THE END OF THE WORLD;
OR,
Clearing tie fay for tie Fullness of tie Gentiles.
BY
T. G. STEWARD, D. D.
WITH AN
EXPOSITION OF PSALM 68 : 31.
BY
JAMES A. HANDY, D. D.
PHILADELPHIA:
A. M. E. CHUKCH BOOK ROOMS,
No. 631 Pine Street.
1888.
COPYRIGHT, 18H8,
BY
T. G. STEWARD.
PREFACE.
In this book the author makes no attempt
to exhaust the subject in hand nor to say the
last word. He presents his views asking for
them a patient consideration, but does not
expect all to accept them. Conscious of the
greatness of the subject and of his own ina¬
bility to deal with it, with that thoroughness
which its multiplicity of details and great
variety of relations demand, he sends forth
this little volume with considerable diffidence.
He hopes to contribute rather to the raising
of questions than to their settlement; and
will feel amply repaid if this little volume
iii
iv
PREFACE.
shall awaken thought, and start research even
in the humblest quarters.
While in much that is contained in the
book, he has followed able leaders, yet, in
some things he has ventured to take leave of
the guidance of men and has read the Word
for himself.
He desires especially to call attention to
the able chapter contributed by Dr. James
A. Handy.
TABLE OP CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface iii
Introduction 1
The End of the World—Definition 11
Consideration of Certain Scriptural Teims .... 22
The Age in which we live Analyzed 29
The Sign of the Coming and the End of the World. 37
The Fulfilling of the Times of the Gentiles .... 55
The Course of the Ages and the Extent of the Appli¬
cation of the Phrase, " The End of the World." . 63
Signs of the Approaching End 79
The Time of the End 100
Events of the End—After Events—Conclusion . . Ill
An Exposition of Psalm Ixviii. 31. By Dr. J. A.
Handy 137
Appendix—Dr. W. S. Scarborough's Dissertation
on Important Greek Terms 152
Prof. It. H. Terrell's Dissertation on Important
Greek Terms'. ...» 164
Note A—Dean Alford on the Future Advent of
Christ 167
Note B—The " Man of Sin." 171
Note C—Patrick's, Lowth's, and Arnaud's Para¬
phrase 176
The Fulness of the Gentiles 179
Note D—Prophecies to be Fulfilled 180
THE END OF THE WORLD;
OR,
CLEARING THE WAY FOR THE FULLNESS
OF THE GENTILES,
INTRODUCTORY.
HE work now placed in the hands
of the reader combats some old
and popular theories and advances
others which may appear quite novel and
perhaps in some respects startling. The
writer, therefore, at the outset, would hum¬
bly crave two very modest favors. First,
he asks that the reader will divest his mind,
as far as possible, from the prejudices of ed¬
ucation, and free himself from the control of
popular belief; and, secondly, that he will
read and consider the arguments with care
1
2 THE END OF THE WORLD.
and patience, and make allowance for any
imperfections which may appear in minor de¬
tails.
The aim of the writer has been to present
his views of what he conceives to be the most
interesting subject of our times, and to show,
that while these views may be to some extent
agreeable to his own feelings, he has not al¬
lowed those feelings to be the authority upon
which they rest. The wish may have been
father to the thought in that it has suggested
and stimulated inquiry, as it has done quite
generally over all the fields of discovery.
The promptings of desire usually set the in¬
vestigating faculties of the soul in motion, and
the results obtained are to be indeed credited
to ingenuity, but to ingenuity goaded to its work
by a desire so strong that it has created the
aphorism that " Necessity is the mother of
invention." In some instances valuable dis¬
coveries have been stumbled on by accident,
but, as a rule, they have come in answer to
keenly felt necessity.
Hence the writer asks exemption from the
charge of partiality should the views herein
THE END OF THE WORLD.
3
contained be found to favor especially those
races of earth with which he feels especially
identified. It would hardly seem necessary
to make this plea, however, since the rule of
the age is to interpret almost everything in
science, history and religion to the advantage
of that form or type of man which for the
present holds ascendency. Should this book,
therefore, be found in its spirit to favor what
is believed by the writer to be the coming
man, rather than the retiring man, he trusts
it will meet with the same impartial consid¬
eration that similar works written from a dif¬
ferent standpoint have received.
The subject pressed upon the reader's at¬
tention is one of vast importance,—trans¬
cending, in the character of the events
which it includes, as well as in the extent of
the earth's surface which they occupy, any¬
thing which ever has been witnessed by man.
The revolutions which have occurred in the
world's history hitherto, affecting directly a
single nation and indirectly many others, are
small matters when compared with the pro¬
digious shaking, if not collapse of the dom-
4
THE END OF THE WORLD.
inant civilization of the world,—when God
shall say to the great successors of the mighty
Babylon, what he said of Babylon itself,
" Thou art weighed in the balance and found
wantingand shall say to those who have
been managers of his goods, "Give an ac¬
count of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be
. no longer steward."
That this great event will be the result of
laws which are already at work, physical,
social and moral, will not at all detract from
its character as a visitation from the Almighty,
nor prevent its being accepted as the fulfil¬
ment of prophecy. God has taught, us clearly
in his word that He is the King of all the
earth, and that nations hold their place sub¬
ject to his will, and that justice and mercy
are cardinal principles in his administration.
The nations which sin and which do not re¬
pent of their sin, as in sackcloth and ashes,
He will judge and punish, and should their
sin warrant such a catastrophe and their pride
of heart invite it, He will destroy them.
This he has done again and again, not sparing
even his bwn chosen people. The work of
THE END OF THE WORLD.
5
destruction may be accomplished by secondary
causes, and those who are smitten may be too
blinded by sin and worldliness to see in it
the hand of the Divine smiter ; but it will
be Jehovah's doings nevertheless.
Wars and alarms may arise from inordinate
lust for power and possession developed in
the human heart; famine and pestilence may
follow in consequence of these disorders, and
these social, civil and political disturbances
may all together contribute to great physical
distortions. Man's vastly increased knowl¬
edge, though enabling him to discover the
connection between physical events formerly
regarded as widely remote and entirely dis¬
tinct, will completely fail him in discovering
the connection between the united physical
and moral. The materialistic tendencies
of the age will have so sharpened the wits of
man with regard to all laws that affect phys¬
ical affairs, and that affect man himself,
either as an individual or society at large,
through the senses, that he will readily trace
occult physical connections, but, like Israel
of old, having become dull respecting the
6
THE END OF THE WORLD.
things of God, he will fail to see His hand
in these convulsions.
That the conditions of the times of the
end are now upon us, it will be the endeavor
of this work to show—and also to show that,
terrible as the ordeal is towards which we are
hastening with rapid strides—an ordeal which
cannot now be averted (because the dead line
has been passed),—it nevertheless does not
involve the final destruction of all things,
nor the destruction of all nations. The
Christian may contemplate this eud with
calmness, reposing full confidence in the abil¬
ity of the God whom he serves to deliver
him.
The nations of the earth outside the fated
circle to which the author thinks the words
should be restricted, may look upon this end
as the first grand step in an opening drama,
which shall call them out of darkness into
light. Of course this view comes in sharp
contrast with those who hold that the Saxon
race is " evidently to spread abroad and cover
the globethat it is " a race in every way
fitted for universality; and especially for
THE END OF THE WORLD.
7
being teachers of the world; that they are
a people formed by God himself for the
special design of showing forth his praise."
This statement .reverses the scriptural coun¬
sel, " Let another praise thee and not thine
own lips." The same writer again says of
them : " They are wiser than all their teach¬
ers among men, for God himself is their In¬
structor—both in nature and in grace; and
He hath given them a capacity to receive his
instruction and to communicate it to others
above what any nation or number of nations
have ever possessed." The men who hold
these views, if we are to judge by their words,
would rather see all other races exterminated
or subjugated, or, as some have said, Saxon-
ized, than to see all make progress each on
his own line.
It is needless to repeat that the argument
of this book will not be influenced either on
one side or the other by such views. In the
light of prophecy, in the light of history and
in the light of the occurrences of every day,
the writer feels bound to believe the Saxon
race has well-nigh accomplished its mission.
8
THE END OF THE WORLD.
The great ideas of individual importance or
personal liberty and popular government have
reached their utmost stage of possible develop¬
ment and application. The strain on the
cord that binds together the progressive and
conservative elements of society is so great that
it is liable to snap at any moment, and then
the peculiar characteristics of the men who
now rule the world, when converted into
antagonistic factions, will soon work their
mutual destruction. Not only may we ex¬
pect to see nation rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom, but we may ex¬
pect to see class rise against class, and king¬
doms thus divided against themselves will
work out their own destruction, as though
directed by a purpose to that end. The vast
accumulations of wealth will but stimulate
robbery and disorder, and the social theories
now so rapidly taking root and developing
among these fated nations will furnish a
philosophy that will justify pillage and mur¬
der, on the ground that each man is entitled
to his share of the products of the earth;
and the legitimate end will be the develop-
THE END OF THE WORLD.
9
ment of a large element of skilled, energetic
and bold men who will regard government
as the mere self-constituted guards of prop¬
erty belonging to the people at large.
Considerations like these, which might be
extended much further, coupled with the
lessons of history, and the whole subject
brought within the light of the principles of
the Divine Administration, as given in
His Word, respecting nations, and the ex¬
press forecast of prophecy, have induced the
writer to put forth this little work to seek
to call the people of God to closer communion
with Him, and to urge them to do their ut¬
most for the salvation of their fellow-men.
Should all his views be found to be incorrect,
so far as he has attempted to interpret
prophecy or discern the signs of the times,
it will nevertheless be in harmony with
Apostolic practice, as well as with the coun¬
sel of our Lord, to say to men, Be ye also
ready, for in a day when ye think not, the
Son of Man cometh. Life and probation are
short, and it behooves us to work while it is
called day, and give all diligence to make
10 THE END OF THE WORLD.
our calling and election sure. Should the
pages which follow serve to arouse attention,
quicken thought and stir up any one soul to
call upon God, the labors and prayers of the
writer will not have been in vain. May the
Lord of all grace abundantly pour His spirit¬
ual blessings upon the nations of the earth,
quicken all the churches, increase the zeal
and power of all the ministers and hasten
the conversion of millions of souls! And
may we all labor with great earnestness in
Ilis vineyard, and so much the more as we
see the day approaching!
CHAPTER I.
THE END OF THE WORLD—DEFINITION
OF THE PHRASE.
