, Jerusalem, shall be
rebuilt, and your people be congregated, and rejoice together
with Christ and the Patriarchs, and Prophets?" etc., etc.,
Justin answers, " I confessed to you, before, that I, and
many others, besides, do believe, as you well know, this
shall be. But, on the other hand, I have also signified to
334 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
you that many, who are not of the pure and pious faith of
the Christians, do not acknowledge this; they are called
Christians, indeed, but are godless, impious heretics, because
they teach doctrines that, in every respect, are blasphemous,
atheistic, foolish, etc. They do not confess this, but dare
to blaspheme the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
say there is no resurrection of the dead, but that at death,
their souls are received up into the heaven. Do not imagine
that these are Christians. But, I, and others who are right-
minded Christians on all points, know there will be aresur-
rection of the dead, and a 1,000 years in Jerusalem, built,
adorned, broadened, as the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, and
others, declare." (Dial. cap. 80.) " A certain man among
us, of the name of John, one of the Apostles of Christ, in
a Revelation which he had, prophesied that they who were
faithful to our Christ, would accomplish 1,000 years in
Jerusalem, and, after that, the general and, to speak concise-
ly, the final (eternal) resurrection and judgment of all would
take place. Just as our Lord also said, They shall neither
marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the
angels, the children of the God of the resurrection." (Dial,
cap. 81.) Such is the testimony of Justin, than which
none could be more strong. In Justin's Millennium, says
Donaldson, " there is not a syllable to intimate a single
enjoyment that is not consistent with the utmost holiness."
(Hist. Chris. Lit. II. 263.) The force of Justin's testi-
mony is sought to be evaded by the statement that he is
merely narrating to Trypho a view he does not expressly
affirm as his own. This is met by the counter statement
that he is narrating the faith of the orthodox, and the
grounds of it, he himself being one of " the right-minded,
on all points." It is a puerile argument to plead that
Irenseus and Tertullian (whose Chiliastic Book is lost)
do not "say " that Justin was a Chiliast, or that he is not
HISTORY OF THE FEE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 335
named as one by Eusebius and Jerome, the judgment of crit-
ics being that this omission by the anti-Chiliasts of the fourth
century was caused by the dread of his great name. More
plausible, yet equally powerless, is the argument that Justin
does not treat of Chiliasm in his "Apologies," but repre-
sents the u Last things " as combined in one picture around
the Parousia, and tied to the same hour of fulfillment.
This is only what is done in the Sacred Volume itself. It
treats of the 1,000 years only in the Apocalypse, there separa-
ting events which in other Scriptures are spoken of as one.
It is a treatment justified by inspired men, and practiced
by the church in all ages.* The last and boldest effort to
break the testimony of Justin was to corrupt the Greek
text of the first quotation, a corruption on which anti-
chiliasts mainly rely, but which has signally failed. The
testimony is conclusive, showing that Chiliasm was the
orthodox faith of the age succeeding that of the Apostolic
Fathers. The Gnostics alone rejected it, because denying
the doctrine of the resurrection, and well versed in Greek,
and well aware that *' Anastasis " in the mouth of Christ
and John meant a literal resurrection of the body, rejected
both the Gospel and the Apocalypse. While Justin
was inconsistent with himself in limiting the covenant
inheritance of earth to the possession of Canaan alone, and,
perhaps, applied too literally some of the imagery of the
prophets, he yet truly represented the two main points of
the Church's faith in his day, the Pre-millennial Advent, and
the literal " First Resurrection."
Melito, of Sardis, famed for his "sanctity and learning,"
shared the views of Justin, and wrote a work on the
Apocalypse, now lost. u Irenseus the Great," a disciple of
both Papias and Polycarp, rich in experience of spiritual
* Still more, Neander has justly observed that the " spiritual ideas " of
Justin in his Apologies "stand in no manner of contradiction with this
doctrine Chiliasm." (Hist. Chr. Kel. I. 669.)
336 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
life and knowledge, defended (in his fifth Book on Her-
esies) the pre-millennarian doctrine against the Platonizing
Gnostics, quoting in its support the third Beatitude of our
Lord (Matt. 5:5) as the Nicene Bishops did afterward,
" Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth,"
and the promise iu Psalm. 37: 11, "The meek shall inherit
the earth, and delight themselves in the abundance of-
peace." He appeals with prodigious power, equalled only
by the massive eloquence of Hippolytus, to the prophecies
of Daniel, John, and Christ. " Christ," says he, " is the
Stone cut out without hands, who shall destroy temporal
kingdoms, and introduce an eternal one, which is the resur-
rection of the Just " a comment of gold, for it dates the
blow from the Heaven-Descending Stone in judgment strik-
ing the Monarchy -Image in the time of the toes, and as
contemporaneous with the verdict on antichrist. " When
antichrist shall have devastated all things in this world
he will reign for three years and six months, aaid sit in
the temple at Jerusalem, and then the Lord will come from
heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending
this man to the lake of fire, but bringing in for the right-
eous the times of the kingdom, the rest, the hallowed
seventh-day, and restoring to Abraham the promised
inheritance." " Christ will Himself renew the inheritance
of the earth, and reorganize the mystery of the glory of
His sons." "In the times of the Kingdom, the righteous
shall bear rule upon their rising from the dead, when the
creation, having been renovated, and set free, shall fructify
with abundance of every kind, from the dew of heaven, and
from the fertility of the earth." (Here the tradition Papias
recorded concerning the Grapes is repeated, and another
added as to the Wheat.) " In the times of the Kingdom, the
earth shall be called by Christ to its pristine condition, and
Jerusalem rebuilt, after the pattern of the Jerusalem which is
HISTORY OF THE PRE -MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 337
the mother of us all. John saw this new Jerusalem descend-
ing upon the earth. After the times of the Kingdom, he
says, u I saw a Great "White Throne, and Him who sat upon
it." " Man rises, not allegorically, from the dead, as I have
shown repeatedly. And as he rises actually, so shall he bo
actually disciplined before-hand for incorruption, and shall
go forward, and flourish in the times of the Kingdom."
John, therefore, did distinctly foresee the first resurrection
of the Just, and the inheritance in the Kingdom on earth."
(Iren. Adv. Hseres. V. caps. 26, 30, 33, 35.) Such was the
testimony of this great man against the Gnostics. What-
ever criticism we may make upon some fanciful and sensuous
notions and images found in his writings, and mingling
with his faith, it is certain he is expressing, on this subject,
not merely his individual " opinion," but the general faith of
the Church. And antichiliasts who are wont to assail the
type of religion in the martyr-age as k ' gross " and " Jewish,"
may do well to remember the words of Meander, " He who
knows anything about the hidden depths of the spiritual
life in which religion has its seat and laboratory, will be
cautious how he pronounces judgment from such appear-
ances as these on the surface against the entire religion of
a certain period, in which disturbing mixtures of a sensuous
element were still to be found, when, in such a man as
Irenreus we find vital Christianity and an exalted idea of
the blessedness of fellowship with God, united with these
subordinate notions." (Hist. I. 651.)
Equally strong is the testimony of Lactantius, the
<; Christian Cicero," a contemporary of the Nicene Council,
and preceptor of Constantine's son. "It is ordained bj?
the disposal of God Most High that the present unjust
Age, a space of time having been accomplished, shall have
an end, when all wickedness becoming extinct, and the souls
of the godly called back to a blessed life, there shall flour-
22
338 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ish a quiet, tranquil, peaceable and golden Age, the Lord
Himself then reigning. The righteous King will institute
a great judgment on the earth respecting the living and the
dead, and will deliver all the nations in subjection to the
righteous who are alive; will raise the righteous dead to
eternal life, and will Himself reign with them on the earth,
and will build the Holy City, and this Kingdom of the
righteous shall be for 1,000 years. Then, the last judg-
ment of God will come to pass against the nations. Then,,
also, shall the wicked arise, not to life, but to punishment.
The second resurrection shall take place. This is the doc-
trine of the holy prophets which we Christians follow"
(Div. Inst.. Lib. IY., cap. 2, and YIL, cap. 26.)
Time and space forbid to quote the remaining Fathers
of the Anti-Nicene and Nicene Ages. Only the brief-
est reference. Tertullian, "the Master," as Cyprian
was wont to call him, renouncing his Montanistic error,
still adhered to his Pre-Millennial faith, and wrote a
book in its defence, now lost, "The Hope of Believ-
ers." Champion against the Marcionites, he battled for
this truth as did Irenseus, Justin and Polycarp, asserting a
post-resurrection Kingdom on earth, of spiritual blessings,
" ~bona spiritalia" Hippolytus, the martyr, most accom-
plished of men in his day, astronomer, theologian, bishop,
eloquent as Massilon, the disciple, too, of Irenseus,
also identified the vision of Daniel YIL, with that
of John, Apoc. XIX, XX, and refers both to the * Sec-
ond Advent," after which comes the " Everlasting Domin-
ion." Cyprian, "the proto-martyr of Carthage," once a
splendid legal advocate, high in social life, then a noble
confessor of Jesus, eminent, too, as an ecclesiastic, was a
Pre-Millennarian. Commodian, "the genius of virtue,"
Nepos, " the learned bishop, and poet of Arsinoe,"
Methodius, the martyr, whose last battle was against the
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 339
destructive school of Origen, and in defence of the resur-
rection, Yictorinus, the martyr, whose work Jerome has so
shamefully mutilated, Gregory, of Nyssa, Sulpicius, Sev-
erus, old Paulinus, the friend and stay of Athanasius all
shining names held the Chiliastic faith.
Such, then, is only a part of the witness furnished by an
age Dorner has well styled " predominantly eschatological."
Save Origen and his school, of emasculating damage to the
Word of God, all the Apostolic Fathers, and all the Apol-
ogists in the age succeeding, and, as Elliott assures us, " all
primitive expositors, except Origen, and the few who
rejected the Apocalypse, were Pre-Millennarians, and con-
strued the First Resurrection literally." (Hor86 Apoc.. 1Y.,
306.) " In all the writings of these centuries," says Gies-
eler, a most accurate historian, " Chiliasm is so distinctly
and prominently mentioned that we can not hesitate in
regarding it as the general belief of that age." (Eccl.
Hist., I., 166.) "Chiliasm," says Mede, "was the
general belief of all orthodox Christians in the age imme-
diately following the Apostles, and none were known to deny
it but the heretics, who denied the resurrection." (Works,.
pp. 602, 771.) Hase declares: "It was the old and popular
faith." (Hist., Chh., p. 688.) " The stream of all the best
approved antiquity before Jerome Hebrews, Greeks,
Latins ran that way." (Homes, Res. Rev., p. 370.) "It.
was universally received by almost all teachers," says-
Muencher (Chh. Hist., II., p. 415.) Chillingworth, argu-
ing against Rome's abandonment of the doctrine, says:
"The doctrine that, before the world's end Christ should
reign upon earth 1,000 years, and that saints should live
under Him in all holiness and happiness, etc., is, by the
present Roman Church, held false and heretical," but, " it
was the doctrine believed and taught by the most eminent
Fathers of the Age, next after the Apostles, and by none of
340 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
that Age opposed or condemned. Burton, of Oxford, in his
Bampton Lectures for 1829, and Bishop Russel, both Anti-
chiliasts, assert that the matter is beyond successful denial.
The latter, in his History of the Scotch Episcopal Church
(p. 84), affirms that " down to the beginning of the fourth
century, the sure and certain hope entertained by the Chris-
tian world, that the Redeemer would appear on earth and
exercise authority during 1,000 years, was universal.''
Desprez, Vicar of Alvediston, Wiltz, in -his recent serni-
infidel prseteristic book on Daniel and John, confesses
" that the writer of the Apocalypse meant to assert a lit-
eral reign of Christ and His saints upon earth, for 1,000
years," and that this receives confirmation from the fact
that the Church of the first three centuries was essentially
chiliastic." (Dan. and John, p. 309.) Alfbrd to the same
purpose: "The whole Church, for 300 years, understood
Apoc. 20: J -6 in a plain, literal sense," and, "it is the most
cogent instance of unanimity which primitive antiquity
presents." (N. T., Yol. II., part 2, 1,088.) The effort to
deny this unshakable position, is the futile work of those
who first seek to show that Christian Chiliasm was derived
from Jewish apocryphal books, and next, that only a few
enthusiasts believed it. It is the controversial device of
Origen, Eusebius, Jerome and Dionysi us, followed painfully
by Whitby, whose crowning reason for opposition to the
martyr faith should exclude him from the consideration of
all impartial men, viz.: that Chiliasm "shakes the founda-
tions of Episcopacy, the translation of the Sabbath to the
Lord's day, and other Constitutions derived from the Apos-
tles." (Treat. Mill., I., VI., 1.) The truth is this " pre-
cious hope," as Dr. Schaff calls it, or " pearl of true doc-
trine," as Lange names it, was a gift to the martyrs from
one who \va.s their " brother and companion in tribulation,
and in the kingdom ' and patience of Jesus Christ" the
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 341
consolation of the martyr church, which held it fast in life
and death.
VI. CRITICISM OF THE CENSURERS OF THE DOCTRINE.
I shall be spared the necessity of any protracted criticism
of the assaults made upon Christian Chiliasm by those
who, having first misrepresented it, then opposed it; or of
showing how the objections to a false Chiliasm have been
perpetuated in history as alleged against the true; or of
the various devices by which a doctrine once so dear to the
whole church was sought to be disparaged; or of the means
by which it was corrupted, and then discrowned. The
fact that Montanus and his sect, ejected from the church,
adhered to a false Chiliasm, and that the Alogi, another
heretical sect, repudiated the true; the alleged assertion of
Justin, and alleged admission of Irenaens used to support
it, that Chiliasm was not the general faith of the primitive
Church; the controversial device set afloat by Eusebius,
court-flatterer of Constantine, and hostile to Athanasius,
that a certain Caius of Rome denying the pre-millennial
advent of Christ, ascribed the paternity of Chiliasm to
Cerinthus, as others did to Papias; the paraded victory of
Dionysius the disciple of Origen over Coracion the dis-
ciple of Nepos; the ridicule made, of the Grapes of Papias
and the Wheat-Sheaf of Irenseus, of the descending city of
Tertullian, of the continuity of the human race during
the millennium affirmed by Lactantius, the improper
charge made by Jerome that the orthodox church asserted
an Ebionite Chiliasm with the revival of Mosaic rites and
sensual indulgence, and the authority of Augustine's great
name; all these, as means of bringing the doctrine into dis-
repute, are well known. Suffice it to say that Chiliasm was
perverted by Montanus to the doctrine of a Phrygian
principality with Pepuza as its metropolis, and that the
342 SECOND COMING OF CHBIST.
Alogi denied the inspiration and canoiiicity of both the
Gospel and Apocalypse of John. As to the alleged asser-
tion of Justin (Dial. 80,) that Chiliasm was not the general
belief of the primitive Church, it rests alone upon an inter-
polated and corrupted text, the true and contrary import
of which has been triumphantly vindicated by Daille, Mcde,
Newton, Yint, Chilli ngworth, Homes, Brooks, Donaldson,
and others. And as to the alleged admission by Irenseus,
interpreted so as to make Irenseus say there were opposers
of Chiliasm among the orthodox who agreed only with the
Gnostics in this one thing, it rests upon an entire misap-
plication of the words of Irenseus, who simply states that
" certain persons," who were " reckoned " among the
orthodox, had become infected by the Gnostic heresy, deny-
ing the doctrine of the " resurrection of the body," and
that there were those who differed as to the meaning of
Isa. 11:6-9, the "wolf and the lamb," whether it should
receive a literal fulfillment in the millennium, or be taken
merely as figurative of "coming to the harmony of the
faith." Iren. Adv. Hanres. Y. cap. 31, 32: 1, 33 end. Shedd
Hist. Doct. II. 394. The question was not as to the
belief of the primitive Church in the millennium itself.
The story of Eusebius is not supported by a single line of
contemporary authority, and the evidence is complete
among all critics, that the so-called Caius, if such a man
ever existed to dispute with Proclus, belonged to the sect
of the Alogi who held the Apocalypse to be a forgery.
Mosheim and Neander repel the charge that the Chiliasm
of the Church came from Cerinthus, and Mansel confirms
their judgment. (Gnostic Heresies 114.) And though
Neander, following Eusebius, seems to think that the
Chiliasm of the fathers flowed from Papias (Hist. Chr.
Rel. I. 651,) yet Mosheim declares " Eusebius is not to be
trusted." (Three Centuries II. 245.) Moses Stuart, more-
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 343
over, appealing to Andreas and Arethas, repels the charge
that Papias built his Chiliasm on fables (Stuart Apoc. I.
303-307,) and Donaldson rebukes the meanness of Eusebius
saying, " he spoke at first of Papias as he ought, but, in
coming suddenly on a doctrine he disliked, he rashly pro-
nounced the propounder of it as a man of small capacity "
(Hist. Chr. Lit. I. 313,) and Hase reproves Eusebius once
more, and vindicates Papias, saying, "he took peculiar
pleasure in the living word, and it was only when he was
judged by an age whose spirit had become essentially dif-
ferent that he was accused of possessing a very contracted
mind." (Chh. Hist. 73.) As to the lauded victory of
Dionysius over Coracion and early Chiliasm, it was
won only after Nepos, a man of acknowledged piety and
ability, was dead, and by means of the allegorizing
principles of Origen, the public denial of the canonicity
of the Apocalypse, the use of all those arguments
that crowd the pages of modern rationalistic " Intro-
ductions" to that inspired book, the plea for peace and
reunion in a shattered diocese, together with the ironic smile,
and pleasing art, of an accomplished Christian bishop.
As to the antichiliastic vintage pressed from the grapes of
Papias so many quaff to stimulate their zeal, and the
Wheat Sheaf of Irenseus so many love to thrash, in order
to garner a harvest of objections against the pre-millennial
return of Christ, I can only concur with Dorner, who
remarks, when chastising what he calls " the self-conceited
mockery of Corrodi," that they who stumble at such things
are of an " unpoetical nature, and of mental incapacity
sympathetically to enter into these matters." (Person of
Christ, 1, p. 408.) And what if Irenaeus and Tertullian
took as literal the carbuncle, sapphire, crystal bulwarks, and
pearly gates, of New Jerusalem let down from heaven, not
-discriminating between metaphor and symbol combined in
344 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
one picture, arid the latter appealed to a phenomenon seen
in the Parthian war, more beautiful than the mirage of the
desert, is a matter so easily condoned, an argument against
the power of Him, who, by the simple laws of refraction,
can irradiate the sky with glowing colors, or by the laws of
chemistry enrich the earth with gems and gold? Is it an
argument that New Jerusalem, descending from God out
of heaven, shall not have " the brightest glories earth can
yield, and brighter bliss of heaven,' 1 or that Christ will not
come till the close of the 1,000 years? What if some of
the early fathers blended, hastily, the millennial state with
that of Eternal Glory? The splendors of the latter are
reflected in the bosom of the former, in the Apocalyptic
page itself. And what if Lactantius taught, as multitudes
believe to-day, that the human race will be perpetuated
during the millennium among the nations that escape the
Judgment on Antichrist? Is it righteous to charge that he
taught the propagation of risen saints; or, that, because he
celebrated the abundance and joy of a renovated earth, he
therefore taught " gluttony?" I shall answer Jerome from
the word? of the illustrious Joseph Mede. "O Jerome!
who, with thy Dionysius of Alexandria, dost fasten upon
the opinion of tliemillennarians the injury of circumcision,
the blood of sacrifices and all legal ceremonies, the things
that Jews and Heretics have dreamed of as belonging to
their millennium, and dost dash them on the Christians,
hath this become your candor? Thou dost bewray thy
crimination, for thou thyself writest, " Which things,
although we follow not, yet we can not condemn, because
many ecclesiastical men, and martyrs, too, have said the
same. Prythee! tell me, did those ecclesiastical men and
holy martyrs ever say that circumcision and sacrifices
should be restored in Christ's Kingdom?" etc., etc. (Works
pp. 807, 899.) Well has the learned Cliillingwurth said
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 345-
that the early Ghiliasts were " overborne by imputing to
them that which they held not, by abrogating the authority
of St. John's Revelation as some did, or by derogating from
it as did others." (Works p. 734.) As to Augustine, he held
the martyr doctrine until swerved from it by adopting the
" Recapitulation and Repetition " theory of interpreting the
Apocalypse in connection with a spiritualizing and idealizing
exegesis, borrowed from Origen, and the Donatist Tichonius,.
who, sitting with open Apocalypse before his pupils, sweet-
ened to the work, saying: " Fratres charissimi, Apoca-
lypse explanare curabimus, secundum Anagogen! Dearest
brethren, we* shall take good care to explain the Apocalypsin
anagogically !" i. e., convert symbols into metaphors by an
act of will, and hold that the figurations of the book being
all metaphor, have no relation to literal events in world and
church history, but only to abstract spiritual truths! Yet,.
even after his adoption of this false theory and method,
Augustine only excepted to the false Chiliasm which allowed
" immoderate carnal banquets," and not to the true, in
which " spiritual delights were believed to be present to the
saints by means of the presence of the Lord." (De CiviL
Dei. 20: 7.) This throws light on the whole controversy.
Two factors, as Ebrard has observed, were included in the
Chiliastic doctrine. " On the one side the knowledge that
O
the Church can not, in the present world-aeon, come to per-
fection except by the return of Christ and resurrection of
the dead.. On the other, that this telluric world, though
destroyed by sin is, in its original substance, good, and must
once more attain perfection." Origen and his school
repudiated these ideas, holding that, matter being bad, the
earth must be annihilated, and that " the future glory of the
saints is not connected with the glorification of their earthly
bodies interpenetrated by the resurrection-life of Christ.
The Chiliasts took opposite ground." (Kirch-und Dograen
346 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
gesch. L, p. 115, 116.) When we look at the gross materializ-
ing and Judaistic conceptions of the Kingdom advocated by
false Chiliasm on the one side, and the purely spiritual and
idealistic conceptions of it advocated by Alexandrianism on
the other side, asserting that " the Divine promises pertain
to nothing earthly," we see at once, how the true Chiliasm
meditated both extremes, and, as Dorner says, " atoned the
contradiction between them, removed the dualism," and
maintained its ground as the common faith. " The faith-
ful," says Hase, " who died, were consoled that they should
be raised again to participate in the glories of the King-
dom. Such was the faith of the whole church, until the
common ecclesiastical doctrine became suspected by the
extravagance of a party (Montanist), and was opposed by a
school (Alexandrian) which contended that none but spirit-
ual blessings were of any importance." (Hist. Chr. Chh. p.
689.)
VII. TESTIMONY OF THE NICENE AGE.
And yet how vain was such opposition we learn from the
testimony of Gelasius Cyzicus, a Greek historian of the
fifth century, A.D. 476, who, collecting the records of the
Council of Nice, scattered in the Arian war, an til scarce
an authentic copy of the full proceedings could be found,
.gives us the explanation of the Nicene faith concerning
the resurrection state. We may judge how strong was the
martyr doctrine when, notwithstanding fifty years of oppo-
sition from Alexandrian and Gnostic schools, the Apoca-
lypse was still held to be canonical, and Nicene bishops
.and pastors prepared the following " Diatyposis," or Ecclesi-
astical Form, to be confessed and taught by the church,
as the genuine doctrine: "We expect a new heaven and
earth, according to the Scriptures, when the Appearing
and Kingdom of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 347
Christ, shall have shone forth. Then, as Daniel says, the
saints of the Most High shall receive the Kingdom. And
the earth shall be pure and holy, a land of the living and
not of the dead, which David, foreseeing, exclaimed: <I
believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of
the living, land of the meek and humble.' For, k Blessed,'
says Christ, ' are the meek, because they shall inherit the
earth.' And the prophet says: ' The feet of the meek and
humble shall tread it." (Hist. Act. Council, Nicse, Lib.
II., cap. 29.) No wonder that a testimony of such value,
preserved by a historian of such scrupulous care as Gela-
sius, should have been buried out of sight, at first, by the
advancing papacy under the plea that the Chiliastic doc-
trine of a kingdom, different from the Christian empire,
was offensive to the national feelings of Greeks and
Romans, and a hinderance in the missionary effort to con-
vert the nations; and next, wholly omitted, or sought to be
disparaged by modern Romanist writers, lest its authority
should stand in the way of their church and state theory of
the Millennium. The art, however, that mutilated Yicto-
rinus, and, as Daille says: "foisted a contradiction " into
Justin's testimony, has failed, and in face of it all, the
" Diatyposis " stands a living witness to the faith of the
orthodox Nicene bishops and pastors, in Binniu-e, the
Louvre, and other editions, of the Councils, a monument of
the church's doctrine when emerging from the martyr flame.
Whitby acknowledges its validity, saying that Chiliasm
was received, " not only in the Eastern parts of the church
by Papias, Justin, Irenseus, Nepos, Appolinarius, Metho-
dius, and in the West and South by Cyprian, Yictorinus,
Tertullian, Lactantius, and Severus, "but by the Council of
Nice" (Treatise on Tradition.) And Daille, antichiliast,
and no incompetent authority, declares: "It plainly
appears that, in Jerome's time, i. 0., about the beginning of
34:8 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the fifth century, this opinion generally prevailed in the
church." (Use of the Fathers, 290.) How completely the
whole chain of testimony, of authority, and of competent
and impartial judgment, sets aside the praeteristic state-
ments that, " It can not be said that Chiliasm was the
faith of the church of the first two centuries," and that its
flourishing period '"was a brief one of about a hundred
years." (Amer. Presb. and Theol. Rev., Apr., 1864, 218.
Shedd,Hist. of Doct., II, 395.)
VIII. THE DOCTRINE CRUSHED BY AN APOSTATIZING CHURCH.
NEW THEORY OF THE MILLENNIUM.
I come now to speak of the period succeeding the polit-
ico-religious triumph of Constantine; the period of the
temporal supremacy of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
The martyr age had passed away. No more councils like
that of Nice, in which martyrs, fresh from the Maximian
persecution, answered to their names. No Paphnutius,
any more, venerable with silver hairs, one eye gouged out
by the tool of the Pagan torturer, its frightful socket seared
with red-hot iron, both legs ham-strung, and standing
beside young Athanasius of only twenty-seven summers,
defending the orthodox faith. A new generation has
appeared, intoxicated with the Christian conquest of heath-
enism, the careering splendor of a church and state estab-
lishment, and whirling a mystic dance around the tranquil-
ity of the empire. "As the aspect of outward affairs
changed under Constantino, these views lost their hold on
men's minds. The church now prepared for a long-con-
tinued period of temporal prosperity, and the State-Church
of that time forgot the millennial glory of the future."
(Kurtz, Chh. Hist., I., 47.) "When Christianity became a
worldly power by Constantine, the hope of the future was
weakened by the joy over the present success." (Berigel
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 349
Erklart, Offenb., 664.) " Under Constantine, Christianity
being established, Christians began looking at its existing
temporal prosperity, as fulfilling the prophecies, and ceased
to look for Christ's promised reign on earth." (Jamieson
and Faussett, Commentary, VI., Introd. to Apoc., p. 70.)
" Chiliasm disappeared in proportion as Roman Papal
Catholicism advanced. The Papacy took -to itself, as a
robbery, that glory which is an object of hope, and can only
be reached by obedience and humility of the cross. When
the church became a harlot, she ceased to be a bride who
goes to meet her Bridegroom, and thus Chiliasm disap-
peared. This is the deep truth that lies at the bottom of
the Protestant anti-papistic interpretation of the Apoca-
lypse." (Auberlen, Daniel, p. 375.) "Words of truth and
soberness! A new theory of the Millennium was among
the results that followed, in time, the fabled Labarum, and
the battle of Saxa Rubra and the Milvian bridge. It is
that the Millennium is a present fact. The ecclesiastical state
establishment became the visible Christocracy, the King-
dom come. The vision of Daniel, chapter VII., and that
of John, Apocalypse, chapter XX., began to be referred to
the first advent, not to the second. The coming in
clouds is poetical delineation. The Arian Eusebius
indulges his dream by an elaborate " Panegyric on the
splendor of our affairs." The cross, once a symbol of
ignominy, "Infelix Lignum!" is ever} T where in honor ;
on the Roman standard, the soldier's shield, the Pontiff's
robes, the Church's altar, the temple of Victory an object
of perpetual adoration. The Phoenix, radiant with sun-
beams, shines on the medals and coins of the day, emblem
of the " First Resurrection." Ezekiel's vision of dry
bones, flesh-covered and standing erect, is realized. Bap-
tism is regeneration. Crowned neophytes, arrayed in white
robes, with palm-branches in their hands, surround the
350 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
altar, while priests and elders chant the new song. The
martyrs become intercessors. All the Old Testament
prophecies respecting Israel are claimed for the empire of
the fourth century, and New Jerusalem shines beneath the
sceptre of an unbaptized, imperial Roman Catechumen,
dazzling in purple and gold. Ere long, the 1,000 years,
beginning with the Second Advent, were ingeniously slipped
lack) by " Recapitulation " over the whole line of the
Christian dispensation, and dated from the birth and min-
istry of Christ (Dusterdieck Offenbar, Einleit, p. 15.)
The Tichonian " secundum anagogen" is applied to the
exposition of the Apocalypse, the end of that book being
made the beginning and the beginning the end. Later vis-
ions are made to overlap the earlier. For the sake of con-
venience, " secundum anagogen " the binding of Satan,
chapter XX., is identified with the dejection of the Dragon,
chapter XII., while chapter XX. is interpreted as inserted
between the 10th and llth verses of chapter XIX., so as to
make the Millennium precede the vision of the Second
Advent of Christ, who is there figured as Conqueror on the
White Horse. (Diisterd. Ofienb., 541, 225, 32, 43; Auber-
len, Daniel, 322; Luthardt Lehre, v. d. Letzten Dingen,
234; Kliefoth, Offenb., III., 247, 251; Rinck Zeichen, 331;
Elliott Horse, IY., 48, 50, 194, 195; Bickerstlth, Promised
Glory, 177; Birks, Unfulf. Proph., 81-90; Rothe, Dog-
matik, III., 77; Mede, Works, 549; Lange, Apoc., 344,
343, 345.) Satan is seized, bound, shut up, and sealed in
the Abyss, which now turns out to be the " non-Christian
nations," or the " hearts of the wicked." The church mil-
itant is the church triumphant. The thrones of Judgment
are the ecclesiastical benches of the unseen Twelve Apos-
tles, ruling in the church by their living word. The 1,000
year's reign is partly ecclesiastical, so far as relates to the
church establishment; partly temporal, so far as relates to
HISTORY OF THE FEE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 351
the empire; partly spiritual, so far as relates to regenera-
tion; partly ceremonial, so far as relates to baptism; partly
celestial, so far as relates to the blessedness of the righteous
in heaven. This 'is the "First Resurrection, secundum
anagogen!"
Such was the theory of the great Augustine, by which
the future Millennium, the hope of the martyrs, to be real-
ized at the Second Coming of Christ, was u spiritualized "
into a present politico-religious fact, and whose name did
more to fasten it upon the church for thirteen centuries
than all other names beside. (De Civit., Dei., XX., 7-17;
De. Doct. Chris., III., 36.) Primitive Chiliasm could not
flourish under the Christianized purple of Caesar any more
than under the Papal Tiara and the Scarlet. The fatal
blow to the doctrine of Poly carp and Irenseus was given,
first of all, by a Roman Pope, whose secretary was Jerome,
at the close of the fourth century Dainasus I., A.D. 380
who condemned the martyr faith as a " heresy," in the
person of Appolinarius, the opposer of the principles of
Origen and Dionysius, while the advancing Papacy began
to expound the reign of the risen saints, " secundum ana-
gogen!" as meaning their idolatrous worship, the mirac-
ulous virtue of their bones, the presence of their images,
the sanctity of their tombs, and their ghostly intercession.
Read the account, by Yillemain, of Damasus, who won his
bishopric by " the slaughter of 137 men in the church of
Sicinius." (Yillemain, Life of Gregory, 50.) Read the
account, by the Magdeburg Centuriators, of the corruption
of the times succeeding the martyr age. " Nothing
occurred but a change of tactics on the part of Satan.
Never, since the days of the Apostles, was the church more
barbarously plagued by discussion, strife, division, blas-
phemies and scandal.' 1 (Cent. Mag., IV., cap. 2, 328.)
The mystery of iniquity did already work. The apostasy
352 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
had already begun. By union of church and state, and
perversion of victory, the foundation was laid in the empire
for a carnal caricature of the Millennial Kingdom of Christ
on earth before the time. A Millennium sunk in the gross
materialism and idolatry of mediaeval, political and military
Christianity. By union of church and state, the martyr
-doctrine itself was martyred, not merely the unfortunate
Jewish admixtures cast away, but the truth itself rejected,
no council resisting, and vanished from view with the
departing glory and last remnant of a suffering but pure
apostolic church.
The Church and State theory continued to prevail from
the period immediately following Constantine throughout
the whole time of the apostatizing Christian empire
wounded by the Gothic sword, healed by the rise, progress,
and alliance of the emerging Papacy, and the erection of
the " Holy Roman Empire " under Charlemagne, onward
to the time of Hildebrand at the close of the tenth century.
As might have been expected, Antichiliasm, with its
Nativity Date, prepared the panic, first of the sixth century,
dreaming that the world's sixth chiliad had expired accord-
ing to the Septuagint chronology, next, that of the tenth
century, the 1,000 years supposed certainly to be then
finished, the fearful portents in Otho's decaying empire
.assisting. Enemies were reconciled, war prohibited, busi-
ness suspended, estates transferred to the Church, charters
executed in view of the nearness of the end of the world.
Baldric and sword were laid on the altar and the " Truce
of God" proclaimed. Terror sat on all countenances as
imagination heard the last trump and saw the "Great
White Throne." The theory was false. The set time,
A.D. 1,000, passed away. The firmament was not rolled
together as a scroll. The graves remained unopened.
From Hildebrand to the .Reformation, the same Anti-
BISTORT OF THE PRE MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 353
ehiliastic theory, nevertheless, held on its way. The com-
mencing date, however, for the millennium, was changed to
begin, with the victory of Constantine, A.D. 312, a suppo-
sition previously hinted. This new lease of three centuries
caused the Ottoman Turk invading Christiandom to be
regarded as the Gog and Magog of Revelation, and reserved
for the fourteenth century another Antichiliastic panic,
revived by the Flagellants and Loquis, less extensive, how-
ever, than the former, and followed by the general opinion
that the 1,000 years were of indefinite duration. The
Lateran doctrine was that the Papacy is the " Kingdom of
Christ," Daniel's Fifth Monarchy, Christ reigning on earth
in the person of His visible Head and Representative the
Pope, the saints in heaven sharing His royalties a doctrine
Cardinal Manning has recently recommended for the com-
fort of heretical England, pleadingly urging the wanderer
to return. Dr. Dollinger states it in a mild way. " First
comes the time of the heathen persecution whose temporary
character is expressed by the number ' three and a half. 7
Then follows the long period of the victory of Christ and
the Church, during which Satan is bound, his influence over
the powers of the world broken, while the Church under
the dominion of Christ and the saints in heaven flourishes
and increases on earth. This is the reign of 1,000 years.
The whole time from the conquest of Christianity in the
Roman Empire to the end of the present course of the
world is presented under two aspects, the Binding of Satan,
and the Rule of Christ and the saints in heaven, over the
Church. There is no reference to a person called Anti-
christ in the Apocalypse, and no place for introducing him."
(First Age. pp. 118, 261.)
354 SECOND COMING OF CHRI8T.
IX. THE PROTESTANT INTERPRETATION OF " THI
DOOR OPENED FOR THE RETURN OF OHILIASM.
Scintillations of light, however, began to gleam through
the Papal darkness. The lapse of centuries had been
required in order to lay the historic basis for a true inter-
pretation, in connection with prophecy, of the Apostasy and
Antichrist, and to demonstrate the early error that confined
the 1,260 days to the Pagan persecution, Babylon to the
Secular City of Rome, and Antichrist to Nero. Goth and
Vandal had indeed scourged the apostatizing empire.
Saracens had accomplished their mission. Turks were
executing theirs. Christendom " repented not " of its
crimes and idolatries. (Rev. 9: 20, 21.) Tho sacred page
had predicted things of Rome' not fulfilled either under the
sword of Constantino or Attilla. Antichrist had not been
revealed when the " let " was taken out of the way. (2 Thess.
2: 7.) Even Jerome had intimated long ago that Babylon
was the " Church " and Gregory had uttered some ominous
words about John the Faster as " the Forerunner of Anti-
christ," which the act of his own successor Boniface III. only
intensified. "The days of Antichrist are come," said he,
44 this proud bishop is like Lucifer tempora, mores/"
(Yillemain, Life of Gregory, p. 96.) Francisca, Brigitta,
Benedict, Berthold and Branando, spoke mysterious proph-
ecies, and looking seriously pointed their finger to Rome.
(Dollinger, Prophetic Spirit, Christian Era, p. 54.) Convic-
tions began to grow, as the predicted marks of Antichrist
broke out like plague-spots on the body of the " Man
at Rome," not only that the Seven-hilled City was
the seat of the Antichrist about to be revealed in all
his blaspheming and persecuting deformity, but that
the Roman " Church " itself was no less than the " Baby-
lon " of the Apocalypse. "O wretched Rome!" exclaimed
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 355
the Bishop of Orleans, in the Council of Kheims, "wal-
lowing in vices! That Pontiff seated on a throne, and
clad in purple and gold! He is Antichrist sitting in the
Temple of God, and demeaning himself as a God!" (Yille-
main, Life of Gregory, 175, 167.) Berenger points to
the Great City as " Sa.tan's seat." The " Noble Lesson "
of the Waldenses does the same, and watches for Anti-
christ's complete development. Dark suspicion lowers
like a black cloud over the Tiara under which looked out
the eyes of the " Yicar of the Son of God." A Calabrian
abbott, supported by nearly all the Hebrew Doctors in
their interpretation of the times of Daniel, reaches the con-
clusion that the 1,260 prophetic days are years, and " a flood
of light streamed through Joachim's soul." The impres-
sion was tremendous. Three Popes, Lucian, Urban, Clem-
ent, charge him not to divulge his views. Olivi, Ubertino,
and a hundred more of Italy's best sons, point to " New
Lucifer, bedecked with gold, sitting in the Temple of God,"
and perish on the scaffold. Arnulf and Honorius, John of
Salisbury and Robert Grosshead, John Milicz, Matthew of
Jannow, and many more, study the prophecies, accept the
view, and name the Pope the " Man of Sin." The greatest
Italian of his day, Dante, calls him the " Modern Pilate."
The Papal succeeds to the Pagan persecution. Waldenses,
Hussites, Wickliffites, lift up a martyr witness. " Hell of
the living," mutters Petrarch, "it will be a miracle if
Christ is not angry with thee at last!" Milicz exclaims,
" Were we silent, the stones would cry out!" Machiavelli
writes, " Ruin or Rebuke awaits the Church." Wickliff
speaks, "That proud priest at Rome! that open Anti-
christ!" Huss protests against " the Yicar of Judas
Iscariot!" is crowned with a cap of painted devils, and
expires in a blaze. Jerome of Prague, O man more tran-
quil than Socrates, yields up his spirit to God, at the stake,
356 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
saying, " Into Thy hands I commit my spirit, Lord God of
truth!" Savonarola thunders and dies. There is no doubt
that Rome is the Babylon of the Apocalypse. (Dollinger,
Pabst und Concil. 240-250. The Reformation begins
to be felt, an earthquake of nations, the time to " Rise
and measure the Temple of God." (Rev. 11: 1.) The Apoc-
alyptic Beast is now seen to be a symbol figuring the
whole history of the God-opposed and Antichristian World-
Power as it passes through its Roman form, first Pagan,
then Christian, then Papal, incorporate in an apostate
Church, centralizing itself in the Ruling Head of the
Seven-hilled City. The " Man of Sin," Daniel's " Little
Horn," the Beast in its " Eighth " head, and " Antichrist "
are recognized as identical, a Growth from the bosom of
the Romano-Germanic Decarchy ascending to the sover-
eignty of Christendom. The labors of Sehroeckh, Neander,
Kohler, Ullmann, Dollinger, and Yillemain, have shown
that, centuries before the Reformation, there was an irre-
pressible conflict, yea, from the very beginning, a living
" Protest " in the very bosom of the Apostasy itself, until
God shook it out and bid it go forth under the lead of
Luther. The universal interpretation of the Reformers
was only that of the purest Roman Catholics for ages
previous, and that of Christ's martyrs, that the Church of
Rome is the " Babylon " of the Apocalypse, the " Mother "
of more like her, and the Papacy, the " Antichrist " in the
person of its Popes. It is the sole doctrine on the subject,
consecrated not only in the theology, but also in the symbols
of the Reformation wherever the subject is handled; in
the Articles of Smalcald, the Formulae of the Geneva
Catechism, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Homilies
of the Church of England, the Irish Articles, and the
Westminster Confession.
And what the value of this for Chiliasm? What the
HISTORY OF TEE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 357
bearing of this mighty movement? Much, every way,
infinitely much. Ere even the Reformers were aware, the
back-bone of the Lateran theory of the millennium was
broken. The 1,000 years were thrown into the futivre.
The mediaeval position was flanked and turned by an act of
Providence the Reformation and the pretended Millen-
nial Kingdom of Christ was held to be what Eberhard had
called it, " the Babylonian Empire of Antichrist." The
movement that restored the Apostolic doctrine of the
Church, opened the door for the restoration of the doctrine
of the pre- millennial advent of Christ. If the Man of Sin
(2Thess. 2:3.) is the Antichrist, (Uohn 2:22, 4:3; 2
John 7,) an identity unanimously held by the whole primi-
tive Church, u Nulli dubium est" (Aug. De Civ. XX. cap.
19,) as well as the Reformers, and, if this Antichrist is the
Pope, the Head of the Papacy, figured by the Beast and
False Prophet (Rev. 13: 1-18); an identity urianimously
held by the purest Catholics of the Middle Age, the
Albingenses, Waldenses, and the whole Reformation
" communem Protestantium sententiam " (De Moor YI.
82-117. Turrettin IY. 147-177,) to be destroyed by the
Parousia of Christ (2 Thess. 2:8. Rev. 19:11-21) and
which destruction comes before the 1,000 years, as all inter-
preters of every school admit, then the demonstration is
simply adamatine that the millennium is future and depend-
ent on the Second Advent for its inauguration, when Christ
shall personally and visibly come to destroy Antichrist by a
sentence of judgment from His lips before all nations.
The most ingenious Prseterism is incompetent to evade this
conclusion without first assailing, either covertly or openly,
the Reformation doctrine and repudiating its symbols on
this subject, and especially the strongest of them all, the
Westminster standards. (See Dr. E. F. Hatfield's prseter-
istic assault on the doctrine of the Reformation and West-
358 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
minster Standards, Amer. Presb. and Tlieol. Rev., 1864, pp.
425, 427; 1865, p. 223.) Equally powerless is the Whitbyan
theory, to evade it, which seeks to interject the 1,000 years
between the Judgment on Antichrist and the Parousia, and
deny the literality of the Parousia; a violation of chronol-
ogy and exegesis alike. The Protestant interpretation did
three things. (1.) It fixed the final Judgment on the Papal
Antichrist at the Second Advent. (2.) It made impossible
the interjection of the 1,000 years between that Judgment
and the Parousia, and so barred the entrance against any
such theory as the Whitbyan. (3.) It threw the 1,000 years
into the future, out of medievalism, and beyond the
Advent. And, doing these things, it opened the door for
Chiliasm to walk in and take possession of the faith and
hope of the Church, as in martyr days. It is victorious
over the Augustinian theory, Prseterism, and Pre-Advent
Futurism. It excludes them. It is the pivotal epoch in
the history of modern Chiliasm. The doctrine of both
Lutheran and Reformed symbols must be abandoned before
a Post-Millennial Advent can find place.