N the New Testament Scriptures we
find four words which are rendered
by earth, and world. They are ffj
(gai), xoapo^ (Kosmos), oixoup.kvt] (oikou-
mene) and actov (aion). These, although
sometimes used interchangeably, have each a
distinctive meaning. The first, gai, describes
the earth with reference to its vegetative
qualities, as we may infer from the fact that
a tiller of the ground is called ysopyot; (ge-
orgos), from which comes our English name
George. It is made up of p] (gai) and epyaj
(ergo), to work, and signifies a ground-
worker, and is appropriately applied to the
man who works the ground with the view of
securing vegetable results. The second word,
Kosmos, describes the world as an orderly
11
12 THE END OF THE WORLD.
arrangement of parts, and embraces some¬
what of the surroundings of our planet, as
well as the customs and ways of men. When
Satan is represented as the ruler of this
world, Jcosmos, or aion, is used. Kosmos
points out a system. The third word, oixou-
pzvy), refers to the earth as a habitation for
man, as the word is a participial form of
oikeo, signifying to dwell. The fourth word
is axon, which refers always to duration. In¬
deed, aion signifies duration, in an abstract
sense, and the context must tell us to what
things it is applied. The same word is used
for eternity.
Aion, as we have said, signifies duration;
and, consequently, when it is applied to men
and things, it is with more or less reference
to their continuance from day to day. Aion
may be translated age, and may be used to
mark the characteristics of an ajre. In
©
Ephesians ii., 2, we read of " the age (course)
of this world."1 That is to say, in the passage
1 Professor Gottlieb Christian Storrs, in the
" Biblical Cabinet," or " Hermeneutical, Exegeti-
cal and Philological Library," has the following
THE END OF THE WORLD.
13
we have both aion and kosmos—the one re¬
lating to continuance and the other to system.
remark on this passage: " 0 acuv ovtor and o noopo?
are synonyms. The former metaphorically
denotes the men who live in this aeon or age,
and especially those men of the present times
who live as the most are in the habit of liv¬
ing (Rom. xii., 2; 2 Cor. iv., 4). The latter de¬
notes those that live on the earth and after the
manner of the majority (John xvi., 11; xiv., 3;
xv., 18). In the passage before us the Apostle uses
a manner of speaking which is well suited to the
nature of his subject; and, to express in the strong¬
est manner the greatness of our misery and the
greatness of the grace of God which rescued us
from it, makes use of the genitive of apposition.
The words tov aiuva tov Koafiog- mean—after the
manner of the age, namely—of this world; or, if
any one prefer—the manner of the age, or—this
world. In like manner, Eph. iiv 14, may be trans¬
lated—the wall of partition, or, the partition : for
the latter word explains the former, which is less
usual. And indeed generally the genitive of ap¬
position serves to add an explanation; as, for in¬
stance, in Eph. iv., 29, et al., "were words" are
used metaphorically subjoined in the genitive."
This very learned author understands kosmos as
denoting the men on earth, and aion as especially
by metaphor, denoting those who live after the
current manner.
14 THE END OF THE WORLD.
Any one, by referring to the dictionaries,
may convince himself that aion can never
stand for the physical and moral world, ex¬
cept in an accommodative sense. When we
read that God made the aions, as we do in
Heb. i., 2, there is room for the question, does
it mean that He made the things which fill
up this age, or the several ages which have
succeeded one another on the globe? In a
word, does this text favor a plurality of
worlds—a doctrine which is no where else
taught in the Scripture—or, a plurality of
ages, a doctrine which is everywhere taught
through the Scriptures? I confess that the
more reasonable view, to my mind, is the
latter. The one point aimed at here is to
show that aion is primarily one thing and
kosmos another. We never read in the
Scripture of the end of the kosmos; but we
do read of the end of the aion. Hence we may
dismiss from our thoughts the alarming ideas
of physical catastrophe, which have so long
clustered around this subject, as we go on
further to discuss this Scriptural phrase; and
may say in advance, that the end of this
THE END OF THE WORLD. 15
age does not necessarily involve the destruc¬
tion of al 1 things.
We believe, with St. Peter, that the heav¬
ens will pass away and the earth be con¬
sumed, and a new heaven and a new earth
follow; but these things are not necessarily
included in the phrase—the end of the world.
Great moral and physical changes may occur,
as we have reason to believe they will, about
the time this age shall close; but there is
hardly ground to assume that the end of all
things will occur then. The closing of this
age will be the signal for something else, ac¬
cording to popular belief. A first age and a
second age have passed, and a third and last
is now drawing to its close. What will fol¬
low ? Doubtless a few years will reveal it to
us; but, in the meantime, let us wait on the
Lord and, like Daniel of old, diligently con¬
sult the books.
The present kosmos, either regarding the
word as signifying the system of nature or
the system of nations now ruling the earth
and the current age, may end together; and
great physical changes may mark the epoch,
16
THE END OF THE WORLD.
but there is ground for the assertion that
men and nations will probably survive its
close. That the phrase, end of the world,
does not under all circumstances have such a
fatal significance, we may learn by consulting
Heb. ix., 26, where it is said Christ has ap¬
peared once at the end of the worlds, or, as
it should read, once at the completion of the
ages—to put away sin. Should it be asked
"What ages?" the answer most generally
given has been, the Patriarchal and Jewish
ages. Upon this supposition, it is seen, that
these ages ending did not prevent the opening
of the third, which is everywhere regarded as
the last.
The word which we render end also de¬
serves attention. It is a peculiar word used
in the New Testament only with reference to
the ages. It is sunteleia. Telos signifies end,
or issue (teleo), bringing to the end, or
completing; sunteleia, the bringing of things
simultaneously to the end, or, as in the New
Testament, to end completely, or to finish i
wholly. The end of this world, then, as the
phrase stands in the New Testament, signifies
THE END OF THE WORLD. 17
the completion of the current age. When
will this age end ? Another preliminary, if
not more important question which requires
to be answered is as to the age referred to.
To determine this question, we will need to
know three things: First, the starting-point
of the age; second, the principle that gives
it unity; and third, how widely does it ex¬
tend?
As to the first of these questions, I think
we will experience no difficulty in fixing the
starting-point of the age at about the time of
Christ's coming, or nearly two thousand years
ago. As to the second and third questions,
I leave them to be answered in the course of
the chapters following. In advance it maybe
said, however, that to some extent doubtless
this age is the last stage of prophetic devel¬
opment, as shown to us by the prophecies of
Daniel and the Revelator, in their general
forecast of the world. The head of gold has
been superseded by the breast of silver, to be
superseded in turn by the abdomen of iron,
which has been finally followed by the legs,
feet and toes of mingled iron and clay. While
2
18 THE END OP THE WORLD.
these last powers should continue, it was de¬
clared that the God of heaven should set
up a kingdom, which divinely appointed
kingdom should witness, if not work, the de¬
struction of all these others, and absorb all
the people to itself.
The Messianic reign marks the completion
of the ages, so far as they have been pre¬
dicted, viewed especially from a religious
standpoint; the iron and clay age of the suc¬
cessors of the Roman Empire marks the
completion of the prophetic ages so far as
they have been portrayed consecutively on a
national plane.
This age may, therefore, refer to the Ro¬
man age, or to the Messianic age in a re¬
stricted sense. Both occupy the field to¬
gether and are to some extent accordingly
synchronous, but are not in all respects coin-'
cident. According to Daniel, the Messianic
Kingdom is to fill the earth and stand for¬
ever. Hence the Messianic age will in some
sense never terminate; and hence we may
say, this Messianic age will be identical with
the kingdom as to duration. Then, indeed,
THE END OF THE WOKLD. 19
have we reached the last age, and this age is
to be an eternal one. The Messianic age may
improve and reach a degree of great glory on
earth, but will never terminate. The true
view I think to be about as follows. The
Messianic age will reach a glorious stage
shortly after the close of the Roman age, and
it is probable then that we shall see the com¬
ing of the Lord with power. All will admit,
that according to Scripture the Messianic age
is the last religious age, and, I think, it is
quite as clear that the Roman age is to be the
last age of that political succession, in the
midst of which we live. According to the
prophecy of Daniel we mayjexpect antagon-
ism to^spring up somehow between the Mes-
siah's Kingdom and the national successors
of Rome, and t^es^IaFEeFpowers are to be
Hroken, shattered^ aTidT^dnMrned; and yet a
willing people are to be found to welcome
the returning Messiah and submit themselves
to his rule. An everlasting Kingdom is to
fall into the hands of the Most High and
His saints.
The culminating stages of the Redeemer's
20 THE END OF THE WORLD.
glory will be marked by the coming of Jesus as
King on earth, whether in a visible, personal
form, or in effectual power only, it is not to
our purpose to inquire. The completion of the
Roman period will be marked by the end of
that tide of civilization, conquest and blood
that has flowed westward from the days
of Babylon to the present, and which now(
hastens to finish its course.
There is reason to believe that the end of
this Roman world draws nigh, and that it
will be followed by the coming of the King.
Great civil, political and physical convulsions
may accompany the event; but there will
still be found a people to welcome the Lord,
and His saints shall serve Him. The end¬
ing of the course of these nations may also
signify their destruction, and hence the
phrase, the end of the world, may point us
to a time of great disaster, on the one hand,
but also to a time of the bursting forth of the
full flower of Christian hope, on the other.
The " end of the world " is not the last step
In the plans of the Almighty, nor the last
act in the prodigious drama of the world's
THE END OF THE WORLD.
21
activities. Men and nations will still live
and unfold their characters, fulfill their des¬
tinies and glorify their Creator long after the
world, in Scriptural language, shall have
reached its consummation.1
xSee Note 1, taken from Dean Alford's Com¬
mentaries, in Appendix ; also the learned disserta¬
tions on the Greek words used in this chapter,
kindly furnished the author by Professors Scarbo¬
rough and Terrell.
CHAPTER II.
THE WORDS "ALL," "EVERY," "WHOLE,"
ETC., AND "THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
HEAVENS AND THE EARTH," ETC.
HERE arc certain words and expres¬
sions in the Scriptures which deserve
especial attention before we go on
further to discuss the events of the great
crisis rapidly approaching us, or endeavor to
present in detail the evidences which lead to
the conclusion that the time is at hand.
These words are such as "all," " every" and
"whole." While these words generally ex¬
press totality, they are sometimes quite in¬
definitely employed, and they are always to
be limited by the connection in which they are
found.
When we read in Luke, that, a decree
22
THE END OF THE WORLD.
23
went out from Cassar Augustus that "all the
world should be taxed," we are obliged to
limit the phrase, all the world, to the extent
of the dominion of Caesar Augustus. His
decree went no farther than his authority-
was respected, and this was all that could be
meant by "all the world," for it is immedi¬
ately added that all went to be taxed, every
one into his own city. Again, "every one"
could only mean every one liable to pay tax.
So, when we read that the gospel was preached
to "every creature which is under heaven," we
must take it, so far as we consider it actually,
as limited by the fact. We must, therefore,
in reading the Scriptures, guard against tak¬
ing these words out of the dominion of the
ideas of the writers. These expressions of
totality must always be regarded as limited
by the discourse, and we must seek to ascer¬
tain the ideas which the writers had at the
time of using them. " All the world," and
" under the whole heaven," and " every crea¬
ture " and " every man" are to be always
taken in their connection.
Again, we read of the end of the world,
24
THE END OF THE WORLD.
that is, as we have seen, of the consumma¬
tion of the age; but we do not read of the
destruction of the ction, or age. When we
read of destruction it is of the earth and
heaven, and always under such limitations
as prevent us from anticipating the annihi¬
lation of the universe, or of any part of
it. The destruction of the earth is to be by
fire. The eartli and all its works will be
burned up, and the heavens shall pass away
with a great noise, and the elements will
melt with fervent heat. Have we reason to
believe that St. IVter here speaks of the
total annihilation of this globe of ours, and
the consequent dissipation of its atmos¬
phere? He tells us of the perishing of the
former Kosmos by the flood, and he seems to
include in that Kosmos the heavens and the
earth. That is, the heavens and the earth seem
to have made up the Kosmos that then
was, and that perished by water; and the
heavens and earth that now are, seem to
constitute the Kosmos that is now reserved
unto fire. Hence we may infer, that even to
speak of the destruction of the heavens and
THE END OF THE WORLD. 25
the earth, or of the perishing of the Kosmos,
does not necessarily involve the idea of an¬
nihilation, for earth, heaven and man re¬
mained after the perishing of the world.
As to the destruction of the globe, it is to
be remarked that the idea of globe was not
in the writer's mind. The idea of the
flat earth and bending heavens doubtless oc¬
cupied his thoughts. It was to be a general
dissolution by that powerful agency, fire,
but, so far as we can see, the destruction of
nothing. Fire, although a most thorough
analyzer, is not a destructive agent in the
absolute sense. Hence there is no reason to
believe, either from the language used or
from the means to be employed, that the
physical universe, the solar system, or even
the earth with its satellites are to be blotted
out. The statement that a new heaven and
a new earth are to immediately follow the
removal of the old, harmonizes with the
view that the entire body of material will
remain.
We read in Hebrews that Jehovah, who in
the beginning laid the foundations of the
26 THE END OF THE WORLD.
earth, and by whose hands the heavens wore
made, will remain through all these convul¬
sions which accompany the perishing world,
and although in the process the heavens and
earth shall be completely changed, He will be
the same. The heavens and the earth are to
be completely renewed, but not destroyed.
The present organization we may conceive
will be completely destroyed, all life will
probably hs temporarily concealed, and all
spirit disassociated with matter, and chaos
return only that out of it may evolve a new
heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness. All the fragments have been
gathered up, and nothing has been lost but
the sons of perdition. As the Saviour could
say, "Those that thou gavest me I have
kept, and none of them is lost but the son of
perdition; that the Scripture might be ful¬
filled," so He can say at the close of this
great transaction, nothing has been lost, either
of material elements or of living beings, ex-
o O /
cept the children of perdition. " For the
heavens and the earth which are now, are
kept in store reserved unto fire against the
THE END OF THE WORLD. 27
day of judgment and perdition of ungodly
men." /j^he only lost quantity is that con¬
sisting of ungodly menp These are sons of
perdition, and consequently they can go to
their own place, but all other men and things
enter the renewed earth beneath the balmy
skies that drop down righteousness.
The end of the world, the coming of the
Lord, the resurrection of the just, the resur¬
rection of the unjust, the renewal of the
heavens and the earth, may all be events
widely separated from one another in point
of time. There are also other great events
which may follow the completion of this
age with which we are to be greatly concerned,
but all of them cannot be discussed here.
It is enough for us to observe here, that
while we are to look for the coming of our
Lord and the sitting of the judgment, these
events do not mark the completion of the
age. The completion of the age and the
coming of the King are probably contempo¬
rary future events; but not the judgment, or
the destruction of the earth. Other pro¬
phetic events will probably follow the end
2.8
THE END OF THE WORLD.
of this age in the sense in which it is to end.
In the meantime it behooves us to be watch¬
ing for our Lord, and to so order our ways
that we may hasten the coming of that king¬
dom for which we pray.
CHAPTER III.
THE AGE IN WHICH WE LIVE FURTHER
ANALYZED.
HE axon, or age in which we live, is
identical with that which was going
on in Christ's time; but we must
remember that it is distinguished from the
Kingdom considered either as a whole or in
any of its stages. The Kingdom of Heaven, i
in its incipient stages, was set up on earth at
the time of the Messiah's coming, but this
fact did not give the dominion of the age to
Christ, nor identify it with the Kingdom.
The Kingdom is to be everlasting and to be¬
come universal, but the age is to pass away.
While Christianity is to be contemporary with
this age, it is also to survive it. if we read the
prophecies aright; and is to reach its most
glorious era after this age shall have closed.
29
30
THE END OF THE WORLD.
It is then, that the stone having become a
mountain, shall fill the whole earth. It is
then that the kingdoms of this earth shall
become the kingdoms of our God and his
Christ, and lie shall commence that glorious
reign which shall continue forever. Our age,
therefore, is to be distinguished from the age
of the Kingdom of Heaven, although begin¬
ning quite near the date of Christ's coming.
The age is also to be distinguished from
the Christian dispensation, at least, in some
respects. While both arose nearly together,
both will not close together, as will hereafter
be shown. The Christian dispensation will
continue as long as there shall be occasion to
preach the __gospel at least, and, in some
respects, as distinguished from the eras of
the patriarchs and of the law, this dispen¬
sation will continue forever. As a remedial
system, it will last until the removal of sin
from__the earth shall have been effected, and
this does not seem likely to occur, according
to the quite explicit teaching of St. Peter,
until the day of judgment and (the day) of
perdition of ungodly men.
THE END OF THE "WORLD.
31
Some have brought forward the idea that
the three dispensations, the Patriarchal, the*
Mosaic and the Christian are reflections ot'
the trinity in the Godhead : The first dispen¬
sation revealing God the Father, or, God as
Absolute Sovereign: the second, revealing
God the Son, or God coming into communion
with man as his helper and deliverer; the
third revealing God the Holy Ghost, or God
working in man for man's good.
This view, though apparently fanciful,'
contains no discoverable absurdity, and serves
to place the scheme of religion as it takes
hold of the nations, in harmony with its
germinal characteristics, as revealed in the
sacred book. Whether God is absolutely a
trinity is not a question of importance to us,
for at best, while in the body pent, we can
but hope to know in part, but that he is
revealed under a trinity of persons in the
Bible no one can deny who admits inspira¬
tion ; and that there have been three great
religious dispensations in the world, when its
course is viewed in relation to the Bible, is
equally clear; and, that the characteristics of
32
THE END OF THE WORLD.
these dispensations somewhat correspond to
the special work of these three persons of the
great Godhead, is susceptible of some degree
of illustration. Hence, we may safelxgggard
the Christian dispensation as reaching the
climax of revelation and of being the flower
and fruit of the two preceding dispensations.
According to the testimony of all Scripture
on this point, it is unquestionably the last
stage of revelation. Logically this will also
be the case if the doctrine be admitted that
God has revealed Ilis trinity practically as
well as in the book. The last days^JhevQ-
fore, which may mean the days during which
the world shall survive under New Testa¬
ment or whole Bible teaching, are not to be
confounded with the phrase, this age. These
last days may go on thousands of years after
the world shall have come to an end in the
Scriptural sense, i. e., after the completion of
this age. In some cases the period referred
to as the last days runs from Pentecost to the
Great Day of judgment. We are not, there¬
fore, compelled, if indeed we are permitted,
to regard the last days and the age which is
THE END OF THE WORLD.
33
to end so soon, as identical. Something also
may be said of the idea that, inasmuch as six
days are given as the time of the world's
construction, so the period of its continuance
shall be six thousand years, divided into
three periods of about two thousand years
each, as referred to above. Perhaps there, is
in Scripture sufficient countenance given to
this theory to entitle it to respectful consid¬
eration at least. St. Peter tells us that one
day is with the Lord as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day. Are we to
understand, this as an expression going to
show that God is indifferent as to time, and
puts no value upon it? that a day in his
sight does not differ from a thousand years ?
Or are we to consider it as an effort to impress
upon us his great resources in respect to time,
seeing that he is eternal, and consequently
can afford to wait through ages for the ac¬
complishment of his purposes, because he is
the Lord continually, and His years shall not
fail ? This is probably all that is meant.
The element of time is not considered by him
in regard to his purposes and works. But
3
34 THE END OF THE WORLD.
there is room for the supposition, neverthe¬
less, that one thousand years are grouped in
the Divine mind as a single day. Again, in
the twentieth chapter of Revelation there is
plain reference to a period of peace of one
thousand years' duration, during which Christ
shall reign with his saints, which seems to
take the place of the blessed and hallowed
seventh day. If this Sabbath reign is to be
ushered in at the close of the six thousand
years from Adam, we have reason to believe
it near at hand. Should this be the case, its
approach will announce the end of the age,
but not the end of the Redeemer's Kingdom,
nor of the Christian age, nor of man on
earth, much less of the earth and heavens
themselves.1
The world, therefore, whose termination
we are inquiring into, is not the physical
world—is not the Christian dispensation—
is not the world as referring to all the peo¬
ples of earth, but rather an age marking the
course of a well-known succession of events,
1 See note *, where Dean Alford's views on this
and other topics are given.
THE END OF THE WORLD.
35
developing toward a recognized end. It is
the consummation of the age of this world—
this recognized world, known both to Old
and New Testament Scriptures. When the
disciples, who were Jews, came to Jesus and
inquired of him when the age which was
then present should reach its conclusion, it is
quite probable that they had no reference to
the end of the world, as popularly under¬
stood to-day. It is probable, however, that
they meant to inquire with regard to two
things, as they put this quite comprehensive
question: (1) When shall end the days of
Roman domination ? (2) When shall end the
days of Jewish humiliation? An inquiry
into their modes of thought and their general
feeling at the time will show, that notwith¬
standing their adherence to Jesus, they still
hoped for the restoration of the kingdom to
Israel and the consequent overthrow of tfie
Roman power in Palestine at least. Although
Jesus was somewhat persecuted by the Jews,
His disciples continued to be, during his life¬
time, Jews very largely in sentiment and shared
in the patriotic desires and hopes of the nation.
36 THE END OF THE WORLD.
The next chapter will help us, perhaps, to
a clearer understanding of this whole mat¬
ter.
CHAPTER IV.
WHAT SHALL BE THE SIGN OF THY COMING
AND THE END OF THE WORLD ?
ET lis ascend with the disciples the
Mount of Olives, embalmed as it
is amid the most sacred associa¬
tions, and draw near to the blessed Master
as He seats Himself upon its brow overlook¬
ing the city of Jerusalem. Let us look up
inquiringly into His loving face as, with
anxious countenance, tearful eye and sol¬
emnly pathetic tone, He reads the awful
death-warrant of that historic city ; and, after
the last word has parted from His lips, let us
respectfully listen to the question which
the disciples, those who are much nearer
to Him than we of the multitude are, put
to Him, when they say, "Tell us when
shall these things be? and what shall be
the sign of thy coming and the end of the
37
38" THE END OF THE WORLD.
world ?" Here are three things mentioned ;
three future events referred to, or one great
event referred to under three marked aspects.