X. PILETERIST EFFORT TO TURN THE PROTESTANT POSITION.
Hengstenberg, softened towards the Papacy, because of
bis hatred of German Infidelity and Rationalism, has yet
joined with Rationalists and Romanists in their effort to
subvert the Protestant application of the Apocalyptic sym-
bols, running to the extreme of extravagance, dating the
Millennium from the erection of the Holy Roman Empire,
under Charlemagne, A.D. 800. (Hengst. Apoc., II., p.
334.) A few more such advances in date, and Praeterism,
having reached the right epoch, will die by self-metamor-
phosis, and pass over into Pre-Millennarianisrn. On the
theory of Hengstenberg, Lange remarks, with a keen
touch: " The chaining of Satan ill admits an assignment
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 359
to the Middle Age ; as if Macliiavellism, the Inquisition,
Dragonnades, and the like, belong to the period of the
First Resurrection." (Lange, Apoc., p. 352.) Not less
true than important is Hengstenberg's honest admission
that " Chiliasm is the necessary consequence of the Protest-
ant view, for the 1,000 years' reign, according to the Apoc-
alypse, begins only with the destruction of the Beast;"
in other words, the Protestant interpretation, imbedded in
the Westminster standards, and other symbols, is what, by
those standards, is declared to be " by good and necessary
consequence, deduced from Scripture." (Hengst. Apoc.,
II., p. 351; Westminster Conf., L, 6.) Speaking of Ben-
gel, who resisted the violent divulsion of the 20th chapter
of the Apocalypse from its relation to the 19th, and held
fast the Protestant view, Hengstenberg continues: "The
theology of the church was unable to oppose him. This
only could have become possible, if any one had had the
courage to abandon the false view (!) of the Beast, which had,
in a certain measure, obtained the sanction of the church.
Against those who stood fast by this interpretation, Ben-
gel's reasoning was irresistible; and hence, it came to pass
that, after a feeble resistance from the orthodox, Chiliasm
obtained an almost universal diffusion tkrougliihe churcli"
(Hengst. Apoc., II., p. 351.) That is, the church remained
true to its Protestantism. Moses Stuart, inoculating the
American ministry with an anti-Protestant Prseterism, and
using this singular method to countervail the mere chrono-
logical error of Mr. Miller's reckoning (1843), saw the
same lion in his way. "It is the result," says he, "of
applying Eev. XIIL-XYII. to the Papacy that the
1,000 years are considered as still future." (Apoc. II.,
463.) Davidson, in the interest of the same Praeterist
theory, as do all Praeterists, assails the Reformation view.
"Little do we believe that the Papacy is to be found
360 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
in the Little Horn of Daniel's Beast, in the Man of Sin
predicted by Paul, or the Antichrist of John." (Introd.
N. T., III., 623.) Bengel, however, holding the Beast
to be the Papacy, affirms: "The 1,000 years do not
run a step simultaneously with the times of the Beast,
nor do they precede those times, but totally follow
them." (Gnomon, V., 365.) So Mede: "I have demon-
strated that the 1,000 years follow the times of the Beast
and False Prophet, and consequently the times of Anti-
christ, which those who oppose the Chilians have found to
be so necessary as to force them to deny the Apocalypse ;
nor was it ever admitted, until they had found some com-
modious interpretation of the 1,000 years." (Mede, "Works,
p. 602.) " The contemporaneousness of the Beast and the
1,000 years' kingdom, or even the contemporaneousness of
the existence and dominion of the Beast and the imprison-
ment of Satan, is a monstrous thought ein Ungedanlce"
(Koch, Das tausend., Reich, 197.) Nothing can be more com-
pletely destructive of the " Recapitulation " theory, for Anti-
christ survives till Christ comes. Nothing can be more
destructive of Praeterism, or pre-ad vent Futurism. The Prot-
estant interpretation being true, the Pre-Millennial Advent
of Christ is a necessity, logical, historical, exegetical, which
no " New Hypothesis " of Whitby, and no exegesis of
" Parousia," as a coming at death, or a spiritual presence,
or of " Anastasis " as a church establish men t, or spiritual
revival, or regeneration, or conversion of the world, or soul-
ascension to heaven, can explain away. And this Protestant
interpretation, so thoroughly grounded in the massive dem-
onstrations of the Reformed Theology, must ever be held
fast, whatever the capacity of Christendom to repeat the
Infidelity of the French Revolution, the English Deism,
the German Rationalism, or however gigantic the strides
of anti-Christian science, or political internationalism, or
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 361
the secularism of our churches, or the lawlessness of the
age, or the godless legislation of society. Evermore the
apostate "Antichrist" of the Scriptures is not only the
Denier but the Confessor of the truth, in mask, " deceiving,'*
and in whom the "Deceiver " is incorporate; exalted in the
Temple of God, "above all that is called God or wor-
shipped" seated high in His chair with the Wafer
worshipped before him, at the altar, himself " above" it all.
He is no Antiochus Epiphanes, nor Mahomet, nor Napoleon,
nor Coryphreus of the Revolutionary Commune, nor openly
avowed Infidel, as the Papists, Salvador, the Rationalists,
Spinoza, and " Daniel Deronda " would picture, but the
Pope himself, who may yet, indeed, ally himself, in coming
days, with Internationalism and a false Messiah, and bloom
into something more unmasked. He is the Papal Anti-
christ. " On this principle," says Warburton, " was the
Reformation begun and carried out. On this the Reform-
ers had not only the right, but lay under the obligation of
a command to come out of the spiritual Babylon." (Works,
V., 488.) So, even Canon Wordsworth, in his unanswerable
demonstration (Antichiliast, as he inconsistently is),
appended to his commentary on the Apocalypse, showing
that " Antichrist " is not an openly avowed infidel, but a.
professing Christian, a very Judas and Son of Perdition.
(Apoc., 375-396.) Powerfully did Professor Bush reply to
Moses Stuart and all Praeterists, to the same effect. "It is,"
says he, " giving the Romanists every advantage they could
desire. You help them plant themselves in a position from
which it is impossible to dislodge them. On your princi-
ple, the glorious Reformation could never have taken
place." (Hierophant, 270.) Antichiliasts, who profess to
hold the doctrine of the Westminster Standards, are
powerless to defend themselves against themselves; and,
not holding the doctrine, are equally powerless to defend
362 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
themselves against the Standards. Protestant Prseterism,
and pre-advent Futurism, are simply Anti-Protestant Protest-
antism.
XI. ATTITUDE OF THE REFORMERS. THE DOCTRINAL SYMBOLS
OF THE REFORMATION.
While preparing the way, however, the Reformers had no
time to critically instaurate a Biblical Chiliasm. Their great
work lay in another direction, as the history of their times
abundantly proves. Reasons existed in their warfare against
Rome's externalism and their devotion to the restatement
and defence of the great doctrines of grace, the re-organi-
zation of the Church, and the repulsion of Papal claims,
why the development of eschatology should be reserved to
generations following. (Dorner Hist. Prot. Theol. II, 168-
171. Princip. Cunningham, Hist. Theol. 1, 191. Auberlen,
Daniel, p. 376. Rinck Zeichen, p. 326. Luthardt Lehre, v.
d. Letz. Dingen, 7.) Not a few remained still hampered with
the Augustinian reckoning. They deemed the end of the
world near, and looked for the speedy Advent of Christ to
destroy the Papal Antichrist and introduce the state of
Eternal Glory. They thought the 1,000 years were over,
and Satan " loosed a little season." What misled them was
due to the lingering " Recapitulation " theory, which iden-
tified Revelation chapters XX and XII, confounding also
Armageddon at the beginning of the 1,000 years with the
expedition of Gog and Magog at the end of those years,
accounting Gog and Ma^og to be the Ottoman Turk.
" From the Pope, the Turk and the Devil, Good Lord
deliver us" was their liturgy. Noble souls! Brave
soldiers of Jesus! Besides, the Reformation had to resist a
false Chiliasm like that against which the true Chiliasm
protested in primitive times a secular kingdom of the
saints, set up by fire and sword, and before the resurrection
HISTORY OF THE FEE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE, 363
a purely later Jewish conception. Such was the wild
raving of Thomas Miinzer and the Anabaptists, the Proph-
ets of Zwickau, the French Prophets of Dauphiny, and
afterwards of the Fifth Monarchy men in the time of
Cromwell, all falsely claiming support from the Apocalypse.
Calvin, like other Reformers, attacked at its Jewish root the
vain pretension of the false " Millennarii," both ancient
and modern, and only so-called because of the 1,000
years, in the third Book of his Institutes, exploding the
error that the whole glorious royalty of Christ, and ever-
lasting blessedness of the Church, are limited to the 1,000
years; still hampered, however, in his reply by the thought
that the 1,000 years dated from Constantine. (Inst. III.
XXV. 5.) Here, too, belongs the strong protest of the
Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter XI. and the celebrated
XYIIth Article of the Augsburg Confession, so " ill under-
stood " by many who assume it to be aimed against a Pre-
Millennial Advent of Christ, because aimed against a false
Chiliasm. On the contrary, it only condemns those who
scatter "Judaioat opiniones" and Melancthon's comment
in the " Variatio " expressly inserts " Anabaptistas " as
those to whom the article referred. (Prolog. Var. Hase Lib.
Symbol, p. XVIII. Walch. Introd. Luth. Symb. p. 314.)
To the same parties are the " Judaica somnia" condemned
in the Helvetic Confession, attributed, as also in the Beigic
Confession. (Niemeyer, Coll. Conf. pp. 486, 387.) The
earliest dogmatic systems of the Continental Reformers, for
the reasons before stated, and not seeing the reconciliation
between the later eschatology of John and that of the
earlier Scriptures, followed the representation of the earlier,
as is done in the standards of the Reformation, grouping the
whole mass of the " Last Things " around the Parousia, with-
out regard to the 1,000 years, "sine temporis intervallo" and
looked only for Eternal Glory to follow the judgment upon
364 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Satan's Kingdom. They were, not yet, wholly delivered
from the contradiction that makes the millennial reign of
Christ contemporate with the dominion of the Beast and
False Prophet. While this was true, it was none the less
true that Protestantism had opened the door to genuine
Chiliasm. The Augsburg Confession, so far from being a
polemic against it, only favored it, for, as Lange remarks,
" It negatives the assumption of a millennium before the
Parousia," as well as repels the idea of a " secular King-
dom." Nothing is clearer than that the Reformers, when
drawing up the Augsburg Article, repudiated the mediaeval
view and " opened the way," as Ebrard says, " for a future
correct view." (Lange Apoc. p. 440.) " If, according to
that Article," says Steffann, "the pious shall have no earthly
Kingdom before the resurrection, then is not only Luther's,
which dated the 1,000 years from Constantino, but every
other view, condemned, which locates the millennium either
in the past or in the present. The roles are changed. Not
those who, upon the basis of that Article reject the future
millennial Kingdom, but we, who, according to its permis-
sion, teach it, stand upon the ground of the Augsburg Con-
fession." (Steff. Das Ende. p. 336.) So Koch. Against
the Anabaptist conception of the 1,000 years' Kingdom,
and only against that, was the Article of the Augsburg
Confession directed, which rejected the later Jewish opinion."
(Koch. Das tausend. Reich, p. 27.) So Hebart. " Only
those opinions were assailed in the Augsburg Article, as
they were spread abroad in the times of the .Reformation,
the carnal representations of the Anabaptists, and rightly
rejected because they have nothing in the Scripture for
them, but everything against them." (Fiirden Chiliasmus,
p. 17.) Rinck shows that both the Helvetic and Augs-
burg Confessions intended nothing more than a rebuke of
the " demonic caricature of the hope of the oldest church
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 365
fathers." (Kinck, Zeichen, p. 326.) No greater injustice
can be done than to draw equation lines between the true
and the false Chiliasm, the difference between which is
measured by the difference between John and the Ebionites,
and then, confounding both under the one vague title " Mil-
lennarianism" represent the true as equally condemned
with the false, because the advocates of the latter assumed
the name "Millennarii" It is the doctrine of the false
Chiliasts that is condemned in the XXXVI Article of
the Belgic, and in Edward VI. 's Confession, under the
title " Millennarii" men who sought to revive (revocare)
the Jewish ideas; and only this. (Niemeyer 387, 600.)
We have, therefore, to dismiss the erroneous impression
made in various Histories of Doctrine which seems to teach
when using the vague word " millennarianism," that the
Reformed Symbols condemned the doctrine of the Pre-
Millennial Advent of Christ. (Shedd. Hist. Chr. Doct. II.
396, 397. Hagenbach Hist. Doct. II. 351.) What we do
find is the condemnation of a false Chiliasm, everywhere,
not a syllable against the true, the exclusion of Prseterism
and pre-advent Futurism, and the solid basis laid for the
necessary and irresistible conclusion of the Pre-Millennial
Advent, a dogmatic position that not only sustains, but
requires, the literal exegesis of the " First Resurrection."
Among the eminent men, who on the Continent, in the latter
part of the sixteenth century, maintained pre-millennarian
views, were Pi sea tor and Tycho Brahe.
Among the English Reformers, true Chiliasm made its
re-appearance. In the bloom time of the Reformation in
England, the time of Cranmer and Hooper, Latimer and
Ridley, the time when Bucer taught at Cambridge and
Peter Martyr at Oxford, the martyr faith once more lifted
its head. Peter Martyr, discriminating between the true
and false Chiliasm, says of the early advocates of the
366 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
former, " I class them not with Cerinthus. No one of the
Fathers I have named Papias, Irenseus, Justin, Yictorinus,
Tertullian, Lactantius followed the errors we have nar-
rated. (Loci. Com. p. 739.) He repeats Augustine's former
opinion that a visible Kingdom of Christ on earth with
spiritual delights from Christ's presence after the Second
Advent is unobjectionable. The Anglican Catechism drawn
up by Cranmer and sanctioned by Edward, A.D. 1553, and
used in the examination of candidates for Holy Orders,
clearly shows how completely the mediaeval view was
repudiated. Expounding the second petition in the Lord's
Prayer it says, " We ask that His Kingdom may come, for
that, as yet, we do not see all things put under Jesus Christ.
"We see, not yet, how the Stone cut out of the mountain
without human labor, and which broke in pieces and
reduced to nothing the Image described by Daniel, or how
the Kock, which is Christ, possesses and obtains the empire
of the whole world granted by the Father. As yet, Antichrist
is not slain. Whence it is we desire and pray that, at
length, it may come to pass and be fulfilled; arid that
Christ alone may reign with His saints according to the
divine promises and live and have dominion in the world,
according to the decrees of the Holy Gospel, and not
according to the traditions and laws of men and the will of
the tyrants of the world." Whereupon the catechist re-
sponds, "God grant that His Kingdom may come quickly!"
Such was the common faith of the Anglican Church,
the 1,000 years having been thrown into the future, by the
application of the Apocalyptic symbols to the Papacy whose
final Judgment should come with the Second Advent. It
o
was with such a faith as this, Latimer said, u Let us cry
unto Him, day and night, Most Merciful Father, Thy
Kingdom come. Antichrist is known throughout all the
world. The man or woman who can say with faithful heart
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 367
these words, Thy Kingdom come, desireth in very deed
that God will come to judgment, and amend all things in
this world, and pull down Satan, that old serpent, under our
feet," So spoke Ridley and Bradford. So thought the
Anglican Protestant Church.
XII. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. THE WESTMINSTER DIVINES AND
STANDARDS.
Splendid was the advance of Chiliasm in the 17th cen-
tury. Men distinguished for learning and piety, whose
lustre adorned the prominent universities, and whose
eloquence charmed all hearts, proclaimed the Pre-Millen-
nial return of Christ. Alsted and Launseus ; Lange and
Hebart, Brenniusand Alting; Poiret, Lavater and Serarius;
some laboring on one point, some on another, all awoke
fresh interest in the theme. Spener, Petersen, Francke,
Thomasius, and the Pietists, of Germany, from whose
impulse came the renowned Berlerberg Bible, all leaning
on the Apocalypse, fed the flame and sang the " Hope of
Better Times." Scotland, abandoning all hope of a reformed
world, until Christ should come, produced many who fol-
lowed in the faith of her great leader, John Knox. England
became vocal with pre-millennial melodies. Burton, the
translator of Alsted, Archer of London, Hake well, Burnett,
Mede, " who saw while others were getting their eyes
open;" Worthington, Homes and Carlyle, stood forth as
defenders of the martyr faith. Milton, soaring as none
other could soar, broke forth at the close of his Tractate on
the " Reformation in England" into a Chiliastic apostrophe
to Christ, " the eternal and shortly-expected King," that
thrills, to this hour, the nerves of every one who reads it.
Differing in several respects, but united on the two main
points, viz.: the pre-millennial advent arid literal " First
Resurrection," a large number of the Westminster
308 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
divines, among whom was the majority of the more prom-
inent and chief, publicly confessed and preached the Chili-
astic doctrine. The venerable Prolocutor, Dr. Twisse, of
signal learning, and whose name some misguided or preju-
diced men have sought to traduce, as Eusebius, and
others, did those of Papias and Joachim, was an ardent
disciple of Mede. Marshall, Palmer, and Caryl, Langley
and Gataker, Greenhill and Burroughs, "the morning and
evening stars of Stepney," Goodwin, Ash, Bridge, Nye,
Selden and Ainsworth, men of the first learning and
worth, preached it and wrote it. Beautiful is the language
of Peter Sterry, one of their number, a man illustriously
maligned by his enemies. " Like a piece of rich coin,
it hath long been buried in the earth, but of late days
digged up again. It begins to grow brighter with hand-
ling, and to pass current with great numbers of saints,
and learned men of great authority. As the same star, at
several seasons, is the evening star, setting immediately
after the sun, and the morning star shining immediately
before it, so was this truth the evening star to the first com-
ing of Christ, and giving of the Spirit, setting together
with the glory of that day, in a night of Anti-Christianism.
Now, it appears again, in our times, as a morning star to
that blessed day of the second effusion of the Spirit, arid
Second Appearing of our Saviour, in the glory of the
Father." (Dedication to Homes, Res. Rev., p. 4.)
Principal Baillie, an opposer of the doctrine, writes from
the Assembly to Scotland, bemoaning the predominant
Chiliasm of its greatest members, having grossly misrepre-
sented their .true doctrine, and having prepared a " Dissua-
sive " for the times. " Most of the chief divines here," he
murmured, "not only Independents, but others, as Twisse,
Marshall, Palmer, and many more, are express Chiliasts."
(Letters, No. 117, Vol. II, p. 313.) Masson, in his life of
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE.
Milton, repeats the statement. (Yols. Ill, 15, Y, 16.) Light-
foot, Anti-chiliast, confirms it, by saying of the doctrine: " It
hath got the deepest root, and the highest seat, in the hearts
of very many in these times." (Works YI, 168.) Yit-
ringa says: " Yery many erudite men, far removed from a
carnal Chiliasm, a carnali Chiliasmo alienos gave suf-
frage to this view." (Isa. 47: 21.) Principal Cunningham, of
Scotland, has affirmed that they who entertained it were " of
the soundest among the Westminster divines." (Sermons,
Pref. XXIII.) They were not " Brownists," as Archbishop
Laud perversely characterized that body, but, save ten Inde-
pendents, seven Scotch Commissioners, and two or three
French divines, were graduates ot Oxford and Cambridge,
in Episcopal orders, voting in favor of Presbyterian govern-
ment, Puritan discipline, and high Calvinism. They were
assailed by such writers as Baillie, Ross, Paget and Featly,
who first falsely charged upon them the errors of Cerinthus,
the Jews, Anabaptists, and Fifth Monarchy men, condemn-
ing all to the same category, and then denounced their doc-
trine as a " swinish creed," a specimen of the temper of
the times, and of some of the assailants. Baillie's u Dis-
suasive" was answered and demolished by Homes, and as
to Lightfoot's argument against Chiliasm, in his " Binding
of the Dragon," the strongest that could be made, and in
respectable manner, it is simply based upon the " Recapit-
ulation" theory and Constantinian date of the Millennium,
and so weak that it is its own antidote. The Westminster
Assembly repudiated false Chiliasm with the disdain of
silence, and yet remained true to the Protestant Demonstra-
tion of the Papal Antichrist, so abundant in the pages of
the Reformed Theology. (De Moor, YI, 93, 147, 153^-155;
Turrettin, IY, 147-177.) The proof-texts of its symbol
are no part of the Church-Constitution, but the symbol
itself is the established interpretation of those texts on
24
370 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
which 'it was founded with such care, as is clear to any one
who turns to the journals of Light-foot and Gillespie, and
to the Assembly's minutes, edited by Mitchell. They are
official expositions of those texts, God's word being, accord-
ing to the Reformation formula, " Norrna Normans, the
Kale Ruling," and the Standard, " Norma Norm ata, the
Rule Ruled." Authoritative for all who accept them, these
Standards compel the conclusion of a pre-millennial advent
by irresistible necessity. The First Apocalyptic Beast,
XIII, 1-10, with his " Armour-bearer" the Second Beast
who is the False Prophet, XIII, 11-18; XVI, 13; XIX. 20 r
is identified by those Standards with the great politico-
religious anti-Christian Papacy robed in Pagan Imperial-
ism, its Ruling Head being the " Man of Sin," the "Anti-
christ," which some of the Fathers, before Church and
State union was known, or Papacy developed, made mean
the Ruling Head of Rome Pagan, but which the Reforma-
tion and the Westminster, like other reformed symbols,
have defined to be the Ruling Head of Rome Papal, sprung
from the Apostasy, and whose final destruction occurs at
the Parousia. The Dragon, who took on the likeness of the
Empire, is incorporate in the Roman Imperialism; Impe-
rialism incorporate in the Papacy; the Papacy incorporate
in the Pope. The Parousia is everywhere represented a&
the Yisible Personal Coming of Christ to Judgment, at the
" Last Day," or " Judgment Day," leaving the duration of
that day undetermined, while including in its scenes the
events pictured by John at both ends of the 1,000 years, so
proving conclusively that the 1,000 years themselves are
implicate in the representation. None in the Westminster
Assembly ever took ground that the 1,000 years are not a
measure of time. The vast majority dated their commence-
ment, not from Constantine, but from the Judgment on the
Papal Antichrist, so repudiating the idea that Armageddon
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 371
and the overthrow of Gog are identical, and refusing to vio-
lently rend the indissolvable temporal sequence of Rev.
chapter 20th upon chapter 19th, or to identify the " Parou-
sia," with the " End," in 1 Cor. 15: 24. Clearly, they refused
to arbitrarily interject the 1,000 years between the Judg-
ment on Antichrist and the Parousia, but made both these
events conternporate. They thus threw the 1,000 years into
the future, beyond the Second Advent ; in other words,
made the Parousia pre-millennarian. And because the
reign of Antichrist can not contemporate with the Millennial
triumph over Antichrist, the 1,260 years with the 1,000
years but is the core of the Kingdom of Satan and Sin,
they expounded the Second Petition of the Lord's Prayer
as invoking, among other things, the fulness of the Gen-
tiles, the conversion of the Jews, the overthrow of Satan's
Kingdom, so k ' hastening the time of Christ's Second Com-
ing and our reigning with Him forever." Emphasis was
laid on this in the Scotch Directory for Public Prayer. The
classic passage in Acts 3: 19-21, pre-intimating the conver-
sion of the Jews, miraculous, like that of the healed cripple,
leaping and praising God and ascending to the Holy Tem-
ple, they referred to the time of the Second Advent, the-
Last, the Judgment Day, the " times of refreshing from the
presence of the Lord," and paralleled it with the " Rest "'
that comes to the troubled Church, " when the Lord Jesus-
shall be revealed from heaven." (2 Thess. 1:7.) And
because the 1,000 years come after, and not before, the
Judgment on Antichrist, and in view of the fact that the-
hour of Christ's coming is unknown to men, they declared 1
it to be the duty of all men, now to " shake off all carnal
security," and be always watchful, because they know not
at what hour the Lord will come; and be ever prepared to
say: Come. Lord Jesus, come quickly." Pre-millennarians
could ask no more. (Conf. of Faith, XXIII, IV,
372 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
texts, 2 Thess. 2:4; Eev. 13: 15-18; XXY, IY, Y,
VI, texts, Horn. 11: 3, 4; Kev. 12: 6, 14; Eev. 18: 2;
Eom. 11: 18-22; 2 Thess. 2: 3, 4, T, 8; XXXII, II,
texts, 1 Thess, 4, IT; XXIII, II, III, texts, 2 Thess.
1: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Acts 3: 19.) Thirty-five times 2 Thess. is
appealed to, fifty-seven times the Apocalypse, for various
purposes, and, wherever the above passages occur, the
Parousia is the Personal Advent, at the " Last Day," Anti-
christ is to be destroyed by that Parousia, and that Anti-
christ is "the Beast and the False Prophet," who perish
before the 1,000 years begin. (Eev. 19: 20.) Zenith is not
more opposed to .Nadir, than is the Westminster symbol to
the Eationalistic Prseterism which tortures the Apocalypse
into a mere epic upon the Destruction of Judaism and
Paganism, the Temple and the Pantheon, or Matthew,
chapter 24th, into the mere sack of Jerusalem, or Hebrews
10: 37, into a prophecy of the approach of Titus and the
Eoman legions! In the "Westminster Standard Eome is
Papal, not Pagan; Antichrist is the Pope, not Nero; the
Parousia is personal and visible, not merely spiritual and
providential; the breath of the Lord's mouth that slays
"that Wicked" is judicial, not evangelical; Antichris-
tianity is destroyed, not converted by a revival; the Dragon
is the Devil, not Paganism; the " tribes of the earth " that
mourn when Christ comes are not merely the Jews, but all
nations; the "earth" is not simply Palestine, but the
planet; and the "clouds," on which the Son of Man comes
to the Judgment, are not " poetic drapery borrowed from
judicial imagery," but atmospheric thunder-heads. " This
generation," that passes not away, is not merely the Jews
contemporaneous with the Apostles, but the continuous
Jewish race; "all these things " relate not merely to the
overthrow of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, but to the whole tribula-
tion, extending through the present age; and "shall be ful-
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 373
filled " does not merely mean " completed," but also " shall
begin to be accomplished," the tribulation culminating at
the Second Advent. (See the eloquent vindication of this
" double sense " of prophecy, by Dr. A. T. McGill, " Evi-
dences of Christianity;" Univ. of Virginia, 132, 133;
Carter, K Y., 1852, and by Dr. R S. Candlish, Life in a
Eisen Saviour, 388, 389.) The Domitianic date of the
Apocalypse and the Year-Day theory, are interwoven
through the Standards of Westminster, which are the
strongest pre-millennial symbol ever made, buttressed by
every proposition needed for that conclusion. Expelling
Prseterism, they foreclose the door against Whitbyism, suf-
fering nothing to dissolve the established temporal sequence
of the 20th chapter upon the 19th,or the succession of the 1,000
years' reign to the Judgment on Antichrist, which they
declare occurs at the Parousia. They are pre-millennial to
the core. The pre-millennial advent is no merely allowable
interpretation, to be graciously tolerated among " heretics,"
by ostensibly orthodox men, who cut the Standards down
while professing to defend them, but is an imposed corol-
lary, implicate in the very warp and woof of the symbol
itself, an immediate conclusion without a middle term, the
rejection of which is an open abandonment of the Reformed
ground, and open assault upon the Westminster Confes-
sion. As in the earlier Scriptures, however, so here in
these Standards, the " Last things " are crowded together
in one picture, of which the Parousia is the centre, and not
distributed, or separated into their temporal relations, as in
the Apocalypse. The 1,000 years are not named precisely
as they are not named by Daniel, Christ, or Paul, but are
implicate throughout. Any argument drawn from the
silence, or non-mention of the 1,000 years by the Standards,
against the truth of the pre-millennial advent, is an argu-
ment against the canonicity of the Apocalypse, which is not
374 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
silent, but does mention these years, uncovering only what
is elsewhere concealed or pre-intimated, 1 Cor. 15: 23, 24,
and arrays, at once, the Apocalypse against all the other
Scriptures.
The result of this forced antagonism is either the denial
of the 1,000 years as a measure of time, or the extrusion of
the Apocalypse from the canon; precisely the issue made
by the Gnostics and Dionvsins of Alexandria, both reject-
ing the authority of the Sacred Book, then boasting of
victory over the primitive Chiliasts! The silence of the
Standards no more proves that the 1,000 years are not a
measure of time, or that the Pre-Millennial Advent is not
true, than does the silence of Daniel and Paul, in their
eschatology, prove that the later and more developed escha-
tology given by Christ Himself to John, is contradictory of
the earlier and less developed, and on that account unin-
spired. The silence and the expression are both harmon-
ized by the " apotelesmatic " character of both prophecy
and symbolism. As Antichrist is to be destroyed before
the 1,000 years, by the Personal Parousia, the conclusion
is leaped to at once by the irresistible law of thought, the
necessary impulse of reason, that the Parousia itself is
before that Judgment. The opposite view is unthinkable
because self-contradictory. And as, at His coming, the
righteous dead are raised to enter the Kingdom, this other
conclusion is immediate and irresistible, also, that the " First
Resurrection " is literal. "Whether the non-mention of the
1,000 years was out of regard to the opinions of anti-
chiliasts in the Assembly, or because of the prejudices
excited by the false " Millennarii," or from set purpose to
follow simply the earlier eschatological representation, is
matter of no consequence. The events at both ends of
those years are included. These, then, are some of the pre-
inillennarian data embedded in the standards. (I.)- The
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MlLLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 375
1,000 years are still future. (2.) There is not a syllable as
to any hint of 1,000 years of universal righteousness, peace,
and holiness, or conversion of the whole world to God before
Christ comes. The Whitbyan theory is without any sup-
port. (3.) Prseterism is excluded. (4.) The Beast and
False Prophet of Rev. XIII are imperial Papacy with the
Pope its Ruling Head and identified with the Man of Sin,
the Antichrist. (5.) This identification makes the destruc-
tion of the Man of Sin and the destruction of the Beast
and False Prophet identical also, and the Judgment in Rev.
19: 11-21 identical with the Judgment in 2 Thess. 2: 8, i. e.,
both are one, and at the Parousia, when the Judgment on
Antichrist occurs, and precede the 1,000 years. (6.) The
Parousia in 2 Thess. 2: 8 is a literal personal Parousia, the
Second Advent. (7.) The temporal sequence of Rev. chap-
ter 20th and chapter 19th is preserved, in other words, the
1,000 years do not contemporate with the 1,260 years of
Antichrist's Dominancy, nor are they interjected between
the Judgment on Antichrist and the Parousia. (8.) The
41 times of refreshing " when the Jews are converted, belong
to the times attending the Second Advent. (9.) The events
at both ends of the 1,000 years are included in the repre-
sentations of the "Last Day." The result of all is that
Christ's Second Coming is before the 1,000 years. These
-data furnish a demonstration no human power can break,
unless by a " Revision of the standards " in the interest of
theories the Reformation and the standards alike condemn.
Nothing is simpler or clearer. The Judgment on the Beast
and False Prophet is before the 1,000 years as all theories
admit, Prseterist, Continuist, Whitbyan, Futurist, therefore
it is pre-millennial. But the Judgment on the False
Prophet, who is the Antichrist, the Pope, the Man of Sin,
is by the personal Parousia of Christ, therefore the Second
Advent is pre-millennial. This is the whole of it, and " by
376 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
good and necessary consequence." Every Reformed symbol
that makes the Pope Antichrist and the Parousia in 2
Thess. 2:8 literal is bound to the same consequence. Such
is the doctrine of the Westminster symbol, ripest fruit of
the Reformation movement that flanked the mediaeval posi-
tion, and opened the door to Chiliasm, the work of an
Assembly of Divines, Lord Hailes pronounced " unsurpassed
since the days of the Apostles," where even Milton said,
" piety, learning, and prudence were housed," and of which
Baxter said, u the Christian world, since the days of the
apostles, had never seen a symbol more excellent." (Westnu
Assemb. Presb. Bd. Pub. 175.)
The turbulence of the Fifth Monarchy men availed not
to divert the Assembly from the Protestant interpretation
of the Apocalyptic symbols, or commit it to a rationalistic
or Papal Praeterism. built upon the outrage of exegesis.
The English Chiliasts issued a public protest against both
the conduct and principles of the revolutionary sect, a pro-
test in which all true pre-millennarians were represented.
(Keal's Puritans, II. 221.) Eleven years after the Assem-
bly adjourned, the English Baptists presented their pre-
millennarian confession to Charles II., A.D. 1660, John
Bunyan's name among the number, declaring, ""We believe
that Christ, at His Second Coming, will not only raise the
dead, and judge and restore the world, but also take to
Himself His Kingdom, which will be a universal Kingdom
and that, in this Kingdom, the Lord Jesus Christ will be
the alone visible, Supreme, Lord and King of the whole
earth." (Crosby's Hist, of the Baptists.) In New Eng-
land, as in Old England, the martyr faith was preached.
Davenport and Walley, Eliot and Whiting, the three
Mathers, Prince of the Old South Church, Boston, Spauld-
ing of the Salem Tabernacle, were only a few of the mul-
titudes in whom the impulse of the Reformation and West-
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 377
minster Assembly lived as a power in behalf of the martyr
doctrine.
The latter half of the seventeenth century, however,
brought its important lesson, the repetition of the same
that was taught in the times of Constantine. The Church
of Christ can not bear prosperity and peace in this Age y
and not become corrupt in doctrine and practice. All his-
tory confirms the observation. Times of peace are times of
peril for the truth. With the return of relief after fifteen
years of the Commonwealth under Cromwell, and with the
reactionary restoration of semi-popery under Charles and
James, England, though hallowed with martyr blood, once
more reared aloft her " mitred front." The martyr doctrine
fell into disrepute. The revocation of the Edict of Nantz.
by Louis XIY., that crowning perfidy of King and Court,
assisted to promote the reaction. Men, like the politician
Grotius, and divines like Hammond, bending to the times,
now revived Rome's arguments invented to evade the
Protestant interpretation of the Apocalypse, the old Prse-
terism of Alcasar and Bellarmine, the Futurism of Ribera
and Malvenda, either throwing the 1,000 years into the past r
or Antichrist wholly into the future, and denying the per-
sonal reign of Christ on earth. The Roman religion again
became fashionable. On all sides the cry was heard for
Organic union, reconstruction of the Church, and demoli-
tion of dissenting Creeds, a project that baffled the genius-
of even a Eossuet and Leibnitz. And so the wretched
times went on. But, once more, true Chiliasm re-appeared,
under the lead of men who had suffered as witnesses for
the truth. The French Calvinists, exiled Huguenot's, among
whom stood Jurieu and JDanbuz, supported by the invinci-
ble Cramner of England and others, uplifted the banner of
Chiliasm, and re-established the Protestant interpretation
in works of undying value. The great Baxter, long resist-
378 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ing, confesses he is powerless to confute the demonstrations
of the pre-millennarians, saying, " I can not confute what
such learned men as Mr. Mede, Dr. Twisse, and others
have hereof asserted." (Works, II. p. 513.)
XIH. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE WIUTBYAN THEORY. BEN-
GEL AND HIS SCHOOL.
The eighteenth century opened in England with the pub-
lication of an elaborate effort on the part of Daniel Whitby
to set aside the Chiliastic view, by what he claims to be a
" New Hypothesis," a " New Discovery." Briefly stated,
in. the peculiar terms of the title-page, it is that " The true
millennium is not a reign of persons raised from the dead,
but of the church, nourishing gloriously for a thousand
years, after the conversion of the Jews, and the flowing in
of all nations to them thus converted to the Christian
faith." (Treatise on the True Millennium ; title.) In
other words, it is the theory of the world's reformation by
its conversion to God under large outpourings of the
Spirit at the time of the ingathering of the Jews and the
overthrow of Pope and Turk together. This is the u First
Resurrection " figured in Rev. 20 : 4-6, which is regarded
as simply a reproduction of Ezekiel's vision of the dry
bones restored to life, and a symbolization of Paul's word,
Rom. 11 : 15, an undisturbed universal reign of righteous-
ness, holiness, peace, and victory, before the Second
Advent ; the conversion of the world to God before Christ
comes, and by an increased potency of the ordinary
means of grace. This theory met with acceptance ; all
the more that it had built itself upon the interpolated
text of Justin, the misapplied passage of Irenaeus, the mis-
representations of Christian Chiliasm by Origen, Diony-
sius, Eusebius, by twisted quotations from the fathers, and
by ascribing the paternity of Chiliasm to Jewish apocry-
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOGTRINE. 379
phal writings, and Sibylline oracles ; and all the more that it
fortified itself with the glowing language of the prophets,
regardless of New Testament eschatology, and not only
paraded ingeniously the indiscreet utterances of certain
men, but attributed to the defenders of true Chiliasm sen-
timents they never held. But still more. The terrible
condition of Europe, just after the French .Revolution, the
powerful preaching of the gospel, the earnest prayer, the
"Great Awakening 1 ' under the outpoured Spirit, marking
the eighteenth century, the new era of missions, Bible,
tract, and other societies, the increased interest felt in the
conversion of the Jews, the established concert of prayer
for the " conversion of the world," all contributed to
make the Whitbyan theory popular. Eminent divines
embraced it, wrote it, preached it, Vitringa, Edwards,
Hopkins, Bellamy, Bogue, Scott, and many more. It is
the theory of Faber, Brown, Fairbairn, and of anti-premil-
lennarians in general. Unable to invalidate the Protestant
interpretation of the Apocalypse, it admits the 1,000
years are still future. Unwilling to interpret those years
as following the Second Advent, it labors to locate them,
"secumdun anagogen" this side of the resurrection. This
it does by teaching that the Parousia in 2 Thess. 2 : 8 is
spiritual, the breath of the Lord's mouth the preaching of
the gospel, the vision in Rev. 19 : 11-21 the agency of
" second causes " in the overthrow of Pope, Turk, and
anti-Christianity politically, the vision in Rev. 20 : 1-6, a
spiritual restraint of Satan's power, and the conversion of
the Jews, with the " Anastasis " as including a grand
revival of the Gentile Church. The Kingdom of Christ
comes in triumph on earth in this way, under the seventh
trumpet, Islam gone, Papacy gone, Brahminism, Buddhism,
and all Heathenism gone, Atheism, Infidelity, Secularism,
false Science, and Philosophy, and' all unrighteousness
380 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
gone, Politics, Legislation, Government, and Trade, all
right, Satan shut up 1,000 years, the anti-Christian nations
all converted, the whole world reformed, the times of resti-
tution completed, and of refreshing present all before
Christ personally and visibly appears.
Unfortunately for Whitby, the so-called " New Hypoth-
esis" turns out to be an exploded one before Whitby's day.
Novel, indeed, in the prominence it achieved under Whit-
by's pen, it had yet been openly broached and rejected be-
fore Whitby was born. The first article of Canon Ryle's
"Prophetic Creed," recently published, viz.: "I believe
that the world will never be completly converted to Chris-
tianity by any existing agency before the end comes," a
position Chalmers had emphasized abundantly is only
what John Knox had asserted, in the days of the Reforma-
tion. " To reform the face of the whole earth," said he,
"is a thing that will never be done until that King and
Judge appear for the restitution of all things." (Treatise
on Fasting.) It is what John Calvin said, " There is no
reason why any person should expect the conversion of the
world ; for, at length, when it will be too late, and yield
them no advantage, they shall look on Him whom they
have pierced." (Com. on Matt. 24:30.) Luther was no
less emphatic. "Some say that before the last day the
whole world will become Christian; This is a falsehood,
forged by Satan, that he might darken sound doctrine,
that we might not rightly understand it. Beware, there-
fore, of this delusion." (Com. on John 10:11-16.) Vit-
ringa shows that "VVhitby's theory is mentioned in the
writings of Conrad of Mantua, and Carolus Gallus a Ley-
den professor, both of the sixteenth century. Homes,
contemporary of Whitby, quoted from the Commentary of
Conrad himself. "We may see," says Conrad, "that
diverse hold that between Christ's coming in the flesh and
4
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 381
coming in majesty, there is a middle coming of spiritual
power and force to destroy the great Antichrist, and to
reform the church. They say Antichrist shall be destroyed
by preaching, and that his kingdom si i all be abolished,
after which downfall peace shall be granted to the church
and Satan shall be bound." The passage is quoted by
Alsted, in his " Diatribe " and its position condemned as
unscriptural. Conrad asserts that the theory is not that of
the men of his day, and begs for it only the indulgence of
not being regarded " impious or absurd." Vitringa finds
the same theory named in Gallus. The " New Hypothe-
sis " was simply a rejected opinion, revived and com-
mended by certain additions designed to solve certain diffi-
culties which it failed to do, only adding new difficulties to
the list. (Homes, Kes. Eev. 439, 440; Elliott, Horee IY,
133.) Never in any age had it any foundation in any
creed. Never, even under the richest outpourings of the
Spirit has it ever achieved an acceptance to be compared
with that of the Pre-Millennial faith of the Martyr-Church.
While Chiliasm was, as Hase calls it, "a great Faith-
Article of the Apostolic Church," Whitbyism has been
simply the opinion of those who have accepted it as a plaus-
ible theory, easy to their comprehension. It is not the
" common doctrine " of the Church, even now, and never
was " doctrine " at any time. It has no countenance in
any creed of the Church, in any of the Reformed symbols,
least of all in the Westminster symbol. It denies openly
what that symbol everywhere teaches, viz.: that the Par-
ousia in 2 Thess. 2:8 is a personal advent of Christ. It
interjects the 1,000 years between the Judgment on the
Papal Antichrist and that Parousia, which the Westminster
symbol teaches are contemporaneous events, thus throwing
the 1,000 years beyond the Advent. It holds the vision of
the raised martyrs in Rev. 20 : 1-6 to be the conversion of
382 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the Jewish people and revival of the Gentile Church, and
not a literal resurrection of the Just. It places the Par-
ousia at the end of the 1,000 years, instead of at the begin-
ning, and makes the former, when Christ comes to enter on
His visible Kingdom, coincide with the latter, when lie
surrenders it to the Father, after the 1,000 years are expired.
Enough to say that, upon W hitby's own Protestant inter-
pretation of the Apocalyptic Beast as the Papal Antichrist,
it is an impossibility, for if the " First Resurrection " is
only figurative of a church-revival, or moral resurrection,
it is by that very fact proved to be not " the first," but a
third resurrection, two other similar ones having previously
been figured by John, in Rev. 11:11, and 12:10, the one
referring to the Reformation, the other to the victory of
Constantino, according to Whitby's own principle. Nor
will Dr. Fairbairn's definition of " first " as meaning
" greatest " help the difficulty in the least. The theory
has no exegetical foundation. (Fairb. on Proph. 465.)
Popular as was the theory, however, it was strongly resisted
by men of learning and piety. Pirie, one of Scotland's best
scholars, rejected it. Wells, the " first Greek " at Oxford,
and Dr. Hussey, of Cambridge, criticised it very unfavor-
ably. Cunninghame of Lainshaw furnished a complete
antidote to it. Whittaker and Zouch, two able writers
upon the Millennium, supported the primitive view. Oth-
ers did the same. Sir Isaac Newton took the ground that
the prophecies concerning the latter day glory are u clear
prophecies concerning the Second Coming, given not only
for predicting, but for effecting the recovery and establish-
ment of long-lost truth, and the setting up of a kingdom
wherein dwelleth righteousness." (Jour, of Proph. IY, 127.)
Bishop Newton used the following language: "The King-
dom of Heaven shall be established on earth. We should
be cautious and tender of making the first resurrection an
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 383
allegory, lest others should reduce the second to an allegory,
too, like those whom Paul mentions Hymeneus and Phil-
etus." (Diss. on Proph. p. 212.) Not less decided was
Archbishop Newcome, saying : " I understand this, not
figuratively of a peaceable and flourishing state of the
Church on earth, but literally of a real resurrection, and of
a reign with Christ who will display His glory in the New
Jerusalem. This is the great Sa-bbatism of the Church."
(Quoted by Bickersteth, Diss. on Proph. p. 106.) More
decided was Dr. John Gill, the distinguished Baptist Com-
mentator and Theologian: "Christ will have a special,
glorious, peculiar, and visible Kingdom, in which He will
reign personally on earth. This Kingdom will be bounded
by two resurrections first, by the resurrection of the just,
at which it will begin; and, second, by the resurrection of
the wicked, at which it will end." (Gill, Divinity, p. 429.)