The disciples in their questions, grouped all
these things and rested them upon the
predicted destruction of Jerusalem, or,
they asked concerning three things which
were sufficiently alike in some particulars to
be fitly associated together. That is, we may
safely conclude, that the events inquired
about were associated in their minds either
by the law of time or character; they were
either regarded as coming simultaneously or
as fitted to be placed in the same category.
I think we have reason from the whole
tenor of the answer to regard the question as
two-fold at most, although three-fold in ex¬
pression. They inquired as to the time when
these things should take place, and also as
to the signs which would announce their
approach. They use the words " thy com¬
ing,'' because while they believe the destruc¬
tion of Jerusalem is to be be effected by the
enemies of the people of God, they also
believe that this extremity which will then
THE END OP THE WORLD. 39
be reached, will call loudly upon Him to
come and save them. They speak of the
end of the world because they expect Him to
overturn the power that then obtained, and
restore the kingdom to Israel.
Dr. Clarke in commenting upon this pas¬
sage maintains that the world referred to
was the Jewish world, and makes the dis¬
ciples anticipate the complete overthrow of
the Jewish state. But in this view I think
Dr. Clarke is clearly in error, as there is
nothing in the gospels to show that the dis¬
ciples expected the overthrow of the Jewish
state; while there is clear evidence there,
that they did expect the overthrow of the
Roman authority, at least so far as the ter¬
ritory of Palestine was concerned. Their
affection lingered around Jerusalem . . . their
antipathy lowered against Rome ; hence it is
incongruous to suppose that their question
referred to the end of the Jewish age. Wes¬
ley supposes the two events referred to to be
the destruction of Jerusalem, and the end of
the world in the popular sense.1
1 Matthew Henry, on Matt. xxiv. 2, says: "I
40
THE END OF THE WORLD.
The views which appear most consistent
with the manifest feelings of the disciples,
and which harmonize most completely with
Scriptural words on the subject, are those
already indicated, viz.: that the disciples in¬
quired respecting the catastrophe impending
over Jerusalem, and the completion of the
age during which the Gentiles should have
sway over the sacred lands.
rather incline to think that their question looked
no further than the event Christ foretold ; but it
appears by other passages that they had very con¬
fused'thoughts of future events; so that perhaps
it is not possible to put any certain construction
upon this question of, theirs. But Christ, in his
answer, though He does not expressly rectify the
mistakes of his disciples (that must be done by
the pouring out of the Spirit) yet looks further
than their question and instructs His church not
only concerning the great events of that age—the
destruction of Jerusalem—but concerning His
second coming at the end of time, which here lie
insensibly slides into a discourse of, and of that it
is plain He speaks in the next chapter, which is a
continuation of this sermon."
ft ovi>Te?.eia tov aiuvo?, Matt. xxiv. 2, Townsend:
" From this question it appears evident that the
disciples viewed the coming of Christ and the end
THE END OF THE "WORLD.
41
To make this apparent we need to inquire
with a little more particularity respecting the
attitude of the disciples in their feelings to¬
ward these two powers. Although they had
become followers of Jesus, we must remem¬
ber that they were Jews by birth, and re¬
tained their Jewish beliefs and prejudices.
Even after the resurrection and ascension of
Christ and the glorious descent of the Holy
Ghost, they still retained doubts as to the
salvation of the Gentiles. Their eyes needed
of the world or age as events nearly related, and
which would indisputably take place together;
they had no idea of the dissolution of the Jewish
polity with its attendant miseries as really signified
by or included in either of these events." The
reader will observe three interpretations of this
passage and the parallel passages.
1. That they relate to the destruction of Jeru¬
salem and the end of the world in the popular
sense. 2. That they relate to the destruction of
Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish age. 3. That
they relate to the destruction of Jerusalem and the
end of that age which shall conclude with the com¬
ing of Christ to set up His kingdom. To this
latter view, following in some respects Dean Alford,
the author, as can be seen, inclines. See Ap¬
pendix.
42 THE END OF THE WORLD.
still further opening before they could see
that the God and Saviour of the Jews was
also the God and Saviour of the Gentiles.
During the time of our Lord's sojourn with
them they seem scarcely to have given the
Gentiles a thought. The popular odium
which attached to the tax-collectors, and the
religious opposition fostered by the Phari¬
sees to the paying of tribute to this heathen
power, were doubtless shared to some extent
by some of those who followed Jesus; and
deep down in their hearts was the patriotic
hope that He would one day take away their
national reproach. In this light they under¬
stood a large share of Ilis spiritual promises;
and upon this ground they clung to Him.
Cleopas quite probably discloses the latent
condition of their hearts and reveals the sub¬
strata of their conduct when he says of
Jesus, after His crucifixion, "But we trusted
that it had been he which should have re¬
deemed Israel,"1 equivalent to saying, we
'That great commentary prepared by Patrick,
Lowth, Whitby and Lowman has the following
note on this subject: "That temporal dominion
THE END OF THE WORLD.
43
have centered our political hopes in him; but,
alas ! our disappointment has come, and there
is no remedy, for u to-day is the third day "
(since His death.)
When the disciples came together after
having been fully convinced of the resurrec¬
tion of Jesus, this dominant theme again
breaks through, and they ask with all earnest¬
ness, " Lord, wilt Thou at this time (now)
restore the kingdom to Israel ?" On this
passage Wesley remarks: "They still seemed
to dream of an outward, temporal kingdom,
in which the Jews should have dominion
over all nations. It seems they came in a
body, having before concerted the design to
over all other nations which the Jews then ex¬
pected, being never before granted to them, the
word here cannot well be rendered restore, but
rather grant or establish, as it may be considered;
for anoKadtcT7ini say Suidas, and Phavorinus is
SiSovg-, giving or granting; and in the
Sep'uagint the word signifies to establish. Amos
v. 15; Ps. xvi. 5, 11."
What pertinence is there in this note if the dis¬
ciples of our Lord, who were also Jews, did not
expect such a kingdom? Dr. Lightfoot's note
tends to the same purport.
44 THE END OF THE WORLD.
ask "when this kingdom would come." Clarke
says: "The object of the disciples'question
seems to have been this : to gain information
from their all-knowing Master, whether the
time was now fully come in which the Ro¬
mans should be thrust out, and Israel made
as formerly an independent kingdom." Hence
it is quite clear that the disciples of our
Lord lamentably misunderstood Ilis mission
and precepts, and that this misunderstanding
prevailed until the great day of Pentecost.
It is, therefore, in harmony with the views
of the disciples and with the feelings under¬
lying these views as determined by their
general bearing toward the gentile world, that
we are to read their question; and doing so,
we shall connect the destruction of the Jewish
temple with the overthrow of the Roman
domination and the end of the Roman age.
The extremity of opportunity will arrive at
this juncture, and their hope is, that Israel's
Kingdom will be restored by their heir ap¬
parent.
We next proceed to show that the answer
of Jesus accords with this consistent view of
THE END OF THE WORLD. 45
the Apostles' question. He gave to them the
signs which should announce his coming and
those which should announce the close, not of
the Jewish age, but of the Roman age. Wars
and tumults, earthquakes and famines, ru¬
mors and pestilences should be the beginning
of those sorrows which should come upon
and desolate Jerusalem. And then, turning
to the prophecy of Daniel, he applies those
utterances which refer to the desolating abom¬
ination, and says of the Jews, "They shall
fall by the edge of the sword and shall be
led away captive into all nations : and Jeru¬
salem shall be trodden down of the gentiles
until the times of the gentiles shall be ful¬
filled." Here, then, we are told that these
calamities should oversweep Jerusalem and
their effects should remain until the times of
the gentiles should be fulfilled. Is this equiv¬
alent to saying that Jerusalem shall be trod¬
den down until that shall come respecting
which they inquired—that is, unto the end of
the Roman age ? If so, then they are re¬
ferred to the prophecy of Daniel for the
answer to their question, and there is some
46 THE END OF THE WORLD.
pertinency in the remark put in parenthesis,
" Whoso readeth let him understand." Here
is the answer to their desire, a desire which
might have been expressed in words about
like these—How long, oh Lord, shall this
extreme humiliation of Israel continue? It
shall continue as long as the times of the
gentiles shall continue. The overthrow of
the nations, or at least the closing of this
gentile age, will be synchronous with the
restoration of Israel. Beyond this general
fact their knowledge was not permitted to
go. The times *and seasons were still re¬
served in the mind of the Father. The au-
swer accords with their desire to know Israel's
day of redemption.1
1 Bengel says on Luke iii., 24, " So in Rev. xi., 2:
The holy city shall they tread under foot forty and
two months," although there the Angel speaks of
a certain time of its degradation, and that a
noted one, whereas in Luke all the times of its
abasement are referred to. Indeed, however you
explain the forty-two months, Jerusalem has
already been longer than that trodden down * * *
and it shall continue to be trodden until the times
of the gentiles be fulfilled. Moreover, the times
THE END OF THE WORLD. 47
In full accord with all this is the comment
of St. Paul upon this very subject and per¬
haps upon this very passage when in Romans
xi., he says: " Blindness in part is happened
to Israel until the fulness of the gentiles be
come in; and so all Israel shall be saved."
He still believes that the Jews " as touching
the election are beloved for the fathers'
sake." The Christian Jews believed in the
ultimate restoration of Israel; and this is the
faith of the church to-day. Whether this
restoration includes a return to Palestine and
a re-establishment of their nation, are mat¬
ters yet to be considered. All that is desired
for the present is that we have clearly fixed
in our minds the fact that these calamitous
prophecies do not point to the complete de¬
struction or final overthrow of the Jewish
people. Judaism is submerged, but it shall
arise again crowned with the Christian faith.1
of the gentiles are the times allotted to the gen¬
tiles to tread down the ciiy;and these shall be
ended when the gentiles' conversion shall be fully
consummated (Rom, xi., 25,* Rev. xv., 4); for, in¬
deed, the gentiles, while treading it down, are
meanwhile unbelievers.
1 Some commentators explain this partial blind-
48
THE END OF THE WOULD.
The age to be completed is that two-fold
age of Jewish humiliation and Roman dom¬
ination, and the signs which indicate this
completion are somewhat analogous to those
which cluster around the destruction of Je¬
rusalem. How long a space shall intervene
between the completion of the Roman age
and the millenium during which Israel shall
exist in its restored condition? or whether
Christ, rejected by the Jews previous to their
downfall, will now be welcomed by them
spiritually, and return in person to make His
ness as a blindness to part of Israel,—contrasting
it with " all Israel." Others explain it as a blind¬
ness not total and especially relating to the Scrip¬
tures. Bengel says on this passage "For many
ages many obstacles have retarded this coming in,
—obstacles which shall be overcome at the proper
time—so that the fulness of the gentiles, long
since called, may wholly come in ; and the time of
Israel's hardening will end : Ps. cxxvi., 23. Paul
provokes the Israelites to Christian emulation;
and this assumes the conversion of the gentiles
before that of Israel; and yet the remaining abund¬
ance of the gentiles may afterwards be won by the
full conversion of Israel: verses 11, 12, 15, 31;
Ezek. xxix., 7, 21, 27."
THE END OF THE WOULD. 49
seat in Jerusalem ? are questions which can¬
not be discussed here. Later on, when we
come to consider the events subsequent to the
age of the gentiles, these matters will be con¬
sidered to a limited extent.
A third reason for placing upon the ques¬
tion and the elaborate answer of our Lord
the interpretation which we do, is found in
the prophetic unity of the Scriptures. Jesus
Christ is the first among the prophets in point
of excellence and authority, and yet He Him¬
self is so largely the object of prophecy and
His claims depend in so great a degree upon
what the earlier prophets have spoken, that
it would be utterly incongruous and quite
fatal to His position should He be found an¬
tagonizing the prophets of the Old Testament.
His custom was to quote the prophets with
respect and to summon them as witnesses,
and hence we could not expect Him to set
them aside or throw discredit upon their pre¬
dictions in the presence of His disciples. But
if we regard prophecy as truth, of course its
unity must be preserved and the holy men of
God who spake as moved by the Holy Ghost,
4
50 THE END OF THE WORLD.
always gave out that which would agree with
itself, no matter by what number or variety of
individuals uttered. St. Peter teaches us that
prophecy, although delivered in detached
fragments, is to be interpreted as making up
one great whole, or at least as presenting in
its varied forms a great assemblage of uni¬
fied truth. No prophecy of the Scripture
is of any private interpretation. Jesus an¬
swers these questions of his disciples in the
light of the prophecy of Daniel, and shows
tacit harmony with his predictions. What¬
ever, therefore, the prophecies of Daniel re¬
ferred to signify, that signification is, by the
authority of Jesus, applied to the events hast¬
ening on Jerusalem.
Bishop Newton regards the predictions of
our Lord here as applying entirely to Jeru¬
salem, and hence in his comment he leaves
out of view the popular idea that they refer
to the final coming of our Lord and to the
day of judgment. He maintains, quite erro¬
neously it seems to me, that " the end of the
world" here means the end of the Jewish
age as distinguished from the Messianic age;
THE END OF THE WORLD. 51
and yet he is driven by the exigencies of the
text to add the following passage, which, ex¬
actly harmonizes with the views so far de¬
veloped in these chapters:
"By thus tracing the history of Jerusalem
from the destruction by Titus to the present
time, it appears evidently that as the Jews
have been ' led away captive into all nations,'
so Jerusalem hath been ' trodden down of the
gentiles/ There are now almost seventeen
hundred years in which the Jewish nation
have been a standing monument of the truth
of Christ's predictions, themselves dispersed
over the face of the whole earth, and their
land groaning under the yoke of foreign
lords and conquerors; and at this day there
is no reason to doubt that they will continue
in the same state, nor ever recover their na¬
tive country 1 until the times of the gentiles
be fulfilled.' Our Saviour's words are very
memorable: 1 Jerusalem shall be trodden
down of the gentiles until the times of the
gentiles be fulfilled.' It is still trodden down
by the gentiles, and consequently the times of
the gentiles are not yet fulfilled. When ' the
52 THE END OF THE WORLD.
times of the gentiles shall be fulfilled,' then
the expression implies that the Jews shall be
restored ; and for what reason can we believe
that though they are dispersed among all
nations, yet by a constant miracle they are
kept distinct from them all, but for the fur¬
ther manifestation of God's purpose towards
them ? The prophecies have been accom¬
plished to the greatest exactness in the de¬
struction of their city and its continuing still
subject to strangers, in the dispersion of their
people, and their living still separate from all
people; and why should not the remaining
parts of the same prophecies be as fully ac¬
complished too, in their restoration at the
proper season, when ' the times of the gen¬
tiles shall be fulfilled/ The times of the
gentiles will be fulfilled when the times of
the four great kingdoms of the gentiles shall
be expired, and the fifth kingdom, or the
Kingdom of Christ shall be set up in their
place, and 'the saints of the Most High shall
take the Kingdom forever, even for ever and
ever.' Jerusalem, as it hath hitherto re¬
mained, so probably will remain in subjection
THE END OF THE WORLD.
53
to the gentiles 'until these times of the gen¬
tiles be fulfilled/ or, as St. Paul expresses it
(Rom. xi., 25, 26), ' until the fulness of the
gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall
be saved,' and become again the people of
God. The fulness of the Jews will come in,
as well as the fullness of the gentiles; for
(ver. 12, etc.), ' if the fall of them be the
riches of the world, and the diminishing of
them the riches of the gentiles,' how much
more their fulness! For I would not,
brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this
mystery, that blindness in part has happened
to 'Israel, until the fulness of the gentiles
be come in: And so all Israel shall be
saved."
From this quotation, which is but a group¬
ing of prophetic truth, we learn that the
restoration of the Jews and the expiration of
the times of the gentile kingdoms, as de¬
scribed by Daniel, are events which will
occur simultaneously. This is the great con¬
summation of the ages looked for by those
who believe in prophec}'; and hence it
seems to me altogether reasonable that the
54 THE END OF THE WORLD.
disciples put these two events together in
their question. They did not believe in the
final end of Israel, as we have seen. They
did believe in Israel's restoration and in the
completion of this great gentile panorama
that had been going on since Daniel's day.
They had reached its last stage, and at the
close of this stage, Israel, their beloved Is¬
rael, should be restored, and this great Son
of David will be their resplendent King!
When will the end of this terribly humili¬
ating age draw nigh and the song of our tri¬
umph begin? Hence, we may rather read
the end of the gentile world than of the
Jewish world.1
1 See Appendix, C and D, Patrick and Lowth's
comment on passages referred to in this chapter.
CHAPTER Y.
THE FULFILLING OF THE TIMES OF THE
GENTILES, AND THE END OF
THE WORLD, IDENTICAL
IN MEANING.
HE reader will readily see that the
course of the discussion hitherto
has been to define the phrase, " the
end of the world" (fi ouvteteca zoo aiiovot;), and
give to it its legitimate place in prophecy. The
doctrine has been advanced that, signifying
as it does the completion, perfection and ma¬
turing of the age, it should be applied to
some consecutive, regularly developing his¬
tory. That this course of history should be
one having a beginning and destined to have
an end. It has been shown that it could not
apply to the Messianic reign, because that is
everywhere represented in Scripture as des¬
tined to survive this world that is to end, and
55
56 THE END OF THE WORLD.
to abide forever. With equal clearness, I
think, it has been shown that it could not
apply to the Jewish age; for, in one sense
that has already closed, and has been sup¬
planted by the Christian dispensation—and
in another sense it has only passed into ob¬
scurity, to have a marked revival after this
end of the world. It cannot mean the end
of all human life, because at the end of the
world, after the wicked shall have been gath¬
ered out from the just, the righteous shall
shine forth in the Kingdom, and restored
Israel and the saints of the Most High shall
still abide on earth. (See Matt, xiii, 39, 40,
and prophecies of Daniel.)
The expression would fitly apply to the
termination of a series of events presented in
their order of succession, and with some data
as to time, to be found in the sacred books;
and, I beg to say, there is no such series that
so completely meets the case as that found in
the prophecy of Daniel. In this prophecy
we find a connected series of events, includ¬
ing in their course the advent and experiences
oftheMessiah,and defining the part his King-
THE END OF THE WOULD. 57
dom should enact in a definite succession
of the kingdoms of earth; and it is to this
unfolding catena of events, according to the
reasoning hitherto put forth, that this phrase
should be applied. So Bishop Newton puts
it by identifying the fulfilling of the times of
the gentiles with the expiration of the times
of the four great kingdoms of the gentiles.
It is evident that our Saviour placed him¬
self within the scope of this prophecy, by
speaking of himself as the Son of Man, and
by representing his advent as the coming of
the Kingdom of Heaven and the coming of
the Kingdom of God. This prophecy, speak¬
ing figuratively, furnished the atmosphere in
which his early life was developed. It had
profoundly impressed the Jewish mind and
subsisted with the belief that Israel should
survive all her calamities and recover from
all her reproach.
This prophecy represents the Kingdom of
Heaven as ending that succession of powers
which came from Babylon to Rome; and the
natural conclusion among all those who re¬
garded Christ's coming as the initial step of
58 THE END OF THE WORLD.
the setting up of that Kingdom would be,
that in a very short period this stone cut out
of the mountains without hands should itself
become a mountain (£. e. government) and
end this age, and with it the entire series of
involved events. Impatiently they awaited
the hour when he should come in his Kingly
power and overthrow this last stage of the
prophetic world, as it lay in the embraces of
the Roman Empire. The words "Son of
Man," " Kingdom of Heaven," and " King¬
dom of God " belong to the same volume of
thought and attach to the same current of
prophecy, as the phrase " end of the world "
and "fulness of the times of the gentiles."
This latter phrase seems to come directly
from Daniel, and I think it merely a varia¬
tion of the idea of the consummation of the
age.
I now proceed to lay before the reader all
the places in the New Testament where this
phrase is used, remarking beforehand, that
the word auvrehict rendered end, but signi¬
fying consummation, is never used in the
Scripture except in this particular connection.
THE END OF THE WOKLD. 59
Matt. xiii. 39: " The harvest is the end of
the worldverse 40 : " So shall it be at the
end of the world." How? Answer: "The
Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and
they shall gather out of his Kingdom all
things that offend and them which do ini¬
quity, and shall cast them into a furnace of
fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of
teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth
as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father."
Any one can see that this answer is full of
Daniel's prophecy. So verse 49 : " So shall
it be at the end of the world: the angels
shall come forth and sever the wicked from
among the just," The righteous are not to
be disturbed, but the wicked are to be effect¬
ually removed from God's Kingdom. Matt,
xxviii. 20: <( Lo I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world." Until the reign
of these heathen powers shall end, and God's
Kingdom shall prevail, the gospel of which
you are to preach. Hebr. ix. 26: " But
now once in the end of the world." Here it
is plural and introduced by eni, and might
be rendered—now at the conclusion of the
60 THE END OF THE WORLD.
ages; perhaps equivalent to saying, Now in
this concluding age of all the ages hath he
appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself.