"We expect," says Dr. Benson, "His second advent to
restore all things, to judge the world, to condemn His ene-
mies, and to begin His glorious reign." (Notes on Psal.
76: 10-13; 98: 4-9.) None will impugn the competency or
orthodoxy of Augustus Toplady, author of that immortal
lyric, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me!" "I am," said he,
" one of the old-fashioned people who believe the doctrine
of the Millennium, and that there will be two distinct
resurrections of the dead first, of the just; and, second,
of the unjust, which last resurrection of the reprobate will
not commence till 1,000 years after the resurrection of the
elect. In this glorious interval of 1,000 years, Christ, I
apprehend, will reign in person over the Kingdom of the
just." (Sermons III, 470.) To these testimonies might
be added those of Horsley and Dodwell, Fletcher, Coke
and others. "Wesley, author of that other precious hymn,
"Jesus, Lover of my Soul !" a close follower of Bengel,
even in some of his untenable interpretations, was a Pre-
384 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Millennarian. (Sermons I, 191.) "Your book," said he to
Hartley, " is in my hands. I can not but thank you for
your strong and seasonable confirmation of that comforta-
ble doctrine of which I can not entertain the least doubt,
as long as I believe the Bible." (Tyerman's Life and
Times of Wesley, II. 220, 251.) A volume could be written
to show that able men of all denominations rejected the
u New Hypothesis."
It was ordained, therefore, that the very century which
gave the Whitbyan theory to the Church, should provide a
vigorous protest against it. Sacred poetry, moreover,
descended on swift pinions to weave a fresh wreath around
the martyr faith. Isaac Watts tuned his harp to sing the
pre-milleunial theme, and Charles Wesley woke his muse
to the same numbers. Cowper composed a matchless
invocation to the Coming King, and Montgomery, Heber,
and how many more! all sang in concert, while the bosom
of the whole Church thrilled with delight, and ten thou-
sand tongues broke forth into loud hallelujahs, and old men
and maidens, and young men and matrons, and " babes and
sucklings " became pre-milleniiarians en masse without
either dogmatics or exegesis. So God works.
A stronger protest was lifted. Germany came forward
to redeem for herself the promise of the Reformation. The
great Bengel, twenty years a student of prophecy, and only
confirmed in the Protestant view of the Apocalypse, stood
forth in exegesis the champion of pre-millennarianism.
" His works," says Dorner, "were the first cock-crowing of
that new kind of exegesis the Evangelical Church so greatly
needed." (Hist. Prot. Theol. II. 233.) Eejecting the
Augustinian theory, and regarding the Apocalypse as
chronological, like Daniel's prophecies, he rejected also the
Whitbyan idea. He saw in the Scriptures, bright shining
before him, the glory of Christ on earth blessed with the
HISTORY OF THE FEE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 385
personal presence of its King, as the end and aim of all the
ages, one result, nature and spirit reconciled, with man
redeemed from the dust to immortality, both became the
incorporate beam and splendor of eternal wisdom, power,
and love. Even his chronological errors were of benefit to
the Church; and the error of his double millennium into
which he was betrayed by excessive critical skill, was itself
a light. His demonstrations of Chiliasm rested alone on
God's word, a word to him of more value than silver or
gold. " The events," he remarks, " in Apoc. 1 9th chapter,
are plainly followed by those which take place, from chap-
ter 20:11 to chapter 22:5. The millennium comes in
between. He must deny the perspicuity of the Scripture,
altogether, who persists in denying this, and endeavors to
refute it. The time will come when a pure Chiliasm will
be thought an integral part of orthodoxy." (Gnomon, V.
365, 366.) He had, as Hengstenberg says, " an exegetical
conscience." Then came a host of students, all teaching
the martyr doctrine, while Zinzendorf and the Moravian
Brethren were guided by Bengel as by the hand of a father.
Keuss, Roos, Weismann, Oetinger, Crusius, Jung, Stilling,
and the two Hahns, all came from the school of Bengel.
Tired of the idealistic method of interpretation, they
embraced the Biblical realism that restored to them the
Kingdom of God on earth in connection with the resurrec-
tion of the body and the renovation of the planet. The
debt Christendom owes to Bengel is immense, and we may
well pardon the justifiable pride of Delitzsch when he asks,
" To whom else do we owe it that the orthodox Church of
the present time does not brand the Chiliastic view of the
last times as a heterodoxy, as is done in almost all the man-
uals of dogmatics, so that there is scarcely a believing
Christian now, who does not take this view ?" (Quoted by
Auberlen, Daniel p. 373.) Since BengePs day, evangelical
25
386 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Germany has become pre-millennarian. The answers to
Hengsten berg's Prseterism and other anti-chiliastic theories
are named by the hundred. Conferences and unions are
held everywhere for the discussion of eschatological topics.
XIV. NINETEENTH CENTURY THE PROMISED TRIUMPH OF
THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE.
As we look back upon three quarters of the nineteenth
century, now passed, and mark the progress of the Pre-
Millennial doctrine, by what a galaxy of illustrious names
it is adorned, by what piety commended, and by what
unquestioned orthodoxy and scholarship supported, and how
the church seems to be rallying around it as in the martyr
aere, we are filled with gratitude and amazement. What
an all-wise Providence means to intimate, it is well to con-
sider. No doctrine has come to the front of Christian
thought more prominently than that of the Pre-millennial
return of Christ. Since Bengel's day, and the emancipation
of exegesis from the fetters of a lingering mediaevalism
and from a priori anti-chiliastic inferences drawn from
dogmatical systems, the advance has been simply surprising.
The doctrine " has attained not only," as Kliefoth observes,
" an ever increasing dissemination reaching down to our
time, but also, in contrast with the earlier, an incomparably
more thorough exegetical and theological establishment."
(OiFenb. Joh., Ill, 288.) Nothing is truer than the declar-
ation of Koch, in his masterly work against Hengstenberg,
Keil, and others, that " All anti-chiliastic expositions are
utterly wrecked upon the indissolvable connection between
the 19th and 20th chapters of the Apocalypse." (Das
tausend. Reich, 198.) The prow and the seams of Praeterism,
no less than of Whitbyan pre-advent Futurism, are opened
and broken on that rock, for the 1,000 years' Kingdom is
one of temporal sequence to the Judgment of the Beast,
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 387
and in which the saints of Jesus celebrate their victory
over the Beast. Hengstenberg is candid enough to admit
it. (Apoc. II, 351.) The temporal sequence of the 20th
upon the 19th chapter depends in no sense upon the question
whether the Apocalypse is a progressive whole, or whether
it is a series of " groups" of visions, each one reaching to
the Parousia, but solely upon the relation of the succeeding
Triumph of the Saints to the Slain Beast. Otherwise,
interpreters may amuse themselves by putting the sixth
vial in place of the third, the fourth in place of the first,
just as Anti-chiliastists do the Victory before the Battle is
fought, the Millennium before the Advent. The Millennium
can never begin while the Beast lives. The position is
impregnable. As Theurer says, " es steht exegelisch fest."
And the remark of Delitzsch, above quoted, is not less true
for Germany than is the remark of Alford for Christendom,
when speaking of Apocalyptic interpreters since the French
revolution, he says: "The majority, both in number,,
learning, and research, adopt the pre-millennial advent,,
following the plain and undeniable sense of the sacred
text." (N. T. Yol. II, Part I, Introd. 350.) Amid many
difficulties and diversities of interpretation, inseparable
from a theme so great, spanning as it does the whole King-
dom of God, and which none but a sciolist would expect
the church to completely solve at the present day, the main,
doctrine holds on its way, ever achieving new victories in
which both " continuist " and " futurist " expositors rejoice.
The progress of history only confirms the Protestant inter-
pretation, without, however, limiting the development of
Anticliristianity to the Papacy, or spiritual Babylon to the
merely Roman Church, which is the " Mother of Harlots,"
or nationalized Hierarchies. Enough to know that " the
Antichrist " arises from the illicit commerce of Church
and State, and comes to his end in the very bosom of
388 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
apostate Christendom. Enough to know that the infidelity
of our times is located under the sixth and seventh vials,
precursors of the last anguish of Christendom under the
sounding of the seventh trumpet, according to the contin-
uist expositors, who, in company with the futurists who
regard the Apocalypse as a u Book of the End," believe we
are rapidly approaching the " Time of the End; " the end
of the " Times of the Gentiles " and' of Israel's rejection
and expectancy. It is not alone remarkable that devoted
missionaries in heathen lands have been impressed with the
truth of the chiliastic view, and, if recent information be
correct, that the majority now on the field are of the same
faith. Certain it is that, in that very period which anti-
chiliasts are forced to admit was the bloom time of early
Chiliasm, the intermediate century between the death of
John and the monster Caracalla, never was missionary zeal
more ardent. "Mitred with Pentecostal flame," an
intensely Pre-Millennarian Church carried the Gospel
beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire, and won vic-
tories denied to Csesar. Europe, Asia, and Africa had
everywhere heard the joyful sound. Not that the Empire
was converted to God, or religion universally prevailed, but
that the Chiliastic Church, that fought the Gnostics, and
bathed itself in its own blood for Christ, had already gone
over classic ground and reared its undying fane where
Demosthenes had thundered against Philip and Cicero had
flamed against Cataline; and far beyond, where Semiramis
had built Assyrian splendor, where Hannibal had massed
his legions, and where Zenobia ruled the Palmyrene. The
Chiliast, Tertulliau, could say to the Roman Praetor: " We
are but of yesterday. We have left you nothing but your
temples to yourselves!" all this a hundred years before
Constantine! But. more remarkable than the return of
modern missionaries to the primitive conception of the
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 389
relation of the Gospel to the coming visible Kingdom and
Appearing of Christ, is the fact that pre-millennarian
voices, deep and sublime, have come sounding, in the
present century, from the very bosom of the Papacy itself.
Pere Lambert, a French Dominican and scholar of great
learning, renounced the Papal theory, while yet in the
Papal Church, and published an eloquent defence of Chil-
iasm. Lacunza, a Spanish Jesuit, abandoning the defences
of Bellarrnine and P>ossuet, gave to the world his celebrated
work on " The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty,"
which so fired the soul of Edward Irving (erratic in some
things, but still a noble soul) that he translated it into
English for the benefit of Protestant England and Scotland.
These are remarkable signs. By the side of his illustrious
protege stood the great Chalmers, beaming with the expres-
sion, "Of this I am satisfied, that the next Coming of
Christ will be a coming, not to final judgment, but a com-
ing to usher in the Millennium. I utterly despair of the
universal prevalence of Christianity as the result of a
missionary process. I look for its conclusive establishment
through a widening passage of desolations and judgments,
with the demolition of our civil and ecclesiastical structures.
Overturn, Overturn, Overturn, is the watchword of our
approaching Lord." (Quoted by Bonar.) " I desire to
cherish a more habitual and practical faith than heretofore
in that coming which even the first Christians were called
to hope for with all earnestness, even though many centu-
ries were to elapse ere the hope could be realized; and how
much more we who are so much nearer this great fulfillment
than at the time when they believed! " (Sabbath Readings
I, 311.) In the same hope stood Drs. Candlish and Guthrie
and many others gone to meet the Bridegroom already, and
accompany Him at His return. (Life in a Eisen Saviour,
273, 274, 386. Gospel in Ezekiel, 375.) So spoke the
390 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
"Northern Star," while Robert Hall, the "Southern Sun,"
set behind the clouds, beautiful, indeed, in his declining
splendor, but lamenting to Mr. Thorpe that "he had not
preached the pre-millennarian views he entertained."
(Duffield on the Prophecies, 259.)
It is simply impossible to catalogue all the names, in the
present century, that cluster around the doctrine to give it
support. I can mention but a few. Among Presbyterians
abroad, we find the names of Chalmers, Irving, Candlish,
Hewitson, Anderson, Begg, the three Bonars, McCheyne,
Burns, Gilfillan, McDonald, Stewart, Cnmmings, Mackay,
Frazer, Jamieson, Faussett, Cochrane, Adolph Saphir, who
are but specimens of more of the same character for piety,
scholarship, and Christian zeal. In the United States,
such names as Drs. Geo. Duffield, T. E. Thomas, R. T.
Breckenridge, Joel Parker, Krebs, Lillie, Shimeall all
gone to their reward, and followed by living witnesses for
the truth, Duffield of Princeton, Willis Lord, Yan Doren,
Brookes, Craven, Poor, Blauvelt, R. D. Morris, Kellogg, S.
R. Wilson, Laird, Parsons, Wyckoff, Congden, Lee, Whit-
tlesy, Cooper, Morehead, Flint, Adams, Bierce, F. T.
Brown, Bittinger, Sankey, Stewart, Foote, Baker, Gillespie,
Lichtenstein, Spence, French, Reed, R. Patterson, Erdman,
Matthews, Galloway, Bar, Ashurst, Bacon, Mack, Eddy,
Paxon, Pitzer, Dinwiddie, Marquis, Nevin, Allen, Riley,
Reed, Sample, Davis, Marvin, Reynolds, Wanamaker,
Wallace ministers, pastors, presidents, and professors in
colleges and theological seminaries. The Church of
England, abroad, is like Joseph, a fruitful vine, whose
branches run over the wall. Elliott and the two Maitlands,
Birks, Yan Mildert, Home, Bickersteth, Auriol, Girdlestone,
Melville, and Freemantle, Ryle, Iloare, Wood, Rainsford,
Moleneaux, Cox, Kelley, Wilson, Noel, Brock, Smith,
Woodward, McNeile, Dallas, Grimshawe, Raikes, Otild,
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 391
Tattershall, Trotter, Stevenson, Niven, Shephard, Newton,
Ellicott, French, Alford, Tregelles, Brooks, Pym, Dalton,
Gresswell, Burgh, Todd men of the first culture and posi-
tion, are only instances of a multitude more among the
Anglican Bishops, Deans, Prebenderys, Canons, and .Rectors,
who hold thepre-millennial advent of Christ, and the literal
" First Resurrection." Noble names, in the Episcopal
Church of the United States, stand by their side, Mclllvaine,
Henshaw, Niles, the two Tyngs, Winthrop, Morgan, John-
son, Nicholson, Vail, Bancroft, Perkins, Hastings, Farrer,
Booth, Ward, Grammer, Feltwell, Dobbs, Smith, Newton
and Trenwith. Among the Congregationalists, who hold
the same faith, are Lorimer, Wild, Bancroft, Litch, Adams,
Morton, Milton, Goodwin, Kingman, Burton, Andrews,
Clarke, Russell, Cunningham, Osier, Pierce, Thayer.
Among the Baptists, Gordon, Herr, Saunders, Harris,
Evans, Stifler, Barralle, Peters, Tower, Jones, Brown, Beck-
ley, Miller, White, Jacobs, Cameron, Titus, Cordo, Stone.
Among the Methodists, Durbin, Parker, Gilbert, Hall,
Harvey, Foster, Blackstone, Lummiss, Krehbiel, Nast. In
the Reformed Dutch Church, Thompson, Demarest, Gordon,
R. F. Clarke, W. H. Clarke, Merritt, Ballagh, Bishop,
Brown. Among the Lutherans, Seiss, and others. All
these are unanimous on the two main positions of the pre-
millennial doctrine, viz.: thepre-millennial advent and the
literal " First Resurrection." The names of Gaussen and
Godet, also adorn the catalogue of Pre-Millennarians. Hol-
land gives us Da Costa, Capadose, Roorda, and Yan Oosterzee.
Germany's ranks are majestic with men who defend the
martyr doctrine. Schlegel, Auberlen, Baumgarten, Krum-
macher, Starke, Stier, Delitzsch, Zunz, Fiirst, Ebrard,
Hofmann, Guers, Luthardt, Christiani, Rinck, Hebart,
Stockmayer, Koch, Lechler, Kling, Moll, Pfleiderer, Lange,
Rothe, Schenkel, Ritzsch, Sander, Riggenbach, Olshausen,
392 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
De Wette, Theurer, Gerlach, Thiersch, Zimpel, Nitzsch,
Schneider, Graber, Riemann, Steffarm where shall we
end? the great body of the South German divines, and
large numbers in the North. With deep philosophic and
theological insight, has Christlieb, sympathizing with
Oetinger, set in their true relations the first and second
resurrections. (Modern Doubt, p. 452.) If we search
ancient or modern literature, we shall find no defence of
primitive Chiliasm more profound, scholarly, or biblical,
than the argument given us by the celebrated Dorner, in
the first volume of his unrivalled work on the Person of
Christ. (Person of Christ I. 407-415.) For a generation,
the famous u Haus-Bibel," of Richter, following in the
Chiliastic steps of the yet more celebrated Berlerberg Bible,
the fruit of German Pietism, has been in the homes of
evangelical Germany, a salt against its rationalism, teaching
the pre-millennial doctrine, and the Commentaries of
Meyer, Olshausen, and Stier, and the Synopsis of
Starke, have only contributed immensely to the same
result. In the same Chiliastic path treads the valuable
critical labors of Jamieson and Faussett, in the Commen-
tary which, in company with Dr. David Brown, they have
given to the world. The "Bibel-Werk" of Lange and his
collaborators, spread throughout Germany, and put into
English dress by Dr. Schaif and his able assistants a work
in which Lange, VanOosterzee, Kling, Lechler, Moll, Auber-
len, Riggenbach, Craven, Lillie, Poor, and many others
referred to in the text and notes, stand forth in the front
line of Chiliasts and the edition of Van Oosterzee's Dog-
matics by Drs. II. B. Smith and Schaff, Union Theological
Seminary, New York, the most pronounced Chiliastic
system of Dogmatics extant, have done more to indoctrin-
ate the American ministry withpre-millennarianism, than all
the works published on the subject, in the United States,
HISTORY OF THE P RE -MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 39$
for the last fifty years. In the same line are the truly
evangelical and valuable Commentaries of Canon Ryle on*
the Gospels. Nor has it been the least noticeable fact that,,
in this century, eminent laymen like Cunningham of
Lainshaw, Sabine, Hugh Miller, the Duke of Manchester,
Lord, Jones, Habershon, Thorp, Alexander, Charles the
Landgrave of Hesse, Boudinot, and others, like Sir Isaac
Newton, Tycho Brahe, and Lord Napier, before them, have
not disdained to study, or write upon, the prophecies, and
declare themselves convinced of the pre-millennarian doc-
trine. Bishop Newton's word is true. " The doctrine
sprang up at the Reformation, and will flourish, together
with the study of Revelation." (Diss. on Proph. 592.)
Nor is it possible to enumerate all the various agencies
by which, in the present century, as bulwarks of support,.
Chiliasm is defended in the various nations of Christen-
dom ; public lectures, critical works, the mere titles of which
would fill a volume, magazines, reviews, discourses, tracts,,
pamphlets and newspapers, dissertations and elaborate
critical expositions and commentaries, all on the absorbing
theme. Never, since the martyr-age, has Christian Chil-
iasm attained such distinction. Ere long, the early faith
will be such that it will need no creed or council to tell the
world that it is ecumenical. Singular circumstance! The
Free Italian Church, under the very shadow of the toppling
Tiara that once sat so proudly on the Pontiffs head, while
its feet crushed the martyr-faith to the earth, has adopted
the pre-millennial view. At Milan, A.D. 1870, and again
at Florence A. D. 1876, it published to the world its official
"Declaration" of faith, announcing two resurrections, one
at the beginning when " the dead in Christ shall rise first,"
the other at the end, " after the Kingdom," when " all the
rest shall arise to be judged in judgment" a Declaration
which, to any one who studies it, will be discovered to be
394 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
only a development of the 13th and 14th Articles of the
Evangelical Free Church Confession of Geneva. It is in the
Creed of the Keformed Episcopal Church, United States.
{Schaff. Creeds of Christendom. III. 787, 784, 785, 814.)
The augury is blessed ! " Manet, Mansurum" Intelligent
textual criticism is on its side, resting alone on a grammat-
ical and historical basis. The structure of the Apocalypse is
on its side. The " Recapitulation " theory is doomed.
" Secundum Anagogen^ has failed. Tichonius is tired.
Augustine's " former opinion " asks for re-installation. Ori-
_gen and Plato must part forever. The laws of prophetic
interpretation, better understood, are on its side, as are the
laws of symbolism and apocalyptic. The comprehension of
history in its scope, progress, relations, unity, converging
to one end, is on its side. Even natural science begins to
shake hands with the Bible and recognize but one objective
in the destiny of the Planet, something beyond "stunted
bushes magnified into goodly trees," a "kingdom of the
future," which "Faith, undeceived by the mirage of the
midway desert," holds up to view a " terminal dynasty "
only to be entered upon, " at return
Of Him the woman's Seed,
Last in the clouds, from heaven to be revealed
In glory of the Father, to dissolve
Satan, with this perverted world."
(Hugh Miller. Footprints, 307.)
XV. SYNOPTICAL VIEW. OBJECTIONS.
Thus have I sketched, in an imperfect way, an outline of
the history of the doctrine of the Pro-Millennial Advent of
our Lord, from the time of the vision of the Babylonian
King to the present day. It is but a marginal note at the
side of the great theme. The fortunes of the doctrine have
been various. By some it has been unrighteously called a
Jewish conceit, by others a Gnostic invention, by others a
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 395
Christian delusion, by others an ecclesiastical heresy. Like
every other doctrine, it has often been misapprehended by
its friends, perverted and assailed by its enemies, ridiculed,
traduced, condemned. A study of its history, however,
reveals that orthodox Chiliasm is one thing; heretical
another. A Pre-advent Millennium, or Post-Millennium,
locating the 1,000 years before the resurrection is one
thing; Pre-Millennarianism, locating the 1,000 years after
the resurrection, is another. I. Under Pre-advent Millen-
narianisin are included all the false forms of Chiliasm;
(1) the carnal Jewish, denying Jesus as Messiah and setting
up the kingdom of the 1,000 years by fire and sword
" before the resurrection; " (2) the carnal Anabaptist,
confessing Jesus as Messiah, and setting up the Kingdom
of the 1,000 years by fire and sword " before the resurrec-
tion" So also the Fifth Monarchy men; (3) the spiritual
and ecclesiastical Chiliasm (a] of the Constantinian, (b) of
the Papal, Church, (<?) of some Protestants, comprising (1)
all Prseterists, (2) all Whitbyans, (3) all compounders of
these two theories all confessing Jesus as Messiah, and all
seeking for the Kingdom of the 1,000 years "before the
resurrection" None of these are ./V0-Millermarians, nor
can be. All are /W-Millennurians, or Pre-advent " Mil-
lennaries" and, whether holding the gross or finer form
of Chiliasm, their common fundamental heresy, viz., that
the Millennium comes " before the resurrection" has been
condemned by the primitive church and, in the most
decided manner by the symbols of the Reformation. The
blow that struck the gross carnal extreme, on the one side,
struck the finer spiritual on the other side, at the same
time, and ruled out every form of Chiliasm that looked for
the Kingdom of the 1,000 years "before the resurrection"
Anabaptists, Fifth Monarchy men, Jews, "Whitbyans, and
Praeterists, are, in common, condemned in their common
396 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
error of Pre-advent Chiliasm, or Post-Millennarianism.
The grosser form is simply Judaism under a Christian
name; the finer form is simply the Papal theory in a
Protestant dress the Constantinian date being moved
further along into the future, yet always fixed 1,000 years
" before the resurrection" " The Augustinian Theory,"
says Ebrard, " was essentially the same fundamental error
held by the Anabaptists, and which the Augsburg and
Helvetic Confessions condemned as a Jewish dream, viz.:
"that the saints should have a temporal kingdom 1,000
years before the resurrection. With deep practical insight
the Reformers saw through the irpurav ^Joc of this pseudo-
Chiliasm." (Herzog, Real-Encyck. Vol. X. 582.) II.
Under its proper title Pre-Millennarianism, is found the
one true and orthodox form of Christian Chiliasm, the
doctrine of the martyr-church, the faith of modern Pre-
Millennarians, the door for whose re-entrance was opened
by the Reformation, and now defended by a majority of the
ablest critics and expositors of the New Testament. To
charge, therefore, that the conceptions of Pre-Millennarians
are the same as those of Jews, Anabaptists, and Fifth
Monarchy men is not only to display ignorance, and falsify
history, but traduce thousands of the ablest, most orthodox,
learned, and devoted servants of Christ a transgression
not less than to declare that the doctrine of the Pre-Mil-
lennial Advent was condemned by the Augustana, Helvetic,
Belgic, and Westminster Confessions, and rely on the
confusion and misrepresentations of such writers as Ross,
Paget, Featly, and Edwards for proof.
That Christian Chiliasm was no carnal conceit of " later
Jews," but an orthodox faith common to the pious Jews of
the Old Testament and Christians of the New, Olshausen
has conclusively shown. (Com. on Matt. 22:29, 30. Luke
14:12-14. 1 Cor. 15:23.) That its non-mention in the
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 397
Apostles' Creed is no argument against it whatever, is tri-
umphantly shown by Principal Cunningham. (Hist. Theol.
I. 81, 87, 89.) That it was the general belief of the ortho-
dox Church for three hundred years is an assertion not
invalidated by any attempt to impeach the testimony of the
fathers, on the ground of any statements of Eusebius,
Neander, Shedd, or others, as that it was derived from
Papias, was not ecumenical, and was cherished in times of
persecution only for comfort's sake, and relinquished in
times of prosperity, as a heresy, when the comfort was no
longer needed.
For (1) Mosheim tells us Eusebius " is not to be trusted."
(Three Centuries, II, 245.) (2) Meander, does not affirm
what he is made by so many to affirm, but only says that
we can say " nothing with certainty and positiveness"
an unfortunate word into which he was betrayed by yield-
ing too much to Eusebius (Hist. Chr. Eel. I, 651), but
atoned for, in measure, by his open pre-millennarianism,
when expounding Acts 3: 19-21. (Planting and Training,
39.) (3) The Fathers speak as " Witnesses" not as private
" doctors " giving a private " opinion " on this subject, but
" testifying" as Daille well says, " what the belief of the
Church was in their time " the orthodox in Justin's time
being "all of the same persuasion," a belief that, in
Jerome's time, " generally prevailed in the Church," and
which Chillingworth affirms was the " Catholic doctrine of
the Church," testified to by the Fathers as " witnesses,"
and not as private individuals. (Daille, Use of the Fathers,
189, 288-290. Chillingworth, Works 729-734.)
(4.) The objection that Chiliasm was not ecumenical
faith because not in a creed is valueless, for (a) many true
doctrines, Baptism, Lord's Supper, Election, Justification,
Damnation of the Wicked, were ecumenical faith, and not
found in the Apostles' Creed ; (&) many doctrines are true
398 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
which are found in creeds that are not ecumenical; (<?)
creeds are not full expositions of faith, but chiefly thetic
propositions deemed true as against anti-thetic propositions
deemed false; (d) ecumenicity is not a synonym of numer-
ical totality, but only of a majority vote in a council; nor
is real ecumenicity dependent on either a council or creed
for its existence; (e) as the presence of ecumenicity is no
test of truth, its absence is no proof of error, the dictum
of Yincentius notwithstanding " Quod semper,' 7 etc.; (f)
the appeal to the Apostles' Creed as a test of ecumenical
faith was the appeal of the Arians, and repelled by the
Council of Nice, the appeal also of the Popes for their
Hades doctrine and repelled by the Reformation. (5.) The
argument as to the relation of Chiliasm to persecution, or
that the Church was heretical under Nero and Domitian,
but orthodox under Constantine and Hildebrand, is equally
valueless; for this makes the historic occasion of the exhi-
bition of a truth the providential demonstration of its
error, and the historic occasion of the exhibition of an error
the providential demonstration of its truth. Popery can
be established, and Protestantism wrecked by this reason-
ing. Whether Christ comes before the 1,000 years is not
to be decided affirmatively when Ignatius goes to the lions*
and negatively when Eusebius outstrips the eunuchs of the
palace in flattery of Constantine. Whether " Parousia " in
2 Thess. 2:8 and "Anastasis" in Rev. 20:6 are literal,
whether the Binding of Satan, Rev. 20:2, is identical with
the Dejection of the Dragon, Rev. 12: 9, or the 1,000 years
is a measure of time, or Antichrist is the Pope, or " some
other man," are questions not to be voted " Aye " when
Huss and Jerome of Prague are crackling in the fire, and
voted " No " when Chalmers and Hall are shining in the
pulpit. The doctrines of the Bible do not depend on phases
of eternal church history for their truth.
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 399
XVI. MARVELOUS SURVIVAL OF THE DOCTRINE.
When we consider, but one moment, against what fearful
odds this precious doctrine of the personal appearing of the
Incarnate .Redeemer on earth, to unite the heirs and tha
inheritance in a glorious visible Kingdom, has had to force
its way through the centuries, we shall stand amazed, and
confess that only because it is an imperishable truth of God
has it been able to survive the ordeal through which it ha&
passed. The debasement of the doctrine by intermixtures-
of Jewish fables arid carnal conceits; the reproach that
attended it because confessed by the martyrs of Jesus whom
the whole power of the empire was invoked to destroy; its-
offensiveness to the national feelings of Greeks and Romans;
the hostility of the Samaritan Magus, and the whole pro-
lific brood of his Gnostic sects for three centuiies, with
their idealistic and Sadducean creed; the excesses of the
Phrygian Montanns; the false principles of the Alexan-
drian school; the delusive charm of a Church and State
theory, so potent and plausible after two centuries and a
half of martyrdom; the splendor of Constantino's
establishment; the open repudiation of the Apocalypse and
Gospel of John; the Eusebian perversion of the Old
Testament prophecies; the false theory of Recapitulation ,.
and the force of Augustine's great name; the stumbling-
block that the divine promises of God in Christ to the
Church relate only to spiritual things, and to nothing
earthly; the misrepresentations of Jerome, and the sup-
pression and mutilation of Chiliastic authors; the inability
of the post-Nicene fathers, by reason of a false theory, to
reconcile the later and more developed eschatology of John
with the earlier and less developed eschatology of the
prophets and other apostles; the condemnation of the
martyr faith as a heresy by a Roman pope; and the inter-
400 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
pretation of saint- worship as the reign of the risen martyrs;
the confounding of the true with the false Chiliasm; the
prejudice against the Jewish people under the curse, and
whose future was seen to be linked with that of the Gentiles;
the abuse of the visions of John in the pages of the Koran,
distorting a divine Millennium into a Mahometan Para-
dise; the travesty of the Millennial doctrine in the folios
of the Talmud, and the corruption of it in the leaves of the
Sibylline oracles; the fancies of the Millennium of
Sosiosch in the Bundehesch and Yendidad of the Parsee
system; the Platonic cycle; the erroneous chronology of
the Septuagint; the association with the Rabbinical tradi-
tion of the house of Elias, a doctor of the Second Temple;
the mistaking of the Millennial state for that of Eternal
Glory; the want of discriminating between symbol and
metaphor in the Apocalypse; the crushing power of the
mediaevalism and the anathemas of Popery for twelve
centuries, thundered from the bosom of its Satanic carica-
ture of Christ's Kingdom; the Manichsean error that the
evil principle resides in matter, the false spiritualizing
exegesis in modern times, on the one hand, and the false
rationalizing on the other; the conflict of " Prseterist,"
" Con tinuist," and " Futurist" interpreters; the prejudice
of dogmatical systems, the miscalculations of time-reckon-
ers; the false panics in history as to the end of the world;
the injury of the doctrine by revolutionary sects proclaiming
war against all human government; the want of a true
conception of the structure of the Apocalypse, and of the
laws of the prophetic and symbolic utterances; the appli-
cation of Old Testament predictions concerning Israel to the
spiritual Gentile Church; the general indisposition of men
to take any interest in the study of the Kingdom, except the
selfish one that relates to their own personal salvation ; all
these are only a part of the encircling and mountain-like
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE. 401
obstacles by which the pre-millennial doctrine has been
besieged, and against which it has had to contend. But it
still lives, instinct with immortal vigor. Like the olive
tree sung by Sophocles, a plant of divine growth, not set
by human hands, it still grows stronger by every blast, a
plant destructive to its foes, and which none in earlier or
later times have been able to uproot or destroy. Yea,
more, when we consider what it has borne and suffered, and
how it has triumphed over Jewish perversion, Imperial
persecution, Papal hatred, and Protestant indifference, and
to-day enjoys a resurrection, ascension and reign, more
glorious than ever since it went to the dungeon and flame,
then do we know that it is itself a true child of the mar-
tyrs, whose future is assured, whose final victory is pledged,
and the lustre of whose truth shall blaze in the splendor of
the righteous when they " shine forth as the sun in the
Kingdom of their Father."
Nor let it be objected to the doctrine of the personal
reign of Christ on earth, that it has been espoused by men
who ill understood the genius of the gospel, and that fanat-
ical leaders have, at times, made it their watchword and
cry. Deep in the heart of sin-stricken humanity rests the
sense of its oppression, and helplessness. The turning of
man, maddened by despotic power, regenerate or unregen-
erate, to the magic virtue of this one .and only hope of
reform, the Kingdom of Christ on earth, has been a tribute
in every age to Him who clothed Himself in human flesh
for man's deliverance. Sounding along the ages, in one
form or other, alike from the lips of those who ill under-
stand and well understood the gospel, " Maranatha " has
waked its thrilling echoes; from Daniel in the lion's den
and the Hebrew children in the furnace, to the days of
Maccabean valor, and the times of Judas, the Gaulonite,
and Theudas boasting himself to be some one. It has been
25
402 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
humanity's hope, as well as the Church's hope, when all
other hopes have failed; from martyrs in the Pagan amphi-
theatre and flame, to martyrs marching in autos-da-f< to
Papal scaffolds, faggots, and death; from Ignatius and Poly-
carp to Olivi and Ubertino, and on to Latimer, cheering
Ridley at the stake. In the bosom of the apostasy itself
this hope was the hope that broke through the gloom upon
eyes that watched for the coming day. It graved the silver
tablets of Cyril on Mount Carmel. and sent them to Rome
presaging the doom of Antichrist, and the rise of a King-
dom to follow. It was inspiration in the breast of Cola di
Rienzi, " the last of the Tribunes/' From the lonely lamp
of Joachim, the Calabrian Abbott, and the sighs of Frati-
celli beneath the trees of the breezy Apennines, on to the
wild excesses of the Prophets of Zwickau, the Fifth Mon-
archy men of Cromwell's day, and the poor Dorsetshire
peasant, in Monmouth's rebellion, condemned to the gal-
lows and talking of " One King Jesus," the enchantment
of this hope has been felt; the only hope of a ruined world,
ill understood, indeed, by some, but well understood by
others, to whom the grace of faith is given to behold in
Christ its substance and its sum. Little has he weighed
the relation of that coming Kingdom to the present crea-
tion "groaning and travailing in pain," and outstretching
its neck for deliverance, who objects to the pre-millennial
doctrine because it has been embraced in a distorted form
by some who but poorly understood the gospel. Christ is
the " Desire of all nations." If Pagan altars and victims
and the unconscious prophecies of heathendom are an aigu-
ment for the truth of the First Advent to atone for sin,
much more the appeal in apostate Christendom to the Mil-
lennial hope, by oppressed humanity driven to despair, is
an argument for the truth of the Second Advent to begin
the personal reign of Christ on earth.
HISTORY OF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL DOGTRINE. 403
XVII. THE IMPUTATION OF HERESY.
And equally powerless is the effort to stigmatize the
holders of this "precious hope," as Dr. Schaff calls it, and
"pearl of truth," as Lange names it, as aiders and abettors
of " heresy." Its advocates have been among the holiest,
ablest, most learned, and devoted disciples of Jesus true
men to their church standards in all ages, and to accuse
them of either ignorance or intelligent heresy is to defame the
living and the dead a Toplady and Newton, a Chalmers
and Bonar, an Alford and Ryle, a Breckenridge and Thomas.
Never, in any age, in the long line of Christian history,
has the doctrine of the Pre-Millennial Advent of Christ
been pronounced a " heresy " except by Popery. Its dead-
liest foe was not the Imperial sword under which it
nourished, luxuriant with missionary fruit, but an apostate
church. Caligula and Nero, Domitian,and Diocletian, were
antichiliasts, but more, Damasus and Boniface, liildebrand,
Leo X., the long list of Roman Pontiffs. The Church of
Rome, idolatrous corrupter of every truth of God's word,
and red with the blood of God's saints, was built on an anti-
pre-millennarian creed. The first perverter of this hope
was himself a heretic, Cerinthus. The first assailant of it
was Origen, who became a Universalist. The next was-
Dionysius, who denied the inspiration and canonicity of
the Apocalypse. The first official condemnation of it was-
by a Roman Pope, swayed by the influence of Jerome. The
early misrepresenter of it was Eusebius, an Arian. In
modern times the policy of its Great Enemy has ever been
to mingle the false and the true together, defame the names
of its witnesses, as the names of Papias, Joachrm, and Twisse
have been shadowed, and, parading Jewish Apocryphal
legends, Sibylline Oracles, and Parsee traditions, all which
are but borrowed and broken lights of Divine Revelation,
404 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
corrupted and distorted, quote the same as the fountain and
source of the doctrine itself! And prophecy is made a
Delphic oracle of ambiguous import, and exegesis becomes
like Proteus of old, ever changing his countenance, or like
Miciaiab before Ahab tuning her voice to suit the times.
I dismiss the imputation with the remark that if, in days
to come, a personal antichrist more God-opposing or
blaspheming than him who sits in Rome, claiming the
prerogatives and titles of God and of Christ, shall arise,
one of the marks that will signalize him as what the early
Fathers described him, " the concentration of Satanic energy
and hate," will be that he is an anti-pre-millennarian.
And just in proportion as such time shall approach will this
glorious martyr-truth revive, as all history shows, and to
suffering saints will it be given, again, to witness for that
same hope under which the martyrs of Jesus, comforted,
supported, and strengthened, sank singing to their tombs.
Difficulties there are in articulating the various portions
of Scripture. But the Pre-Millennial Advent grounded as
it is in an unshakable exegetical foundation, these difficulties
are only motives to docility, humility, and prayer, and
incentives to seek and gather the mangled and scattered
members of the fair form of Divine Truth. In the words
of Milton to the Parliament, " We have not yet found them
all, Lords and Commons! nor ever shall do, till her Master's
Second Coming. Then shall He bring together every joint
and member, and shall mold them into an immortal feature
of loveliness and perfection." (Areopagitica. Works II., 89.)
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 405
A SUMMARY OF THE AKGUMENT IN DEFENCE
OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM.
BY REV. JOHN T. DUFFIELD, D.D., PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN
PRINCETON COLLEGE.
THE Scriptures unquestionably teach that the Lord Jesus,
once on this earth in an estate of humiliation, shall return
again "in His glory," and " the glory of the Father, with
His holy angels." The Scriptures also contain many pre-
dictions yet unfulfilled, of an era of universal righteousness
and peace on earth, when there shall be " given to the Son
of Man dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peo-
ple and nations and languages should serve Him;" when
"the nations shall beat their swords into ploughshares and
their spears into pruning-hooks, and shall learn war no
more;" when " they shall not teach every man his neigh-
bor, and every man his brother, saying: Know tha Lord,
for all shall know Him, from the least to the greatest;"
when " the kingdoms of this world shall become (the King-
dom) of our Lord and of His Christ."
The question at issue between Pre-Millennarians and
their brethren is as to the order in which these two pre-
dicted events shall occur. Will the universal reign of
righteousness and peace on earth from Rev. 20:3, com-
monly called " the Millennium" precede the Advent; or
is this Messianic Kingdom of prophecy to be manifested
at, and not before, " the glorious appearing of the great God
and our Saviour, Jesus Christ ?"
Whilst there are some predicted events, yet future, in
regard to which a difference of opinion as to the order of
their occurrence is a matter of little or no practical moment,
406 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the question as to the order of occurrence of the two events
just mentioned is one of the highest importance, affecting
as it does the meaning and practical influence of much of
the Saviour's instruction, especially of that solemn injunc-
tion, emphasized by repetition and illustrated by parable,
with which He closes His discourse on eschatology a dis-
course which occupies a larger place in the inspired record
than any other of the recorded discourses of tho Saviour,
not even excepting the Sermon on the Mount. The order
of occurrence of the two events mentioned affects, further,
the meaning and practical influence of a doctrine urged by
the inspired apostles more frequently and prominently than
any other, as an incentive to holy living and fidelity in
Christ's service.
It is with this conviction of the importance of the ques-
tion at issue, we have met together, that with united prayer
for divine guidance, we may " hold forth" what we regard
as a precious, though now much neglected, portion of u the
Word of Life;" and, with all respect for our brethren who
differ from us, may submit for their serious consideration,
the u reasons for the faith wherein we stand."
In the discharge of the particular duty assigned me, of
presenting a summary of the argument in defence of Pre-
Millennarianism, permit me to do it in the form of a reply
to the question Will the predicted Millennial era of
universal righteousness and peace on earth, precede the
Advent? Whilst there are other questions of exceeding
interest involved in the Pre-Millennarian controversy, the
question proposed is undoubtedly the main question I
might almost say, the only question of immediate practical
importance.
In view of mncli that has been said and written on the
discussion of this subject, it may not be amiss to remark,
that the question at issue is a purely Scriptural one to be
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 407
decided solely by God's word. We might, indeed, main-
tain that there is nothing in the past history of the Church
or of the world, to justify the expectation that at any future
time the Gospel will prevail throughout the entire. world
as it never has prevailed in any portion of it. But we place
no confidence in any mere influences of the human judg-
ment in regard to the future. God undoubtedly might
convert the world in a single day. The question is not one
of power, but of purpose, and what God's purpose is, we
can learn only by reference to His revealed will. Never is
the wisdom of this world more conspicuously foolishness,
than when it seeks, in regard to the future, " to be wise
above that which is written." And especially we may say,
is this true, with respect to the question proposed. For the
revelation that Christ will ever again return to this earth,
is no more distinct, than is the revelation that when He
does come, it will be u at an hour when men think not."
" To the law," then, " and the testimony." If any, on this
question, "speak not according to God's word, there is no
light in them."
In reply to the question proposed, we remark:
1. If the Millennial era is to occur during the present
Dispensation, we should expect to find the Doctrine prom-
inent in the New Testament.
At the present day those who hold the above doctrine regard
it as of eminent practical importance, and continually urge
the prospect of the conversion of the world, and the intro-
duction of the Millennium, as the main if not the sole
incentive to the fulfillment of the great commission given
to the Church by her ascending Saviour. So, undoubtedly,
would Christ and the inspired Apostles have regarded this
doctrine, and so would they have proclaimed it, distinctly
and prominently, had they believed it. What, then, are
we to infer, when, throughout the New Testament, the doc-
408 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
trine is not only not prominent, but is not taught cer-
tainly is not expressly and unequivocally taught in a
single passage? "We feel justified in making the assertion
by the fact, that so far as we have seen or heard, the only
passages of the New Testament, adduced in support of the
doctrine, by its advocates, are the following: The Parable
of the grain of mustard seed, the Parable of the leaven,
the Commission given to the Church, to ic go into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature," and the
Saviour's declaration, (John 12: 32) "And I, if I be lifted
up, will draw all men unto me." JSTow, without stopping
to discuss the meaning of the passages, and to present
as we might an interpretation of them entirely consistent
with pre-millennarianism, we respectfully ask, do they teach
the doctrine of a Millennial era before the Advent, so
expressly and unequivocally as to be decisive of the ques-
tion at issue? Would they be so, even were there not as-
there are numerous other passages of Scripture which
certainly seem to teach and that in express terms the
very opposite doctrine? Had the Saviour intended the
Church to expect the Millennium during the present Dis-
pensation, is it credible that He would have made no more
distinct allusion to it than is contained (as is alleged) in
the passages referred to? Would He have failed to assert
it distinctly, when giving to His disciples their great com-
mission? Would He have omitted as He has omitted
any intimation of it, in His extended discourse on Escha-
tology, uttered for the very purpose of instructing the dis-
ciples as to the state of the Church, and of the world, dur-
ing the entire period of the present Dispensation? He
does predict rt wars and rumors of wars, famines and pes-
tilences and earthquakes; " lie does forewarn the disciples
of the opposition of the world to themselves and their mes-
sage. He foretells corruption in the Church, that " iniquity
DEFENOE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 409
shall abound," that " the love of many shall wax cold," that
only they who " shall endure unto the end shall be saved,"
adding: " 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" but not one word respecting the Mil-
lennium. Had he intended the Church to believe what is
now the prevailing belief on this subject, is not this omis-
sion wholly inexplicable ?
But further and to this we call particular attention
the advocates of the common doctrine do not, so far as we
are aware, pretend to find a single passage in its favor in
the Book of the Acts, or in any of the Apostolical Epis-
tles. Now, again we ask: Is it credible that the Apostles
held the doctrine which now prevails in the Church, and yet
in all their preaching and their writings, should make no
allusion to it? If this doctrine be, as many allege, of par-
amount importance, as an incentive to missionary effort
now, was it less so in apostolic days, when the Church was
just entering on the fulfillment of her great commission,,
and the work of Missions was the one work above all
others to which her energies were to be specially directed?
As the Apostles spoke and wrote under the influence of the
promised Spirit, of whom the Saviour said: "He shall
teach you all things and bring to your remembrance what-
soever I have said unto you," is not their silence conclusive,,
not only that they were not taught the doctrine directly by
the Spirit, but, also, that they did not understand it to be
taught by the Parable of the grain of mustard seed, or the
Parable of the leaven or the terms of their Commission, or
by any other utterance of the blessed Saviour? Now, we
respectfully submit: "Can that be an article of the Chris-
tian faith which is nowhere to be found in the teaching of
Christ, or of His Apostles?
2. This negative argument, which of itself would seem
410 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
to be decisive as to the point at issue, is confirmed by the
distinct and abundant positive teaching of the New Testa-
ment, respecting the present Dispensation.
Until we come to the closing chapters of the Apocalypse,
the Church is uniformly represented as the Church mili-
tant not the Church triiimphant. The antagonism of the
Church and the world, the elect and the great mass of man-
kind, is asserted or assumed on every pnge. The Gospel
was, indeed, to be preached among all nations not with
the assurance or intimation that the world would thereby
be converted, but "for a witness unto all nations." Matt.
24: 14. The last recorded utterance of the Saviour ere He
ascended into heaven was the declaration of His disciples,
" Ye shall ~be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth." Acts 1:8. God is visiting the Gentiles to "take
.out of them a people for His name." Acts 15:14. This
idea as to the purpose for which the Gospel is to be
preached to all is signalized by the very name by which
the people of God are designated. The Church is the
"enKtyaia" the " called out" from the mass of mankind
the " redeemed out of every kindred, and tongue, and peo-
ple, and nation." " Many shall be called, but few chosen."
To illustrate and enforce this very truth, three notable par-
ables were uttered by the Saviour, and to emphasize their
importance and prevent the possibility of misapprehension
as to their meaning, their interpretation was given to the
disciples and recorded in minute detail for the instruction
of the Church throughout the New Testament dispensation.
Only a portion of the seed of Gospel truth falls ** on good
ground" the rest on " the wayside," "on stony places,"
and " among thorns." The visible Church is as "a net cast
into the sea," it may inclose " a great multitude of fishes,"
but not all; and of those that are gathered in there are
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 411
" bad," as well as " good." There are tares among the
wheat "the children of the wicked one" among "the
children of the Kingdom," both are "to grow together
until the harvest," and " the harvest is the end of the world"
" This world " " this present evil world " world, not as
denoting the great mass of the unregenerate, but " this
duv," or dispensation " this present evil aiuv " is con-
trasted with "the alto pftJ*n>" " the world to come"^and
"the Prince," and " the God " of Ms world, is not Christ^
but Satan. " We see not yet all things put under Christ."
It is " the world to come " that is to be in subjection to
Him. Now, the Christian life is a warfare, and the world
and Satan, as well as the flesh, are enemies. We are
exhorted to " clothe ourselves in the armor of God, that
we may be able to withstand the wiles of the devil." Is
there any intimation in God's word, that at any period of
the present dispensation, this and similar representations
with which the New Testament abounds, are to become
obsolete? And yet, will not this be so, if for a thousand
years before the Advent, Satan is to be " bound and cast
into the bottomless pit, that he go not forth to deceive the
nations?" Is there any intimation in the New Testament
that at any period of this dispensation, the commission to
"teach all nations," is to become obsolete? And yet, will
not this be so, if, before the Advent, there is to be an era
when "they shall not teach every nlan his neighbor, and
every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall
know Him, from the least to the greatest?" In the sec-
ond Epistle to the Thessalonians, 2d chapter, Paul foretells
what would occur before the Advent, and he mentions, not
the Millennium, but an apostasy. " That day shall not
come except there be a falling away first, and the man of
sin be revealed;" and as if to exclude the idea of the Mil
lennium intervening, he adds: "Whom the Lord shall
412 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
destroy with the brightness of His coming" the Epiphany
of His Parouisa terms which, throughout the New Test-
ament, are specially appropriated to designate the personal
Advent of the Lord, when He shall come again " in His
glory."
These references to the positive teaching of the New
Testament respecting the present dispensation might be
entended indefinitely. But it is needless. If the question
at issue is to be determined by the authority of God's
word, do not the passages above referred to furnish a dem-
onstration of the pre-millennarian faith, which can not be
successfully gainsaid or resisted?
3. Whilst the New Testament makes no allusion to a
universal reign of righteousness before the Advent, the
Advent itself is repeatedly, prominently referred to, and
as an event ever imminent the great object of the Chris-
tian's desire and expectation.
As Christ's " appearing and His Kingdom " are in the
New Testament conjoined, He has made the desire for His
"appearing" part of the first petition of our daily prayer.
That His followers might have it ever in view, He reminds
them of it in every administration of that Holy Sacrament
in which we " do show the Lord's death until He comes"
u Paul in all his Epistles speaketh of these things." (2 Peter
3:16.) Peter speaks of it again and again in his first
Epistle, and then makes it the one theme of a second Epis-
tle. James and John, and even Jude in his brief Epistle,
holds it prominently forth. The Apocalypse opens with
the announcement, " Behold He Cometh;" and closes with
the declaration of Christ Himself, " Surely I come quickly -,"
and the responsive prayer of the beloved disciple, the last
utterance of the breath of inspiration, " Amen. Even so,
come Lqrd Jesus.
Not only is " this blessed hope " thus prominent, but no
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 413
other truth of our holy religion is more frequently urged
as an incentive .to holiness, to patience under suffering, to
steadfastness in the faith, to vigilance and fidelity in Christ's
service. "The day is at hand, let us, therefore, cast off the
works of darkness and put on the armor of light." (Rom.
13:12.) "Be patient, brethren, the coming of the Lord
draweth nigh." ( Jas. 5 : 7.) *' The end of all things is at hand,
Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer." (1 Pet. 4: 7.)
" The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night, there-
fore, let us watch and be sober." (1 Thess. 5: 2, 6.)
It should be observed that the point of these inspired
exhortations, and of other similar passages that might be
quoted, is not the mere fact or certainty of the Advent,
but its possible nearness, that for aught that was revealed,
it might occur in their day.
Now, is this the language of men who believed that a
millennium was to intervene before the Advent? Had such
been their faith, could they have uttered such exhortations?
Pre-millennarians express their distinctive faith in the very
language of the inspired Apostles. Could they do so if
the inspired Apostles were not pre-millennarians?
And here, without subjecting ourselves to the charge of
uncharitableness, may we not be permitted to ask, do our
post-millennarian brethren treat the doctrine of the Advent
as the Apostles treated it? Are they heard proclaiming,
with the emphasis, and frequency, and urgency, with which
the Apostles proclaimed it: " The coming of the Lord
draweth nigh!" "The day of the Lord is at handf"
Does " the glorious appearing," and the possible nearness
of it, occupy that prominent place in the teaching and the
experience of the church at the present day, which, beyond
all question, those precious truths do occupy in the inspired
word? Or has not the expectation of the conversion of
the world and the millennium before the Advent, thrust
414 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
into the back ground, and crowded almost entirely out of
view, and of influence, the Apostolic doctrine and Apostolic
exhortations respecting " the glorious appearing?"
In probably the ablest work which has been written in
defence of the common opinion, Dr. Brown, with com-
mendable candor, says, "Pre-millennialists have done the
Church a service by calling attention to the place which the
Second Advent holds in the Word of God and the scheme
of divine truth. When they dilate upon the prominence
given to this doctrine in the Scriptures, and the practical
uses which are there made of it, they touch a chord in the
heart of every lover of the Lord, and carry conviction to
all who tremble at His word. With them we affirm, that
THE REDEEMER'S SECOND APPEARING is THE VERY POLE-STAR
OF THE CHURCH. That it is so set forth in the New Testa-
ment is beyond all dispute." He subsequently adds, " If
Christ's Second Appearing, instead of being full in the
view of the Church, is shifted into the background, while
other anticipations are advanced into its room, which,
though themselves Scriptural, do not occupy in the Scrip-
tures the place which we assign them, are we trembling at
the authority and wisdom of God in His Word, or are
we not rather leaning on our own understanding?
In view of such declarations by one of the most eminent
defenders of the common doctrine whose Biblical scholar-
ship none will call in question are we not justified in saying,
that when any presume to denounce pre-millennarianism,
as many do, as a wholly unscriptural and hurtful delusion,
they but make manifest that they have never given to the
subject, calm, dispassionate, and unprejudiced consideration?
4. The doctrine of a millennium before the Advent is
inconsistent with the Saviour's solemn injunction, five times
repeated in the Gospel record, and illustrated and enforced
again and again by parable, " Watch, for in such an hour
DEFENCE OF PREMILLENNARIANISM. 415
as ye think not the Son of Man cometh" (Matt. 24:42;
25:13. Mark 13:33, 35. Luke 21:36.) "And what 1
say unto you I say unto all, watch" (Mark 13: 37.)
The coming here referred to is described in the context
as " the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory"
Now, the point to which we would direct attention is,
that the duty here enjoined is not simply that of believing
that the Lord will certainly come again at some time in the
distant future it is that of watching for His coming as
an event ever imminent. Watching for the occurrence of
an expected event, and believing that an event will occur
after a long interval of time, are two entirely different
states of mind. Now, can we believe that when the Lord
enjoined the former, He intended to enjoin the latter?
Further, the reason annexed to the injunction determines
its meaning beyond the possibility of excusable misappre-
hension. We are to do what is here commanded because
we " Know not the hour when the Son of Man cometh."
The duty has respect, not to the certainty of the event, but
to the uncertainty as to the time of its occurrence.
If watching with expectation as for an imminent event
be the duty enjoined, the force of the reason annexed is
evident. On the other hand, if believing in the certainty
of the event is what is intended, is not the reason annexed
wholly irrelevant? Is it credible that the Saviour meant
to enjoin, " Believe that I shall certainly come again in the
distant future, after the conversion of the world and one of
universal righteousness on earth, for ye know not the hour
when the Son of Man cometh?"
So also would the accompanying parables be wholly
irrelevant, if the Coming of the Lord is not to be regarded
as an event ever imminent. " If the good man of the house
had known in what watch the thief would come, he would
416 SECOND COMING OF C HEIST.
have watched.'' We are to be expecting the Lord's Coming
as the virgins the coming of the bridegroom, as servants
the return of their master, not knowing whether he would
come at " even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in
the morning." The offence of " the evil servant " was not
that he denied or doubted the certainty of the Master's
return that he acknowledges in the very language attrib-
uted to him. His offence was " saying in his heart " what
many of the Lord's servants nowadays say with their lips,
and even insist on as an article of faith "My lord
delayeth his coming."
In view of the unequivocal language in which the injunc-
tion is expressed, the reason annexed to it, and the parables
which accompany it, is any other interpretation possible,
than that given in our Westminster Confession, Chap.
XXXIII., Sec. 3" Christ will have that day unknown to
men that they may shake off all carnal security, and be
always watchful because they know not at what hour the
Lord will come?" And if this be its meaning, is it not
inconsistent with the doctrine that the millennium is to
intervene before the Advent?
5. The doctrine is also inconsistent with the repeated and
explicit teaching of the New Testament, that the manifest-
ation of the Messianic Kingdom and the Second Advent
are to be synchronous events. (Luke 19:12-27.) "He
spake a parable because they were nigh unto Jerusalem,
and because they thought that the Kingdom of God should
immediately appear. He said, therefore, A certain noble-
man went into a far country to receive for himself a
kingdom and to return. And when he was returned,
having received the kingdom," etc. We are here taught
two things first, that the disciples were not in error in
expecting a kingdom to be manifested here on the earth^
under the personal reign of the Messiah. Their error was
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNAEIANISM. 417
as to the time of the manifestation. The correction of
their error as to the time, is an implied acknowledgment
that their expectation was correct as to the fact. Secondly,
we are expressly taught that the Kingdom which Christ
has gone into the heavens to receive of the Father, is to be
manifested at, and not before, His return again to this earth.
Luke 21:24-31 The Saviour here predicts events that
are to immediately precede the Advent " signs in the sun
and moon and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of
nations with perplexity and then shall they see the Son of
man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And
He spake a parable, Behold the fig tree and all the trees,
when they now shoot forth ye see and know that Summer
is nigh at hand. So likewise when ye see these things
come to pass, know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh
at hand." The coming of the Son of man, and the King-
dom of God, are here assumed to be synchronous events
with respect to the time of their occurrence, the ono is
referred to as identical with the other.
Again, Acts 3:19-21 "Repent and be converted, that
your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall
send Jesus Christ, whom the heavens must receive UNTIL
the time of restitution of all things which God hath spoken
by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world
began." That the expressions, " the times of refreshing,"
" the times of restitution of all things, refer to the Messianic
kingdom predicted by all the Old Testament prophets is
not, so far as we are aware, -called in question. We have
here, then, an inspired declaration upon the very point at
issue, so explicit that we might have supposed it would
have been regarded as decisive. Yet, to avoid its force, the
advocates of the common theory (see Dr. Brown, Dr. Alex-
ander, Mr. Barnes, and others) maintain that by the words
27
418 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
" until the times of restitution," we are to understand
until the times of restitution are fulfilled or ended. That
is, if the apostle had declared that Christ should not come
until the nineteenth century! he would have meant until
the nineteenth century had been " completed " that is, until
the twentieth century. For an interpretation so unnatural
what other reason can be assigned than the exigency of an
erroneous theory? In the passage quoted above from Luke
21, when the Saviour wished to teach that Jerusalem should
be trodden down until the times of the Gentiles were
fulfilled, he said so. Why should not Peter have said so-
here if he had intended to express the same idea?
Again, 2 Tim. 4: 1 " I charge thee before God and the
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead
at His appearing and His kingdom."
Again, Kev. 11: 15-18 "And the seventh angel sounded;
and there were great voices in the heaven saying, The
kingdoms of this world are become (the kingdoms) of our
Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and
ever. And the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come,
and the time of the dead that they should be judged,
and that Thou shouldst give reward unto Thy servants the
prophets, and to Thy saints, and to them that fear Thy
name, small and great, and shouldst destroy them which
destroy the earth." Now, there are undoubtedly many
things in the Apocalypse, as in the other Scriptures, " hard
to be understood," but unless the title of this book be
altogether a misnomer, we are here taught that when
Christ shall come to judge the. world, then, and not before,
" the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom
of our Lord and of his Christ."
6. That we have not misapprehended the New Testa-
ment doctrine respecting the Millennium is confirmed
were confirmation necessary by the fact that the Apostolic
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 419
Church understood the Apostles to teach that the Second
Coming of the Lord was an event ever imminent.
They accordingly "looked for" the Advent with longing
desire and expectation not (as many misapprehend and
misrepresent the doctrine of the Apostolic Church on this
subject) with expectation that the Advent would certainly
occur in their day, but, that for aught that was revealed,
it might occur in their day. The Corinthian Christians are
commended by Paul, in that they "came behind in no
gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
(1 Cor. 1:5.) The conversion of the Thessalonians from
heathenism to Christianity is described as " turning from
idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for
His Son from heaven." (1 Thess. 1 : 10.) So common was
this expectation in the Apostolic Church, that Christians
were designated by this characteristic of their piety.
" Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second
time without sin unto salvation." (Heb. 9:28.) "There
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, shall give me in that day; and not to
me only, but unto all them that love His appearing" (2
Tim.*4:8.) See also Kom. 8:19-23; Phil. 3:20; 1 Thess.
4:15; 5:10; Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 3:11-13.
In his commentary on 1 Cor. 1 : 7, Dr. Hodge remarks:
" The second advent of Christ, so clearly predicted by
Himself and His Apostles, was the object of longing
expectation to all the early Christians. So general was
this expectation, that Christians were characterized as those
4 who love His appearing' as those ' who wait for Him.' "
Mr. Barnes, on the same passage, remarks: "The earnest
expectation of the Lord Jesus became one of the marks of
early Christian piety." In Lange's commentary on the
same passage it is said: "This constant expectation of our
Lord's Second Coming is one of the
420 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
of primitive Christianity; hence the clause has been taken
as a simple paraphrase of the word Christians." In Cony-
beare and Howson's Life of St. Paul, (Yol. I, p. 401, Amer.
ed.) it is said: " The early Church, and even the Apostles
themselves, expected the Lord to come again in that very
generation. St. Paul himself shared in that expectation."
In his recent work on u The Beginning of Christianity,"
Professor Fisher who is not a Pre-Millennarian says:
" This expectation (of the personal Coming of the Lord) is
expressed by all the Apostles in terms which fairly admit
of no other interpretation. It is found in Paul, Rom.
13:11,12; 1 Cor. 7:29, 31; 10: 11; Phil. 4: 5; 1 Tim. 6:14.
The same expectation is expressed in Heb. 10:25; Jas.
5:3,8; 1 Pet. 4:7; 2 Pet. 3:3; Jude, verse 18; 1 John
2:18; and in the Apocalypse 1 : 1 ; 3:11; 22:7,22,20. To
put any other construction on these passages, as if the
Parousia, to which they refer were anything else than the
Second Advent of the Lord to judgment, would introduce
a dangerous license in interpretation, and one which might
be employed to subvert the principal doctrines of the
Christian system."
Without extending these references to authorities as we
might it may be regarded as an acknowledged historical
fact that, on the main point at issue between Pre-Millenna-
rians and their brethren, the Apostolic Church was Pre-
Millennarian. The question under discussion, therefore,
resolves itself into this: Was the Apostolic Church in error
on this subject? If the question were as to the meaning of
some obscure and comparatively unimportant passage of the
New Testament, the interpretation of the Apostolic Church
might not be regarded as authoritative and final. But when
the question has reference to a doctrine repeatedly and
prominently presented by both Christ and the Apostles
presented, too, as a matter of the highest practical moment
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 421
and in terms, moreover, which imply that the subject was
familiarly known and well understood is it not simply
incredible, that after all, not merely here and there an
ignorant believer, but that the whole body of believers
the Church in which dwells the promised Spirit as a guide
to truth should have entirely misapprehended the meaning
of their inspired teachers, and have been, not merely in
doubt, but in positive error, as to the duty to which they
were exhorted? Is it credible that a doctrine which unin-
spired men at the present day have no difficulty in stating
in terms that can not be misunderstood, those holy men,
who spake and wrote "as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost," not only failed to teach intelligibly, but even com-
mended the misapprehension of those who were led into
error by their teaching? Or, if we accept the inevitable
conclusion that the inspired Apostles did not teach this
doctrine, by what authority do any teach it now?
7. The doctrine of the Pre-Millennial Advent con-
tinued to be the unquestioned faith of the Church until
near the dose of the third century that is, until the time
of Origen. He taught that " the Scriptures are of little
use if we understand them as they are written;" and, with
reference to his allegorizing now called spiritualizing
method of interpretation, Milner says: "No man, not
altogether unsound and hypocritical, ever injured the Church
more than Origen did."
In proof of our main statement above, the following
authorities may suffice:
Mosheim 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 with no opposition
previous to the time of Origen."
Gieseler says : " In all the works of this period (the first
two centuries) Millenarianism is so prominent that we can
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
not hesitate to consider it as universal." Hagenbach
qualifies this statement of Gieseler by mentioning certain
Fathers of this period whose writings contain no reference
to the Millennium, but neither Hagenbach or any other
Church historian refers to any expression opposed to Mil-
Jennarianism in the writings of any, of the Fathers before
Origen.
Ohillingworth, with his characteristic invulnerable logic,
argues : " Whatever doctrine is believed and taught by
the most eminent Fathers of any age of the Church, and
by none of their cotemporaries opposed or condemned, that
is to be esteemed the catholic doctrine of the Church of
those times. But the doctrine of the Millennaries was
believed and taught by 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 doc-
trine of those times."
Stackhouse, in his " Complete Body of Divinity," says:
" It can not be denied but that this doctrine (millennarian-
ism) has its antiquity, and was once the general opinion of
all orthodox Christians"
Bishop Newton says: " The doctrine of the Millennium
(as held by Millennarians) was generally believed in the
three first and purest ages."
Bishop Russell, though an anti - Millennarian, says:
" Down to the beginning of the fourth century, the belief
was universal and undisputed."
Gibbon, who is at least an unprejudiced witness, says:
"The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was
carefully inculcated by a succe&sion of Fathers from Justin
Martyr and Irenseus, who conversed with the immediate
disciples of the Apostles, down to Lactantius, who was the
preceptor of the son of Constantine. It appears to have
been the reigning sentiment of orthodox believers" He
IWF3NCJB OF PRBWLLBNirJLRIANISM*
adds : - A - long as this error (as he calls it) was permitted
to subsist in die Church, it was productive of the most
A7,V7"y f jv. ?>< on I ho faith and practice of Christians."
x >t to needlessly extend this list of authorities, we would
add the testimony of NY hitby, the father of the modern
nillennariau theory. In his " Treatise on Tradition "
he candidly acknowledges, i% The doctrine of die millennium
passed among the best of Christians, for two hundred and
years, as a tradition apostolical, and as such is delivered
by iriany fathers of the second and third centuries, who
speak of it as a tniditwn of our Lord and ffis J#o$tk$,
<wd ofatt M* ancwute *cA<> lived otfbr* them, who tell us
the very words in which it was delivered, the Scriptures
iterpreted, and say that it wot KM by all
Christian* Mot toer* mc#y ortAodox."
8, -The common doctrine respecting the Millennium is
notWty in th* history of th* okwrek It is not to be
found in the standards of any of the churches of the Refor-
mation by several it is impliedly repudiated. The same
he said of the writings of the Reformers. The doctrine
was first proposed by Whitby, but little more than 150
years ago, and avowedly as ** a New Hypothesis."
Ki>;.-iv:in the Millennium, the prevalent doctrine in the
churches of the Reformation though by no means univer-
sally accepted was that held by die Romish Church, that
M* Jfittwnium had already occurred some dating its
commencement from the birth of Christ, others from the
day of Pentecost, others from the destruction of .lornsalein.
others from the conversion of Constantino. Th
held this opinion differed from the Pre-millennarians on the
comparatively unimportant question respecting the events
to occur subsequent to the Ad\ cut, but on the main question
the only question of immediate practical imports:
that now under discussion they were in entire accord with
the Pre-millennarians.
424 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
The language in which several of the Confessions condemn
the Anabaptist heresy, is inconsistent with the idea of a
Millennial era before the Advent. The Augsburg Confes-
sion condemns those " who spread abroad Jewish opinions,,
that before the resurrection of the dead, the godly shall
get the sovereignty of the world and the wicked be brought
under in every place." The later Confession of Helvetia
" condemns the Jewish dreams that before the judgment
there shall be a golden world in the earth, and that the
godly shall possess the kingdoms of the world, their wicked
enemies being trodden under foot."
As to the Westminster Confession, a recent writer in
defence of the common doctrine says, " the only recogni-
tion we find anywhere in the Standards (of the Presbyterian
Church) is that in the Answer of the Larger Catechism to
the Question, ' What do we pray for in the second petition
of the Lord's prayer?' It is said among other things that
we pray, that ' the Gospel may be propagated throughout
the world, the Jews called, and the fullness of the Gentiles
brought in.' " Now, is there anything in this language
inconsistent with Pre-millennarianism? Taken in connec-
tion with the language quoted above from the Westminster
Confession that " Christ will have the day of His coming
unknown to men that they may be ever watchful " is it
not just such a recognition of a Millennium before the-
Advent, as we should expect to find in Standards framed
by an Assembly, of which Baillie,,one of the Commission-
ers from Scotland, and an Anti-Millennarian, writes, " The
most of the chief divines here, not only Independents, but
others, such as Twisse (the Moderator), Marshall, Palmer y
and others, are express Chiliasts." As the question haa
recently been gravely we can scarcely say, seriously
raised, whether Pre-millennarians shall be tolerated in the-
Presbyterian Church? we may be permitted to suggest that
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 425
the discussion may be materially abridged by stating the
question in the following form: Shall a doctrine which was
held by most of the eminent divines of the Westminster
Assembly, including the Moderator, be tolerated in the
Presbyterian Church?
As to the views of the Reformers:
Luther, in his commentary on John 10: 16, says: " Some
say that before the latter day the whole world shall become
Christians. This is a falsehood forged by Satan, that he
might darken sound doctrine. Beware of the delusion."
Again he says : " I believe that all the signs which are
to precede the last day have already happened," "Let u&
not think that the Coming of Christ is far off; let us look
up with heads lifted up; let us expect our Redeemer'&
coming with a longing and cheerful mind.
Melancthon, as quoted by Elliott, savs: "This aged
world is not far from its end."
Calvin, in his Institutes, Book III, chap. 25, says:
" Scripture uniformly enjoins us to look with expectation
for the Advent of Christ." Again, Commentary on 1
Thess. 1: 10: " Whoever would persevere in the course of
'a holy life, let him apply his whole mind to the hope of the
Advent of Christ." Commentary on 1 Thess. 4:17 ("we
which are alive," etc.) " By speaking in the first person,
making himself, as it were, one of the number of those
who would live until the last day, he would arouse the
Thessalonians to wait for it nay more, to hold all believers-
in suspense."
John Knox, in his treatise on fasting, says: " The Lord
Jesus shall return, and that with expedition. What were
this else but to reform the face of the whole earth, which
never was, nor yet shall be, till that righteous King and
Judge appear for the restoration of all things." Again:
" Our Heavenly Father, to hold us in remembrance that in
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
this wretched world there is no rest, suffereth us to be tried,
that with an unfeigned heart we may desire not only an end
of our own troubles for that shall come to us by death
but also of all troubles of the Church of God, which shall
not be before the Coming of the Lord Jesus." Again:
"By the signs forespoken by our Master, which for the
most part are now present (fulfilled), consider the end of
this most corrupt world to be short."
Without further particular quotation, the following testi-
mony of the martyr Latimer, as to the faith of the
Reformers, may suffice: "All those excellent and learned
men whom, without doubt, God hath sent into the world
in these latter days to give the world warning, do gather
out of Scripture that the last day can not be far off."
(Third Sermon on the Lord's Prayer.) Again, he says:
*' Peradventure it may come in my days, old as I am, or in
my children's days."
After carefully investigating the subject, Dr. Henshaw,
the late Bishop of Rhode Island, in his treatise on the
Second Advent, says: "We may safely challenge its advo-
cates (the advocates of the common doctrine) to produce
one distinguished writer in its favor who lived before the
commencement of the eighteenth century."
Now, we respectfully submit: Can that be an article of
the Christian faith which not only was not believed, but is
inconsistent with what was believed by the Apostolic Church,
by the Church for the two succeeding centuries, and by the
Church of the Reformation? Ought not such consent in
favor of the Pre-Millennial Advent to be regarded as
decisive?
Our reasons, then, for rejecting the doctrine of a millen-
nial era of universal righteousness and peace on earth
before the Advent, are summarily as follows:
1. The doctrine is not taught by either Christ or His
Apostles.
DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLENNARIANISM. 42?
2. The uniform teaching of the New Testament respect-
ing the condition of the Church and of the world during
the present dispensation, forbids the expectation of such a
millennium.
3. The Advent itself, not the millennium, is prominently
presented in the New Testament as " the blessed hope " of
the Church, and is uniformly presented as an event ever
imminent.
4. The Saviour's repeated command to " watch " for His
coming, because we " know not the hour," is inconsistent
with the idea of a millennium intervening.
5. The New Testament teaches that the manifestation of
the Messianic Kingdom is to occur at, and not before, the
Advent.
6. The Apostolic Church was pre-millennarian.
7. The Church for two centuries immediately succeeding
the Apostles, was pre-millennarian.
8. The doctrine of a millennial era before the Advent
is a novelty in the history of the Church proposed but
little more that 150 years ago, and avowedly as " a New
Hypothesis."
We have given a summary of the argument in defence
of pre-millennarianism. Permit me in closing, to direct
attention to the summary of Christian faith and practice
given by an inspired Apostle. " The grace of God which
bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us
tJtat denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, LOOK-
ING FOR THAT BLESSED HOl'E, EVEN THE GLORIOUS APPEARING
OF THE GREAT GOD AND OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST." ""These
things" said Paul to Titus and through him to all who
labor in the ministry of the world " These things teach
and exhort" In obedience to the Apostolic injunction, let
me exhort you who hear us this day, to " watch " for the
428 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
glorious appearing, as servants for the return of the master,
"for ye know not the hour when the Lord cometh" Let
scoffers ask, " "Where is the promise of His coming?" Let
believers ask, " Why think ye that His coming is immi-
nent?" Brethren, u Ye are not in darkness that that day
should overtake you unawares, ye yourselves know per-
fectly that the day of the Lord shall come," that it shall
come " as a thief in the night," " in an hour when men
think not," when the world is saying " peace and safety,"
when even the vigil virgins are slumbering and sleeping,
as the flood in the days of JNoah, as the lightning from
heaven on Sodom, unexpected, unsuspected, " So, shall the
coming of the Son of Man be." " Let us, then, who are of
the day watch and be sober." With trimmed lamps and
loins girded, let us watch and wait with longing desire and
expectation for the coming of the Master, for " Blessed is
that servant whom the Lord when He cometh shall find
watching"
HOPE OF CHRISTS COMING. 429
HOPE OF CHRIST'S COMING AS A MOTIVE TO
HOLY LIVING AND ACTIVE LABOR.
BY THE REV. DR. RUFTJS W. CLARK, REFORMED CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y.
ST. PAUL, in his Epistle to Titus, says (2: 11-13): " For the
grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all
men, teaching (or training) us, that denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts, we shall live soberly, righteously and
godly in this present world, looking for (or waiting with
joy for) that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the
great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ."
We have here set forth the attitude and blessed hope of
the Church, in expectation of Christ's coming. First, the
grace of God, that is the source and foundation of the work
of redemption, has already appeared or been manifested,
in the incarnation and atoning sacrifice of Christ for the
sins of mankind. This grace and its manifestations are to
teach, train, or discipline us (the Greek admitting of either
rendering), that we deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and
should live soberly, justly and godly in the present world:
soberly, comprising faithfulness to ourselves; justly, in our
dealings with our fellow-men; and godly, embracing our
duties to God. Having received divine grace to our hearts,
and laboring to conform our lives to the will of God and
the requirements of the Gospel, Christians are required to
be in the attitude of looking and joyfully expecting that
blessed hope, and the manifestation of the glory of the
great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ. The phrase
" blessed hope" here is not to be taken subjectively as desig-
nating the state or act of hoping, but as referring to the
object hoped for; namely, the appearing or coming of our
430 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Saviour Jesus Christ in glory. The saving grace in God,
that has already appeared, forms the basis of the Christian
faith, love and righteousness. But the work that has been
thus begun is to be carried forward to its consummation and
perfection, by looking for the Saviour's return to the earth;
by an habitual and joyful expectation of His coming in the
clouds of heaven with all the holy angels; by patiently
waiting in firm faith and glowing hope, for the shout or
word of command, for the voice of the archangel and the
trump of God, that will announce the opening scene of the
grand drama of the Second Advent.
This passage from the Epistle to Titus, may be regarded
as an epitome of the exhortations, doctrines, duties and
hopes, that abound in the Holy Scriptures, in connection
with the coming of our blessed Lord. There is not a doc-
trine of Christianity, upon which the light of this great
truth does not shine, and render more important and
luminous by its radiance. There is not a duty pertaining
to the Christian life, that is not quickened and rendered
more imperative by its power. There is not a virtue that
it does not call into the highest exercise; not a motive in
the human heart that it does not purify and strengthen;
not a hope for the future that it does not kindle with a new
and celestial fire. We may begin with the duty of repent-
ance, with which the coming Kingdom of Heaven was
heralded at the time of the First Advent,' and trace along
in their natural or logical order, the various duties and
obligations that are pressed upon the followers of Christ,
up to that presented in Kev. 3:11: " Behold I come quickly ;
hold that fast that thou hast, that no man take thy crown,'*
and we shall find them enforced and rendered if possible
more sacred and binding by the truth that bursts upon us
from so many pages of the New Testament, that "The Lord
cometh."
HOPE OF CHRIST'S COMING. % 431
In Acts 3:19-21 we find the call, " Repent ye, there-
fore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,
when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence
of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before
was preached unto you; whom the Heavens must receive,
until the times of the restitution of all things, which God
hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since
the world began."
The word translated "when" in the 19th verse, should,
according to eminent commentators, Dr. Lange, Dean
Alford, Dr. J. A. Alexander, and others, be rendered " in
order that," or, "so that." It can have no other meaning.
The call, therefore, of the Apostles upon the Jews to repent,
and have their sins blotted out, was " in order that the
times of refreshing may come from the presence of the
Lord." He looked forward to the happy period, at the
close of the present dispensation, when the Lord would
again appear, and He desired to have it hastened by the
repentance of the people. At the ascension of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Heavens had received Him, and He would
remain there until the times of restitution of all things-
times wherein all things will be restored, of which all God's
holy prophets had spoken since the world began. When
those times begin, " Jesus Christ, which before was preached
unto you," or rather " the Messiah Jesus, who was before
appointed unto you," will be sent from heaven, and in view
of this blessed truth, and to hasten the coming of the
Lord, the summons goes forth to the Jews, and with more
emphasis now to all mankind, as we " see the day approach-
ing," to repent, and be converted and have their sins blot-
ted out.
In Revelation 3: 3, the Church at Sardis is thus exhorted
and warned by the Holy Spirit: "Remember, therefore,
how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent.
432 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as
a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come
upon thee." The Church at Sardis had become greatly
secularized. It had a name to live. In its creed and out-
ward observance, it occupied a right position, but spiritu-
ally it was dead. A few members had not defiled their
garments by falling into sin. They have the promise
that they shall walk in white robes, with the King in His
glory. But the others are exhorted to hold fast what of
true religion remains to them, and to repent of their depart-
ures from God and failures in Christian duty. To how
many churches in our day is this language applicable ? To
how many spiritual sleepers are the startling words of
Christ addressed? " If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I
will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what
hour I will come upon thee."
NECESSITY OF REPENTANCE AND CONVERSION.
Repentance and conversion are urged, in these passages
we have quoted, that we may hasten the times of refreshing
from the presence of the Lord, who is coming to restore all
things; and that we may watch and patiently wait for His
appearing. The first end relates to His Kingdom, and the
benefits we are the means of conferring upon others. The
second end pertains to ourselves, to our spiritual life, to our
steadfastness in the faith, to our growth in grace, and in
the knowledge of the Lord. The author of Christianity
saw the necessity, growing out of our mental and moral
constitution, of having placed before the eye of the believer,
at the outset of his Christian life, and object of hope, to
comfort him in hours of despondency; to sustain him in
the midst of trials and difficulties, to warm his affections
and kindle his ardor in fai thful services for the Master, who
might return at any moment. The day and hour of His
HOPE OF CHRISFS COMING. 433
coming were not revealed, that the whole Church, from
generation to generation, might feel the power of the doc-
trine, and every believer stand in the attitude of patient
watching and ardent longing for His appearing.
Having repented of sin, and entered upon the Christian
life, our Lord thus exhorts His followers: " And He said
to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. * * *
For whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of
him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He shall come
in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy
angels." (Luke 9:23,26.) You observe that in this pas-
sage, as well as in others, where much severer language is
used, as in Matt. 7:21-23 and 25:31-41, our Lord brings
His coming in glory to bear with an immense pressure
upon the primary and fundamental duties of the Christian
life. The scene is the most impressive because He will
appear surrounded by a three-fold glory, His own, His
Father's, and that of the holy angels, who will all be wit-
nesses of the shame and confusion that will come upon the
unfaithful disciple. To add force to the warning, and to
the announcement of His coming, He concludes by saying:
"But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here
which shall not taste of death till they have seen the King-
dom of God," referring to the transfiguration, that is imme-
diately afterward described. Thus He furnishes them with
a preliminary fulfillment of His prophecy. And from the
illuminated summit of Mount Tabor, from the heavenly
brightness of our Lord's countenance, and His pure white
raiment; from the glorious forms of Moses and Elias,
representing the hosts that will yet appear in the clouds
with the returning Messiah, there come influences that
prompt us to deny ourselves to take up our cross daily and
follow Christ, and never be ashamed of Him in His humil-
434 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
iation and suffering; that He may not be ashamed of us
" when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father's
and of the holy angels."
The eminent Dr. J. J. Yan Oosterzee, in his comments
on this passage in Lange, says, "The manifestations on
Tabor deserve to be called a striking revelation of the future
state in this. We see here the spirits of just men made
perfect, live unto God, even though centuries have already
flown over their dust. In a glorified body they are active
for the concerns of the Kingdom of God, in which they
take the holiest interest. Although separated by wide dis-
tances of time and space beneath, Moses and Elijah have
met and recognized each other in higher regions. The cen-
tre of their fellowship is the suffering and glorified Jesus,
and so blessed is their state that even their transient
appearance causes the light of the most glorious joy to
beam into the child of earth. * * * Thus do they
appear before us as types of that which the pious departed
are even now, in their condition of separation from the
body, and as prophets of that which the redeemed of the
Lord shall be, in yet higher measure, at His coming."
Our Lord, also, in connection with the warnings just
cited, directs His coming against the spirit of worldliness,
that pervaded the carnal Messianic hopes of the Jews. He
said: " What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole
world and lose his own soul? Or, what shall a man give
in exchange for his soul? * * * For the Son of Man
shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels,
and then He shall reward every man according to his
works." (Matt. 16:26, 27.) The most terrible of all cal-
amities, the loss of the soul, and with it necessarily the loss
of the whole world, were it possible to gain it for both
must go down together, if the former perishes this loss, I
say, is thrown, as it were, into the light of Christ's Second
HOPE OF CHRISTS COMING. 435
Advent, that we may see the magnitude of the calamity;
connected as it is with being shut out from the splendors
and raptures of that day, and from the precious and eternal
rewards that will be bestowed upon the faithful. In the
preceding verse (v. 25) where Christ says: "Whosoever
shall lose his life for My sake shall find it." He doubtless
refers to His Second Advent, when the lives that have
been sacrificed for Him shall re-appear in new and imperish-
able forms, and in bodies like unto His glorious body. In
the light of these passages from Divine lips, we can see
how much more it will profit us to suffer holy death for
Christ's sake than to gain all the treasures, honors, and
pleasures that the whole world can bestow.
We pass next to consider the inward Christian virtues
that are enveloped in the atmosphere and light and quick-
ening power of the day of the Lord. In Phillipians 1 : 9, 10 :
St. Paul says, " And this I pray, that your love may abound
yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that
ye may approve things that are excellent, that ye may be
sincere and without offence till the day of Christ," or more
correctly, " against, the day of Christ." Love having
been planted in the heart of the believer, and sincerity and
purity being elements of the new life, these are to be culti-
vated and made to abound more and more, for the day of
the Lord, when a character thus formed will be made man-
ifest. The passage is thus clearly and beautifully unfolded
by Dr. Karl Braune in his commentary on this epistle, in
Lange's series: Love combined with an active faith is the
central force which penetrates the inmost personality, directs
the life, and goes forward step by step towards its perfec-
tion. This progress shows itself in a two-fold way: (or)
internally, the Christian becomes intellectually more inti-
mate with God and with His thoughts. Love thus becomes
clearer, deeper, stronger. It increases in knowledge, grows
436 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
in that and with that, as an ethical effect; also, the love per-
ceives, experiences, feels the power of the Kingdom of God
with its manifold ordinances and richly endowed member-
ship. It thus becomes stronger, fuller, riper. It increases
in experience, grows in that and with that. Thus Christians
come to a surer judgment respecting the things which are
about them, and concern them within and without, good
and bad. The result is purity.
(5.) Externally love acts spontaneously, without calcula-
tion, with nice moral tact, with tender conscientiousness,
giving no offence. The eye ever directed to the end " the
Coming of the Lord," annunciates this love, thus progres-
sive to the final day of Christ.
PATIENCE AND ENDURANCE REQUIRED.
Next, this doctrine calls for the exercise of patience and
endurance. " Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the com-
ing of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the
precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it,
until he receives the early and latter rain. Be ye also
patient; establish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord
draweth nigh." (James 5:7,8.) Long-suffering patience
is a virtue that enters so largely into the Christian life and
character; that is so vitally connected with all the other
virtues, love, faith, steadfastness and hope; and is so inti-
mately associated with present and final success, in every
department of Christian service, that it needs to be con-
stantly nourished and strengthened. Especially should it
be maintained and exercised to the highest degree in refer-
ence to the coming of the Lord. And, let me ask, what is
there better calculated to promote in a Christian soul
patient endurance than the thought that " the coming of
Lord draweth nigh." With our eyes steadily fixed upon
the fact; with an intense love of His appearing; with an
HOPE OF GHRISTS COMING. 437
abiding faith in the exceeding great and precious promises
that cluster around this doctrine; arid with those promises
already taking root and germinating in our spiritual nature,
we shall find it easy to practice Christian patience; and to
look to the Lord to establish our " hearts unblamable in
holiness before God, even our Father, at the corning of oar
Lord Jesus Christ, with all His saints." (1 Thess. 3:13.)
It is not necessary that we should know the precise day or
hour of His coming. It is not essential that we should be
infallible in discerning the signs of the times of His near
approach; though it is our privilege and duty to study
these signs, and gather from them all the light we can bear-
ing upon the period of His probable appearance. But it
is essential that we should be patient, and that we should
listen to every injunction, and obey every command that
our Lord has given in connection with the event in His his-
tory, that, in His estimation, at least, towers above all
others. It is essential that we keep our eyes open to what
is transpiring around us, as possibly prophetic of stupend-
ous changes near at hand in the divine administration of
the Kingdom of Christ on the earth. By doing thus, we
shall meet all the solemn obligations that the Second Com-
ing imposes upon us; and if we die before the heavens are
lighted up with the splendors of His appearing, we shall
reap all the benefits in the first resurrection, that will accrue
to those who are alive, and remain to hear the shout, the
voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God.
The beautiful lesson that the Apostle James draws from
the kingdom of nature and applies to the kingdom of grace
should be treasured up in our hearts. The husbandman,
representing believers, confides his seed to the earth, where
it is invisible, and apparently subject to decay. He sees
the precious fruit in expectation, and this gives him his
long-enduring patience. He is cheered by the early and
438 SECOND COMLNG OF CHRIST.
latter rain, that give promise of the coming harvest. So
the richer harvests of eternity wave in expectation before
our vision, and our weary hearts are refreshed by the show-
ers of grace that come to us from our risen and ascended
Lord. St. Paul thus urges the exercise of this virtue in
Heb. 10: 35, 37. " Cast not away therefore your confidence,
which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have
need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God,
ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and
He that shall come, will come and will not tarry." Believ-
ers are here encouraged to cling to their faith, and exercise
patience, because the recompense of reward is as sure as
the Lord's return, who is, as it were, already on the way.