Bishop Newton, after carefully examining
our Saviour's prophecy, reaches this conclu¬
sion : " The coming of Christ and the con¬
clusion of the age being, therefore, only dif¬
ferent expressions to denote the same period
with the destruction of Jerusalem, the pur¬
port of the question plainly is, when shall
the destruction of Jerusalem be and what
shall be the signs of it?" Although I think
I have shown Bishop Newton to have been
in error in associating this prophecy with the
destruction of Jerusalem exclusively, yet his
great learning and labor entitle him to the
highest consideration, and it is with a view
of settling the question of the identity of
these two phrases as regards time, that I have
quoted him as above.
The great coming of Christ has not yet
taken place. The emphatic ending of the
age has not yet come, and will not come until
the fulness of the gentiles be come in. The
THE END OF THE WORLD. 61
restoration of the Jews, the ingathering of
the nations and the fulfilling of the times of
the gentiles are all future events, and all
events destined to occur at the close of this
age. (See Appendix D.)
Bishop Newton has shown us that the ful¬
ness of the times of the gentiles points to the
end of DaniePs vision ; and sufficient reason
has already been shown to lead us to believe
that the phrase, " the conclusion of the age,"
points to the same tinle. It has been identi¬
fied in time with the coming of Christ. And
the restoration of the Jews and fulness of
the times of the gentiles have been associ¬
ated, and I think we can safely synchronize
the end of the world with all these events.
In doing this we may inquire a little further
into the force of the phrase "the fulness of
the times of the gentiles." I think there is
direct reference to the " time, times and half-
times" of Daniel, vii. 25; and there is no
doubt that it points to the completion of that
march of kingdom. Gentiles, in this con¬
nection, then, is restricted to those nations
who are embraced within this sway and make
62 THE END OF THE WORLD.
up the (oikoumene) world of our Saviour's
day. Practically they are the successors of
the Roman Empire. When their times are
fulfilled, Israel shall be restored and all these
kingdoms shall come to an end.
This, then, will be the conclusion of the
age and the end of that world which was
developed from that Babylonian head of golcf.
The last age of that brilliant succession will
have concluded. The westward marching
wave of civilization will have reached the
ultimate shore and have dissipated itself upon
the obstructing beach. What next?
CHAPTER VI.
THE COURSE OF THE AGES AND THE EX¬
TENT TO WHICH THIS PHRASE
"END OF THE WORLD"
APPLIES.
T has by this time appeared that the
age which is to reach its end in¬
volves the fate of particular na¬
tions, and not of the whole world. The
continents strictly affected are Europe and
America. The nations occupying these ter¬
ritories will be affected disastrously as na¬
tions ; but the people will still survive, that
is, those of them who are fit to survive;
while the nations lying beyond this doomed
circle will most probably be affected for good.
It will be for them a day of deliverance and
return to the true God.
It is a pleasure now, after the pioneer
work of clearing the territory thus far, to
63
64 THE END OF THE WORLD.
come more directly within the scope of popu¬
lar belief, and to join hands again with all
the commentators of the Protestant world,
as we follow that course of empire revealed
in the visions of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel
in the Old Testament, and in the wonderful
vision of St. John in the New. With one
voice they testify that these visions detail be¬
fore our eyes empires and kingdoms, running
down to the latest times.
The Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the
Grseco-Macedonian, and finally the Roman
governments came upon the stage. All these
in their turn have swept over the Sacred
Land, and this divided Roman power is the
last.
The Romans acquired control of Palestine
about sixty years before Christ, and during
Christ's life had absolute authority; so that
the Jews themselves could say, " We have no
king but Caesarand this kingdom of the
Romans, through its heirs and assigns, has
continued until this present hour. The great
empire has been broken into many fragments
and contains visible elements of great strength
THE END OF THE WORLD.
65
and concealed elements of groat weakness.
It is still the compound of iron and clay,
although gone into its various nationalities.
That the Roman Empire soon went into
ten kingdoms, has generally been noticed,
and that it frequently appeared in a ten-fold
form is equally clear. Romanists have named
them as follows: (1) The Ostrogoths in Mo-
esia; (2) The Visigoths in Pannonia; (3)
The Sueres and Alans in Gascoine and Spain;
(4) The Vandals in Africa; (5) The Franks
in France; (6) The Burgundians in Bur¬
gundy ; (7) The Heruli and Turingi in It¬
aly; (8) The Saxons and Angles in Britain;
(9) The Huns in Hungary; (10) The Lom¬
bards first upon the Danube, afterwards in
Italy.
Mr. Mede reckons up the ten kingdoms in
the year 456, the year after the sacking of
Rome by Genseric, as follows: (1) The
Britons; (2) The Saxons; (3) The Franks;
(4) The Burgundians in France; (5) The
Visigoths in the south of France and part
of Spain; (6) The Sueres and Alans in Gal-
licia and Portugal; (7) Vandals in Africa;
5
66
THE END OF THE WORLD.
(8) The Alemanes in Germany; (9) The Os¬
trogoths, whom the Lombards succeeded in
Pannonia and afterwards in Italy; (10) The
Greeks in the residue of the empire.
Bishop Lloyd gives the following list of
the kingdoms, with the time of their rise:
(1) The Iluns about a. d. 356 ; (2) The Os¬
trogoths a. d. 377; (3) Visigoths a. d. 378;
(4) Franks a. d. 407; (5) Vandals a. d. 407;
(6) Sueres and Alans a. d. 407 ; (7) Burgun-
dians a. i>. 407; (8) Ilerules and Rugians
a. d. 476 ; (9) Saxons a. d. 476; (10) Lon-
gobards began to reign in Hungary a. p.
526, and were seated in the northern parts of
Germany about the year 483.
Sir Isaac Newton enumerates them thus:
(1) The kingdom of the Vandals and Alans
in Spain and Africa; (2) The kingdom of the
Suevians in Spain; (3) The kingdom of the
Visigoths; (4) The kingdom of the Alans
in Gallia; (5) The kingdom of the Burgun-
dians; (6) The kingdom of the Franks; (7)
The kingdom of the Britons; (8) The king¬
dom of the Huns; (9) The kingdom of the
Lombards; (10) The kingdom of the Ravenna.
THE END OF THE WORLD. 67
The above recital, which has been taken
quite literally from Bishop Newton's work,
will justify the insertion of the following
direct quotation from the same author :
" Mr. Whiston, who published his essay
on the Revelation of St. John, in the year
1706, farther observes, 'that as the number
of the kingdoms into which the Roman Em¬
pire in Europe, agreeably to the ancient
prophecies, was originally divided, A. D. 456,
was exactly ten ; so it is also very nearly re¬
turned again to the same condition; and at
present is divided into ten grand or principal
kingdoms or states.'"
Sir Isaac Newton says: "Whatever was
their number afterwards, they are still called
the iten kings, from their first number."
Now the successors of these kingdoms are
the modern nations of Europe, and perhaps
the Barbary States, with Egypt, coasting the
Mediterranean on the North of Africa, and
in the special and wholesale sense the United
States of America. We may quite safely
identify the successors of this Roman king¬
dom with all those European nations which
68
THE END OF THE WORLD.
have developed the current civilization,
whose people blended together in a common
citizenship make up the population of Amer¬
ica. We may, therefore, reach this conclu¬
sion, that the cosmopolitan citizenship of the
United States in its inner or heart circles,
represents in a most striking manner, both in
its inclusive and its exclusive side, all those
peoples included in that progressive aggrega¬
tion of humanity hastily bounding to its goal.
It excludes instinctively, even in the face of
reason and interest, the Indian, the Asiatic
and the African. It embraces instinctively,
often against reason and interest, the offspring
of all these special nations. A law appar¬
ently written in the heart, harmonizing with
the law of revelation, binds them in common
affinity and confederates them in international
bonds against the rest of mankind. Enun¬
ciating great ideas of liberty, fraternity and
equality, their hearts have compelled them to
restrict their application only to the children
of their own age.
The characteristics of this age, from the
days of Daniel down, have been energy and
THE END OF THE WORLD.
69
courage, acquisition and conquest, subjugation
or extermination. It is progressive and pro¬
jective, and has reached its bud and even its
blossom under Saxon domination. These
bloody-knife men have come to be the rep¬
resentatives and rulers of the civilization of
this age, and their characteristics have come
to be characteristics of the age. What then
are the chief characteristics of this great
group of nations, all of whose descendants
make up that body of people technically re¬
ferred to in America as white people? They
are, so far as I find it possible to present
them in a succinct form : 1, Impatience of a
rival; 2, Great energy and courage on the
part of the men, coupled with strong war¬
like feelings; 3, A good degree of chastity
and subjection on the part of the women.—
Chastity on the part of the men comes merely
through the influence which Christianity
holds, and seems not to be sustained by the
underlying constitutional character of the
people, as all the world testifies.1
1 The following clipping from a recent journal
indicates one of the latest phases of this ever-con¬
sistent conduct:
70
THE END OF THE WORLD.
Wherever the men of this age put their
foot, whether on American prairies or in Af¬
rican jungles, on India's sands or in China'H
villas, there evidences of their licentiousness
soon appear. In this respect, the ruling man
of this age maintains a consistency that enables
"Earnest efforts are being made to Christianize
the Indians of Alaska. The Congregationalists
have sent up a number of their men to engage in
this work. Dr. Wright, of Oberlin, Ohio, recently
visited that country, and gives an interesting re¬
port: 'A few years ago the United States Army
was entirely withdrawn ; and the natives are now
left to the tender mercies of white men, often of
low morals and dissolute lives. Nearly six hun¬
dred miners pass the eight months' long winter at
Fort Wrangel, and do much to corrupt the Indians.
Many of the latter sell their daughters to the white
traders to lead liven of shame. It is against these
terrible vices of drunkenness and immorality, for
which the wicked white men are responsible, that
the missionaries have to contend. Because Dr.
Jackson, one of these gospel workers, was getting
the Indian girls into his school and ho out from
under control of their wicked fathers, the licentious
whites persecuted and even imprisoned him, and
nearly broke up his school. From 185 they suc¬
ceeded in reducing it to 35.' "
THE END OP THE WORLD. 71
one to track him through the centuries and
over the continents. These great workers,
fighters, explorers and builders; these skill¬
ful discoverers and inventors, organizers and
projectors, as they pour their forces into this
country, are welded into one vast volume of
intelligent energy that makes the mighty
continent tremble under its movements. Its
very impatience, energy and momentum, aug¬
menting at an alarming ratio, plainly inti¬
mate that the end is not far. The bloody
wave will soon have spent its force, and then
shall the end come—the end of war and op¬
pression ; the end of the insolence of white
pride and black contempt, and the ushering
in of a new era in which righteousness shall
prevail, and the peaceful, loving spirit of the
Lord Jesus Christ shall reign over all the
earth.
A writer of great theoretical power and a
man of great ability as a collator of the signs
of the times, but of singular obtuseness in
the matter of reading them, has represented
the two dominating ideas of the Anglo-Saxon
to be, (1) The idea of civil liberty; and (2)
72
THE END OF TIIE WORLD.
the idea of a pure spiritual Christianity.