His coming is emphasized by the repetition, " yet a little
while and He that shall come, will come and will not tarry."
Here Christ appears as the subject of the vision prophesied
by Habakkuk 2:3: " For the vision is yet for an appointed
time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie; though it
tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not
tarry." The coming of Christ is the grand and ultimate
consummation of all prophetical vision, and He will not
lie, nor deceive those who put their confidence in Him.
He will surely come and will not tarry.
This truth is used as a motive to sobriety. St. Paul
says (1 Thess. v. 1, 2, 6): " Of the times and the seasons,
brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For
yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so
cometh as a thief in the night. . . . Therefore let us not
sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober." As to
the precise time of Christ's coming, there was no need that
the Apostle should discuss that, for it could not be deter-
mined, though we are required to notice the signs of the
time. The great fact ever to be kept in view is that the
day of the Lord will come suddenly, unexpectedly, as a
HOPE OF CHRISTS COMING. 439
thief in the night. It is possible for Him to come at any
hour, hence the children of the light should watch and be
sober. Sobriety is frequently joined with watchfulness, as
in 1 Peter 4:7. " But the end of all things is at hand; be
ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer." Upon this
passage Calvin remarks: "The end he speaks of is not
merely that of each several individual, but the entire
renovation of the world: as if he had said that Christ will
shortly come, and put an end to all things. It is not strange,
therefore, it we are overwhelmed by worldly cares, and held
in slumber, or if the sight of present things dazzles our
eyes; because we do all commonly promise ourselves an
eternity in this world; never, at least, does the end come
into the mind. "Whereas did the trump of God sound in
our ears, it would keenly smite all our senses, nor suffer
them to be thus torpid. It might be objected, however,
that a long series of ages has elapsed since Peter wrote
this, and still the end is not yet seen. I answer that to us
the time seems long for this reason, that we measure
its length by the spaces of the present life, but that, could
we have respect to the perpetuity of the life to come, many
generations would be for us as it were a moment (2 Pet.
3 : 8). Moreover it must be held as a first principle, that
ever since the appearing of Christ there is nothing left to
the faithful but with wakeful minds to be always intent on
His Second Advent."
SUBDUING THE LUSTS OF THE FLESH.
In view of our appearing with Christ in glory, we are
required to mortify or put to death the lusts of the flesh.
" For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye
also appear with Him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your
members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanli-
440 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetous-
ness, which is idolatry." (Col. 3:3-5.) More literally and
freely rendered : For ye died to this world, and your life, the
resurrection and eternal life, is hidden, is at present con-
cealed with Christ in God, with Christ who is in the bosom
of the Father. When Christ who is our life, the essence
and impersonation of our life, is manifested, then shall ye
also with Him be manifested in glory. Though we now
appear to be dead, yet then our true and real life will bloom
out in its wondrous spiritual elements, its heavenly beauty
and its likeness to Christ. Animated by this sublime hope,
favored by Heaven with such a glorious destiny, the Apostle
exhorts the believer to put to death the members which are
upon the earth, which are earthly and sensual, and such as
belong to the old nature; and preparatory to meeting Christ
and sharing the splendors and honors of His second com-
ing, to put on, as God-elect, kindness, meekness, long-suf-
fering and love, which is the bond of perfection. We are
required to cultivate and practice the virtues that Christ
manifested in His earthly career, that we may share in the
glories of His heavenly appearing.
The Apostle John inculcates this purity in language
most sublime and thrilling. His words have for years
rung through my soul with an eloquence and power that
I can not express. <4 Beloved, now are we the sons of
God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we
know, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for
we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath
this hope in Him (the hope of seeing Christ and of being
like Him at His appearing), pnrih'eth himself, even as He,
that is Christ, is pure." (1 John 3, 2-3.) We are now at
this moment the sons or children of God, just as truly as
we ever shall be, although the full blessedness and glory of
our sonship is still concealed. Literally, " it never yet was
HOPE OF CHRISTS COMING. 441
manifested what we shall be; we know that when it shall
be manifested, we shall be like Him; because we shall see
Him as He is." There will be such a seeing of the nature,
character and glory of Christ, that our own being will be
penetrated by His, and so developed and enriched and illu-
minated, as to resemble the Divine and Holy One. And
every one that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself
even as Christ is pure. This moral likeness to Christ must
begin here; and we know of nothing better calculated to
produce it, than keeping the eye steadily fixed upon our
coming Lord; and the heart warm with the love of His
appearing.
This doctrine is presented by the Apostle Peter as the
great support under trials and persecution. " Beloved,
think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to
try you, as though some strange thing had happened unto
you; but rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's
sufferings; that when His glory shall be revealed, ye may
be glad also with exceeding joy." (1 Peter 4: 12, 13.) In
the opening chapter of this epistle, the Apostle indulges in
the same strain of warm sympathy and exulting hope,
directing the thoughts of his suffering fellow Christians to
the appearing of the Lord, as the event of transcendent
interest and inconceivable splendor, which " in the last
time," at the close of the present dispensation, is to burst
upon the Church, bringing unspeakable joy and rapture.
It is, as though he saw nothing else; thought of nothing
else; cared for nothing else. For this he lived, toiled, suf-
fered, and was willing to die. The return of his Lord, with
whom he had been so intimately associated in His first
advent, was the polar star that ever shone upon his path.
The splendor of His coming that seemed already to flash
before his vision, relieved the darkness of the tempestuous
ocean upon which he was now tossed. So penetrating and
442 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
absorbing was the power of this event, that he was led as
he desired his brethren to be led, to rejoice in being made
partakers of Christ's sufferings. It mattered not how
great or long-continued those sufferings were, he would
have them cheerfully endured.
He would have them welcome them and rejoice in them
as the greatest advantages they could possibly receive, as
far more to them than all the treasures and honors and
pleasures of earth. And for this reason, " That when His
glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceed-
ing joy." The joy now in partaking of His suffering is
the germ of an exultant and boundless joy that will be
experienced at the moment of His appearing.
The passage in the first chapter brings out the object for
which Christians are kept, and the preciousness of their
faith that is now severely tried ; who are kept by the power
of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed
in the last time. " Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now
for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through mani-
fold temptations. That the trial of your faith, being much
more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be
tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and
glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1: 5-7.)
Here the Apostle identifies our Lord's Second Coming
with the present Christian life in two most important
aspects, and draws from it encouragement and a sustaining
power that can be derived from no other source; and that,
we may add, can be received only by those who believe in
'Christ's return to His people.
Those whom God hath begotten " unto a lively hope by
the resurrection of Christ from the dead " are kept (a mili-
tary phrase expressive of a guard, or a strong garrison) by
the power of God. They have nothing to fear from the
-enemies of their salvation, for they are surrounded by a
HOPE OF CHRIST'S COMING. 443
strong bodyguard, by God Himself and His Holy Angels.
The same military term is used in Phil. 4: 7. "And the
peace of God that passeth all understanding shall keep
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Thus
believers are kept by the Divine Omnipotence, through
faith, unto a full and complete salvation, ready to be
revealed in the last time.
Peter, sharing with the other Apostles in the expectation
that Christ's Second Advent was near at hand, thus speaks
of this salvation upon which his heart is fixed, as ready to be
revealed, or fully disclosed in the last time, the period that
will begin with Christ's return. This nearness is spoken of
inKom. 13:11, 12; Phil. 4: 5; Heb. 10:25, 37; James5:7,
8; Rev. 1:3; 22: 10, 20. and in many other passages. In
the words of Luther, " The inheritance to which you are
ordained, has been acquired long since, and prepared from the
beginning of the world, but lies as yet concealed, covered
and sealed; but in a short time it will be opened in a
moment, and disclosed so that we may see it." In this fact,
that great treasures are reserved for believers, soon to be
revealed, they should greatly rejoice. But there is another
aspect of the subject of vital moment expressed in the
words: "That the trial of your faith, being much more
precious than of gold, that perisheth though it be tried
with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory
at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Faith under all circum-
stances is a valuable principle. But faith tested, proved
and purified in the furnace of persecution, is more precious
than gold, the most precious of the metals. For as the fire
separates the dross from the gold, so a willingness to suffer
for Christ, and the patient endurance of " manifold tempt-
ations," separates from faith all alloy, all selfishness and
self-reliance; and for this distinct purpose, that it " might
be found unto praise arid honor and glory at the appearing
444 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
of Jesus Christ." The possessor of this faith will be praised
for his fidelity; for his power of endurance for Christ's
sake, and for his faithfulness unto death. He will receive
the honor promised by Christ to His faithful servants, a&
expressed in John 12: 26. " If any man serve Me, him will
My Father honor." He will share in the glory which the
Father hath given to His Son, and which He will commu-
nicate to all that are His. " To them who, by patient con-
tinuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honor and immortality,
He will give eternal life." (Horn. 2:7.) The preciousness
of this faith and the splendor of its fruits, will also appear
in the praise and honor and glory it will bring to the
blessed Trinity; praise to the Father for so loving the world
as to give His only begotten Son to die for it; honor to the
Lord Jesus Christ for His great redemption; and glory to
the Holy Ghost for the completion of the work of grace in
the hearts of believers.
A FUNDAMENTAL ARTICLE OF FAITH.
The Rev. G. F. C. Fronmuller, in his comments upon
this passage in Lange, says, " Our Lord's return has been
one of the fundamental articles of the faith of universal
Christendom in every age of the Church history. To hide
this important doctrine under a bushel is at once a defect of
teaching, and in opposition to the mind of Christ and His
Apostles. It is to be noticed that the return of Christ shall
be preceded not only by several ages, but also by several
ends of ages, with typical final judgments, as St. Paul
speaks of TO. rtfy v awewv. The flood, the dispersion of the
ten tribes, the judgment of Jadah, but especially the des-
truction of Jerusalem and the conquest of Palestine, were
in a certain sense such final judgments." (1 Cor. 10: 11.)
The Apostle Paul, in exhorting the Christians atPhillipi
to follow his example, and avoid the enemies of the Cross
HOPE OF CHRISrS COMING. 445
of Christ, who mind earthly things, thus sets forth their
high privileges and hopes. For, as Dean Alford renders
this passage, " our country is in the heavens; from whence
also we look for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall
change the body of our humiliation, that it may be con-
formed unto the body of His glory, according to the work-
ing of His power, whereby He is able even to subdue all
things unto Him." (Phil. 3:20, 21.) The influence of
this blessed truth upon his own soul, and the ardent desires
it awakened, are thus expressed: "That I may know Him
and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of
His sufferings, being conformed to the likeness of His death;
if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from
the dead (that blessed resurrection of the dead in Christ,
who will rise at His coming), Brethren,! count not myself
to have apprehended (or laid hold), but one thing I do, for-
getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth
unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark
for the prize of the high calling of God, in Christ Jesus."
(Phil. 3: 10, 11, 13.) He then adds, u Let us then, as many
as be perfect, be thus minded " (v. 15), and for this reason
we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, the Heavenly
Jerusalem. We already belong to that blessed country
whence we look for the Lord Jesus Christ, expecting Him
till the event arrives. Upon this our eyes and hearts and
hopes should be fixed. For He will come to transform the
body of our humiliation, that is, this body that has been
humiliated by suffering and reproach, as Christ's body on
earth was humiliated, and fashion it like unto His present
glorious body. The change we conceive is to affect our
whole being, body and soul. We are to be transformed
into His spiritual and heavenly image, as well as reflect in
our bodies the brightness of His glory.
Neander gays, " Paul's meaning is that Christians as to
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
their life, their walk, belong even now to Heaven: in the
whole direction of their life existing there already. This
he deduces from their relation to Christ, their fellowship
with Him to whom they are inseparably united, so that
where He is, there are they also. While here they are
sustained by the consciousness that Christ now lives in
Heaven manifested to believers though hidden from the
world. Thither is their gaze directed, as their longings
rise toward a Saviour who will come again from thence, to
make them wholly like Himself, to fashion them wholly
after His own glorious pattern, to transform them wholly
into the Heavenly. There is not presented here a resur-
rection, as a restoration merely of the same earthly body
in the same earthly form, but, on the contrary, a glorious
transformation, proceeding from the divine, the all-sub-
duing power of Christ; so that believers free from the
defects of the earthly existence, released from all its bar-
riers, may reflect the full image of the Heavenly Christ
in their whole glorified personality, in the soul pervaded
by the divine life, and its now perfectly assimilated glori-
fied organ." (Dr. Hackett in Lange, p. 62.)
What a prospect does this open to the Church of the
Living God; to believers now upon the earth, who stand
nearer to this event than any who have preceded them; to
whom the words of the Apostle James come with a power
greater than ever had before! "The coming of the Lord
draweth nigh." With what faith, with what eagerness,
with what ardent longing? should we look for His appear-
ing, who may come at any moment, and who will come to
affect the glorious change that has been described in all
whose citizenship or country is in Heaven!
In Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians, that was writ-
ten under the glorious enthusiasm awakened by this truth,
besides the announcement that the Lord will descend from
HOPE OF CUEISTS COMING.
Heaven with a shout or word of command, to meet His
Saints in the air, and the accompanying exhortation,
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words," we
have this great event placed before believers, as one for
which they should constantly wait; as a motive to increase
in brotherly love, and as a reason for their entire eanctiti-
cation. In the first chapter the Apostle commends the
Thessalonians for their strong faith and their readiness to
turn from idols, to serve the living and true God, and tc
wait for His Son from Heaven." (I, 10.) He thus pre-
sents, in these two particulars, the life-aim of converts to
Christianity, the service of God and waiting for the return
of His Son from Heaven. Bengel says on this passage:
"To wait for the Son of God is the most appropriate mark
of a true Christian." Calvin says: "In the service of
God, which in the corruption of our nature is a more than
difficult matter, we are kept and established by the expect-
ation of Christ; otherwise the world drags us back to itself,
and we grow weary." Yaughan says : "A summary of
the Christian life at all times: service and expectation.
The loss or disparagement of either has been at all times
the cause of injury to the Church. The one by itself
degenerates into a dry routine of duty; the other into
excitement, dreaminess and indolent sentiment. The two
together make up that life of practical piety which is the
true end and chief glory of the Gospel."
In the third chapter, twelfth and thirteenth verses, the
Apostle writes, "And the Lord make you to increase arid
abound in love one toward the other, and toward all men,
even as we do toward you; to the end lie may establish
your hearts, unblamable in holiness, before God, even our
Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all
his saints."
The aim and end of increasing and abounding in broth-
448 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
erly love, and in affectionate interest in all mankind, is, as
here set forth, the establishment of our hearts in holiness,
that when we pass under the scrutinizing gaze of God, at
the coming of our Lord, we may be found unblamable in
holiness before Him. The tendency of love is to promote
holiness and give to the heart a steadfastness in obeying
the will of God, for love is the fulfilling of the law."
(Horns. 13: 10.) Thus we see how brotherly love, like
every other Christian virtue, points to the second coming,
and is stimulated by it and made tributary to that " holi-
ness, without which no man shall see the Lord." (Heb.
12: 14.) In the closing chapter of the Epistle, believers
are exhorted to " rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in
every thing give thanks, to quench not the spirit; hold fast
that which is good and abstain from every form of evil."
Then follows a prayer that that may be done which God
alone can do: "But may the God of Peace Himself sanc-
tify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit, and
soul and body, be presented blameless unto the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ." (v. 23.)
This prayer answered, and the climax of spiritual
growth and blessedness is reached, and who is there that
rightly apprehends the doctrine we are considering and is
alive to its importance; whose heart is open to the exhorta-
tions and appeals that the Holy Ghost makes to us, in view
of our Lord's declaration, "Behold, I come quickly;" who
will not offer for himself the prayer that the Peace of God,
the author and source of peace, may sanctify him wholly;
and that His Spirit, the higher principle of intelligence
that renders us capable of partaking of the Divine nature;
and soul, the seat of animal life, with its powers and interests;
and the body, that is the whole being, may be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ? "
Our doctrine is a powerful incentive to fidelity in the
HOPE OF CHRIST'S COMING. 449
outward activities of the Christian life. It is thus presented
in several of the parables of our Lord. While some of His
parables present the inward and contemplative side of
the Christian life, others set forth the active side. In the
25th chapter of Matthew we have the parables of the ten
virgins and of the talents distributed by the Lord to His
servants. The first represents those who are waiting for
the Lord, and the second those who are working for Him.
The disappointment of the foolish virgins is a warning
against the absence or decay of the inward spiritual life,
while the forms of religion are observed. The talents refer
to the capacities and gifts given to us, with the means and
opportunities afforded for increase and usefulness in the
Kingdom of God. The rewards held out are to stimulate
us to diligence and fidelity in laboring for the Master, and
the doom of the wicked and slothful servant is a warning
against sluggishness and the neglect of the outward work
committed to us.
The Lord Jesus Christ has gone into a far country.
Previous to His departure, or ascension, He delivered to
His servants, His Apostles, whom He particularly addressed,
and to all His followers His goods. He made over to them
the interests of His Kingdom, and furnished them with
the means for carrying forward the good work which He
had begun. " Unto one He gave five talents, to another
two, and to another one: to every man according to his
several (or his own) ability," according to his capacity to
use the gifts, spiritual or material, given to him. Every
one has his endowments and gifts, and a sacred mission to
fulfill, during the Lord's absence. The fact that gives
sacredness to our work, and is calculated to stimulate us to
the greatest fidelity in the use of our power, acquisitions,
time, wealth, influences, and opportunities, is the certainty
that our Lord will return and reckon with us. As expressed
29
450 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
in the parable, " After a long time, the Lord of those ser-
vants cometh and reckoneth with them. And so he that had
received five talents brought other five talents saying, Lord,
thou deliverest unto me five talents: behold I have gained
beside them five talents more. His Lord said unto him,
Well done thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been
faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over
many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." (Matt.
25:19-21.)
This we must regard as the judgment of the Pre-Mil-
lennial Advent, when the saints will be judged and rewarded
according to their works. The parable recorded in Luke
19:12, 13, is similar in many points to this. "He said,
therefore, a certain nobleman went into a far country to
receive for himself a kingdom and to return. And he
called his ten servants and delivered them ten pounds, and
said unto them, Occupy till I come."
"This parable of the Pounds," says Lange, "places
visibly before our eyes not only the life calling of the
Apostles, but also that of all believers. From the fact that
here ten servants appear who all receive the same, the
diversity recedes before the unity. As bondservants for
their Lord they are called to wait for his return, and that
not in inactive rest, but in jealous activity. They have not
to contend with carnal weapons against His enemies, but in
the midst of all opposition, quietly to proceed with their
labors. In the humble position of witnesses to the faith,
they must seek, with word and deed to spread abroad God's
Kingdom, and expect their share in the government of the
world, not before, but only after the personal return of the
Lord. The success of their endeavors is differently modi-
fied, according to the diversity of time, talents, and energies;
but the reward is suited to the different deserts. In every
case it is in proportion to that which is demanded and
HOPE OF CHRISTS COMING. 451
accomplished. For the ten pounds, which the best one
gained, he would scarcely have been able to buy a horse,
and he is placed over ten cities; but never does a reward
fall to the portion of the slothful one, who has contented
merely with this that he did no positive harm. To gain
nothing is the way to lose all, and the injury one prepares
for himself by his own unfaithfulness appears as irrevocable."
We pass next to consider a duty, in connection with our
Lord's coming, which He Himself presents to His Churchy
in various forms, calculated to awaken attention, in lan-
guage indicating the deepest earnestness and solicitude;
and in appeals that should sweep over Christendom and
arouse the most indifferent to the startling and stupendous
events that at any moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
may burst upon us. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded
in Matt. 24: 42-44-, said : " 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 not have suifered 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." At the
close of the parable of the ten virgins, Christ -adds, " Watch,
therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein
the Son of Man cometh." (Matt. 25:13.) The elements
of Christian watchfulness are wakefulness, alertness, activ-
ity and circumspection. The motives for it are the cer-
tainty of Christ's coming; the suddenness of His coming
and its decisive character in determining the destiny of the
whole human family. What is required of the watchers
and their reward, are thus set forth by our Lord: "Let
your loins be girded about (so as to be ready for instant
active service), and your lights burning (prepared for the
midnight cry); and ye yourselves like unto men that wait
for their Lord, when He shall return from the wedding;
452 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
that when He cometh and knocketh, they may open to
Him immediately (thus showing that they have not fallen
asleep). Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when
He cometh shall find watching; verily, I say unto you that
He shall gird Himself, and make them to set down to meat,
and will come forth and serve them. And if He shall
come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and
find them so, blessed are those servants." (Luke 12: 35, 38.)
He says nothing about coming in the first or fourth
watches of the night, but refers to those that are nearest
midnight, when the tendency to fall asleep is the greatest,
and therefore must be vigorously resisted. But whether
He comes sooner or later, all who are found fully awake to
His coming and faithful at their posts will be rewarded,
and such a reward! He in turn will gird Himself, and will
open to His servants a splendid banquet, furnished with
the most costly viands, in imitation of the ancient Hebrews
who gave their servants a share in the sacred feasts. " And
He will come forth and serve them ! " What honors are
implied and promised here to those whom He shall find
watching. Majus says: "There is an instant on which
eternity hangs; in an instant all may be squandered and
lost; therefore must we ever watch all should watch,
especially ministers, whose business is to quicken others to
watchfulness."
The closing words of the Westminster Confession of
Faith are clear and emphatic in regard to this duty. "As
Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there
shall be a day of judgment, both to deter all men from sin
and for the greater consolation of the godly in their advers-
ity, so will He have that day unknown to men, that they
may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful,
because they know not at what hour the Lord will come;
and may be ever prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus; come
quickly. Amen."
HOPE OF CHRISTS COMING. 453
St. Paul thus addresses his brethren on this point: " Ye
brethren are not in darkness, that that day should overtake
you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the
children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of dark-
ness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others; but let us
watch and be sober." (1 Thess. 5:4, 6.)
Children of the light should not sleep, that is, be in a
dull, sluggish state, unsusceptible to the influence of spiritual
things, and especially of those pertaining to the day of the
Lord.
They should be awake, and thoroughly alive to what is
transpiring around them. They are not called to be proph-
ets, but diligent students of the prophecies. They are not
called to curiously inquire unto the day and hour of the
coming of the Lord, but to notice the signs of His appear-
ing, and be prepared for the grand event. They are to
listen to every sound, every bugle note that heralds the
approach of the Great King. They are to watch the march
of providential events, and carefully weighing their import,
are not to be carried away by delusive spectacles. Children
of the light occupy the heights of observation, and see afar
beyond the pomp and pride of ecclesiastical formalism;
beyond the camps of the enemy, to the distant, wide hori-
zon that at any moment may be lighted up with the splen-
dors of Him who is coming to take His great power and
rule among the nations. The commotions and evils in
society do not alarm them, for they have been told "that
in the last days perilous times shall come;" and for their
own safety they have the assurance given to the redeemed,
" He shall dwell on high; His place of defence shall be the
munitions of rocks. * * Thine eyes shall see the King in
His beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off."
The Apostle Paul, after obeying himself every injunction
of his Lord relating to His second coming, and after
454 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
unfolding this truth with clearness and power that divine
inspiration alone could give him, associated it with the
shout of victory with which he greets the hour of his
departure from earth, and sends forth a promise to cheer
all those who " love His appearing." While solemnly
exhorting the beloved Timothy to fidelity in his ministerial
work, he says : " For I am now ready to be offered up,
and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought
a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of right-
eousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give
me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them,
also, that love His appearing. (II. Tim. 4., 6-8.) " That
day," the day of the personal coming of the Lord, is still
the theme upmost in his mind. It sheds its lustre over the
last hours of his earthly career. It pours its brightness
upon the valley of the shadow of death. It fills him with
the spirit of exultation and triumph. It holds for him a
crown of righteousness, not indeed merited, but his, as a
full partaker of the righteousness which is by faith in Christ.
He has fought the good fight and obtained the victory, and the
prize is laid up for him. It is there already, to be publicly
given him by the Lord, the righteous Judge, at that day.
"And not to me only, but unto all them, also, that love
His appearing." To all who look forward with affectionate
longing to His coming, who anticipate the event with
delight, a crown of righteousness will be given in the pres-
ence of saints and angels by the glorious Lord Himself.
This state of mind presupposes obedience to all the injunc-
tions arid exhortations from Christ and His Apostles that
we have considered; and through these the highest degree
of spiritual life. And on the other hand to love His
appearing is fitted more than anything else to pro-
mote Christian activity, brotherly love and holy living, to
HOPE OF CHRIST'S COMING. 455
the end He may establish our hearts unblamable in holi-
ness before God, even our Father at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints." (1 Thess. 3: 13.)
Hear, in conclusion, the words of the King of Kings,
who is already on His way with the heavenly hosts :
" Behold, I come quickly, hold fast that which thou hast,
that no man take thy crown. Him that overcometh or
conquereth, will I make a pillar in the temple of My God,
an honored, permanent and eternally consecrated priest, or
inmate of the heavenly temple; and he shall never more
go out; and I will write upon him the name of My God,"
signifying His complete righteousness and oneness with
the Father, " and the name of the city of My God."
When upon the earth his citizenship was in Heaven. But
then it was latent, now it is manifested, and He is known
as an inhabitant of the city of the Living God, and is free
to enter it according to the promise in Rev. 22: 12-14:
" Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me to
give to every man according as his work shall be. Blessed
are they that keep His commandments, that they have
right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the
gates into the city." "And I will write upon him My
new name ;" that wonderful, mysterious name, that at
present is uncommunicable. It is referred to in that most
sublime vision of the coming King in the 19th chapter
of Revelations, " and He had a name written, that no man
knew but Himself." It was none of the names or titles
by which He was known on earth. He calls it " My new
name," a name, doubtless, indicative of His final triumph
and complete union with His saints, who henceforth are to
share with Him the glory of His Kingdom.
Twice, in the closing chapter of the Bible does Christ
say, "Behold, I come quickly." The third time he says,
"Surely I come quickly." Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
456 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
ADDRESSES.
THE RETURN OF CHRIST AND FOREIGN
MISSIONS.
BY THE REV. W. P. MACKAY, D.D., PRESBYT2RTAN, HULL, ENGLAND.
IN Acts 1 : 6 we find the disciples asking our Lord after His
resurrection, and before His ascension, " How wilt Thou
at this time restore again the Kingdom of Israel." And
His answer is remarkable, taken in connection with what
He said to the same men in Matt. 24: 33, where he indicates
that they were to look for signs, etc. In Acts, however, He
says, " It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which
the Father hath put in His own power, but ye shall receive
power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye
shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem and in all
Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth." Signs, times and seasons, as we find from Daniel,
are for the Jewish people. He addressed the twelve in
Matthew when He is the King of the Jews. As represent-
ative Jews. Here He speaks to them as those who are to
be the nucleus of His Church and witnesses to Him till
His return. The Holy Ghost was given for power in Jeru-
salem (Acts 2:4) and in Samaria (Acts 8: IT), and among
the Gentiles (Acts 10: 44), so that the promise of the Father
was fulfilled and the power from heaven bestowed.
They began well, as the record of the day of Pentecost
shows, but while they faithfully began at Jerusalem they
delayed going to Samaria and the ends of the earth, and we
find that God sent a persecution to scatter them (Acts 8:1),
RETURN OF CHRIST AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 457
"and at that time there was a great persecution against the
Church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered
abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria "
but mark the exception " except the Apostles" the very
men to whom Christ gave the commission thus gave it up
very quickly, and a new Apostle is called out to perform the
work. Paul, who up to this time had been a persecutor, is-
called to the apostalate in a miraculous and heavenly man-
ner, so that he was not an Apostle by education and the
training of the Lord on the earth, as Matthew had been
chosen, but as he says in Rom 1:1: " An Apostle by call." 1
And the Lord's purpose with regard to him was (Acts 9:15),
" He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before
the Gentiles and Kings, and the children of Israel/' This
he aimed at, as He Himself writes in Rom. 15: 19, "From
Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum I have fully
preached the Gospel of Christ. . . . Whensoever I
take my journey into Spain I will come to you (at Rome)."
And to a great extent he was successful, as we read in Colos-
sians 1: 23: " 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, whereof I, Paul, am
made a minister." That could be said in no sense in the
present day. And Paul was the man, above all men, who
inculcated the waiting for God's Son from heaven. Was it a
spiritual Christ that Paul saw on his way to Damascus?
Nay, it was a Man in the glory that he saw, and he never
forgot it. It was no spirit, no angel. And in this Man he
believed, for this Man he wrought and witnessed, and for
this Man he waited ; turned to God from idols to serve the
living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.
This witnessing of the Christian to the absent Lord is his
true and highest function, whether we look at the end of a
poor lost world, the nature of the Christian's life, or the com-
458 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
mand of his absent Lord. The world is needy. Human-
ity is a failure. The Bible is the history of it. From
Eden to the Great White Throne man has failed. Even at
the end of the millennium, unregenerate man shows the most
lamentable of all failures. There is no hope for him but in
the grace of God, the work of Christ, and the power of the
Holy Ghost, and the Christian carries these to lost human-
ity, a light to a dark world, salt in a needy earth. " No
man hath seen God at any time," we find twice stated in
Scripture. (John 1:18 and 1 John 4: 12.) The only begot-
ten Son declares Him in the Gospel according to John.
But since He has been rejected, believers now manifest God,
as seen in the Epistle. " Which thing is true in Him and
in you; because the darkness is past and the true light now
shineth." (1 John 2:8.) The child of God is not only
born of water, and has within him a well of living water,
but from him rivers of living water are to flow, carrying the
life of God to a dead world. " God hath given to us the min-
istry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ (when
He was on earth) reconciling the world unto Himself, and
hath committed (in His absence) unto us the word of recon-
ciliation." (2 Cor. 5: 18, 19.) If the government of Great
Britain set apart all its army, fleet and exchequer to send
forth a message to every nation on the earth it would not
take eighteen hundred years to do it. And our Master said,
" All power is given to Me in heaven and earth, go ye
therefore" We are to go because He has all power. It
still lies there for faith to pick up and appropriate. And
how comes it that we are further from obedience to this
commission than the Apostle Paul was? Simply because we
have not kept on in the line of His example in his work of
faith, labors of love and patience of faith.
The Church has been farming high-patches, and leaving
the great mass of men untouched settling at Jerusalem
RETURN OF CHRIST AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 459
and forgetting Samaria and the uttermost ends of the earth.
There are 30,000 evangelical preachers in Great Britain
alone; 50,000 and more on this continent; 80,000 men on the
two hands of the body, and the rest of the body uncared for,
close upon a thousand millions of people who never heard
that there was a Christ. Some would persuade us that we
should not go to Africa till all New York was converted.
They will never get to Africa. We maintain that every
man, woman, and child, in Great Britain and the United
States, could hear of Christ if they desired, and it is now
time for battalions of missionaries to move off to foreign
lands.
General Yon Moltke, at the battle of Gravelotte, sent in
regiment after regiment to certain destruction, but he
turned the left flank of his enemy. We require regiments
of willing brothers faithful unto death.
We have failed simply because we have been aiming at
universal conversion and not at universal evangelisation.
We have been trying to convert patches and not evangelize
the whole. This is not the age of universal conversion ; that
is the age that is to come. Let us hearken to one of the
Apostles: "Simeon hath declared how God at the first did
visit the Gentiles .to take out of them a people for His
name." Here there is no indication whatever that the
Gentiles were to be totally brought to God, and no man
has need to say to his neighbor, "Know the Lord." So
Christ taught His disciples that during His absence they
were to act like fishermen with a drag net, and go over
the sea and catch a netful of fishes, not the fullness of
the seas.
Instead of this, the Church has been abiding by one or
two favorite pools and endeavoring to catch every fish in-
stead of passing along though the whole sea. The not under-
standing the character of the present dispensation, linked
460 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
to that innate selfishness that still adheres to us all, is at
the root of all this disgraceful disobedience. I trust that
one great outcome from this Conference will be a deeper
intelligence concerning the revealed purposes of our Lord,
greater faithfulness to His parting Commission, and closer
sympathy with His heart of love for a perishing world.
When He gave His marching orders, He did not say: "And
lo, nations shall be born at once." He did not say, " All
will be converted before you." No such thought is ever
found in the New Testament, but as witnesses to a rejected
Christ, we are to go to all the world, while He says, " Lo, I
am with you always." He knew how much we would
require His presence. He knew that the messenger would
be rejected as the Messiah had been. His presence, not
our success, was to be our comfort. He is a poor servant
who goes merely by success. At the day of reward the
word will not be, Well done, good and successful servant,
but, " Well done, good and faithful servant." We can not
command success. We can all aim at faithfulness. " Be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of
life," the Master said to those who were to be His witnesses,
not to be received, but to be murdered. Faithful in the
little, we shall be rewarded with the crown that He will
give, for "if we suffer with Him we shall also reign with
Him we shall be glorified together." To-day is the day of
the Cross, and our witnessing to Him to the uttermost
ends of the earth. The glory, the crown, the reward will
soon be here, and, above all, He Himself the Man of Cal-
vary the Man that Stephen saw at the right hand, tluit
aul saw on his way to Damascus, will appear in royal
glory, to put down all the wrong and exalt all the right;
to put down all rule and authority opposed to God, and
reign in righteousness over a sin-blighted world.
RETURN OF CHRIST AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 461
Then weep no more, 'tis all thine own,
His Cross and Crown divine;
But better far than all beside,
Himself, the Lord, is thine.
The Bride eyes not her garment
But her dear Bridegroom's face.
I will not gaze on glory,
But on my King of grace ;
Not on the crown He giveth,
But on His pierced hand.
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Immanuel's land
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
THE COMING OF THE LORD IN ITS RELATIONS
TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
BY THE KEY. DR. B. R. CRAVEN, PASTOR THIRD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
NEWARK, N. J.
I HAVE heard that it has been said that Pre-Millennarians
constitute the " infant class " in Theology. Most willingly,
gladly, do I take the place thus assigned me, for I have not
now to learn that the Master often hides the great things
of His Kingdom " from the wise and prudent and reveals
them unto babes." I can conceive of no higher honor, no
greater blessedness on earth or in heaven, than to sit as a
child at the feet of Jesus and drink in the words of instruc-
tion as they fall from His lips. God grant that with the
simplicity of a child I may learn the truth from Him to-day,
and that with like simplicity I may recite it.
1 have been requested, not to read a formal paper, but to
deliver an address on the Relations of the Coming of Christ
to Christian Doctrine. It can not, of course, be expected
or desired that I should retraverse the subject so fully and
ably presented last night. I shall, therefore, confine my
remarks to a brief discussion of the relation of the Pre-
Millennial Advent to the Catholic doctrine concerning the
Office of the Spirit in Regeneration, and one cognate sub-
ject.
The central doctrine of Pre - Millennarianism is this :
That an Advent of Christ, in His glorified body, is ever
imminent for the establishment of what is generally known
as the Millennium. We believe that when the Gospel of
the Kingdom has been preached as a witness in every land
(as it has already been) that when the elect number (the
ITS RELATIONS TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
pleroma, the fulness) of the Gentiles has been gathered in
(which may be, for aught we know, before the sun sets,
which rnay not be for centuries; we who stand on this
platform are no calculators of the secret things which God
reserves in His own knowledge) we believe that then the
O J
Redeemer shall come to Zion; that then He shall destroy
Antichrist by the brightness of His Appearing; that then
He shall gather now-blinded Israel to His side; that then
" the kingdom and dominion and greatness of the king-
dom under the whole heavens shall be given to the people
of the Saints of the Most High."
The Catholic doctrine, which this is said to contravene,
is, that it is the office of the Spirit to apply the redemption
purchased by Christ that the Spirit is the Renewer. This
doctrine we believe and proclaim as completely, we think,
as any class of men. It may be said, however, that what-
ever our thoughts may be, the doctrine of a Pre-Millennial
Advent is logically inconsistent therewith inconsistent
either with the continuance of the Spirit's office after the
appearance of Christ, or with His dignity in the exercise
thereof.
That our doctrine is not, in Jehovah's esteem, inconsist-
ent with the idea of the continuance of the Spirit's office
in a glorious and miraculous Appearing of Jesus is man-
ifest from the declarations of the Scriptures. The Apostle
Paul was called and converted in such an Appearing.
(Acts 9: 3-10.) And yet he writes to Titus (3: 5): " Accord-
ing to His mercy He saved us (not you, but us, includ-
ing Himself) by the washing of regeneration and the
renewing of the Holy Ghost." The Apostle, be it remem-
bered, was "as one born out of due time" (1 Cor. 15: 8),
not late, but early. He was born, not as a lagging mem-
ber of a brotherhood already called, but as the elder brother
of blinded, persecuting Israel, " the pattern of them that
464 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
should afterward believe " when the Lord should rend the
veil from their hearts. He was the type of those to be
in like manner effectually called in the day when the
promise spoken by Zech^riah (12: 10) shall be fulfilled
" I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabi-
tants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplications;
and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced."
The glorious Appearing unto Paul was but the harbinger
the morning star of the day which shall yet be; the
work of the Spirit wrought in him was but the earnest
of that which shall then be wrought in now benighted
Israel.
It may be said, however, that whilst our doctrine is not
inconsistent with the continuance of the Spirit's work, it is
inconsistent with His dignity in that continuance. This
objection can proceed on only one of two foundations, both
of which I will briefly consider.
The first is that our doctrine implies that the Spirit can
not renew the world by existing instrumentalities that the
Spirit is unable to renew it without the presence of Jesus.
We hold no such heresy as this, nor is it logically connected
with our doctrine. That the Spirit will not thus act with-
out the presence of our Lord we believe and affirm that
He can not, we deny. We believe, I believe, that the
Spirit could have converted Paul, even as he converted
Titus, without the intervention of a glorious Epiphany.
We believe that under the simple preaching of the Gospel,
by a babe, He could bring every sinner that now walks the
earth to the knowledge and confession of the truth. The
question we are considering is one of purpose, not of nat-
ural ability. Do our opponents measure what the Spirit
can do by what He does? Do they hold that the fact, that
the Spirit has not converted the world by the preaching of
the Gospel during eighteen centuries, manifests His inabil-
ITS DELATIONS TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 465
ity to do it? This is the logical sequence of the objection.
I repeat it, the question we are considering is one of pur-
pose, not of ability, and I insist upon it.
There is indeed a secondary, a subordinate sense, in which
it is necessary Christ should appear in glory before the
Spirit performs His great work of renewing the Nations
a necessity arising from what is essential to the fulfill-
ment of prophecy from what is essential to the realization
of declared purposes. Thus, for instance, it was necessary
that Christ should be born in Bethlehem and that He should
be sacrificed in Jerusalem. Not necessary in the nature of
things another town than Bethlehem, another city than
Jerusalem, might have been chosen. Not necessary as a
matter of ability that He should have been born at all, or
that He should have been sacrificed at all. He could have
destroyed His murderers. But necessary in order to the
fulfillment of prophecies concerning Him, necessary to the
carrying out of the declared purposes of Jehovah. This
use of the term is often confounded witli the former, and
hence,*! suspect, the objection. In this secondary sense,
and in this only, is it affirmed by any that it is necessary
Christ should come before the general renewal of the
world by the Spirit.
A second foundation on which it has been alleged that
our doctrine is inconsistent with the dignity of the Spirit,
is that it implies subordination in working on His part. I
answer, it implies precisely the same subordination that is
implied in the present dispensation the same, neither
more nor less. It is the Catholic doctrine that, among the
co-eternal, co-almighty, co-equal persons of the adorable
Trinity there is not inequality that is heresy not inequal-
ity, but subordination. The Father is of none neither
begotten nor proceed ing; the Son is of the Father, begotten;
the Spirit is of the Father and the Son, proceeding. And
30
466 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
so, in the economy of grace, there is like subordination.
The Father sends the Son to redeem ; the Father and the
Son send the Spirit to renew. The Spirit is styled the
Spirit of Christ. He is given in answer to the intercession
of Christ; He is poured forth by the power of Christ; He
acts as the agent of Christ; He takes of the things of
Christ either the personally absent or the present Christ
and shows them unto us. Thus hath it been from the
beginning; thus is it now; thus shall it be when Christ
shall come again in glory.
The doctrine of the Pre- Millennial Advent is naught
opposed to, but is in all points at one with, the Christian
faith concerning the office of the Spirit.
Cognate with the general objection we have been con-
sidering is another, viz., that our doctrine is inconsistent
with the doctrine that the Spirit is to convert the world
simply through the instrumentality of the preaching of the
Gospel by a militant Church. We admit the inconsistency,
nay, we proclaim it affirming that the doctrine with
which ours is inconsistent is neither Scriptural nor Cath-
olic. It is, I admit, the now prevalent doctrine of the
Protestant Church; that it is neither Catholic nor Scrip-
tural has been abundantly demonstrated on this platform.
It forms no part of the work assigned me to controvert it.
It is in place, however, for me to endeavor to disintegrate
from it, and thus bring more clearly to light, the true
Scriptural doctrine that lies at its foundation a doctrine
held by the primitive Church; a doctrine that everywhere,
in all ages, has had its adherents. Every prevalent error,
I may remind you in passing, has its basis in truth. It is
a truth that the Church was commanded to go forth and
preach the Gospel among all nations it is a truth that
during the absence of her head, by such labor under the
influences of the Spirit, she propagates herself, gathering
ITS RELATIONS TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 467
from among all nations the pleroma, the elect number of
the Gentiles the bride preparing for the bridegroom.
Now, it is manifest that this gathering is in order to the
Coming of the Redeemer which Coming is in order to
the infringing of the Millennium. We therefore say, and
the Church has ever said, that in laboring to spread the
Gospel we are laboring to bring in the latter day of prom-
ised glory. And here is the confusion. On our platform we
are striving in order to that end, but not directly thereto.
The distinction I contemplate between striving in order to
an end, and striving directly thereto^ may be made clear by
a simple illustration: In the dominion of some earthly
king there stands a granite mountain, that retards the
march of improvement. Broken into fragments, it would
not only cease to retard progress, but its particles disinte-
grated would themselves become the instruments of blessing.
The monarch commands his servants to labor to break in
pieces that mountain. In obedience to his commands they
go forth with pick and shovel and barrow to attack that
which resists and to utilize that which they gather. They
labor in every part, and from every part they gather with toil
that which is useful. Now, there are two objects of labor
conceivable the one is that laboring in every part they,
shall dig down the mountain this is labor directly to the
end; the other object is that laboring in every part and
gathering that which is useful, as do the others, they may
prepare shafts and chambers in which some skillful engin-
eer shall pour his dynamite, and in a moment, when the
right time comes, blast that which hindereth unto useful-
ness this is labor in order to the end. Now, our belief is
that the latter is the form of labor assigned to the Church,
which in these modern days has been by multitudes inter-
preted as the former. Our belief is that when the Church
lias accomplished her appointed work when the right
468 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
time shall arrive the Master shall come with the mighty
outpourings of his spirit; and that the mountain of ignor-
ance and sin shall flow down at his presence; or, to
change the figure, when the Bride shall have been gathered
out of every land, then the Redeemer shall come to her,
and she shall arise and shine, her light being come, and the
Glory of the Lord being risen upon her, and that then
nations shall come to her light and kings to the brightness
of her rising.
Such, we believe, is the doctrine of the "Word of God.
Does it, as is alleged by some, cut the nerve of missionary
effort. It was by the hope begotten and fostered by this
doctrine, that the Apostolic Church was energized; the
hope that they might see the King in His beauty ere their
eyes closed in death that their tongues might swell the
glad hosannahs that should welcome His approach that
they, by labor wrought by their redeemed hands, might
hasten even unto their own day the coining of the time
when. He, the Redeemer, might see in fullness, the fruit of
the travail of His sou), and be satisfied. This was the
hope that filled the Martyr Church with more than Roman
courage and Roman enthusiasm; that enabled them to pen-
etrate into lands where Roman eagles never flew and Caesars
never won a triumph, there to struggle to the death with
the powers of darkness, leading captivity captive, gath-
ering to themselves, and into one, the scattered members
of the Bride of Christ. This is the hope that ener-
gizes the great Missionary Church of modern times the
Moravian that for more than a century has poured itself
out on the Altar of the Lord, living only for this end to
preach the gospel to the heathen. This was the hope that
inspired Heber, the great missionary bishop of the English
Church, who gave us that glorious missionary hymn,
"From Greenland's Icy Mountains," and who spent his
JTS RELATIONS TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 469
strength and rested from his labors on "India's coral
strand. " This was the hope that energized Gutzlaff, the
opener of China, and Bettleheim, the opener of Japan.
Tliis was the hope that inspired and cheered and overjoyed
McCheyne and our own noble Poor, and Lowrie, and Ran-
kin, and Lowenthal, and hosts of others whom time would
fail me to mention.
Oh! glorious doctrine; Oh! glorious hope sprung from
its bosom ! Wonder you if those into whose hearts it has
entered have been the pioneers, the foremost laborers in
missionary effort?
I charge not those who disagree with me with being the
slothful servants who say Our Lord delayeth His Coming.
That would be slander. Well do I know that amongst
them are found many noble workers in the cause of human-
ity in the Master's cause. But of this I am assured that
that faithful servant in whose ears is ever sounding the
midnight warning Behold, I come quickly, can not in
labor be behind his brethren. With heart and with voice
and with work that hastes the Coming, he must ever answer
back the cry of him who once leaned on Jesus' breast, and
longed for His reappearing; " Even so, Come, Lord Jesus
Come quickly."
470 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
THE THREE DAYS' FEAST WITH DAYID'S
SON.
BY DR. W. P. MACKAY.
NOTHING could more appropriately finish our Conference
than a meditation upon David, and his companions, when as
yet David was a fugitive and had not readied the throne,
though he had been anointed as king. You will find this
recorded in 1 Chron. 12. Here we find, firstly, the feast;
secondly, the warriors; and thirdly, their purpose. THE
FEAST. (1 Chron. 12:39.) "And there they were with
David three days eating and drinking: for their brethren
had prepared for them." Have our brethren in New York,
as they have summoned us from North, South, East and
West, not prepared for us such a feast of spiritual food,
such draughts of living water as have filled our whole
being, head, heart and conscience?
And has it not been above all with our David? David's
son and David's Lord. Has this not been the name that
has been above every name? Who are Presbyterians I can
not tell, and who are Episcopalians, or Baptists, or Congre-
gationalists, I know not. But I know that every speaker's
deepest thought was, li let us exalt His name together."
And is it not because of His presence that we have found our-
selves so near to each other? Love comes not by effort. I
do not try to work up affection for you, sir, the Chairman
of this Conference, nor for my friends Tyng and Brookes,
and others, but just as each approaches Christ, so each
approaches the otner who is near to Christ. The easiest
and surest way to make a number of lights approximate,
each to each, all placed in the circumference of a circle, is
THE THREE DAYS 1 FEAST. 471
to draw them, not nearer to each other, but nearer to the
centre, and thus as we are drawn closer to Christ, our great
centre, we shall find ourselves shoulder to shoulder with
all those who are drawn nearer to Him. Have we not been
feasting on His precious truth as on the very bread of
life? Have we not been drinking with Him out of the
river of His good pleasure? Were it merely a doctrine or a
discussion, or a set of theories, or crotchets or ideas, or sen-
timentalities, it would not be worth coming a yard to meet
each other. But we have met to eat of food the world
knows not of, to partake of joys beyond the reach of earth,
and to cultivate intimacy with Him who alone is our
rallying centre and theme of attraction.
2. Let us now look shortly at the characters of those war-
riors who thus met in David's day. We find them described
in this chapter, and that they are as varied as we are ourselves.
They "came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept himself
close, because of Saul, the son of Kish: and they were
among the mighty men, helpers of the wars." Our King
is on high, on His Father's throne, waiting till His enemies
are made His footstool, when He shall take His own
throne. He has gone to the Father, and thus the world is
shown that the Father is righteous in giving a righteous
throne to the Righteous One when they have cast Him out,
and so to him that overcometh He will give to sit on His own
throne, even as He overcame, and is set down now on His
Father's throne. We rejoice to suffer shame and rejection
for His name. Better it is to be alone with David in the
cave, with the frugal fare and handful of water, than with
Saul in the sumptuous palace and feasting at a royal board.
"They were armed with bows, and could use both right
hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out
of a bow." We require to have both our feet planted firmly
for the battle. And I know that as long as I saw merely
472 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the truth concerning the Cross I felt like a man fighting on
one foot, but when the glory of the Crown appeared I
felt sure-footed. We require also those who are ambi-
dexter, who can fight on the right hand with Infidelity, and
on the left hand with Superstition ; some who can hurl the
heavy and effectual, if rather clumsy-looking stone, and
others who can shoot the sharp, swift and sure arrow in
the interests of David. We find that these were "even
of Saul's brethren of Benjamin." Were we not once on
Saul's side, u children of wrath, even as others?"
"And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto
David, into the holds of the wilderness, men of might, and
men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield and
buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were
as swift as the roes upon the mountain." Here we have
men consecrated, skilled, bold, and active. In this war, all
must present their bodies living sacrifices, holy and accept-
able to God, which is our reasonable service. We must
have men skilled in the use of sword and shield, not merely
knowing the letter of the word but rightly dividing the
word of truth able to use it for doctrine or reproof,
correction or instruction in righteousness. We require
that courage which comes from above, the faces like lions,
conscious of the strength of the fortress we are in. Not
BO much fighting for the truth as letting the truth fight for
us fearing neither man, nor devil, but strong in the strength
of the Lord and in the power of His might. Activity is to
be ours in this evil day. All around is active, and with our
feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, it is our
blessed privilege to be as the roes on the mountains, carrying
the proclamation of His grace and glory over vale and hill, in
the energy of His Divine Spirit, undaunted and unchecked
even by the overflowing of the bunks of the rivers that cross
our faith (1 Chron. 12:15), standing together, as we do
THE THREE DAYS' FEAST.
this night, in the company of Amasai, Chief of the Cap-
tains of the Benjamites, and saying: " Thine are we, David,
and on thy side, thou Son of Jesse; peace, peace be unto
thee, and peace be to thine helpers, for thy God helpeth
thee."
Besides these bold and devoted warriors, we find mention
made of others in verse 32: "And of the children of-
Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the
times to know what Israel ought to do." We require an
intelligence department in our campaign. In our feasting
these three days, we have been studying in the intelligence
department. We require more of the men of Issachar r
who have understanding of the times, to know what Israel
ought to do. This conference is drawing to a close. The
speeches have been spoken and heard. But the work has
now to be done. Our intelligence is not to be kept locked
up in a fire-proof safe, but is to be used in our doing.
What the conference has taught is now to be done in
Europe, in the United States, throughout the world. The
work is to be done in faithfulness to our Master, with
intelligence of His mind. The work is to be done in
increased prayers for missions, in increased givings of
money to missions, in an increase of men for the mission
field. Down at our lonely standpoints, deep in the shade it
may be, the work is now to be done. But it is by being
in the current of God's thoughts we can have intelli-
gence and comfort in this work. I am sometimes asked :
" Are you thus at all times just thinking that the Lord may
return at any minute?" And many such conscientious
questioners think that all we are talking about is merely to
get people into a sort of star-gazing, and ecstatic frame of
mind, suited for dreamers and theorizers. We study these
questions to know what we ought to do. We wish not to be
dreamers, but doers, and also intelligent doers true sons-
474 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
of Issachar. First, we wish to know what the Church of
God should do. And we find that a serious mistake has
been committed for want of this intelligence. Instead
of gathering out a people for the Lord, the Church has
been trying to gather all the people. Instead of going with
the drag-net through all the sea, the Church has been
attempting, as I said before, to catch all the fish in a few
favorite pools. Instead of sowing the seed the wide world
over, men have been high farming little corners and leaving
the greatest part of the land untouched. We have 30,000
ministers in England, and the bulk of heathenism none.
Thirty thousand men gathered on my finger, and none to
the rest of the body. The failure to evangelize the world lies
at the door of those who have been aiming at converting
patch after patch. The Saviour's command, " Preach
the Gospel to every creature," can only be done as we enter
into His intelligence concerning the present age, namely,
that we are to be witnesses to Him to the uttermost ends
of the earth.
Then, as to the government of this world we are to have
intelligence. Jew and Gentile have united in refusing the
Sufferer King. Man has thus been left to himself the Gen-
tile to Caesar, and the Jew to Barrabbas. He has tried every
form of government and failed, from the Csesarism of des-
potic government to the wildest Communism. But the
intelligent sons of Issachar are calm through all, and wait
for a King to reign in righteousness a King who can
justly say: I know the best thing to do in judgment, and I
can do what I know; in other words, who has perfect wis-
dom and perfect power. Christ the wisdom and the power
of God. This is our God; we have waited for Him.
Before, through God's grace, I saw these blessed truths,
my reading of Scripture was "considerably mixed up."
Awkward texts, ever and anon, would come up, for which
THE THREE DAYS' FEAST. 475
I could make no place. My hearers, I advise you, have no
theology, past, or present, or future, that has not room for
all God's texts.
When I bought a dissected map of the world for my boys,
it took them considerable time to put it together, and one
or two attempts were failures. One day Fred -got it
nearly square, but with rather suspicious intervals, and he
said, ( " Will this do?" " Not quite, my boy," I said, as I
saw he had something like this put up a bit of America
stuck North of Hindoostan, Australia doing its best to find
a home on the Atlantic, and Lake Superior adding to the
volume of the Pacific! I looked around and found the
cause of all the confusion in a country that had fallen
underneath the table. " Look here, Fred, where is the place
for this?" Fred did not like that country, he could have
joyfully borne its loss or seen it burned, but that would not
do, so we had to take down all his upmaking and find room
for the left out country, and then the map was correct. Thus
it is with much of our ordinary eschatology. Text after
text is found for which there is no place. Entire dispensa-
tions are lost sight of. Jewish truth gets hopelessly mixed
up with Gentile truth, and the Church's hope gets sadly
crushed out by both. Friend, look over your theological
map and try to make room for all God's texts. Whether
they were soldiers, sentinels or scholars, we find, in verse
38, what was characteristic of them all. k ' They could keep
rank, and came with a perfect heart to Hebron to make
David King." The unfaithful servant who says, " my Lord
delayeth His coming," begins to "smite his fellow servant
and to eat and drink with the drunken." He keeps company
with those he ought to shun, and quarrels with those he
ought to love. David's loyal ones are men that keep rank,
men who march in line, because they take step from their
Captain, and their hearts are set upon obeying Him only.
476 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
They had not two objects before them. They were not of
double heart. David only fitted their thoughts.
3. What was the one purpose that filled the hearts of
those warriors during that three days' feast? " To make
David King over all Israel." What has been our purpose
in gathering from all quarters to these three days' confer-
ence? To assert the crown rights of David's Son to put in
our protest against the reign of the prince of this world and
to stimulate loyalty to our rejected Lord. We meet to exalt
the person of Christ, to proclaim a personal Christ, to wait
for a personal Christ. Men talk about dying and going to
heaven. There is no such hope before the Christian. This
" going to heaven " is a mere sentimental phrase invented
by man's mind. " To be with Christ " is too personal, too
Scriptural, and has too much of God in it, to be popular
with world Christianity. So the " going to heaven " phrase-
ology has taken its place as being sufficient to look holy in
talk, but not too far to commit one to a Person. How dif-
ferent is Scripture. It knows of no heaven but u with Christ."
The saved thief knew of no Paradise, but a to-day thon
shalt be with Me." We are to be '"absent from the body
and present with the Lord " if we die, and Paul had a desire
to k< depart and be with Christ, which was far better."
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Immanuel's land.
We shall never rest till our David is King over His own
possessions, over His own nations, King over all nations.
King of Kings, King in Zion, King of glory. The true
Melchizedeck, the Priest on the Throne, with heaven and
earth under one reign of righteousness.
Meantime, we are content to suffer with Him, and we
work, not for success, but are determined to be faithful.
I repeat it. He does not say : Well done, good and success-
ful, but faithful servant. In a heavy storm, the captain
THE THREE DAYS' FEAST. 477
of a vessel, if he wishes some important rope to be watched
and tightened or slackened at the word of command, does
not employ some boy, lately shipped, but the veteran, trust-
worthy, tar, who answers to all commands with the ready
" Aye, aye, sir." "Jack," says he, " let go, or hold on just
as I tell you." " Aye, aye, sir." A mate comes along the
deck, and says to Jack: "Why do you hold on there?"
"Because I'm told," is all his answer. "But you don't
see results; you don't see where that rope goes over there
to that you hold on by." "No; but I know obedience.
The captain will run the ship. I have only to do what I'm
told. Clear out, and let me mind my work." Fellow
Watcher! "Hold fast that which thou hast; let no man
take thy crown." The Son of David shall yet sit on
David's throne. God, in Matthew, chapter 1st, has proved
it genealogically, and He will fulfill it genealogically, and
not allegorically. The Son of God is yet to sit enthroned
with His royal bride. The Son of Man is yet to sit on the
throne of this world with all nations blessed in Him and
calling Him blessed. The Usurper is to be cast into the
bottomless pit, and then the Prince of Peace will reign.
Now, we find God disowned, the Spirit despised, Christ
rejected, the Church broken up and corrupted by the
cravers of worldliness, infidelity, and hypocrisy, the Jew in
darkest unbelief, the nations in heathen darkness, the
creature groaning under the curse, the devil in gloating
power, the flesh in unhindered activity, the world in
direct and active opposition to the Father, man amelio-
rating his condition and making himself more comfort-
able, but getting further from God, Babylon, the apostasy,
advancing, and infidelity with brazen face. And why we
meet thus to confer, and to feast, and to cheer each other, is
not to advance " views," nor add to " sentiments," but for the
glory of our God, to work for, to hasten on, to wait for, the
478 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
time when Great Babylon shall be judged and burned,
Antichrist consumed with the gleam of Christ's coming,
Infidelity destroyed, Beast and False Prophet cast into the
lake of fire, Creation's curse removed, the Church of the
living God presented spotless to the Father as the married
wife of the Lamb, the Jewish nation gathered, united, and
converted, Satan bound, all the nations brought under the
sway of righteousness, God glorified, the Spirit honored,
and the crown rights of David's Son established in the
sight of all the universe.
The day of the Lord it cometh,
It cometh like a thief in the night,
It comes when the world is dreaming
Of safety and peace and light;
It cometh, the day of sackcloth,
With darkness, and storm, and fire,
The day of the Great Avenger,
The day of the burning ire.
The day of the Lord it cometh,
When the virgins are all asleep,
And the drunken world is lying
In a slumber yet more deep ;
Like a sudden lurch of the vessel,
By night on the sunken rock,
All earth in a moment reeleth,
And goeth down with the shock.
The flash of the sword of havoc
Foretelleth the day of blood,
Revealing the Judge's progress,
The downward marcti of God ;
The fire which no mortal kindles,
Quick seizes the quaking earth,
And labors the groaning creation
In the pangs of its second birth.
Then the day of the evil endeth,
And the righteous reign comes in,
Like a cloud of sorrow evanish,
'1 he ages of human sin ;
The light of the morning gleameth
Adown, without cloud or gloom,
In chains lies the ruler of darkness,
And the Prince of Light has come!
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 479
CRITICAL APPENDIX.
The following extracts are added, in confirmation of the doctrine of
the pre-millennial advent and literal first resurrection. They are chiefly
critical because, even conceding a high value to antiquity and unanimity,
as marks of truth, and a proper respect to what is venerable and well-
approved, yet the truth of a doctrine depends neither on its history nor
traditions, nor on creeds, councils, or cecumenicity, as Romanists and
as some anti-Chiliasts seem to argue, but upon its exegetical foundations
and the analogy of faith a principle consecrated by Protestantism. In
some cases, where no translations exist, I have turned the original into
English for the benefit of the reader, condensing the matter, here and
there, because of its exuberant treatment in the text. The authori-
ties cited need no introduction. Their fame is universal. If any
intelligent scholarship, more competent, in learning or piety, to pro-
nounce upon a theme so great, resides anywhere in Christendom, I am
unconscious of its locality. Excepting one or two instances, flowing from
preceding generations of biblical students, the extracts here given are
only waves of the vast incoming tide of evangelical exegesis in the
present age. ".What efforts," says Charlotte Elizabeth, "has Satan
made to stifle this doctrine! But the word of God is not .bound ! "
N.W.
FROM THE BERLERBERG BIBEL.
(Tom. VI., pp. 397-399.)
"The rest of the dead lived not till the 1,000 years were finished."
Here, a distinction is made in the resurrection, whereby it is to be
noted that the l^jjoav of the foregoing verse is to be understood of a
particular resurrection in which all shall not share, but wherein there
is a pre-eminence. The opinion, therefore, that all the dead shall be
raised at one and the same time, is groundless; for a particular resur-
rection precedes, whereunto none others attain save those who come with
Christ to reign. That, moreover, a bodily resurrection is spoken of, is
to be recognized from the Antithesis; for precisely as the fact of resur-
rection is interpreted of the one class, so must it be interpreted of the
other. Some of the dead will rise before the 1,000 years, to reign with
480 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Christ; the rest of the dead rise not. The former, indeed, truly rise
from the dead, the rest, however, still remain unawaked. Accordingly,
before the general and final resurrection of the dead ensues, a peculiarly
separate resurrection must first take place, and, therefore, the correct
understanding of the passage gives us a resurrection of two different
kinds, one of which occurs before, the other after, the 1,000 years. So
Paul lays down the order of the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15:23, etc.:
Blessed and holy is he who is already truly and spiritually awakened,
turned from a death in sin to the life that is from God, by a genuine
conversion, and takes no part with unbelievers, nor in the worship of
the Beast, nor receives his mark. By so much the more is he sure to
come to the marriage supper of the Lamb a feast to which, however,
no one comes save him who has also part in the ' First Resurrection,' and
is a member of the Church of the First Born." Heb. 12: 23, whereto
also, they who remain over shall come by means of their transforma-
tion. 1 Cor. 15:51-52. They are those who shall be accounted worthy
to obtain that world, and that resurrection which is out from among the
dead (aus den Todtei) as the Saviour Himself expresses it. Luke 20:35.
What need have they to become worthy of the general resurrection which
happens to all without distinction? From which we see, again, that a
particular resurrection of pre-eminence, which is called the " Resurrec-
tion of the Just" Luke 14:14, is determined upon before the other.
That is, the " Better Resurrection." Heb. 11 : 35. This is that celebrated
"Millennium," the object of so much mockery, and yet which stands so
clearly expressed in the sacred text. The priestly function is named
first to indicate that no earthly or carnal kingdom is spoken of, but one
that is sacerdotal, heavenly, and spiritual. A mere carnal world-king-
dom is justly rejected. Augsburg Confession, Art. 17. The dignity of
the royal priesthood shall now first fully come in clearness, so that,
while a kingly it shall yet be a priestly, holy dignity. This follows
from chapter 22:3, and from Isa. 61:6-10. John has no other style
than what is found everywhere in the sacred Scripture. The co-regents
who are described in Rev. 20:4, shall reign even with Christ, who Him-
self says, " My Kingdom is not of this world." Now, indeed, in the
present time, all believers are spiritual kings and priests, but yet there
are degrees and special pre-eminences of blessedness which we may
not disregard except at the expense of their loss. The 1,000 year num-
ber is constantly repeated in clear words. To deviate from the literal,
here, is to make war upon, and do violence to, the Sacred Text. That a
great time-period is indicated is without doubt. A golden, blessed time
is there found, such as never has been, when God will do well to those
who love Him, even to the thousandth generation. That, however,
this golden time has not yet come, but, with all its promises, is yet
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 481
future and to be expected by us, is clearly and incontrovertibly proved
from this, that the Judgment upon the Beast and False Prophet is not
yet complete, but that they rather still continue to rule over all.
FROM RICHTER'S ERKLARTE HAUS BIBEL.
(Tom. vi., p. 1134.)
" The doctrine of the 1,000 years' Kingdom, or Flower and Golden
Time of the Church upon this present earth which the prophets have
so amply pictured is thoroughly in accordance with the Evangel-
ical Church doctrine, for in the 17th Article of the Augsburg Confession
there is not a syllable (steht kein wort) about the 1,000 years, nor about
the 1,000 years' Kingdom. The doctrine of the true Christian Church
of the first three centuries is no Jewish one, for the Jews have never
been Chiliasts, and are not now. Moreover, when all the Kingdoms of
this world are become the Kingdom of God and His Christ, they will,
nevertheless, not all be absolutely holy as in the new earth after the last
resurrection. Also, when all shall be one flock under one Shepherd,
still the Kingdom of Christ shall be no mere worldly Kingdom, and the
destruction of Anti-Christ and his godless adherents is no work of the
pretendedly pious, but solely a work of Christ Himself. (2 Thess. 2 : 8.
Apoc. 19:11-21.) It is just as censurable to omit and abolish these
great prophecies as it is arbitrarily to put something else in their place.
They ought to be believed precisely as they are written in Holy Scrip-
ture. (Apoc. 22 : 18, 19.) Calvin is zealous against the heretical teachers,
(Anabaptists) who circle off and restrict the duration of Christ's King-
dom of glory to 1,000 years, and deny its much greater and everlasting
duration after the 1,000 years are expired. He remarks that " the 1,000
years are not spoken of as the eternal blessedness of the Church, but of
the various agitations alone which await the militant church upon the
present earth." * (Inst. III. 25; 5.) The Apostle distinguishes various
classes of saints who judge the world according to divine right. (1 Cor.
6:2.)
The Twelve Apostles shall then find fulfilled (Matt. 19 : 28 and Luke
22 : 30.) The Universal Judgment begins with the return of Christ, and
continues during the 1,000 years, until the Lord proclaims the final
decision. (Apoc. 20: 11-15.) There are, therefore, not two Universal
Judgments, one before, and one after, the 1,000 years' Kingdom, but the
whole is one Universal Judgment. So it is with the Resurrection.
*Calvin was right in the first member of the clause quoted, and fairly met the Jew-
ish Chiliasts, so-called, and the Anabaptists, but wrong in making the 1,000 years
contemporate with the militant church, struggling against Anti-Christ, during the
1,260 years. He was still confused by the blinding influence of the medieval or
Constantinian date of the millennium; or rather, he erroneously makes the 1,000
years cover the whole Christian dispensation, as Augustine did.
31
482 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
There are not two different general resurrections, but only one, yet
divided into two parts. They who first have been spiritually awakened,
and made perfect, shall also be bodily awakened before the rest. (Rom.
8 : 11 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 23, 24.) The early Christians bel ieved the First Resur-
rection to be literal, and this faith gave them courage for martyrdom.
Because the martyrs were first to lose their lives for Christ, so shall they
first attain to the resurrection of life. Besides the martyrs, many others
shall attain to the blessed and holy companionship of the First Resur-
rection. (Dan. 12 : 13.) On them, too, the second death, the fearful
contrast to the First Resurrection, shall have no power. They shall,
thereby, at the same time, rule as kings with Christ, according to divine
right. But where do they dwell, and where do they exercise their office ?
Not, indeed, any "more secluded in heaven, and hid in God, but openly
manifested, because then, for them, already heaven is upon earth, and
earth is heaven. They are like the Risen and Glorified Saviour, with a
spiritual body, no more bound to the limits of space. They reign and
minister with Christ, because Christ Himself shall then be openly the
King-Priest over the whole earth. (1 Cor. 15: 24; Ps. 47; Ps. 72; Isa.
65 : 19.) As certainly as Christ, the Risen One, was among the not yet
risen, during forty days, so certainly shall the many who are risen with
Him be, like Him, among those who are not raised. Jerusalem shall
again be the central city of the Kingdom of Christ, during the 1,000
>ears, as it is so often promised in the Old Testament. The Apocalypse
presupposes the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning the glory
of Israel and Jerusalem in the last time.
FROM STARKE'S SYNOPSIS. NEUES TESTAMENT.
(Bund X., pp. 179-183.)
The 1,000 years of the Binding of the Dragon and the reign of
Christ and His saints are properly years. There is no reason why we
should deviate from a literal interpretation. If we explain them of the
Past we shall involve ourselves in inextricable difficulties. Still less
can they be referred to eternity, because verses seven and eight indicate
their completion and show what will occur after the 1,000 years are
expired. On the contrary, there are weighty reasons for abiding by the
literal interpretation ; (1) because it carries with it nothing absurd or
incorrect; (2) because the circumstances demand it, inasmuch as these
1,000 years are not merely mentioned twice, in verses 2 and 5, but four
times with the article prefixed, verses 3, 4, 5, 7, years to which nothing
must be added, and from which nothing must be subtracted ; (3) because
the literal best agrees with the first chief work of the divine creation
and the course of all times, for who does not see therein God's special
wisdom in that He might, by His power, have created all things in a
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 483
moment, yet took six days in which to do it, and rested on the seventh ;
and, as Peter says, "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years."
Matt. 24:22 certainly places before us the (Summer-time) great 1,000
years' World-Sabbath. (Matt. 10: 7; 11: 15; 6: 17; 8:1. 1 John 2:18.
Roms. 11 : 25.) The 1,000 years of the Binding of Satan, verses 2 and 7,
and the reign of Christ and His saints, verses 4 and 6, are not to be taken
as two distinct periods, to be distinguished from each other, but as one
and the ^ame period.
These 1,000 years are not Past, but still Future. If we date them from
the Birth of Christ, or from the Resurrection of Christ, or from
the Transition of the Gospel to the Gentiles, or from the Destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, or from Constantino, etc., we are involved in
inextricable difficulties. For (1) the order and connection of the 20th
with the 19th chapter is totally destroyed; (2) what belongs to the 7th
seal, to the 7th trumpet, and also to the end, is retracted to the beginning;
(3) It can not be said that Satan, during the first ten centuries was so
bound as his Binding, Casting into, Shutting up, in the Abyss is
described, since he raged wickedly enough through the instrumentality
of Pagan Emperors and Roman Popes; (4) by this interpretation, the
Beast would be destroyed, or the martyrs declared slain, before the
Beast, in as far as it is distinguished from the Harlot, ever had an exist-
ence; (5) in the 1,000 years, Satan was to be securely bound and Christ
to reign with His saints, but Satan, during the fore-mentioned periods
effected one deception, persecution, and devastation after another, and
what could be more agreeable to the Papacy than to have the period
when it raged the most, and shed so much blood, regarded as the
Blessed Time of the bound and vanquished Satan! Neither do the 1,000
years begin with A. D. 720. as some think who imagine that the four
words, " Seized," " Cast," " Shut up," " Sealed," indicate four different
acts not performed contemporaneously, but in four successive centuries,
from A. D. 320 to A. D. 720, for it is clear that the saints did not reign
with Christ during such a 1,000 years, but rather that Anti-christ reigned
and grew the mightier. Neither do the 1,000 years begin with Luther's
Reformation, for the Smalcald and Thirty Years' war and the persecu-
tion in which many millions of evangelical confessors in France, Eng.
land, Spain, the Netherlands, etc., were executed with unspeakable
cruelty, prove the contrary.
But the 1,000 years are still Future, for in them Satan is to be bound,
no longer to deceive the nations ; for no period can be shown in which
the Church was thus free from the persecution and deception of Satan,
and enjoyed such distinction as the reign of the saints for 1,000 years
demands. The Fall of Babylon and Anti-christ which immediately
precedes this Rev. 19 : 21 has not yet occurred. The witnesses of the
484 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
truth are not yet raised to the dignity of reigning with Christ, but are
still under the yoke. After the 1,000 years, the Devil will be cast into the
lake of fire, where the Beast and False Prophet already are. This shows*
clearly, that the Judgment of the Beast, chapter 19 : 20, will then have
been a long time accomplished, and that the deception of the nations
which follows the 1,00 years' binding of Satan, chapter 20:7, 8. is
certainly different from the oppression of the church under Anti-christ.
According to the concurrent passages of Daniel, chapter 2 : 33, 34, 43,
44; chapter 7 : 8, 9, 17, 18, 21, 22, 25-27, out of which our vision is taken,
the period can not be Past, but must be still future. Therefore does it
stand firmly settled that this 1,000 years, still future, is to be reckoned
from, and after, the Casting of the Beast into the lake of fire, and from the
Binding and Casting of Satan into the Abyss, unto the expedition of Gog
and Magog against tJie camp of the saints.
The Praeterists understand a spiritual resurrection as here spoken of.
But opposed to this is (1) the fact that the discourse here is not of such
a resurrection as that to which the martyrs attained before their martyr-
dom in which they were already the children of God, but of such a
resurrection as that to which they attained after their martyrdom; other-
wise we would be obliged to say that the spiritually raised were raised
spiritually (" die geistlich auferstanden stunden geistlich auf ! ") t". e., the
martyrs who died for Jesus were ultimately converted an idea impos-
sible! (2) The discourse here is not of such a resurrection as is con-
stantly occurring in conversion, but of that special resurrection which
begins with the 1,000 years ; (3) it would follow that the " Rest of the
dead " who, at the beginning of the 1,000 years, did not live, became
converted and spiritually raised at the end of the 1,000 years, when, in
fact, the wicked, after they have been dead in sin 1,000 years, can not be
spiritually raised at the end of that period.
The Allegorists, or Spiritualists, understand a figurative resurrection
as here spoken of, and regard their view as founded (1) in the Prophet
Ezekiel 37 : 1-14, the valley-vision of dry bones ; and in the circumstance
that there as here, the war with Gog and Magog comes after; (2) in the
example of the Two Witnesses, Rev. 11 : 7-11, who were slain, but made
alive at the end of the three and one half days, their death being the hin-
dering of their testimony, their resurrection its re-utterance ; (3) in the
counter-proposition, that the witnesses were not slain, as to the spirit,
but pre-eminently as to their office and honors, their death being a civil
death, and their resurrection a civil one, also; (4) in the connection with
the preceding, for this resurrection refers to the antecedent sad condition
of the church, crushed down by the Beast, as if they were dead, but
now, the Beast slain, they rise to life again. But opposed to all this is
(1) the words of verse 5 prove that, in the whole of the 20th chapter, the
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 485
discourse is of only one class, viz. : those who are dead bodily, for John
does not say other dead from which we might conclude that previously
such dead persons as indeed yet live on the earth (and are only compared
to the bodily dead on account of their miserable condition), will be
raised, but he says the " Rest of the dead " who are of the same class
with the former, in the same fact of their bodily death ; (2) although all
the elect and blessed in heaven will share in the " First Resurrection,'
yet not a single passage can be found in the Scriptures in which a figur-
ative or symbolical resurrection is appropriated to them.
The Literal ists understand a literal resurrection as here spoken of.
This resurrection is shown (1) by the,text, Rev. 20: 6, for although John
saw only souls, yet this was for the reason that the souls, which hitherto
had been in a certain degree of heavenly joy, now united with their
bodies, are, by such union, to be transplanted into still greater joy and
glory. He does not say ipvxai or avrat efycav, the souls lived and
reigned, but he speaks of the whole person. They became alive by union
of the soul with the body, and reigned with Christ 1,000 years. That
the s^Tjaav means they came to life is clearly seen from chapter 2 .- 8,
13, 14, John 5 : 25, Rom. 8 : 13 ; (2) by what follows the text, for, it is not
said, verse 6, "Blessed and holy is the soul that has part in the First
Resurrection," but speaks of the wliole person, consisting of soul and
body, which has part therein. A.nd if the First Resurrection and Reign-
ing with Christ were to be understood of the soul alone, then John must
have said, verse 5, " The Rest of the souls lived not again." As, more-
over, he here speaks of the whole person, in like manner the Rest of the
dead lived not again until the 1,000 years were expired. Therefore, we
must explain the living and reigning with Christ, verse 4, of the whole
person (3), by other passages of Scripture, for in Luke 14: 14, Christ
does not say : " It shall be recompensed in the resurrection of the dead,
but in the resurrection of the just." In John 5 : 24, Jesus speaks of the
spiritual resurrection, or regeneration, and in verse 25 of the bodily, and
especially of the First Resurrection ; for He does not here employ the
word " all " as in verse 28, neither does He merely say, " They shall be
raised," but only that, "They who hear the voice of Son of God shall
live," because, at that time, not all shall hear that voice and be raised to
life in a general resurrection, but the mass shall be raised to condemna-
tion. The words, " The hour is coming and now is," are not to be under-
stood alone of the then present time, but according to John's style, 1
John 2: 18, of the whole New Testament period, John 8: 1. Then fol-
lows, in verse 27, the Judgment, and after the 1,000 years the general
resurrection of the dead, verse 28. In John 6 : 39-40, 44, 54, Jesus prom-
ises to raise believers at the last day. Inasmuch as this is a special grace
to the elect, He can not mean the general resurrection, because the lost
486 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
participate in this ; and although He mentions the Day of Judgment, or
Last Day, yet He has in His mind the last time of this present wicked
world, Gal. 1 : 4, upon which the future glorious and righteous world
shall follow, Luke 20 : 35 ; 2 Pet. 3 : 13. In 1 Cor. 15 : 23-26, Paul marks
three orders in the resurrection of the dead ; firstly, Christ the First
Fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming; finally, the
End after that Christ has surrendered the Kingdom to the Father, when
the last enemy shall be totally destroyed. As, now, according to the first
order, more than seventeen centuries have passed away, so also will the
second order be separated from the third by the 1,000 years, 1 Cor. 15:
23; 1 Thess. 4: 16. The dead in Christ will be raised first. If, now, at
the coming of Christ all the dead without distinction are to be raised,
the Apostle would not speak only of the dead in Christ ; (4) by the
exposition of the oldest church fathers who lived nearest the time of the
Apostles, which makes it a bodily resurrection to a Kingdom of glory,
though not to this present earthly life, viz. : Papias, Justin, Ireneeus,
Tertullian, Victorinus, Lactantius orthodox men who, according to
the testimony of ^Justin, understood this passage, to refer to a proper
bodily resurrection. Not only Piscator, Alsted, Brightman, Grotius,
Mede, etc., of the Reformed, among the later teachers, understand it
thus, but also the justly esteemed Dannhauer, among the Lutherans,
regards it as highly probable in his Hodosophia, p. 1,445, and Selneccer
goes still further in his comment on Daniel 12:2.
The objections urged to the foregoing, by Prseterists and Allegorists,
are (1) during the 1,000 years the souls of the martyrs live and reign;
therefore, this can not occur first after the resurrection, because the
souls are in heaven; (2) if 1,000 years still remain, after 6,000 for the
world, and a Judgment Day after that, then the Judgment is not so near
as the Apostles testified it to be ; (3) if the raised saints are taken to
heaven, then Satan loosed and Gog and Magog, can not assault them;
(4) if there is a special, and afterwards a general, resurrection, then the
special includes all, or only some, believers. If all, then none will be
left to be rewarded in the last resurrection, which is contrary to John 5:
29, Daniel 12 : 2, Matt. 25 : 31, and Rev. 20 : 12-15. 1 Cor. 4 : 5, 2 Cor. 5 :
10, Rom. 14:11, 12, where the reward of works refers to both the good
and the bad. If some only, then this is contrary to Luke 14: 14, where
all the righteous appear in the resurrection of the just, and with Matt.,
chapter 25, and 1 Cor. 15: 25, which include all believers, ancl with Rev.
20:4, which speaks not only of the martyrs, but of all who have not
worshipped the Beast
Thus, the reader has the various expositions, with the reasons pro and
con. He who thinks he can compare the first or second of these three
views with the text and parallel passages, it is to be hoped, will have
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 487
Christian modesty enough, at least, so that, if any one prefers the third
solution, viz.: that of the church-fathers, of the bodily resurrection of
the martyrs to the Kingdom of Glory, lie will not rashly accuse him as
guilty of heresy in doctrine!
FROM THEURER'S DAS REICH GOTTES.
(Pp. 36-39.)
It is worthy of observation that during the life of Christ, He, evermore
unveiled, in words and deeds, the Spirit of glory and sanctity that
was in Him ; yet, at the same time, evermore became veiled, according
to His body, before the world, through shame and suffering, until, at last,
as the Crucified One on Golgotha, with fear and trembling of soul, and
yet iu His highest spiritual beauty, and at the same time in most terrible
bodily humiliation, His members torn asunder, He surrendered Himself
to the Gentiles, enrobed in darkness. So, also, does the Kingdom of
God, as Christendom in its humiliation, make its course through the
world. Ever more, the nearer it approaches the end, it reveals the
power of its indwelling spirit by testimony and energy, while at the
same time weakness and death press more and more into outward
Christendom. At last, especially in its midnight-time, although under
fear and trembling, and with the lights gone out, as in Gethsernane and
on Calvary, still in its greatest spiritual beauty, a persevering and over-
coming community, and yet in its deepest shame and humiliation, it is
betrayed and denied by its own friends, condemned by Caiaphas, given
over by Pilate, surrendered to the clamorous mob, and nailed to the
cross by the heathenish " Spirit of the Age." As Christ, at last, laid
aside His body in death, so also shall the Kingdom of God lay aside, in
the last tribulation, everything that belongs to mere State-Church-
dom, Constitution, Ordinances, Laws, and external Christianity. And
as Christ, at the death of His body, went, in His spirit, to Paradise, so
shall the believing Church, in the destruction of all external churchli-
ness, press through, with the power of the martyrs, to the church above.
And as Christ, in the resurrection, received again His body in glorified
form, and appeared in that exalted condition on earth, so shall the
Kingdom of Heaven at the Second Coming of its King, and at the First
Resurrection of those who sleep in Him, and with those who are
changed, and at the destruction of Anti-christ and Binding of Satan,
receive an outward glorious form, and enter upon this earth in an exalted
condition. This shall take place when the dechristianized World-
Kingdom, under full development of Satanic energy, shall have won an
apparently complete victory over the Kingdom of Christ. Then shall
the Kingdom of Christ, as a Kingdom of Joy, lift itself high over
the ruins of Satan's empire, and become the one and only World-
488 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Kingdom on Earth. Jesus shall be King, surrounded by His Bride,
who, in a high-priestly way, shall, with Him, rule the earth.
Whether Christ, with His Church, during this Kingdom of Joy,
shall remain constantly visible, or whether, after His visible appear-
ing, He shall again become invisible, or sometimes one and then
the other, as in the time of His resurrection, or whether the central seat
of His dominion shall be Mount Zion, or whether this shall be literally
exalted above all mountains, or whether the higher Pavillion-Cloud in
the air shall, after banishment of all wicked spirits, be the place where
Christ shall celebrate, with His Church, the marriage-supper of the
Lamb, or whether the upper Jerusalem and Mount Zion shall be united
in closest connection for the glorified church these are questions on
which believing investigators of Scripture have returned various answers.
It is not always true that what is most conceivable is most probable.
The fulfillment alone will bring us the surprising solution. Heaven
will be nearer earth though not yet united. It will be the light-evening,
the still Sabbath of the earth, not yet its Sunday, or still greater Easter-
morn. The earth remains earth, though under a higher power of devel-
opment and an altogether new blessing from above. The physical life
of man advances, but under the dominion of the Spirit. Among the
nations, shall stand pre-eminent the now scattered, but then gathered,
people of Israel. For, from Zion and Jerusalem, the clear gleam of God
shall break forth, and from there shall proceed the law. At the end of
the 1,000 years, the separation between heaven and earth shall be
abolished. Earth and Humanity shall have passed through the grave
to their eternal Easter-morn. And then shall be brought to glorious
completion what was begun in the Incarnation of Jesus.
FROM STOCKMAYER-DAS OELBLATT.
(Pp. 161, 162. Nov. 1878.)
The coming of the Lord brings the breaking of that great Day of
which the Apostle speaks. (2 Pet. 3 : 8.) " One day is with the Lord as
a thousand years." This day of the Lord which follows upon the sixth
weary work-day of the world, commences with His advent to set up his
visible Kingdom on earth, and closes with the universal judgment
and regenesis of heaven and earth. We have to expect the Lord, how-
ever, not only as King, for the erection of His visible dominion, but also
as Bridegroom for the bringing home of His Bride. When Paul speaks
of the return of Christ he connects, therewith, "our gathering together
unto Him," (2Thes. 2:1,) which indeed precedes the erection of the
Kingdom, for to this last named end the Lord appears attended by His
chosen saints, (Kev. 17: 14,19: 14; 1 Thes. 3: 13; Zech. 14: 5,) whom He
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 489
gathers round Himself. Before John sees the Conqueror coming from
heaven on the white horse (Rev. 19:11-16), he hears the voices of a
great multitude from above, exclaiming, " Let us be glad and rejoice
and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His
wife hath made herself ready." (Rev. 19 : 7.) It follows, therefore, that
the Church of Christ has there reached the point where the most glorious
promises of God are fulfilled. To see Jesus, to behold Him face to face,
this is the longing of all believing souls who have already learned
here below to behold Him by faith. A day is coming when this longing
shall be stilled in a way surpassing all human thought the day of the
marriage-supper of the Lamb, the ceremonial day of the heavenly Bride-
groom with His chosen Bride. They who have stood nearest to Him
here below shall stand nearest to Him then, in that day of
honor, clad in holy garments, more precious than gold, and
reflecting the splendor of His glorious majesty. Blessed are all
they who are called to this marriage-supper. (Rev. 19 : 9.) The
attainment of this end has, for its pre-supposition, the glorification of
the Bride through the resurrection from the dead, and the transforma-
tion of the living saints. (1 Thess. 4 : 6 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 23, 52 ; Phil. 3 : 20.)
But the Lord comes not only as a Bridegroom but as the King of Kings
to overthrow the whole anti-christian power of the world, to hurl the
princes of the world into the abyss and establish His visible Kingdom
on earth, in which the risen saints shall reign with Him 1,000 years, as
priests of God and of Christ. (Rev. 20 : 6 ; Dan. 7 : 27.) The end circles
back to the beginning. The dominion of God as it was in Paradise
must, at last, attain to the same eminence on earth, precisely when the
dominion of Satan will have reached its highest development. As
Paradise was the central point from which the dominion of God spread
first over Eden, next over the whole earth, so, in the Millennial King,
dom, the risen church, the Bride, in the enjoyment of the Bridegroom
the second Adam shall be the central point from which the life-stream
of the glory of Jesus shall gush forth over the beloved land, the King-
dom restored to Israel, and next over all surrounding nations of the
world.
FROM PFLEIDERER'S DER PAULINISMUS.
(Pp. 264, 265.)
Tne resurrection of believers, and judgment, are acts immediately
connected with the Parousia, but in no way constitute the absolute
" end." With the Parousia, rather, the epoch of the Messianic dominion
of Christ upon earth, begins that period whose duration is given by John
as 1,000 years, and which we designate by the technical term " Chiliasm,"
even though it is indefinitely described by Paul. That Paul, also, as
490 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
well as John, assumes an intermediate period of indefinite duration
between the Parousia and the end of the world, during which Christ
exercises the government of the world in visible Messianic glory, and
afterwards surrenders the Kingdom to God, is expressly taught in 1 Cor.
15 : 23. Verse 23 speaks of an " Order " of the resurrection, Christ the
First Fruits going before; next they who are Christ's at His coming,
then the end of the world-period, which coincides with the surrender of
the Kingdom to God. Utterly destroyed would be this clear conception
of an " Order" of events running on in various articulations and time-
sections, did we hold the expression, "then the end," to be contempora-
neous with the preceding " afterwards" which designates the Parousia;
for then, indeed, except the resurrection of Christ, only one resurrection
were to be expected, viz., that of believers, in consequence of which the
Pauline discourse could, clearly, not be a succession of events, and still
more, the destiny of the whole non-Christian world would be passed
over in inconceivable silence. The time-point of the " end" is that
where Christ surrenders the Kingdom to God, after He has put down all
hostile power, for until this He must continue to reign. According to
the New Testament view it is undeniable that the Parousia is the time-
point when Christ enters upon the Kingdom. For what should He
appear in visible glory on earth if not even for this, to enter on His
imperial dignity and exercise His imperial office in the place of God ?