This view, as a matter of course, would paint
the character of the Anglo-Saxon in very
fair colors, and would also make him the
apostle of ages yet to come; but, unfortu¬
nately, such au Anglo-Saxon civilization as
these two principles would work exists no¬
where but in the dreams and fancies of self-
applauding raon. The idea of civil liberty
has come down from the ages of the past,
but it has been realized in a restricted sense
only by a few people. The Saxon principle
is that of clan, and the grand ideas of liberty
so richly expressed in jingling verse and
sounding speech are always subordinate to
it. Within the territory governed by the
supreme idea of clan the grand ideas of civil
liberty have full force; but when liberty and
justice attempt to triumph over clan, a pitia¬
ble spectacle is always presented. The civil
liberty is always for us; subjugation, slavery
and death have always been for the rest of
mankind until within a few years; and Chris¬
tian Saxons have not always been foremost
in striking off the fetters of others. Clan,
THE END OF THE WORLD.
73
first, last, and always ! only the clan idea
has broadened to the extent of a nation in Eu¬
rope, and to the extent of a color in America.
To this idea all others, whether of liberty,
justic£ or religion, are subordinate.
What, then, is that pure spiritual Chris¬
tianity that the Anglo-Saxon has in store for
the world ? Let the writer above referred
to, the Rev. Josiah Strong, D.D., Secretary
of the Evangelical Alliance, answer. He
says : " Then this race of unequalled energy,
with all the majesty of numbers and the
might of wealth behind it,—the representa¬
tive, let us hope, of the largest liberty, the
purest Christianity, the highest civilization,—
having developed peculiarly aggressive traits
calculated to impress its institutions upon
mankind, will spread itself over the earth.
If I read not amiss, this powerful race will
move down upon Mexico, down upon Central
and South America, out upon Africa and
beyond." There you have it in so many
words ! The Anglo-Saxon desires the whole
earth ! What is to become of $ie rest of
mankind? Hear this same visionary the-
74 THE END OF THE WORLD.
orist, this proud follower of the Persian
Nebuchadnezzar, answer? "And can any
one doubt that the result of this competi¬
tion of races will be the survival of the
fittest ?" That is, of course, the surv&al of
the Saxon. Then the contemned, despised,
hated, darker races will have been civilized
off the face of the earth, and the whole world
will be white. All the problems of race will
have been solved by erasing all the trouble¬
some factors. On reading these self-ap¬
plauding expressions, one might be tempted
to regard the Almighty as in the special pay
of the Saxon race, and might ask whence
and why these other races ? Our very thor¬
ough and very practical (?) essayist, how¬
ever, has not left us in doubt as to this
latter query. Being wise above what is
written, and understanding the counsels of
the Most High, he says, " It would seem as
if these inferior tribes were only precursors
of a superior race, voices crying,' Prepare
ye the waj of the Lord.' " Delightful read¬
ing ! The world is made for the Saxon, who
is its lord, and all the other tribes are to
THE END OF THE "WORLD.
75
clear it up for him. Surely this God is very
good to the Saxon, although so very cruel to
the Indian, Negro, Chinaman and the rest of"
mankind. Pray tell us what is this won¬
derful, new-fangled doctrine but the old pro-
slavery doctrine revamped ? It is still
making God serve us, directly, by His provi¬
dences, and indirectly, by inferior races. If
there is any greater degree of pride neces¬
sary to indicate approaching destruction, it
taxes conception to associate it with human
character. It is also very charming to see
how this follower of the loving Jesus pro¬
poses to kill off all these other races by this
purest Christian and most highly civilized
people. Observe, with this " largest liberty,"
this " purest Christianity " and this " high¬
est civilization," this race is to be nevertheless
" peculiarly aggressive," and, as we have
seen, destructively aggressive; not with ar¬
rows, but with what? That which seems
most strange, and which amounts to glaring
contradictions and to arrant blasphemy, is
this: the doctrine laid down in answer to
this question is, that the vices which this
76
THE END OF THE WORLD.
highest civilized and purest Christian people
will carry along with them will serve as
•offensive weapons, and clear the way of all
obstructing races. Its " vices " will be its
John the Baptist preparing the way of the
Lord. God is so engaged to give the world
to the Saxon that lie will use even the
vices of their civilization to destroy the other
inferior peoples of earth who have before
been engaged to prepare it for their habita
tion. Again, I say, What a very useful God
the Saxons have I Oh, that each of the other
races had one just as good! As these theological
carpenters and sculptors have made this one,
perhaps some genius will do as much in the
future for the other races. It is an old
saying that what has been done may be
done.
While this wholesale exterminator of the
nations, through the genteel influences of
Saxon vices—against the force of which, of
course, the Saxons themselves are proof—
is reading the funeral ceremony over their
graves, he takes off his spectacles long enough
to admit of the Anglo-Saxon the following
THE END OF THE WORLD. 77
ungodlike fact: " He is not, of course, supe¬
rior to climatic influence ; but, even in
warm climates, he is likely to retain his
aggressive vigor long enough to supplant
races already enfeebled."
The frantic floundering of this writer upon
this sea of speculation, with not a word from
revelation, nor a principle of sound philoso¬
phy by which to guide his course, is strikingly
significant. All that he has said about the
future of this mighty Saxon, with his highest
civilization, his purest Christianity and his
largest liberty, is finally brought together
and made to rest upon this one saving con¬
dition : " Is there room for reasonable doubt
that this race, unless devitalized by alcohol
and tobacco, is destined to dispossess many
weaker races, assimilate others and mould
the remainder, until in a very true and
important sense it has Anglo-Saxonized man¬
kind ?" Here it is admitted that alcohol
and tobacco may so devitalize this race as to
render naught all these glowing prophecies
and disconcert all these comprehensive and
divinely-laid plans.
78 THE END OF THE WORLD.
All the efforts made by this writer to find
a field for the further development of this
wave of civilization, after it has exhausted
itself on the American continent, are purely
fanciful and lighter than smoke. Here in
America ends, as he has well shown, this great
Westward march of law and civilization,
before whose tread the aborigines have, in¬
deed, retired. With the development of the
American nation, composed, as it is, of all
the peoples making up that grand prophetic
column, the age has budded, flowered and
given its fruitage. Having reached the end
of its journey geographically, it is rapidly
reaching its limit intellectually and physi¬
cally, following in the wake of the Egyptians,
the Hebrews, the Persians, the Greeks and
the Romans,—the nations which now domi¬
nate the earth and the race which now would
regard itself as the power behind the throne
in the Divine administration, will have ful¬
filled their day and their mission, and new
nations born, as it were, in a day, will
come out of darkness and walk in the light
of the one great God, with whom there are
no superior races and no inferior races.
CHAPTER VII.
SIGNS OF THE APPROACHING END—SCRIP¬
TURE FACTS.
F we are to regard the signs which
are referred to by the Saviour as
portending both the destruction of
Jerusalem and also the end of the world, we
ought to be able to discern the signs of the
times now. Seeing the young and tender
leaves of the fig tree, we, too, ought to know
that summer is nigh.
These signs, in the light of the prophecies
both of the Old and New Testament, are
physical, political, civil and social. General
disorder and strife are to characterize the
years immediately preceding the close of the
age. The dying throes of the age are to
make themselves manifest in all quarters.
Earthquakes, famines, pestilences, wars and
79
80
THE END OF THE WOULD.
rumors of wars will obtain ; division, insur¬
rection and abortive revolutions will work the
death of nations.
Hence, we may say, a general state of un¬
rest and a general preparation for gigantic
war would be one of the signs, and this is
just what exists in Europe to-day. The tes¬
timony of that close observer, broad thinker
and deep philosopher, Mr. Frederick Doug¬
lass, who has lately returned from an ex¬
tended tour through the Old World, is that all
the nations appear to be marshalling for war,
and that the apprehension of war hangs like
a deadly pall over all European life. War is
in the air as a dreadful foreboding which no
diplomacy seems able to avert. I cannot
refrain from appending the following lines,
so apropos, just clipped from a prominent
journal:
THE TREMBLING OF NATIONS.
Oh Europe, mother Europe! why do you stand
to-day
With bristling steel and iron front in war's accurs'd
array ?
Why roar your thundering forges, but not to shape
the plow ?
THE END OP THE WORLD. 81
Must war's infernal horrors hang forever 'round
your brow ?
Where rolls the icy Neva—where flows the classic
Rhine—
Where Norway lifts her granite brows and shakes
her mountain pine;
Where toils the Finnish peasant on Bothnia's rug¬
ged shore,
And where the brave and light-haired Dane pulls
. manfully the oar,
There's sound of coming conflict, as when Novem¬
ber gales
Burst from the icy mountains where Winter trims
his sails,
And sends his fleet forerunners, and bids his trum¬
pets blow,
Before he hurls his shot of ice and musketry of
snow.
The Russian bear is growling on his wild Tartar
plains,
And screams the Austrian eagle from bleak Car¬
pathian chains,
And France, like couchant tiger, lies ready for the
spring,
With glaring eyes that never leave the German
eagle's wing.
From where the lively Belgian toils ever at his
loom—
6
82
the end of the world.
From where the sturdy Hollander keeps eye on
dike and flume—
From Spain's ancestral castles—from everlasting
Rome—
From where the Turk grasps lance and sword to
guard his fathers' home—
Frcm where the Greeks are stirring, with old am¬
bition's power—
Where bold Bulgaria trembles at each succeeding
hour—
From where the brave Swiss peasant keeps well
his mountain wall—
From our own mother Britain, the bravest of them
all,
Comes news of coming conflict and marshalling of
men,
As if our mother Europe, mad with maternal pain,
Had in her womb a demon, who, when he shall
have birth,
Will let infernal furies forth upon our hapless
earth.
O Thou before whose presence the trembling na¬
tions stand,
What hidden purpose hast Thou—what awful work
on hand?
Must earth's foundations tremble and hell her
furies bring
For man's great final trial ere the coming of the
King? Rev. Alex. Thomson.
THE END OF THE WORLD.
83
If we turn to the social side, we shall find
even more marked signs. The people are
rapidly tiring of that civilization which is
now their heritage. They are rising against
religion and against law. Hundreds of
thousands of them are organizing in open
war against acquired capital and against gov¬
ernment; and the number of this class is
growing and their purpose strengthening.