A visible appearing upon earth to not enter, first of all, visibly upon
the dominion which hitherto He had invisibly exercised by the power
of the Holy Spirit, but only, and immediately to visibly surrender the
same, is a contradiction in thought. Therefore, does it incontroverti-
bly follow that the "end," where Christ surrenders the outward
royalty to God must be conceived of as essentially different from the
Parousia where He enters upon it, and separated from it even by the
whole period in which He exercises it, i. e. y by the period of the so-called
Apocalyptic 1,000 years.
FROM EBRARD'S CHRISTLICHE DOGMATIK.
(Zweiter Bund, pp, 747, 749, 736 )
The development of the Church forms a conspicuous parallel with the
history of Christ upon earth. Its persecutions until Constantine, corres-
pond to His persecution by Herod; its labor among the nations during
the three and a-half mystic years to the three and a-half years of His
ministry; its last three and a-half days of tribulation at the end-time of
the Anti-christian Kingdom to His passion and burial, the resurrection
of believers at His return corresponds to His own resurrection. And
just as after His resurrection He remained forty days upon earth the
Glorified among the unglorified, so shall the Church triumphant, con-
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 491
sisting of the resurrected saints, united with their Head rule over the
earth throughout the long period designated by the mystic number 1,000
years the glorified over the unglorified. And then shall the Old Tes-
tament prophecies of the re-creation of the Kingdom of Israel attain
their fulfillment, for, within the unglorified humanity upon earth, con-
verted Israel shall form the middle point of the Kingdom of Christ.
The Church of the resurrection shall then first rightly exercise with
power its office over the nations, being fully developed into the King-
dom of Christ, for it still has nations at its side. Only the subjects of
the Kingdom of Anti-Christ are destroyed at the Parousia. The remain-
ing world of nations lives on in an unglorified state. The first resurrec-
tion, that of those who have not received the mark of the beast is to be
distinguished from the later resurrection of the whole remaining human-
ity at the final judgment. The latter will be separated from the Parousia
by a long period, during which the risen ones caught up to meet the
Lord, shall live with Christ and share in His dominion over the earth.
FROM SCHENKEL'S CHRISTLICHE DOGMATIK.
(Zweite Abtheilung. pp. 1195, 1196.)
That the doctrine of the 1,000 years' Kingdom, or Chiliasm, enclosed
in itself an important dogmatical truth was a fact that should have been
recognized by the older modern dogmatists. The earlv degeneration of
this truth into sensuous and carnal representations haa brought, only so
much the more, the doctrine into the disrepute of heresy, in the Hie-
rarchical Church, since the Chiliasts (Jewish) haughtily appropriated to
themselves the glory and blessedness of the 1,000 years' Kingdom before
the time. In the early period of the reformation they, who, upon the
ground of the Holy Scripture, undertook, partly by unfortunate, partly
by criminal, attempts, to transfer the symbolic idea of that kingdom into
the outer field of fact, hindered even the recognition of its ideal doctrine
content. And yet what a thought, rich in comfort, that, after the severe
and decisive conflicts in which the false Churchdoin and God-opposed
Statedom have been overcome by the body of believers, and the universal
power of wickedness has been broken, there shall finally follow a time
of gathering together and of peace for the Church of the Lord in which
Christ in her, and she in Christ, shall both be manifested unhindered for
the first time! Only there is no justification for bringing this glorious
manifestation of the victorious Church of peace into any connection
with enhanced sensuous enjoyments or acquired worldly honor. On the
contrary, the victory over evil shall have as its consequence the trans-
figuration of the physical basis in man into the glory of the Spirit-life,
aud with the victory of the Spirit-life upon earth, a metamorphosis of
the life of nature shall go hand in hand.
492 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
FROM VAN OOSTERZEE'S CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS.
(Vol. II. pp. 786, 798, 799.)
Scripture, in the dim distance, opens up the prospect of more than
one resurrection; first, a partial one, and then an absolute universal one.
Of the former, not only does the Apocalypse seem to speak, (20 : 4-6,) but
also the Lord, (Luke 14: 14,) and Paul, 1 Thess. 4: 16, as also 1 Cor. 15: 23,
as compared with verse 26 ; without, however, its connection with, and
difference from, the other resurrection being more nearly indicated.
That the return of the Lord will not be simply a momentarily becoming
visible from heaven, but a return to earth is according to the Scriptures
beyond doubt. Simultaneously with the coming of Christ, takes place
the " First Resurrection." The term Millennial Kingdom has in many
an ear so unpleasant a sound that even from a believing standpoint some
courage is required to range one's self with the defenders of Chiliasm.
If we do so, nevertheless, in obedience to faith in the word, without
which we know nothing of the future, we must begin with repudiating
the Jewish form in which this prospect is represented by some in a
manner which furnished a ready occasion to the reformers to speak of
"Judaica somnia" For us, also, is the hope here treated of ' a real
pearl of Christian truth and knowledge " (Lange), but only so, after we
have separated the pearl from the variegated shell in which it is
so often proffered to us. The fulfillment of the prophetic word can
not lead to its entire annulling, and when we enquire as lo the indestruct-
ible reality which underlies alike the prospect of prophets and apostles,
we believe that this prospect authorizes us to hope for nothing less than
a glorious manifestation of the triumphant Kingdom of God on earth,
even before the entire running out of the course of the world's history.
Such a manifestation we may not expect before the return of the Lord,
but after this return we regard it even apart from the letter of Scrip-
tureas on internal grounds, and, moreover, as in the highest degree,
worthy of God.
FROM CHRISTLIEB'S MODERN DOUBT AND CHRISTIAN
BELIEF.
(P. 452. 1 )
The resurrection-power coming from Christ, through the medium of
His word and sacraments, tends mainly to the renewing and sanctifica-
tion of the sinner, Rom. 5 : 10, Eph. 2:5,6, 1 Pet. 1:3, and thus inter-
penetrates, first, the spiritual nature of man, planting within those who
are regenerate a germ for the resurrection of the body, Rom. 8:11.
Then, the spiritual life of Christ breaks forth into a manifestation in the
visible world, by revivifying the bodies of those who are sanctified, in
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 493
the " First Resurrection," 1 Cor. 15 : 23, John 5 : 25-29, Rev. 20 : 5, 6. In
the succeeding general resurrection, an act of Christ's power which
extends to the whole of the corporeal world, and introduces the great
mundane catastrophe, Rev. 20: 11-13, as well as in the formation of a
new heaven and earth, this grand and gradually-progressive process of
the world's renewal has its fitting consummation. It is God's will that
His glory should dwell in the whole creation, that He may be All in
All, 1 Cor. 15 : 28, Rev. 21 : 3, etc. In this respect we must indorse the
sentiment of Oetinger, that " Corporeity is the end of the ways of God."
FROM DORNER'S PERSON OF CHRIST.
(Vol. I., pp. 408-415.)
Christian Chiliasm, so far from being derivable from, may in part be
more justly regarded as a polemic against, Judaism, on the part of Chris-
tianity. This, in particular, is its character, where it has apparently
borrowed most features from Judaism." "It is false to say that any one
of the church writers conceived the 1,000 years' kingdom to be the last.
On the contrary, they represent it as a stage of transition to eternal life.
For this reason, also, it is unjustifiable to say that Chiliasm degrades
faith and sanctity in this life, to the rank of mere means whose end lies
outside of themselves. They continue to be ends themselves, though at
the same time regarded as preparing the way for a new and more per-
fect stadium. The present world is a period of suffering, especially for
the members of the 1,000 years' kingdom." " Chiliasm, therefore, was
the form in which Christianity first gave conscious expression to the
conviction of its destiny to rule the world. Chiliasm was the assertion
of the fact, that Christianity is related, positively as well as negatively,
to the world. Chiliasm declared that Christianity, by renouncing, was
called to glorify the world, Chiliasm was the fruit and sign of the
advance of Christendom to the conviction that Nature is destined, by
its inmost essence and idea, to stand in a positive relation to spirit.
The truth which it asserted justly claimed a realization by Christendom
at every stage of its existence in even higher forms and increasing
measure."
FROM LUTHARDT'S LEHRE VON DER LETZTEN DIEGEN.
(Pp. 35, 129.)
The earth, not heaven, is the abode of the glorified church. There
shall not be one part of the church, the Gentile-Christian part, glorified
in heaven, and another part, the Jewish, glorified on earth. The church
shall be one, and have in its midst the Lord returned to earth, as the
Sun and Temple in the new heavenly glorified Jerusalem. They who
suffer with Christ shall reign with Him. But over whom ? The dis-
494 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
tinction still obtains between the glorified church gathered round its
Lord, in its glorified place on earth., and the outer unglorified humanity
still liable to sin and death, yet freed from Satanic dominion and sub-
ject to the dominion of Christ and His Church. Into such a contrast
the Old Testament prophecy runs out, the contrast between Israel, the
ruling people of God, and the nations of the earth brought into sub-
mission to its divine government. The true Israel in spirit, gathered
from among all nations, is the Church of Christ. Before it, the nations
bow in obedient recognition of the authority of Christ, 1,000 years long.
One of the great World-Days, a World-Time, belongs to this Kingdom
of God.
It is future, not past, and not even present, for it begins with the
resurrection of believers. This resurrection, Rev. 20: 4-6, is not a spirit-
ual regeneration, for what is here spoken of is not that sinners,
spiritually dead, shall be spiritually quickened to faith, but that the
martyrs and other believers, bodily dead, shall be bodily raised to the
life of glory and dominion. To make a representation of this condition
is, for us, as impossible as it was for the disciples to conceive the bodily
resurrection and glorification of their Lord, before their actual experi-
ence of these things. Enough, that it is promised to us." " Is the object
of Christ's coming to surrender the Kingdom to the Father, or does He
come, first of all, to rightly enter upon it? Undoubtedly the latter.
The Appearing of Christ is, at the same time, the Appearing of His
Kingdom. Then shall believers eat and drink in His Kingdom, and,
since they have borne with Him the Cross, shall share with Him the
glory. This, unquestioned, then it is clear that the return of Christ is
rather for the purpose of assuming than assigning the Kingdom, and,
therefore, the Parousia of Christ and the End of the World do not coin-
cide, but, on the contrary, are separated from each other."
FROM LANGE'S BREMEN LECTURE.
(Bremen Lectures, p. 244.)
The order of events in the consummation of the Kingdom of God,
Paul has critically indicated. The Resurrection of Christ is the con-
summation of this kingdom in principle, 1 Cor. 15 : 23, Eph. 1 : 19. The
ontological truth that spirit has absolute power over nature, the personal
spirit over its corporeal sphere, has there been realized as a truth of
history. With this fact, the Spirit of Glory, as a resurrection-germ in
believers corresponds, Rom. 8: 11, 1 Pet. 4: 14. This resurrection-seed
will become the harvest in the "First Resurrection," 1 Cor. 15:23,
which belongs to the beginning of the cosmical consummation. The
" End," then, is the conclusion of the One Day which is as great as
1,000 years. In this altogether organic period of transition, from time
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 495
to eternity, Christ will destroy all powers of sin and of the old world, 1
Cor. 15 : 24, 25, then, as the last enemy, Death, the essence of all evil.
Finally, there appears yet a wonderful change of things. The official
work of Christ in redeeming and renewing has been accomplished, and
His antecedent mediatorial reign now passes over into the consummated
theocracy, the immediate rule of God in the glorified world by virtue of
the omnipresence of the Spirit. The Scriptures speak in the sublimest
figures of the future in which the Kingdom, the heavenly Jerusalem,
shall descend to earth, and the hope of residence in this magnificent
city, still more of its appearance, has always most profoundly moved,
waked, purified, comforted, cheered all Christian hearts. In a thou-
sand songs, winged words, and similitudes, it has poured itself forth.
FROM AUBERLEN'S DER PROPHET DANIEL.
(P. 372.)
Daniel and John both describe the Millennial Kingdom, but in dif-
ferent manner, because from different points of view. As we have
already seen, both Apocalypses are consummations of the entire proph-
ecy of their Testaments, containing, Dan. 2 : 35, 44 ; 7 : 13-27, a brief sum-
mary of the whole Old Testament, and, Rev. 20 : 4-6 a brief summary of
all the New Testament prophecy, concerning the Kingdom of Glory
upon earth. A great mass of prophetic passages, and many beautiful
ones in the Gospels and Epistles, serve to fill up, more richly, these gen-
eral outlines. Nor does the New Testament lack in such expressions
as form the connecting links between the earthly and super-earthly
side of the contemplation. The view of the subject, generally taken, is
that Jesus preached a purely internal, moral, and spiritual Kingdom of
God, in opposition to the external, carnal, Messianic expectations of the
Jewish people. This, however, is only the other and spiritualistic
extreme to the materialistic conception of the Jews at the time of our
Saviour. It is admitted that our Lord was obliged to press with double
emphasis, over against the carnal ideas of His people, the spiritual
internal conditions necessary to a participation in His Kingdom, viz. :
repentance and faith. But He, thereby, does not allow the Kingdom to
be dissolved into mere inwardness; it is only for Him "the divine
order of things, which is realized through Him, the Messiah a develop-
ment from within outwardly. (Chr. F. Schmid, Bib. Theol. N. T.
I. 325.) Thus, the Kingdom of God has different periods. It has
appeared in Christ, Matt. 12:28; it spreads in the world by inward,
hidden, spiritual processes, Matt. 13 : 33 ; but, properly, as a kingdom in
royal glory, it comes only at the Parousia, Luke 19: 11, 12, 15, even as
the Lord Himself has taught us to pray, day by day, " Thy kingdom
come," Matt. 6:10. And this kingdom is not that of everlasting
496 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
blessedness after the last judgment, which, indeed, consummates the
ultimate perfection of the kingdom, but it is already, anterior to that
event, an earthly, Israelitish, but by no means carnal, kingdom of glory,
precisely as the prophets have pictured it, and whom Jesus contradicts
in no part, but whose prophecy, connecting Himself therewith, He ever
presupposes, Matt. 19: 28; Acts 1 : 6-8. Jesus was, consequently, as all
the prophets and apostles were, a Chiliast.
FROM KLIEFOTH'S OFFENBARUNG JOHANNIS.
(Dritte Abtheilung. pp. 266, 267.^
Hengstenberg thinks that the idea of l^aav (Rev. 20 : 4-6) is not to be
explained from the idea of avacraais, but the contrary. This is, indeed,
an inversion and preposterous. The avaaraakg must not be explained
from t&aav but the latter is to be explained from the former, which is
added by way of exposition, and the idea of the i&aav is so to be con-
ceived that it will include, not exclude, the idea of the resurrection, to
be taken in its proper sense, according to verse 5. But, we would again
go wrong if, with Ewald and De Wette, we take the i&oav as equivalent
to bvefyoav or " lived again," resuscitati sunt without anything further.
The indefinite expression l&oav is intentionally chosen with respect to
the two classes named in the text, viz. : the dead blood-witnesses of
Christ or the martyrs, and the unmartyred living confessors. Of both it
is said, "they lived." Applied to the first class, the bodily dead, it
certainly means their return to life by a bodily resurrection. It is true
of them that t&aav t precisely as it was true, in chapter 2:8, of Christ
Himself, the Great Martyr, that He e&oev, came to life again. Applied
to the second class, however, it means, as we know from 1 Thess. 4 : 17,
1 Cor. 15:51-53, that they shall "be changed" by transformation, into
that condition to which the blessed dead come through resurrection. It
is this attraction of the corruptible into incorruption, and of the swal-
lowing up of mortality by life, that is unquestionably indicated, for both
classes, by the one verb &aav, " they lived." Excellently has Bengel
explained it He says, "They became alive in that part in which they
were dead already, or were mortal, consequently in their body. The
dead, through the resurrection of their dead body, the living through the
transformation of their mortal body, came to the condition of life, . .,
immortality and incorruption."
FROM ROTHE'S DOGMATIK.
(Zweiter Theil pp. 57-77.)
Extraordinary changes in the whole visible world shall immediately
precede the Coming of the Lord. With the return of the Redeemer full
redemption comes for His believing people. His kingdom now enters
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 497
upon earth, the proper Basileia, the Chiliastic Kingdom, into which,
immediately at His appearing, the angels, with the sound of the trumpet,
gather the elect from under the whole heaven. This Kingdom the
Redeemer has defined as the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of His
Father, His own Kingdom and assigned and secured to Him by the
Father's will, the Kingdom prepared for the righteous, and the " Regener-
ation." This Kingdom which He sets up immediately after His Parousia,
He designates under manifold images. He pictures it especially as a
Marriage-Supper, as a Festive-Banquet, as the Joy of the Lord. Especially
is it set forth as a Feast of Joy to be celebrated with patriarchs and
prophets, precisely as the Jewish writers describe the blessedness of the
Messianic Kingdom under the same figure. That this picture is iden-
tical with the Kingdom of God, at the appearing of Christ, is evident
from a comparison of Matt. 8:11 with Luke 13:28,29. The twelve
Apostles shall sit with Him upon the twelve thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel. A narrower or wider circle of activity shall be accorded
to each one, in proportion to His fidelity to the Lord in the present age.
He, moreover, designates the blessedness of this Kingdom as an inherit-
ing of the earth, for, to this Chiliastic Kingdom, the passage Mat. 5:5
must be referred. During the existence of this Kingdom, many, never-
theless, still find themselves excluded, and in the place of punishment
and death." " The Apostles, unanimously expected the return of Christ,
to enter upon this Kingdom, on earth. In general terms, they designate
this return as His "Parousia," His "Apocalypse," His " Phanerosis,"
His "Epiphany," and fix it at the "Day of the Lord," or absolutely
"The Day." Then, the Lord returns from heaven in like manner as He
went up into heaven. He appears again, as sent of God, in glory, at the
trumpet's sound, descending from heaven, surrounded by angels and
saints, coming to those who look and long for him, to an oppressed
church in whom He will be glorified, for its final deliverance from all
evil, and for vengeance upon all who obey not His Gospel. At His
return all true believers shall be gathered together to Him, and remain
with Him forever a return unexpected by the world, and sudden like
lightning, but not unexpected by believers a return, fixed by Apostles,
as in the " last time," but still regarded as impending, a thing psycholog-
ically most natural, since His Parousia was blended with the prophecy
of judgment on Jerusalem. They believed it probable in their own day.
But, still, they announced certain signs that must precede the Parousia,
and that at the Parousia the Old Testament prophecies will receive
their fulfillment. (Acts 3 : 21.) Before the Parousia, the gospel should be
proclaimed to all the nations, Rom. 11 : 25, then " hard times " x a tel
Kfiipol should come, 2 Tim. 3: 1, the deep moral and religious corruption
of men, the great apostasy, antichrist, 2 Thess. 1 : 12. " At the Parousia,
32
498 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Beast and False Prophet are cast into the lake of fire, Rev. 19 : 20, 21,
and all antichristian power is annihilated, 2 Thess. 2 : 8. The Apostles
describe the Chiliastic Kingdom. Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews,
calls it " a Sabbatism " for the people of God. James calls it the
"Basileia" which God has promised to them that love Him, the poor
in this age, but rich in faith. Especially does Paul describe it as a
reigning of believers " together with Christ." The Apocalypse exhibits
this co-regency as the chief element of blessedness in the Chiliastic
Kingdom. The redeemed reign with Christ, sit on His throne, have
power over the nations, aud participate in the destruction of the enemies
of their Lord. Priests and Kings, they receive white robes, garments
of light, and in these walk about with the Redeemer. They obtain the
hidden manna, eat of the Tree of Life, wear the crown, and possess the
white stone, with the new name, which none know but they who have
it. They are pillars in the Temple of God to go-out no more, and over
them the second death has no power. The Apocalypse fixes the duration
of this Kingdom at 1,000 years, during which Satan is bound, and after
which Satan is let loose to array Gog and Magog against the camp of the
saints, when fire from heaven descends to destroy the enemies of the
Kingdom, and Satan and they together are cast into the sulphurous pool
where Beast and False Prophet already are, to be tormented forever and
ever." (Rev. 20: 11-15.) "The Redeemer asserts distinctly the future
resurrection of the body. And still His utterances so sound as to
separate that of the righteous from that of the wicked, both as to fact
and time. So in Luke 20 : 35, where the discourse is not of the resur-
rection in general, but distinctly of a resurrection to the earthly Kingdom
of the Redeemer, the so-called " First Resurrection." So it sounds (es
klingf) when He calls Himself the " Resurrection and the Life; " when
He says, "All that the Father gives Him shall come to Him, and He will
raise them up at the last day ; " " all who believe in Him ; " " all who eat
His flesh and blood," where the clear implication is that the rest of the
dead awake not at the same time. Such a distinction He makes in Luke
14 : 14, a resurrection for the pious, a resurrection for the wicked., So
the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. 15 : 23, compared with Rom. 8 : 10, contemplates,
not a general resurrection, but that of believers " they who are Christ's,"
" the sons of God." The Apocalypse distinguishes a first and second
resurrection. The first resurrection, which ensues at the same time with
the Advent, Rev. 19:11-21, is expressly described as the "First," Rev.
20 : 4-6. In it, only the martyrs and they who have remained pure from
the contamination of the world-power, have a share. These, and only
these, reign with Christ 1,000 years, while the " Rest of the dead " awake
not to life. After the expiration of these years, and victory over Satan let
loose, then the rest of the dead arise for judgment, Rev. 20: 11-15. In
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 499
consequence of the complete separation of antichrislian men, by means
of the appearing of Christ, the development of His people perfects itself
in the completed Kingdom of God. This perfect earthly dominion of
the returned Redeemer, as Head of the perfect Christian Kingdom, is
His earthly Kingdom of glory the Chiliastic Kingdom identical with
the marriage-supper of the Lamb.
FROM RODS' INTERPRETATION OF DANIEL.
(In Aubcrlen's Daniel, p. 451.)
The Revelation of John, or rather the Revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ, resembles, in many ways, the prophecies of Daniel, embracing,
as it does, a great part of the same period described by Daniel; but the
two books differ in several respects. Daniel begins with a period earlier
than the Revelation, for the latter does not speak of Babylonian, Persian,
and Greek kingdoms, which at the time of John belonged to the past-
Whereas the Apocalypse extends into more remote times than Daniel, and
also contains a description of the last 1,000 years of the world, the
beginning and character of which were revealed to Daniel, as also the
final judgment, the New Jerusalem, etc. The prophecies of Daniel refer,
in the first place, to Christ and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem,
Dan. 9. They then describe the last Antichrist, 11 : 36. But the great
intermediate period, from the destruction of Jerusalem to Antichrist is
filled up by the Revelations of St. John, which extend to the times of
Antichrist. With regard to the fourth period of the world, or the last
1,000 years of the world, there is no book of the Bible which treats of them
exclusively; but the promises referring to that blessed time are scattered
throughout the Scriptures, and added, as a source of consolation and
hope, to the prophecies concerning the dangers and afflictions of the
Church. And let this suffice. In this order we must speak and write
about it. It is revealed, not to satisfy curiosity, but to strengthen our
faith and to quicken our hope. It is easy for us to bear good and joyful
events whenever they come, though they were not circumstantially
foretold. But it consoles a Christian, who is often grieved and distressed,
in these dark times, and who has a zeal for the honor of Jesus Christ
and His Kingdom, to look forward to the golden times, when all pia
desideria will be fulfilled and realized, and to see them, even now, in
the mirror of the divine word.
FROM SCHMID'S BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT.
(Pp. 245-269.)
According to the practical idea of it, the Kingdom of God, in the
teaching of the Lord, is a divine order of things realized through Christ
500 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the Redeemer as one developing itself from within. This development
is opposed to the view of an outward realization which is not based on
any spiritual life. This merely material view is resisted by the Lord in
the case of the Jews, especially in Luke 17 : 20, 21. Together with this
stress, laid on its invisible nature, the Lord also depicts, in verse 24, this
same Kingdom as appearing visibly. As the Kingdom of God on earth,
it is, in the first place, a fellowship of men. It also embraces humanity
as a whole without limitation to any particular part thereof in contrast
to the choice of the Jewish people. The Gospel will be preached to the
whole world. It also comprises heaven and earth, and likewise the com-
ing periods of the world, both before and after the judgment. The
stages of the development of the Kingdom of God are the stages and
various modes of His Parousia. There are, therefore, two chief periods
of God's Kingdom, which are separated by the epoch of 'judgment.
The Lord describes them as ^Eons, the present as " this Age," the other
as the "Age to come." The epoch which forms the point of division
between the two periods may be perceived from Matt. 24:3, etc. By
it the characters of the two periods are described. Just as, under the
Old Testament dispensation, a divine prophecy was given in respect
to the gradual development and final shape of the divine Kingdom,
so Jesus also predicted the future course of God's Kingdom. The
chief epochs brought forward are the first and last periods which
are inwardly allied with one another, and the interval lying between
these two points. The first epoch is the destruction of the Jewish State
and Church. This epoch bears a twofold character as a judgment and
a deliverance. And this is what it has in common with the last epoch.
The coloring of the representation is therefore somewhat similar in both.
On the old theocracy a judgment came, and as regards the Christian
Church, a similar judgment is impending in the end of the present Age.
In the interval between these two epochs lies the period of the spread of
Christianity among all nations. This period, 'therefore, may be more
protracted than seemed likely at the beginning when the consummation
of the first epoch was alone looked to. The last epoch is the end
of this Age, the entire cessation of the present temporal period.
This epoch is spoken of as the day of judgment, the last day, the deci-
sive hour. Supposing that the word " immediately " (Matt. 24 : 29) is
taken in its proper meaning and not as equivalent to suddenly (which is
evidently impossible), and that verses 29-31 are interpreted in the most
natural way as referring to the latest future, still an explanation may be
found of this conjunction of events by assigning it to the nature of
prophecy, which, in a far-reaching prospective delineation, can depict
distant objects as close at hand, and, in spite of a preparatory interval,
can comprehend in one glance, even as regards time, events which are
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 501
ideally allied. The whole course of development, as regards its chief
epochs, is conditional on the Advent of the Lord, and the judgment com-
ing on the earth. The Parousia of Christ is spoken of in Matt. 24: 27,
39 ; Luke 17 : 24, 30. This coming of the Lord affects, however, the first
as well as the last epoch of God's Kingdom. We have this coming
described, sometimes as close at hand, sometimes distant, sometimes as
determinate, and sometimes as indeterminate. From all this we may
gather that it is not one single fact which is in question, but something
comprehensive and continuous. His constant presence must, therefore,
be distinguished from the special moments of His extraordinary mani-
festations in which, indeed, the former is outwardly produced. They
form a Parousia of Christ, and on them the development of the Church,
or Kingdom of God, is dependent. With the Parousia a continuous
judgment is united. The Lord speaks of the judgment as present, as
future. The final judgment follows at the end of time in the end of the
Age. The judgment in the Church is distinguished from the universal
judgment, and is thus represented in the parables of the ten virgins, and
of the talents. The former judgment has to do with faithful conduct
in Christ's Kingdom. By the completion of this judgment the " Regen-
eration " is also brought about, which coincides with the commence-
ment of the " Age to come." This relates to the whole world, and is
therefore a regeneration of the whole world in general, and consequently
a renovation of nature in the sense of Rom. 8: 18-23. For the faithful,
in particular, it is also the "Resurrection of Life" (Luke 14:14), the
shining forth of the righteous (Matt. 13:43), and this is a glorification
of the body and not of the spirit only. (Matt. 22:23-33.)
FROM KOCH'S DAS TAUSENDJAHRIGE REICH.
(Pp. 1-29, 195-197.)
Whatever obscurity may rest upon various parts of the Apocalypse,
one thing is perfectly clear to every reader, and that is the train of
thought in the section from Chapter 19 to the end of the whole book.
After the triumph song pre-celebrated by the heavenly dwellers, in
chapter 19:5-7, the verses 11-21 treat of the return of Christ, the judg-
ment upon the Beast, the False Prophet, and their armies ; chapter 20 : 1-6
of the 1,000 years' kingdom after the destruction of the Beast; verses 7-9
of the last assault of Gog and Magog at the end of the 1,000 years;
verses 10-15 of the judgment upon Satan, and upon men, which follows
the annihilation of Gog and Magog and coincides with the final
world catastrophe; and, lastly, the closing section of the book, chapter
22:6-21 follows the section, chapter 21 : 1 to 22:5, which treats of the
glory of the New World that enters in the place of the Old. Antichrist
summons the nations to a grand march against the people of God. His
502 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
armies cover the holy land and besiege the " Beloved City." All hope
of human deliverance is gone. Then heaven opens and the Lord Jesus,
accompanied by myriads of His saints, steps forth from His conceal-
ment. Beast and False Prophet are cast into the lake of fire. Satan is
bound and shut up in the abyss. The " First Resurrection " and the
1,000 years' Kingdom ensue. After the 1,000 years, Gog and Magog are
vanquished, and Satan is judged. The final judgment of mankind takes
place, followed by the New Heavens and Earth, the Tabernacle of God
being with men. This is the clear order of events in Chapters 19 to 22.
We see how firm and uninterrupted is the connection. Nothing can be
taken out, nothing substituted in one place for another. It is impossible
to sunder Chapter 20:1-6, which treats of the 1,000 years' Kingdom
from what both precedes and follows it. The dominion of believers
awaked to life by Christ, can not, in any way, be transferred to a church-
historical period, concerning whose beginning and end we are left to
dispute, to and fro. Rather it begins first of all, after the destruction of
the Beast, the Antichrist, for it is the reward of fidelity which the mar-
tyrs have shown during the time of Antichrist, in not worshipping the
Beast nor his image, not receiving his mark in their forehead or hand,
of which the whole discourse speaks in the preceding chapters. Com-
pare Chapter 13: 14-17. In like manner, it is utterly impossible to put
the assault of Gog and Magog before the 1,000 years, for it is expressly
said that " when the 1,000 years are expired " Satan shall go out to
deceive the nations that are in the four quarters of the earth. (20 : 7, 8.)
How exactly everything is linked together, like the links of a chain, is
evident, if we but closely observe what is said of Satan in the preceding
section. Before the 1,000 years, Satan is found upon the earth to which
he had been cast down from heaven, Chapter 12 : 2, and where he gave to
Antichrist his power, 13: 2. At the beginning of the 1,000 years he is
cast down from earth into the abyss in order that he may deceive the
nations no more, as he had formerly done, 20: 3. When the 1,000 years
are ended he is let loose again for a short season, and once more deceives
the nations upon earth, 20: 8. Finally, he is cast into the lake of fire
where he finds the Beast and False Prophet already before him and who
had been brought there at the time he himself was shut up, 19: 20.
Heaven, Earth, the Abyss, Earth, the Lake of Fire, these are the five
stations in Satan's downfall. There are three different conceptions of
Apoc. 20 : 1-6. Some interpret it of a timeless spiritual condition, others
interpret it of the past, others of the future.
The first or spiritualistic method of interpretation comes fatally into
contradiction with the Apocalypse, in all imaginable points. If the
1,000 years begin with the Day of Pentecost, it is certain that Christians,
and consequently, also, spiritual priests and kings to God, have existed
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 503
since the outpourings of the Holy Ghost. On the contrary, the Apoca-
lypse begins these years first after the j udgment upon the Beast of the
returning Lord; so that if the spiritual kingdom of believers is what
was predicted in chapter 20th. we are obliged to conclude that this same
spiritual kingdom shall first commence after the destruction oi the
Beast at the second coming of Christ! If the 1,000 years end with the
return of Christ to the last and universal judgment, it is certain there
will be true believers up to that time, spiritual Priests and Kings who,
therefore, shall pass over from the Church militant to the Church tri-
umphant. On the contrary, the Apocalypse ends the 1,000 years with
the insurrection of Gog and Magog, so that, if the spiritualistic view is
taken, we are obliged to conclude that the dominion of the spiritual
kings over Sin, Death, and Satan, is not a very secure one, but wanes
away before the assault of Gog and Magog! This view regards the first
resurrection as the spiritual quickening of all from Pentecost to the
final Judgment. On the contrary, the Apocalypse speaks of the bodily-
slain martyrs, and those who, in the time of Antichrist, have not wor-
shipped the Beast, nor his Image, nor received his mark in their fore-
heads and hands, so that if the discourse were here of regeneration, it
would follow that this is to be looked for, first, after the destruction of
the Beast at the second coming of Christ in glory! It regards the bind-
ing of Satan as effected in the reconciling Death of Christ, who has
spoiled him of his power. On the contrary, the Apocalypse represents
this power as taken away, first, after the destruction of the Beast by
Christ returned to earth. As a result of this view, Satan having once
been spiritually bound by the Death of Christ, can never come forth
again from his prison, since Christ, not merely for a time, but forever,
has crushed spiritually the head of the Old Serpent. On the contrary,
according to the Apocalypse, Satan is let loose from his prison after the
1,000 years are expired, so that if the discourse here were of the victory
of Christ in his Death, over Satan, then that victory has, indeed, not
been an enduring one ! Again, as a result of this view, the dominion of
the Beast continues with all its pictured abominations, throughout the
same period as that in which believers reign triumphantly with Christ,
a period regarded as timeless for whatever be the Beast (the Papacy),
it is located in a time of church history, the time in which there is a com-
munity of believers, and consequently the dominion of believers has
also continued throughout this period while yet that dominion,
according to chapter 20 : 4, is first given after this period is closed as
a reward to those who, during this period, have not worshipped the
Beast! Still more, as a result of this view, not merely the dominion
of the Beast fal]s within the 1,003 years, but also the insurrection of
Gog and Magog, for whatever be Gog and Magog (the Turk, they say),
504 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
the appearing of the same is ever put in a period of Church history, in
which, at the same time, there is a community of believers, and conse-
quently the government by such, as Priests and Kings, victorious over
Sin, Death and Satan, has been in full activity. And yet the Apocalypse
says expressly that Gog and Magog first rise up in revolt after the 1,000
years' reign of Christ and His saints are expired! Thus does this con-
ception happily effect the miracle that the kingdom of the Beast (the
Papacy), the 1,000 years' kingdom of priestly and royal dominion (the
Millennium), and Gog and Magog (the Turk), are all mutually accom-
modated in one and the same period ! The rise of such a conception
was only possible by a violent sundering of chapter 20th from its con-
nection with what precedes and follows.
The second method of interpretation conceives the 1,000 years as a
measure of time, but locates the same, either in whole or in part, in the
past. More correct than the former view, it regards the 1,000 years as
a definite historical period. But what period? In the old Church
many supposed the commencing date of these years to be coincident
with the Birth of Christ, the great turning-point in history, when the
power was taken from Satan, and the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.
On the contrary, suffice it say, that, as already seen, the 1,000 years do
not begin with the First Advent of Christ, but with His Second, for the
destruction of Antichrist. Others fixed the commencing date at the
time of Constantine's victory and the establishment of Christianity as
the Roman State-Religion. In modern times, Hengstenberg, regarding
the Beast as the Heathen State, and the 1,000 years' reign of Christ with
His risen saints as the supremacy of its successor, the modern Christian
State, consequent, however, only upon the conversion of the Germans
to Christianity (the White-Horse Vision, 19:11), and the "First Res-
urrection," as this blessed condition, together with the ascension of
souls to glory at death, dates the 1,000 years from Christmas eve, A. D.
800, the time of the erection of the " Holy Roman Empire " and cor-
onation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III. The end of the millennium,
therefore, was A.D. 1800, the time of the French Revolution, when
Satan was let loose " for a little season," our present time being that of
"Gog and Magog," or "Modern Infidelity," with the last judgment at
the door. This view has found 'but few supporters. It is superior to the
former, however, in this, that it recognizes the 1,000 years as a measure
of time, and maintains the temporal sequence of chapter 20th upon
chapter 19th, and so the true order of events, viz., (1) the Kingdom of
the Beast, (2) the overthrow of the Beast, (3) the Millennium, (4) the
invasion of Gog and Magog, (5) the Universal Judgment, (6) the New
Heavens and Kurth. The great and fatal objection to Hengstenberg's
interpretation is that the history of the Church and world, from A.D.
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 505
800 to 1800, is utterly at variance with the elevated words of John con-
cerning the Millennial reign.
The third method of interpretation conceives the 1,000 years as still
future, and subsequent to the Second Advent. Here, first of all, the
false Chiliasm advocated in the time of the Reformation, by the fanat-
ical Anabaptists, is to be mentioned. They taught a future glorious
Kingdom of Christ on earth, but imagined that the immediate erection
of this kingdom was a matter of the first importance to the Christian
Church. By her own might, sword in hand, it must be established,
just as it was attempted by Thomas Miinzer to overthrow the Christ-
opposed powers of this world (even as Israel overthrew the Canaan-
ites formerly), in order to proclaim the Kingdom of Christ as the Fifth
Monarchy which was to succeed the four universal monarchies described
by Daniel. Against this conception of the 1,000 years' kingdom, and
only against this, was the 17th Article of the Augsberg Confession
directed, which rejected the Jewish opinion that believers should enjoy
on earth, before the Resurrection, a worldly kingdom after a general crush-
ing out of the wicked. But not merely by the Augustana, but also by
the Scriptures, is this false Chiliasm condemned, because, as already
shown, the erection ot the Millennial Kingdom, according to the
prophet's words, is not the result of any such Church action, but comes
only by means of the returning Lord, an event which the Church awaits
with patience, and which at last, it can only realize, not by works, but
by suffering. Kindred with this false Chiliasm, is a conception of
modern theology, according to which the Kingdom of Christ is to be
realized by means of Church action, not, indeed, violently, but gradually
and in a peaceful way. The sanctifying influence of Christianity is to-
ever more powerfully extend itself, in ever widening circles, the power
of sin evermore retreating before it, until, finally at the close of its
historical development, all humanity shall be glorified into a Kingdom
of God. Even this finer form of Chiliasm,* like the coarse form advo-
cated by the Anabaptists, is condemned by the Apocalypse of John.
According to this, wickedness does not decline in the course of history,
but rather ascends to its most fearful antichristian height, while on the
other hand, also, the Church is purified by means of her tribulations, in
the last time. Not the preaching of the gospel, the moral influence of
Christianity, puts an end to Antichristianity, but the Judgment of the
returning Lord, with which the glorious Kingdom of God on earth
makes its entrance.
From what has been said, it is clear what is the correct conception of
Apoc. 20: 1-6. The 1,000 years' kingdom does not embrace the periods
* That is the pre-advent Chiliasm of Whitby, Glasgow, and Martensen.
506 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
of New Testament Church history. It does not lie in the past, but in
the future, and yet it is not erected by means of the action of the
Church, but, on the contrary, onty by means of her returning Lord
Himself, after the Judgment upon the kingdom of Antichrist. With
the content of this proposition must every conception agree, which does
not seek arbitrarily to circumvent the manifest sense of Apoc. 20 : 1-6,
as it offers itself in connection with what precedes and follows. Even
they who understand by the Beast, not a secular, but a spiritual, power,
the Papacy, are obliged to concur herein. If they would not do vio-
lence to the Apocalypse, then they are obliged to admit, with Bengel,
who advocates this exposition of the Beast, that the destruction of the
Papacy culminating finally in a definite person Antichrist ensues by
means of the Judgment on the Beast from the returning Lord, who
then establishes on earth His 1,000 years' kingdom of glory.*
From all this, Dr. Keil seeks to make a very easy method of escape.
He pursues here a tactic we frequently meet with among antichiliasts.
With the simple remark that the Apocalypse announces events of the
future not in chronological succession they deem themselves able to
break up the strict connection between these chapters, and so hold, in a
free-handed way, the 1,000 years as arbitrarily to put them wherever it
may suit their pleasure. But, herein, they confound two things essen-
tially different. The question, does the Apocalypse divide itself into
41 groups " of visions, each one steadily progressing lo the consummation ?
is a question altogether different from this one, viz.: Can we so sunder
chapter 20 from chapter 19, that the content of the latter shall not fol-
low, in temporal succession, the content of the former? Dr. Keil him-
self remarks that " the last group begins with chapter 19." Therefore,
chapter 20 belongs to the same group with chapter 19. Does he really
imagine that, in one and the same group, there is no chronological suc-
cession: that we are at liberty to transpose, at will, the events here
prophesied, putting the last first, and the first last? This would throw
everything into confusion from which no one could find his way out.
It would fling the gate wide open to all arbitrariness, and make all
study of the Apocalypse a fruitless toil. But the case does not so stand.
The seven seal, seven trumpets, seven vials form separate groups, each
running on to the end. Does Dr. Keil really think that, in each of
these groups, we are at liberty to transpose the events so that we may
put the sixth seal in the place of the first, or the first trumpet or vial in
the place of the seventh? Everyone knows this is impossible. The
strictest chronological order dominates in each of these groups, chap-
*A complete demonstration, from an independent source, of thePre-Millennariau-
ism of the Westminster Standards.
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 507
ters 19-22. The events follow one another, exactly, in temporal suc-
cession; the judgment on the Beast; the 1,000 years' kingdom; Gog
and Magog; the Last Judgment; the New World. Vainly does Dr.
Keil try to rattle asunder the links of this chain. He involves himself
in enormous monstrosities and self-contradictions. Think of the follow-
ing! He denies the temporal sequence of chapter 20: 1-6 upon what
precedes, and affirms that both coincide! So then, we are to hold the
prodigies that, at the very time when the Beast and Satan dominate,
with all their abominations on earth, believers dominate on earth also
with Christ; that at the time when they who have not worshipped the
B'jast arc actually beheaded, they receive, as actually risen ones, the
reward of their fidelity; that at the very time when Satan is bound
*. e., from A.D. 311 to wfanfthsA he no further should deceive the
nations he just then deceives them in highest measure, namely, by
means of his instruments the Beast and False Prophet; that at the
time when he is shut up in the abyss, he is yet loose upon earth, where
he gives to the Beast his power! What, then, means the declaration
that he is to be loosed from his prison, first, after the 1,000 years are
expired? He is evermore loose! Or, since Dr. Keil denies that Satan
is cast 1,000 years into the lake of fire, first after the destruction of the
Beast, what does it signify that Satan is bound 1,000 years in the abyss
while yet his instrument, the Beast, has power on earth during the very
time Satan himself is bound ? Or, has Dr. Keil been misunderstood?
It could almost seem so. If, with Hengstenberg, he regards the 1,000
years' kingdom as the Christian state, then we might conclude from this
that he understands the Beast to mean the Heathen state. But, if that
is the case, then the 1,000 years follow the destruction of the Beast, and
as certainly as the Christian state in Europe was only possible after
the destruction of the Heathen state, so certainly has Dr. Keil involved
himself in a self-contradiction, when he denies the temporal sequence
of chapter 20 upon chapter 19. The 1,000 years' dominion of believers
on earth can never begin, so long as the Beast lives. The contempo-
raneousness of the Beast and the 1,000 years, or even the contempo-
raneousness of the existence and dominion of the Beast, with the
imprisonment of Satan in the abyss, is a monstrosity. In every refer-
ence, chapter 20 goes back to chapter 19 as to its necessary presupposi-
tion. Upon this indissolvable connection between these two chapter*, all
antichiiiastic expositions are forever shattered.
FROM STEFFANN'S DAS ENDE.
(Pp. 296, 298, 305.)
The vision of the White Horse. (Rev. 19: 11-21.) Scarcely any proof
is needed to show that this vision, notwithstanding its similarity to the
508 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
one in Chapter 6 : 2, is of a different character. That represents the victori-
ous progress of the word of God, the preaching of the Gospel through-
out the whole world. This, on the contrary, represents that fact as
accomplished, and the great event that shall supervene in connection
therewith. Beyond doubt, in both, the efficient Personality is the Lord
Himself. In the former, as shown in the opening of the first seal, He is
veiled in the preaching of His word. In the latter, or seen in the pres-
ent vision, He makes a visible appearance before all eyes, revealed in
the fulness of His divine, human Personality, when the Gospel of the
Kingdom has been actually preached for a witness to all nations in the
world, as He Himself has said. (Matt. 24: 14.) The symbolical dress in
the two visions marks this distinction. In both, the White Horse is the
sign of victory, as we have already seen, but while in the former a far-
smiting bow is found in the hand of the Rider for a sign, that, according
to Psalm 45, the nations shall be smitten with the arrows of the word
of God, here a sword cutting near at hand proceeds from the mouth of
the Conqueror for a witness that the day of judgment has come for all
those who, though smitten by His arrows already, have yet not yielded
to the Lord in willing submission. And while, there, " a crown " is
given to the Rider, here, He wears on His head " many crowns " for a
witness that the hour of the completion of His Kingdom, whose histori-
cal development is indicated by that offered crown, has now come.
Again, while it is said of the Rider, in the former vision, " He went forth
conquering and to conquer," here he enters the scene as one who already
has conquered, and, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, has impressed
upon His victory , already won, the bloody seal, only, however, in the over-
throw of all His enemies. It is unmistakable, according to the whole
succession of visions in this Book, and the import of this vision itself,
that herein was shown to the Seer that visible Second Coming of Christ
after whose sign the disciples once questioned their Lord (Matt. 24:3),
and of which the Apostle Paul apprised the Thessalonian and Corinth-
ian Churches in his letters. We stand, here, upon the threshold of a
great truth which, for the most part, has been well nigh lost to the
Christian Church, because it has been wont to confound this return of
the Lord, which, according to the Greek text, is designated by the word
Parousia, with the final and universal judgment of the world. The
Scriptures, indeed, speak only of One Day of the Lord, but they distin-
guish, most clearly, the Appearing of the Lord, which we have before
us in the present vision, from His Appearing at the general judgment
of the world. Already the disciples, in the question above referred to
(M.tt. 24: ), had made the distinction between the Parousia and the
end of the world. The Lord did the same in His answer. The Apostle
Paul makes the same distinction. In all the utterances wherein he
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 509
speaks of the return of the Lord (1 Thess. 2:19, 3:13, 4: 15, 5:23, as
also in 2 Thess. 2: 1, 8; 1 Cor. 1:7, 15: 23), he makes use of the expres-
sion Parousia, and intends what is here pictured in the present vision.
In the last quoted passage he expressly distinguishes between the Par-
ousia and the end. He says, when speaking of the resurrection, " Every
man in his own order ; Christ the First Fruit ; after that, they who belong
to Christ at His Parousia ; then, after that the End, when He shall have
surrendered the Kingdom to the Father." That this clear doctrine of
the Scriptures, the distinction between the " Parousia" and the " End,"
has been almost lost to the Church, has its ground in the fact that, since
Augustine's time, the Scripture doctrine of the 1,000 years has been put
in abeyance. Naturally enough, since, according to the view of that
otherwise so great man, the 1,000 years' Kingdom must belong to the
past, all those passages which treat of the visible return of the Lord
are referred to the end, and the judgment which the Lord fulfills at His
Parousia is confounded with the final universal judgment of the end.
But, does not the " Day of the Lord " since Scripture knows only One
Great Day comprehend both the Parousia and the last universal judg-
ment ? Does not even the same Scripture say that " a Day with the
Lord is as a thousand years ?" Yea, does not John call the last time
itself, the "last hour?" What hinders us to believe that the " Day of
the Lord " begins with the Parousia, and ends with the universal and
consummate judgment ?"
As to the 1,000 years' Kingdom, we have already shown that the visions
of Chapter 19: 11 to Chapter 21: 8 stand in indissolvable progressive con-
nection. As Christian! has proved, the primitive Church recognized the
following order of events: (1.) The return of the Lord, His Parousia.
(2.) The overthrow and removal of the Antichrist and False Prophet.
(3.) The binding of Satan a thousand years. (4.) The 1,000 years' King-
dom. (5.) The liberation of Satan for a short time, and the Last Judg.
ment upon the same after the days of Gog and Magog. (6.) The final
judgment. (7.) The New Heaven and Earth, with the descending New
Jerusalem. From the time, however, when the Roman Christian Empire
acquired a secure and dominating status and they began to confound that
status with the glory here predicted, they rejected, according to Augus-
tine's view, the future 1,000 years' Kingdom and referred the predicted
glory (Rev. 20 : 4-6) to the whole historical course of Christianity. Thus,
it came to pass that they sundered the connection of this vision with the
preceding, and saw in it only a kind of " Recapitulation " and summing
up of all that had gone before. It is the glory of Bengel, never to be
sufficiently praised, that he annihilated that view, running counter, as
it did, to all sound exegesis, and restored the indicated connection to
its right. All standard expositors of modern times follow in the foot-
510 SECOND COMING OP CHRIST.
steps of Bengel, and only those theologians who see in the rejection
of Chiliasni, as the doctrine of the 1,000 years' Kingdom is called, a
mark of genuine orthodoxy, hold fast the Augustinian interpretation.
The Church, before Constantino, with few exceptions, asserted the Chili-
astic view, because, as Ebrard says, " they believed the holy word of
Christ and His Apostles, f His return for the erection of His Kingdom."
"The Apostolic tradition," says Hase, " was so decided that the Chili-
astic faith was the dominating faith of the first three hundred years."
Faith in the return of Christ for the erection of His Kingdom upon
earth, in glory, formed among the people and Christians of the first
three centuries, the substantial object and anchor of their hope. After
Constantine, the opposite view predominated. Blinded by the outwardly
prosperous and glittering condition which this Caesar, after his victory
over Maxentius, had preserved to the Church, they beheld, in their
present form, the fulfillment of this prophecy of the 1,000 years. They
began to laugh at the Scriptural doctrine of Papias, and after Augustine,
the renowned bishop of Hippo, had inserted his own erroneous view, in
place of the other, in his work on the " City of God," remained, during
the whole middle age, and even after the Reformation, in the opinion
that the Church historical time was the period of the 1,000 years. It
has been the general view that, only in the Apocalypse, not in other
Scriptures, the doctrine of the millennium is found. It is incorrect.
It belongs to the Apocalypse, as the last book of holy Scripture, to illu-
minate what, in other books, rests in obscurity, and briefly to put
together what other Scriptures have shown in various places. As, when
some one has already spoken much and long of any matter and gathers
together in a brief word, for conclusion, all that was said, so does the
Apocalypse relate itself to the other testimonies of the holy Scripture
concerning the 1,000 years' Kingdom. All the Scriptures proclaim the
golden time. The Church of the 1,000 years, as it walks in the truth,
shall be free from whatever detracts from the honor of its Lord and
Saviour, and in glory shall display a reality radiant with light, when,
impelled by the love of a Mary Magdalen, it pours forth the ointment
of a beautiful worship, full of odor, in presence of its King.
FROM MOSES STUART ON THE APOCALYPSE.
(Vol. I. pp. 176, 178, 397. Vol. II. pp. 360, 475-477.)
After investigating this subject, I have doubts whether the assertion
is correct that such a doctrine as that of the first resurrection is nowhere
else to be found in the Scriptures. What can Paul mean, Phil. 3: 8-11,
when he represents himself as readily submitting to every kind of self-
denial and suffering " if by any means he might attain unto the resur-
rection from the dead?" Of a figurative resurrection, or regeneration,
CRITICAL APPENDIX.
Paul can not be speaking, for he had already attained to that on the
plains of Damascus. Of the like tenor with the text, moreover, seems
to be the implication in Luke 14:14 "Thou shalt be recompensed in
the resurrection of the Just." Why the resurrection of the "Just?"
This would agree entirely with the view in Rev. 20 : 5. There is the
more reason to believe that such is the simple meaning of the words in
Luke 14: 14, inasmuch as two recent antipodes in theology, Olshausen
and De Wette, both agree in this exegesis. That it has not been made
more prominent in the New Testament is no decisive objection against
it. Where, but in 1 Cor. 15 : 24-28, have we any account of Christ's
resignation of His kingly power? Where, but in 1 Cor. 6: 2, 3, are we
told that " saints shall judge the world and angels ? " " The Apocalypse
teaches a two-fold resurrection; the first, of the saints at the beginning
of the Millennium; the second, of all men at the final consummation
and general judgment." "They lived" means they revived, came to-
life, *. e., returned to a life like the former one, viz.: a union of soul and
body. So does the word mean in Rev. 1 : 8, and in many other passages.
Any other exegesis here would seem to be incongruous. The e&aav
must mean here, reviving, or rising from the dead. Thus, the Saviour
speaks of Himself in Rev. 2:8 as being He who was dead and e&aev,
had revived, lived again, after the death of the body. Thus, too, it is
said of the Beast, Rev. 13 : 14, that had the deadly wound of the sword,
that /j.aev, revived. Thus, in our context, also, it is said, " The rest of
the dead lived not, ow e&aav. The point of antithesis which seems to
decide the whole case, is the distinction of order, or succession, not of
kind. The express contrast here made between the partial and the
general resurrection, and the manner in which this contrast is presented,
shows that the design is not to compare a spiritual with a physical
resurrection, but to contrast the partial extent of the latter, at the begin-
ning of the Millennium, with its general or universal extent at the end
of the world. Putting all these considerations together, I do not see
how we can, on the ground of exegesis, fairly avoid the conclusion that
John bas taught, in the passage before us, that there will be a resurrec-
tion of the martyr-saints, at the commencement of the period after Satan
shall have been shut up in the dungeon of the great abyss. Vitringa's
principal objection is drawn from the alleged fact that the word of God
reveals but one resurrection both of the just and the unjust. This he
takes for granted, and others have affirmed, as Vitringa does, that we
are by no means to admit such a doctrine, on the doubtful ground or
meaning of a single passage. " Doubtful" however, philologically
considered, I think we can not well name it. Indeed, if this be not a
position, in the interpretation of Scripture, which is f^lly and fairly
made out by philology, I should confess myself at a loss to designate
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
one which is, from among the many difficult passages of the Scriptures.
Vitringa does not call in question the doctrine that the mediatorial
Kingdom of Christ will be given up, " when the end cometh;" nor that
Christ, " the Son Himself will be subject to Him who put all things
under Him, that God may be all in all," 1 Cor. 15 : 24-28, because these
doctrines are taught but once in the Scriptures. But, it seems to me
that the passage before us is not the " only one " in the Scriptures which
teaches or intimates that there will be a first and a second resurrection.
I need not discuss this subject again here. I refer the reader to Phil. 3:
8-11, Luke 14:14, Isa. 26:19, 1 Cor. 15:23,24,1 Thess. 4:16. In partic-
ular does Paul seem, by his airapxfi .... lustra .... hra, in
1 Cor. 15 : 23, 24, to have adverted to a first and second resurrection.
FROM ALFORD ON THE APOCALYPSE.
(New Test. Vol.11. Part II., pp. 1088, 1089.)
The Millennial reign. "I saw thrones;" combine Dan. 7:9, and
Matt. 19 : 28. " And they sat upon them "who ? The Apostles, Matt.
19:28, the saints, 1 Cor. 6:2, 3. "And judgment was given to them;"
so in Dan. 7 : 22, i. 6., they were constituted judges. "And I saw the
souls, etc. This is the First Resurrection." I can not consent to dis-
tort these words from their plain sense and chronological place in the
prophecy, on account of any considerations of difficulty, or any risk of
abuses which the doctrine of the Millennium may bring with it. Those
who lived next to the Apostles and the whole Church for 300 years
understood them in the plain literal sense; and it is a strange sight, in
these days, to see expositors who are among the first, in reverence of
antiquity, complacently casting aside the most cogent instance of
unanimity which primitive antiquity presents. As regards the text
itself, no legitimate treatment of it will extort what is known as the
spiritual interpretation now in fashion. If, in a passage where two
resurrections are mentioned, where certain souls lived, at first, and the
Rest of the rest of the dead lived only at the end of a specified period
after that first if, in any such a passage, the first resurrection may be
understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means
literal rising from the grave ; then there is an end of all significance in
language, and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to any-
thing. If the first resurrection is spiritual, then so is the second which,
I suppose, none will be hardy enough to maintain. But, if the second
is literal, then so is the first, which, in common with the whole primi-
tive Church and many of the best modern expositors, I do maintain, and
receive as an article of faith and hope. " There will be nations on earth,
besides the saints reigning with Christ, which, during the binding of
Satan, have been quiet and willing subjects of the kingdom, but who,
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 513
on his being let loose, are again subjected to his temptations, which stir
them into rebellion against God. The Beloved City, v. 9, is Jerusalem,
Psal. 78 : 68 ; 87 : 2, not the " New Jerusalem," but the earthly city of that
name, which is destined to play so glorious a part in the latter days.
FROM WINTHROP'S PREMIUM ESSAY ON PROPHETIC
SYMBOLS.
(Pp. 66, 67.)
The beloved disciple speaks of the souls of those who had been
beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and says " they lived and reigned
with Christ a thousand years," or, rather, according to the reading of
the best editions, ra xttta r?, " the thousand years," i. e., those which
had been mentioned in verse 3 as indicating the period of Satan's con-
finement in the abyss. He calls them souk, to identify them as those
who, having been departed spirits, were to have their portion, at the
epoch denoted by the vision, in the resurrection to immortal glory. This
is evident from the fact mentioned that this class of the dead, the
blessed and holy " lived " at the beginning of the thousand years, and
reigned with Christ during that whole period, whereas " the rest of the
dead," i. ., those who at that epoch had already died without being in
the number of the " blessed and holy " lived not again until the thou-
sand years were finished. The one class were raised previous to the
thousand years, the other not till after the expiration of that period.
Both classes were disembodied souls and dead persons before the resur-
rection, not after it ; and hence, as these epithets are used as marks of
identity in the two cases, the word souls presents no more objection to
the real literal resurrection of the one class than the word dead does to
that of the other class. When it is said that the souls of the martyrs
" lived " at the epoch referred to, the meaning can not be that their dis-
embodied spirits had no conscious existence during the previous period
which had elapsed since the death of their bodies, for that is contrary
to the syinbolization under the fifth seal, Rev. 6:9-11, where they are
represented as having such an existence, and are enjoined to wait
patiently, until their number should be complete, when they were to be
avenged upon their enemies. It can not mean that these departed souls
were then to have a spiritual resurrection from a death in trespasses and
sins, for no such change takes place after death; neither was it anymore
necessary in their case, for they were " blessed and holy," and hence
had been already regenerated. It can not denote that the martyr-spirit
was to revive during the Millennium, for living, agents denote living
agents, and not mere acts and states either of body or mind. Besides,
the martyr-spirit is an enduring, patient disposition in the midst of
trials and persecution ; but there will be no opportunity for the exercise
514: SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
of any such spirit during the Millennium. It is conceded that men, in
general, if not universally, will, at that epoch, be holy. Public opinion
will then be as strong against persecution for righteousness sake as it
ever was in its favor. The persecuting civil and ecclesiastical rulers
denoted by the wild beast, and the false prophet, will have been cast
into the place of punishment symbolized by the lake of fire, Rev. 19 : 20.
The organized confederacy against Christ will have been completely
overthrown. Rev. 19:11-21. The fallen angels symbolized by Satan
their chief, Rev. 20: 2, 3, will have been shut up in the place denoted by
"the bottomless pit;" that they should deceive the nations no more till
the thousand years are fulfilled, Rev. 20 : 3. Neither men, nor devils
can disturb the saints during the period foreshown. It is a time of
triumph and rejoicing, not of endurance and suffering. How, then,
can there be any room for the exercise of the martyr-spirit ? There is
but one other meaning the word " lived " can have, as here used, and
that is that the souls of the righteous lived again in union with their
bodies. The whole collective mass of the dead are divided into two
parts, the " blessed and holy," whose portion is in the first resurrection.
These are one part. The other part have their portion in the last resur-
rection. As the latter is real, so must the former be real, also. As the
resurrection at the end of the thousand years is a literal resurrection,
so is also that at the beginning of the thousand years.
FROM JAMIESON'S, FAUSSETT'S, AND BROWN'S, CRITICAL
COMMENTARY.
(Vol. VI., pp. 329, 476, 512, 721.)
Every man in his own order. The Greek is not abstract but con-
crete; image from troops, each in his own regiment. Though all shall
rise, not all shall be saved, nay, each shall have his proper place. Christ
first, after Him the godly who die in Christ, in a separate band from the
ungodly. Then the " End," i. e., the resurrection of the " rest of the
dead." Christian churches, ministers, and individuals, seem about to
be judged first " at His coming," (Matt. 25 :1-30) ; then " all the nations"
(Matt. 25:31-46). Christ's own flock shall share His glory "at His
coming," which is not to be confounded with the "End," or General
Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15). The latter is not here discussed, but only
the " First Resurrection." Christ's second coming is not a mere point
of time, but a period beginning with the resurrection of the just, and
ending with the general judgment. Again: "The mere manifestation
of Christ's coming vntfyavtiq, rfc irapoaatacis enough to consume An-
tichrist. He is cast alive into a lake of fire (Rev. 19 : 20). So the world-
kingdom of the Beast gives place to that of the Son of Man and His
saints." Again: "Christ's Kingdom" is to be manifested at His
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 515
"Appearing," when the saints shall reign with Him. His Kingdom is
real, now, but not visible. It shall then be visible, also. Now, he rules
in the midst of His enemies, expecting till they shall be overthrown.
Then He shall reign with his adversaries prostrate. Again: "Satan's
binding is the necessary consequence of the events (Rev. 19 : 20), just as
Satan's being cast out of heaven where he was previously the accuser
of the brethren, was the legitimate judgment passed on him through
the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ (Rev. 12 : 7-10). As before,
he ceased, by Christ's ascension, to be accuser in heaven, so during the
Millennium, he ceases to be seducer and persecutor on earth. He will
not be, as now, the god of the world, nor will the world lie in the
wicked one. The flesh will become evermore overcome. Christ will
reign, with His transfigured saints, over men in the flesh. The nations
in the Millennium will be prepared for a higher state, as Adam in Par-
aclise, supposing he had lived in an unfallen state. * * The Millen-
nial reign on earth does not rest on an isolated passage, but all Old
Testament prophecy goes upon the same view. The " First Resurrec-
tion " is the resurrection of the just.
THE PAHOUSIA, NZANDER, LECHLER, GLOAG, OLSHAUSEN,
MEYER, BAUMGARTEN, HACKETT, DA COSTA.
(On Acts 3:19-21.)
" What are we to understand by the u times " of refreshing and restor-
ation ? Are they the same, or are they different things ? Doubtless,
virtually the same; and the one phrase will help us understand the other.
The restitution, or rather the restoration, of all things is said to be the
theme of all prophecy. Then, it can only refer to the " Kingdom of
God," the end and purpose of all God's dealings with Israel. It was a
phrase well understood by the Jews of that period, who looked forward
to the days of the Messiah, the Kingdom of God, as the fulfillment of
all their hopes and aspirations. It was the coming Age aiuv 6 //f/l/lw,
when all wrongs were to be redressed, and truth and righteousness were
to reign." " Nothing can be more clear than the connection and coinci-
dence of these events, the coming of Christ, the times of refreshing,
and the times of restoration of all things." " The regeneration, TTO/UV-
yeveaia, of Matthew, is the precise equivalent of the restituting, aKOK.aTa.a-
Tacic, of the Acts. What is meant by "the Regeneration" is clear
beyond the shadow of a doubt, for it is the time when " the Son of Man
shall sit upon the throne of His glory." Parousia, pp. 150, 151: Lon-
don, 1878 So even Neander is obliged to confess. " When the time
arrives for the completing of all things, that Great Period to which all
the prophecies of the Old Testament point from the beginning, then
Christ will appear again on earth to effect the completion. Planting
516 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
and Training, p. 39. So Lechler : " This restitution commences with
the return of Christ whom the heaven receives during the interval, but
whom God will personally send." In Lange on Acts. So Gloag: " The
sending of Christ is to be considered either as contemporaneous with
the times of refreshing, or as immediately following them. The refer-
ence is evidently to an objective, and not a subjective, advent. So long
as the unbelief of Israel continues, Christ will remain in heaven;
but their repentance and conversion will bring about the times of
refreshing and of the restoration of all things which will either pre-
cede or coincide with the Second Advent. Comment, on Acts, Vol. I.,
pp. 133-135. So Olshausen: "The grammatical connection requires
us to consider both expressions as the same, and as not referring to the
present time. The Corning of Christ, accordingly, i. e., the Parousia, is
to be conceived of as coinciding with the times of refreshing, and His
sojourn in the heavenly world closes with His return to earth for the
completing of his -work." Comment., Vol. IV., p. 402. So Meyer:
" Peter has the idea that the times of refreshing and the Parousia enter
so soon as the Jewish nation recognizes Jesus as the Messiah. These
seasons of refreshing are the times in which, by means of Messiah's
appearing in His Kingdom for the poor oppressed people of God,
quickening and happiness shall rind place." Kommentar. III., p. 89.
So Baumgarten : "The miracle wrought upon the lame man, Acts 3 :
1-11, 19, was a sign for Israel. It contains an allusion to that external
power which Jesus shall one day reveal in the case of Israel, and on
the Holy Mountain. The times of refreshing, it is easily seen, can not
be regarded as yet present. The coming of these times is, according to
verse 20, to be coincident with the mission of Jesus Christ. The "send-
ing" is explained by the words the angels addressed to the Apostles on
Mount Olivet, at the time of the ascension. It could hardly hnve
escaped the Apostles at the time, that this return of Jesus would be
coincident with the period of the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel.
Now it is a matter of certainty with them." ** The devices by which the
promises concerning the Kingdom and the people are explained away,
as referring to a merely spiritual kingdom, and community of saints,
were entirely unknown to the Apostles." Apost. Hist., pp. 19, 87, 91.
SoHackett: " Nearly all critics understand this passage as referring
to the return of Christ at the end of the world." Comment, on Acts, p.
63. So Da Costa: "Who has given us the right, while contemplating
the literal fulfillment of the judgments on the Hebrews, to alter sud-
denly the principle of interpretation, where the curse is changed into
a blessing? Who gives us the right, by arbitrary exegesis, to apply the
promises of the Christian Church to the Gentiles, when the judgments
evidently could not have been intended for them ? There is then a
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 517
future for Israel ; for the long-degraded outcasts, an approaching glory.
Israel and the regenerate nations will triumph together over the Gen-
tiles who have forgotten God, and who oppose the Kingdom of Christ.
Israel's King will be the King of all Nations." Israel and the Gentiles,
p. 624. See also Doddridge, Bloomfield, and Calvin, on Acts 3: 19-21.
FROM REV. GEO. DUFFIELD, D.D., DISSERTATIONS ON
THE PROPHECIES.
(P. 186.)
Not one word, or hint, is heard from Christ or His Apostles about the
enjoying a thousand years' prosperity before His coming. Not the
slightest trace of such a Millennium as the Spiritualists describe, con-
sisting in the universal prevalence of the gospel, is to be found in the
New Testament, excepting the disputed passage in Revelations. From
the Saviour's lips there never dropped the most remote hint on the sub-
ject. On the contrary, He said that in the world His disciples should
have tribulation. He forewarned them of persecutions and trials as
their uniform lot, and of such nature as to be totally incompatible with
the idea of a temporal Millennium, of the character expected by the
Spiritualists. Nay, more : He expressly predicted that, down to the
very time of the end, His followers would have to guard against decep-
tion, and the imposition of false Christs and pretenders ; that wars
and rumors of wars should prevail, and instead of a thousand years
of universal peace, under the preaching of the gospel, nation would
rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there should
be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places, and other
things wholly inconsistent with the Spiritualists' notions of the Millen-
nium. We defy any man to produce a single passage on the subject
from the lips of Christ, of such a Millennium as the Spiritualists expect.
And is it at all likely that, if the prophets had predicted such a Millen-
nium, and sung so nobly and sweetly, and in such exalted and extrav-
agant strains about it, He would never have referred to it during the
whole period of His ministry, especially when He undertook expressly
to expound one of the most important predictions of Daniel, and to
answer explicitly His disciples' question, what should be the sign of
His coming and the end of the world?
FROM REV. R. J. BRECKENRIDGE, D.D., KNOWLEDGE OF
GOD, SUBJECTIVELY CONSIDERED.
(Pp. 668-670.)
Concerning the glory of the Church, and the Consummation of the
Covenant of Grace with respect to her, the Scriptures appear to me to
reveal, as yet future, two states very distinct from each other, namely,
518 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
her Millennial, and her Eternal state. The former I judge to be upon,
and connected with, this earth, delivered from the bondage of corrup-
tion into the glorious liberty of the children of God, as the Apostle
expresses it, explaining at the same time that we ought to hope with
confidence, and wait with patience, for that glorious " manifestation of
the sons of God." That Millennial glory seems to me to be a Dispen-
sation of the Covenant ot Grace as distinct and as real as any preceding
Dispensation under that Covenant, and that it can no more be considered
merely the perfection of the Gospel Church than that Church can be con-
sidered merely the perfection of the Jewish Dispensation. I do not, how-
ever, understand that the Millennial state is the final state of the kingdom
of God. * * Its Eternal state is still higher, still more glorious. It is
the Second Coming of the Son of Man which initiates the Millennial
glory of His Kingdom. It is at the delivering up of the Kingdom by
the Son to the Father, upon the Lamb's Book of Life, after He shall
have put down all rule and authority and power, all His enemies under
His feet, and Death, the last of them, destroyed, that the Eternal Glory
of the Church begins. * * I speak with great hesitation upon
topics so sublime, so remote from human thinking, and upon which the
mind of this generation of God's true children seems to be at once so
anxious and so unsettled. What I insist on is, the Consummation of
the Covenant of Grace with reference to the Kingdom of God, first in
Millennial Glory, and then in the Eternal state of immediate fruition
of God, both which await the Church of Christ.
FROM DUSTERDIECK'S OFFENBARUNG JOHANNIS.
(Pp. 554-551.)
As to what is said (Apoc. 20: 1-10), the unprejudiced establishment
of the excgetical result of the passage, and the theological judgment
put upon what is found according to the analogy of Scripture, are to
be distinguished, and only by means of the first are we to arrive at the
second. The exegetical understanding of Apoc. 20 : 1-10, in whole, or in
parts, has its most essential condition in the recognition of the fact that
what is here pictured immediately precedes the universal j udgment proper,
v. 11, and follows those judicial acts of the whole catastrophe pictured,
19 : 19-21 : in other words, every exposition is wrong which regards v.
1-10 as a "Recapitulation," which is only possible by means of an alle-
gorical interpretation. This false method of exposition was made avail-
able by Augustine expressly in a polemical interest against the Chiliasts.
The exegetical principle leading to this result has been followed by all
those who, like Hengstenberg, have found in v. 1-10 prophecies whose
fulfillment could be recognized, somehow or other, in events and con-
ditions of the church or the world, falling within the current period of
CRITICAL APPENDIX. 519
time. This method of exposition is obliged to resort to an allegorizing
of the passage which necessarily becomes the most arbitrary precisely
where, in the clearest manner, an utterly different explanation is
required. Augustine, for example, in order to fix the 1,000 years during
the present continuance of the Church, is compelled to find their com-
mencing date, i.e., the Binding of Satan, in the earthly life of Christ,
and to interpret the Casting out of Satan into the Abyss as meaning
his expulsion from Christendom into the hearts of the wicked, or non-
Christian nations. The first Kesurrection he explains spiritually, as in
Col. 3 : 1, and remarks, v. 5, that we are not to suppose by the " Thrones"
and "Judgment," that the last Judgment is referred to, but simply the
present spiritual government of the Church by the Apostles. Agreeably
with this, he expounds verse 8, which speaks of Gog and Magog, as
meaning, by Gog, a " Roof," or " Cover," (tectuna), and by Magog,
" From under the Roof," or " Cover," (de tecto.) Thus, Gog, the " Cover,"
is the non-Christian nations, the "muUitudo innumerdbilis impiorum"
in whose hearts Satan is shut up and bound for 1,000 years, while Ma-
gog, " from under the cover,*' is Satan himself coming out from these
hearts or nations, for a little season, after the 1,000 years are expired
"procedens; illce nut tectum, ipse de tecto!" Similar misconceptions are
found in Victorinus, who explains the number 1,000 from 10, which
indicates the Decalogue, and from the number 100 which indicates the
crown of virginity, "because whoever has preserved his virginity intact
has fulfilled the Decalogue and guarded against impure manners, and
impure thoughts within the bed of his heart, lest they might rule there.
Such a one is truly a priest of Christ, and having accomplished the
millennary number, reigns with Christ, etc., etc; "* also, by Bede who,
for example, refers the First Resurrection to Baptism; by Hammond,
Grotius, and others, who fix the time of Satan's Binding in the time of
Constantino, and by Gog and Magog understand the Turk ; by Wet-
stein, who regards the 1,000 years as the times of Messiah reduced to the
period of only 40 years onward from the death of Domitian, Gog and
Magog being Barcochba ; and by Hengstenberg and others, who fix the
beginning of the 1,000 years at the coronation of Charlemagne, A.D. 800.
*NOTE. Diisterdieck is wrong in quoting these words as those of Victorinus.
They are nothing more or less than Jerome's shameful and criminal mutilation of the
work of that noble man. See Moses Stuart, Apoc. I. ,491, 495. Stuart asks, with just
criticism, " Could Jerome write such stuff as this, and expect any one to respect his
opinions?" But it is the style of many Auti-Chihasts, even in our own day. Man-
Bel has noted the fact that " both Mosheim and Neander consider the accounts of
the sensual Chiliasm of Cerinthus to be misrepresentations.' 1 '' Mansel. Gnostic
Heresies*, 114. To this hour, many Anti-Chiliasts persist in attributing "gross sen-
sualism " to the Chiliasm of even the martyrs, and their only authority is the mis-
representation of those holy men by the enemies of their doctrine. One would think
after the censures administered by scholars like Mede, Homes, Newton, Corner,
Hebart, Mansel, and others, more modesty would become some who assail the mar-
tyr-faith with equal injustice in our day. H. W.
520 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Far more correctly than all these Allegorists, have the Chiliasts
interpreted the passage, in so far as to reject the fond and favorite Reca-
pitulation theory, and allow the 1,000 years' Kingdom to remain in the
place where it is found in the apocalyptic picture of the whole end.
Besides, all who, on the ground of the Apocalypse, have sincerely
believed in the future entrance of the 1,000 years' kingdom, like Justin,
Irenseus, etc., have not indulged in such sensuous and imaginative
colorings of the apocalyptic picture as were peculiar to Cerinthus and
other Chiliasts who were regarded as heretics. Conformably with the
text, Justin and Irenseus, in particular, held fast the fact that the 1,000
years' kingdom follows the " First Resurrection," that of the righteous, and
that this kingdom is upon the earth, correctly regarding the "Beloved
City " of verse 9 to be Jerusalem. Both these fathers take the 1,000
years in their proper sense. And more correctly do they interpret than
Auberlen who, from the assumption that the not yet glorified earth can
not be the abode of the glorified church, concludes that believers, who
come forth with Christ from their invisibility in heaven, shall be clothed
with glorified bodies and then return with Christ to heaven, from there
to rule over the earth thus utterly disregarding the contradiction of this
view in verse 9. More correctly, too, have the old Chiliasts viewed the
chronological matter of the 1,000 years, than Bengel, who thought he
discovered two periods of 1,000 years each, the first of these beginning
A.D. 1836, with the destruction of the Beast and Binding of Satan, the
other with the letting loose of Satan, and terminating immediately before
the end of the world.
The biblico-theological discussion of Apoc. 20: 6, which Gerhard (Loci
theol. T. XX. 134) directs against the Chiliasts, he opens with the
reminder that the sayings of the Apocalypse are to be explained, more
certainly, from the Analogy of the Holy Scripture, because the Apoc-
alypse is itself a deutero-canonical Book. * He holds that, from
this Analogy, it is clearly established, first, that the Kingdom of Christ
will never be an outward royalty on earth, not even at the end of the
days; then, that all the dead shall rise in one day; then, that there shall
be but one universal resurrection of the dead, at the Parousia of the
Lord. Consequently (so Gerhard turns around, for he also falsely
*So Dledrich, saying, "We take the Apocalypse, however, as a canonical Book,
yet we see nothing else therein than what we see in the pictures and parables of the
Old and New Testaments. What the Scripture elsewhere teaches must explain the
Apocalypse," upon which Hebart justly remarks, ll To what end, then, is the Apoca-
lypseif not altogether superfluous if nothing new is given therein? If there is no
progress in knowledge and understanding? What of the promise of the Lord to His
Apoj-tles, that the Spirit should guide them into the full truth, and show them things
to come? If the d-sign of the Apocal.vp-e a thing not controverted was to give
Something new, it is a false principle to say that it must be explained only by what
appears in other Scriptures. Far more correct is the principle of exposition, that the
explanation of the Apocalypse must not contradict the other Scriptures." (Hebart.
Fur. ChiliasniUB. 7. K. \V.)
CRITICAL APPENDIX.
interprets what is written Apoc. 20: 1-10), the commencing date of the
1,000 years is probably to be recognized as the time of Constantine, and
the Turk is to be regarded as Gog and Magog ! It is, however, rather
to be judged that neither the distinction, made by the Apocalyptist, of a
first and second resurrection, nor the insertion of the 1,000 years' kingdom,
nor the Binding and Loosing of Satan, nor the assault of Gog and Magog,
agree with the eschatological expressions of the canonical Scriptures,
in such manner as that this apocalyptic picture can be accepted seriously
as matter of doctrinal instruction.* Rather the text itself is to be under- "
stood as an ideal representation whose individual features can only
harmonize when we rightly estimate the ideal character of the whole
prophetic portrait. What, according to the really doctrinal prophecy of the
Scripture, falls upon the one day of the Coming of the Lord, viz., the
resurrection of all the dead in which believers, however, have the
precedence and the universal judgment, appears, in the Apocalyptic
picture, as distributed throughout a long succession of special yet con-
nected acts, but not in the sense as if a special period of time, like that
of the 1,000 years' kingdom, had any place between the resurrection of
believers and that of other persons. Hereupon rests the vital beauty of
the apocalyptic Drama. This poetic beauty, however, is not only
destroyed, but reversed in Chiliastic want of understanding, if we regard
this ideal representation as an impartation of doctrinal instruction. The
ideal character of the whole representation reveals itself unambiguously
herein, that the Risen Saints have their camp in the earthly Jerusalem
and are assaulted by earthly heathen nations ; moreover, also, the exist-
ence of heathen enemies, after that all the dwellers on the earth
are slain, 19:21, only then becomes a harmless inconsequence when
the matter has no reference whatever, either here or there, to real things,"
(*'. ., to save the Apocalypse from the charge of a harmful inconsequence,.
caused by misinterpretation, we must resort to the ideal theory ! N. W.)
*I render this sentence, and what follows, simply to show how completely Diister-
dieck, who is a specimen Prseterist, breaks down in his otherwise admirable
exegesis, because of his utter blindness to the apotelesmatic law of prophecy
and symbolism, here, and consequent inability to reconcile the later eschatology
of John with that of earlier less developed representations in other Scriptures (See
Einleit, p. 43, and Lange on Apoc. p. 352), for the same observation. He concludes
upon the identical grounds Diouysius of Alexandria did, that the Apocalypse is not
an Apostolic Book and is entitled only to a deutero-canonical place. (Eiuleit p. 95.)
In face of his own literal interpretation of the Parousia (Apoc. 19:11), literal resurrec-
tion and judgment, he suddenly resorts to the ideal theory of exposition, and gives
us an ideal 1,000 years, dissolving the element of time altogether, the 1,000 years
being a symbol of ideal totality, perfection, or eternity Whence it would follow,
according to verse 7, that, after totality, perfection of eternity is u expired " or
"ecumenicity," or as others say, the Devil shall be loosed for a "little season," when
totality, perfection, eternity, and ecumenicity will begin again! How can Du'ster-
dieck consistently protest against the Allegorists, and yet adhere to his " poetic
drapery theory?" His "hoc volo sic jubeo" is no better than theirs. Symbols are
neither metaphors nor flounces. N. W.
TEXTUAL ISTDEX.
Showing where scripture passages which relate more particularly to
pre-millennial subjects may be found, as either quoted, cited or treated
upon in this volume. For sake of brevity we have grouped several con
secutive verses though only one may sometimes be referred to.
PAGE.
Genesis.... 13: 15 118
15: 18 234
" 17: 8 118
Isaiah 11: 139,163, 230,234,235
24 and 27:. ...163
25:6-9 7
40:..-. 129
43: 131,132
44: 132
49: 133,134
59:21 135
" 60: 136,164
61:... 136,164,480
65:17-25 111,129
66: Ill, 129, 163, 230, 260
Jeremiah ..21: 141
23: 141
30:10-11 7
31:10 ,7
31:31 135,142,234
33: 140
Ezekiel... .20: 32-38 251
36:21-36 143, 164, 167, 222, 234
37:15-22 224
Daniel 2: 257, 318
" 6:4... -.182
7: 166,215,318,320,321,512
8: 216
9: 216
11: 215,216
12:1 250
" 12:2 92
523
524 TEXTUAL INDEX.
PAGE.
Daniel 12: 12-13 321, 482
Micah 143
Habakkuk .2:3 438
Zepiianiah .3 : 8-21 144
Zechariah._12:10 464
12 and 14 145, 146, 147, 163, 228, 231, 250, 251, 488
Matthew... 3: 2 186, 199
" 6:10 495
7:21-23 433
10:23 274
12:32 330
13 65, 274, 411, 495
13:24-30 6,209
16: 18 188
16:26-27 274,434
19 : 28 110, 156, 227, 265, 275, 481, 496, 512:
22:31-32 81
24:3 31,40,500,508
24:12 6
24:13 6
" 24 : 14 56, 65, 280, 310, 409, 463, 508
24:15-20 71
24:21-22 232
24:27 40,501
24:30 31,275
24:31-39 6,275
24:36 48
24:42 35,57,415,451
24:46 202
24:50-51 275
25: 1-13 276, 415, 449, 451
25:14-30 60,276,449
25 : 31-46 244, 246, 252, 433
25:46 183
26:64 32,45,276,323
Mark 8:38 276
13:32 48
13:33-37 277,415
Luke 1:31-33 119, 193
9:23-26 433
12:32 324
12:35-38... ..277,452
TEXTUAL INDEX. 525
PAGE.
Luke 12: 38-40 57, 277
" 14:14. 480,492,511
*' 17:21 196,500
17:28-30 277
17:31 302
17:34-36 278
18:1-8 64,278
19 : 12 57, 66, 278, 416, 450, 495
19:13 35,199
20: 34-38 91, 96, 107, 113, 480, 498
21: 157
21. 2431 60, 71, 227, 256, 417
21:25-28 278,311
21:34-36 278
" 23:42 186
John 1:51 279
5:24 248
5:28 94,96
5:43 217
6:39-40 101
" 11:24-26 100,308
14:3 618,30,279
M 14, 15 and 16.. 18, 207, 279
18,36 199
21:21-23 36,200,280
Acts 1:7-8 206, 310, 410, 496
" 1:11 7,19,41,280
3: 17-21 7, 33, 110, 124,142,281, 315, 319, a72, 397,417,
431, 515
" 10:42 243,244
14:22 281
15: 14-18 6, 89, 165, 208, 281, 410
17:30-31 43,244
24:25 244
Romans ...8: 11 482,492,494
" 8:19-23 282
" 8:22 106,110
" 23: 167,319
' 11:1 227
11:5 232
11:12-15 123,239
11:25-26 7,209,282
526 TEXTUAL INDEX,
PAGE.
Romans ...13: 12 106, 200, 202, 221, 305, 312, 413, 420, 443
14:10 248
" 14: 17 195
1 Corinth'ns 1:7 38, 419
1:4-8 282,419
4:5 282
6:2-3 282,511
11:26 283,412
15: 81,315,496
15 : 23 40, 70, 85, 102, 283, 307, 396, 480, 482, 486, 490 r
494, 512, 514
15:25-26 168,511
15:50 186
15:54 104
16:22 283,401
2 Corinth'ns 1 : 14 283
5:1-8 99
5:10 247,283
Galatians ..1: 4_ 411
4:25-26 135
Ephesians..3: 21 166
5:25-27 284
Philippians 1 : 6-10 284, 435
1:23.. 99
2:16 284
3:11 90,510
3:20-21 284,419,445
4: 5 284, 305, 420, 443
4:7 443
Colossians.l:23 457
3:4-5 285,440
1 Thessal'ns 1 : 9-10 35, 46, 285, 309, 419, 425, 447, 457
2:19 40,285
3 : 13 285, 304, 437, 447, 455, 488
4: 14-18 7, 42, 43, 70, 83, 84, 99, 102, 104, 285, 308, 372
419, 425, 486, 496
5: 69,413,438,453
5:23 286,304,448
2 Thessal'ns 1: 7 38, 64, 258, 286, 372
1:10 44
2: 1-8 61, 69, 1G3, 216, 219, 258, 287, 312, 329, 357,
372, 375, 398, 411, 481, 488
TEXTUAL INDEX. 527
PAGE.
2Tkessal'ns3:5 287
1 Timothy.. 4: 1-3 211,287
6:14 39,287,305,420
2Timothy._3: 1 55,68,211,288
4: 1 ..40, 93, 243, 288, 418
4:8 6,288,419,454
Titus 2: 11-15 40, 46, 283, 288, 419, 427, 429
Hebrews... 9: 28 42,289,419
10:25 305,420,443
10 : 35-37 289, 305, 312, 438
James 5: 7-8 40, 289, 305, 413, 420, 436, 443
1 Peter 1:3-5 283,442
1:7 38,289,443
" 1: 11 105, 290
1: 13 290
4:5 243
4: 7 201, 290, 305, 413, 420, 439
4:13 38,290,441
5:4 290
2 Peter.... 1 .!: 16 290
1:21 317
2:4-10 163
3: 68, 291, 305, 310, 420, 439, 488
3:11 46,419
3:12 6
3:13 Ill
3:18 246
1 John 2:18 68, 215, 305, 420
2:22 357
2:28 291
3: 2, 3 46, 291, 303, 440
4:3 215,357
2John :7 .42,291
Jude : 14-15 117, 162, 243, 258, 264, 291
Revelations 1:3 443
1 : 7 7, 45, 292, 320, 412
" 2:25 292
3: 8-11 292, 430, 431, 455
11: 15-18 ....72, 320,418
" 13: 215,357,372
16:13-14 218
16:15.. ..292
528
TEXTUAL INDEX.
Revelations 19: 163, 258, 292, 313, 318, 321, 357, 372, 375, 385,
481, 489, 501, 507, 514
20: 1-6 7, 51, 83, 88, 96, 265, 313, 318, 340, 898, 518
20: 4-6 78, 479, 481, 482, 489, 491, 492, 496, 498, 509,
512, 513
20:6 107,321
20 : 11-15 244, 255, 260, 498, 501
21:1-5 111,501
" 21:21-27 167
22:1-5 167
22:7 293,305,501
" 22:12 293,455
22 : 20 293, 305, 412, 443, 469
UNIVERSITY
A SELECTION FROM THE CATALOGUE OF
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OHIOAG-O.
* # * Our Full Catalogue of Evangelical Literature will be mailed
post free to any address on application.
Brookes, D.D. (J. H.)
Present Truth ; being the testimony of the Holy Ghost on the Second
Coming of the Lord, The Divinity of Christ, and the Personality of
the Holy Ghost. By JAMES H. BROOKES. Introduction by H.
Morehouse, C. M. Whittlesey and Geo. C. Needham. 250 pp., fine
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D. W. WHITTLE.
Coming of the Lord. (The)
Sixteen addresses on the Blessed Hope. Paper, 30c.*; cloth, 75c.
CONTENTS. Introductory Outline. R. J. Mahoney 1. Progressive
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The Blessed Hope and Its Influence, J. Denham Smith 4. The
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Economy of the Ages. (The)
By the late THOMAS WICKES, D.D., author of the " Son of Man,"
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"Jesus is Coining." Tenth thousand. A pamphlet of ninety-six
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and between the Church and the Kingdom, and contains a diagram
with explanations. The object, as stated, has been to furnish in an
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CONTENTS The Heavenly Hope Approaching Judgments The
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Restoration Israel's Restoration Introductory to Millennial Blessed-
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RECAPITULATION Outline of Prophetic Truth ; Objections
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Pre-Millennial Essays of the Prophetic Conference. The
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