A liberal movement on the part of Russia,
of Germany and of England might delay,
but would not prevent that crisis which is
hastening, when the iron and clay will begin
to assert themselves. Law, order and capital
will be on one side; liberty, run mad, will
be on the other; and America will soon be¬
come the seething caldron into which these
elements will fall. Here, free speech and a
free press furnish excellent facilities for the
development of lawless organization; and
here, also, excessive individualism and wild
dreams of equal rights have prepared the
way for the last step. Here, it is only a step
from republicanism to anarchy, and the pop¬
ular impatience of tyranny will make it quite
84 THE END OF THE WORLD.
an easy step to take. Dr. Strong says:
" Here, where the ultimate evolution of gov¬
ernment has taken place, will restless men
first attempt to live without government.,,
Dr. Strong reaches this conclusion after a
careful review of an extensive collation of
relevant facts and figures, the substance of
which is about as follows: 1. The restless,
disorderly element is rapidly spreading in
Europe. 2. This element finds a free field
in the United States, and is consequently
coming here in great numbers. 3. It would,
under our form of government, have best
opportunities to develop, and would have the
support of that excessive individualism which
prevails here. 4. Not finding relief, even in
this most free of all governments, the step
to a disgust of government is easily taken.
Here, then, where representative elements of
all of the nations composing this age are to
be brought together, will the iron and clay
of rulers and ruled, of strength and weak¬
ness, be most thoroughly and most disas¬
trously mixed. The same writer says:
" There never was a time in the history of
THE END OF THE WORLD.
85
the world when an enemy of society could
work such mighty mischief as to-day."
Every one knows that the great destructive
agents which are now known are the discov¬
eries of the past few years. Scientific knowl¬
edge has increased at a marvellous rate, and
has tempted men to the proud belief that it
is to go on forever, and that man's power
over nature has no limit.
Within the past half-century the progress
of invention has been out of all proportion
to the general history. Is the age giving
forth its fruit and erecting its monument, as
did those political ages of antiquity ? It is
plain that it has no more territory to possess.
Its call was westward, ho! and it has gone
westward to the utmost sea, and now plants
its cities on the strand of the Pacific. This
powerful westward impulse that shows itself
in almost every little town of the land, which
generally builds up more rapidly on its west¬
ern side, dies away as the goal is reached.
This civilization was a direct and westward-
going wave, called out by the hand of the
Lord God Almighty, as the success of the
86 the end of the world.
movement upon Gamaliel's principle has
abundantly demonstrated ; but to the South¬
ward, Eastward and Northward it has no
call. Already, we may fancy, the notes of
its dying song are coming in the impending
wars and the great social discontent sapping
the foundations of government.1
A clearly prophetic sign of the approach¬
ing end is found in the wonderful increase of
general knowledge and of facilities and desire
to travel. When the time of the end should
come, until which time, the words and book
of Daniel should be closed, then it is said,
many should run to and fro, and knowledge
1" Here will be written the last, and I hope the
best, chapters in the history of the human race.
' Westward the star of empire takes its way.' This
line of the Irish philosopher expresses a law of
history which follows the sun rising in the east
and setting in the west."—Philip Schaff.
"If the consummation of human progress is not
to be looked for here, if there is yet to flower a
higher civilization, where is the soil that is to pro¬
duce it?"—Our Country, p. 168, Dr. Strong.
This is the logical end of the present world.—
Author.
THE END OF THE WORLD. 87
should be increased. When that time shall
have come, it may be inferred the prophecies
will be opened; and although none of the
wicked shall understand, yet, it is said, " the
wise shall understand." It would seem, there¬
fore, that these conditions are met. Many
are running to and fro. Travel and commu¬
nication were never before anything like what
they are now; nor was ever knowledge,
either in its extent or in its general diffusion,
anything like what it is now. We might,
therefore, expect the wise to begin to under¬
stand the prophecy of Daniel and begin to
appreciate that parenthetical remark of Jesus,
" Whoso readeth let him understandThe
social disorders may be brought alongside of
that prophecy of St. Paul concerning the man
of sin. Let us read again the prophecy in
its full connection. It is found in Second
Thessalonians, 2d chapter, from the first to
the fourth verse, and is as follows: " Now we
beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering to¬
gether unto him, that ye be not soon shaken
in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit nor
'88 THE END OF THE WORLD.
word, nor by letter as from us, as that the
day of Christ is at hand. Let no man de¬
ceive you by any means; for that day shall
not come except there come a falling away
first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son
of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that
is worshipped : So that he as God sitteth in
the temple of God shewing himself that he is
God." Again, beginning at the sixth verse:
"And now ye know what withholdeth, that
he might be revealed in his time. For the
mystery of iniquity doth already work; only
he who now letteth (hindereth) will let (hin¬
der) until he be taken out of the way. And
then shall that Wicked be revealed whom the
Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
month, and shall destroy with the brightness
of his coming: Even him whose coming is
after the working of Satan with all power
and signs and lying wonders, and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them
that perish; because they received not the
love of the truth, that they might be saved."
The end of this age, as we have seen,
THE END OP THE WORLD. 89
seems to be identical with the day of Christ,
when evil doers shall be rooted out from
among the just, and shall be consigned to
everlasting destruction from the presence of
the Lord and from the glory of His power.
If this view be correct, then there are here
two marked signs destined to appear before
the end : (1) A great apostasy ; and (2) The
revelation of the man of sin. When these
two events shall have occurred we may know
that the end is nigh, even at the doors.
Let us, therefore, seek to discover to what
the Apostle alludes by the Man of sin.
Evidently it is to something that has been
pointed out before, for he says, " that man of
sin, that Wicked." This latter expression,
that wicked, seems to refer to Isaiah xi. 4,
where we read, " and he shall smite the
earth with the rod of his mouth, and with
the breath of his lips shall he slay the
wicked." Gesenius observes, that the word
Wi. Rasha, here rendered wicked, although
an adjective, is more frequently used as a
substantive, and stands for a wicked person.
The Septuagint renders it by (Mreftyj, which
00 THE END OF THE WORLD.
Robinson defines as impious, ungodly, wicked.
The word which St. Paul uses is b dvo/toc,
.... the lawless one-. Here, then, is the
personification of wickedness, the man of
sin, who is some time to be revealed and to
come into direct antagonism to Jesus Christ,
and to be slain by Him. When this man of
sin shall be revealed and shall join battle
with the Lord, we may know the end is
nigh. What, then, is the man of sin ? Wesley
thinks it is the Pope of Rome. Bishop
Newton reaches the same conclusion by a
close and elaborate argument, and claims
that the man of sin has already been re¬
vealed, and is in the progress of destruction.
Dr. Clarke quotes a number of writers on
this passage, including Bishop Newton, and
gives his favor to the opinion that the Church
of Rome is referred to, and remarks that this
is the quite general view held by Protestant
writers, although he refrains from making
any very positive expression on the subject.
The Second Adventists specially regard
this man of sin as the Pope, and place his
period from a.d. 538 to a.d. 1798, a period
the end of the world. 91
of twelve hundred and sixty years, corres¬
ponding to the twelve hundred and sixty
days, and the " time, times and a half-time,''
and the " forty and two months " of Daniel
and the Revelation. These twelve hundred
and sixty days these Adventists think, (ac¬
cording to the testimony of Uriah Smith,
Professor of Biblical Exegesis, in Battle
Creek College, and author of several works
ou Biblical subjects) cover the entire history
of papal supremacy, and run from the time
that the Emperor Justinian's decree making
the Bishop of Rome head of the Church
went into effect until the French general,
Berthier, entered Rome, took the P ope pris¬
oner and proclaimed a republic. The decree
of Justinian was promulgated in a.d. 533,
but did not go into full effect until a.d. 538,
and the capture referred to occurred in 1798,
just twelve hundred and sixty years later.
But the same writer adds, that, notwith¬
standing the supremacy of the papacy is
destroyed, the papacy itself is destined to
continue till the end of time. He says : "Its
supremacy was broken, and a consuming
92 THE END OP THE WORLD.
process then commenced, which is to con¬
tinue to the end of time. Yet the papacy
will exist, though with but a shadow of its
former prestige, till the appearing of Christ,
to be consumed with the spirit of His mouth,
and destroyed by the brightness of His com¬
ing."
In this connection, it is worthy also of
remark, that the restraining power is by all
these commentators believed to have been
pagan Rome. Bishop Newton says, that
this view was so generally held that the
" primitive Christians in the public offices of
the Church prayed for its peace and welfare,
as knowing that when the Roman empire
should be dissolved and broken into pieces,
the empire of the Man of sin would be raised
on its ruins."
In the face of this quite universal belief
of Protestant commentators, it will be quite
difficult, perhaps, to obtain even a fair con¬
sideration for a view which is utterly at
variance with it at all points, and which can
bring but few great names to its support. It
must be remembered, however, that com-
THE END OP THE WORLD. 93
mentators are men of like passions with
ourselves, and may be influenced by their
prejudices on the one side, or by respect for
the great men of their own faith on the
other, as well as by a desire to be in accord with
popular belief and feelings. Influences such
as these, as well as the biases of education,
may unconsciously affect their interpretation
of the Divine Word, and lead them to a
conclusion which is, perhaps, more favored
by the enthusiasm of feeling than by the
actual necessities of logic. Hence we are by
no means bound to regard any interpretation
of a doubtful passage as final. Advancing
knowledge and changing circumstances may
entirely alter the light in which it should be
regarded. We are by these considerations
encouraged to offer another quite different
view concerning the Man of sin, the lawless
one (o dvojioz) of St. Paul. This will be
done without any attempt to impair the argu¬
ment offered to identify him with the Pope.
This argument will not be answered nor
slurred over. The reader is simply invited
to institute a comparison between what will
94 THE END OF THE WORLD.
be here said in favor of the hypothesis ad¬
vanced and what has been said in other
places in favor of other hypotheses; and to
adopt none as final, only so far as he can
feel satisfied the law of the Bible and the
facts of history warrant him in so doing.
The interpretation brought forward here
is : that this prophecy relates to the appear¬
ance of an anti-law element, organized under
one great leader, who may properly be re¬
garded as the embodiment of lawlessness.
And, following that school of interpreters
represented especially by Dean Alford, we
may go on to say, that should the Nihilists
of Russia, the Socialists of Germany and the
Infidels and Communists of France unite and
bring forth a head, this head would answer
the description of this prophecy. (See notes
in Appendix.)
According to this view the restraining
power is the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus
Christ, or, to speak with greater direct¬
ness, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In the
conference of the American branch of the
Evangelical Alliance, held in Washington,
THE END OF THE WORLD.
95
December 9-11, 1887, the position was gen¬
erally advanced that the only preventive and
saving power with which to meet the rising
tide of destructive anarchism was the gospel
of the Son of God. On this point the Sec¬
retary, Dr. Strong, in his book, " Our
Country," previously referred to, says :
" During the last hundred years the instru¬
ments of destruction have been wonderfully
multiplied. Offensive weapons have became
immeasurably more effective. Not so the
means of defense. Your life is in the hand
of every man you meet. Society is safe to¬
day only so far as every man becomes a law
unto himself. The lawless classes are grow-
iug much more rapidly than the whole
population ; and nothing but the gospel can
transform lawless men and women into good
citizens." Hence, according to the views
here quoted, if gospel prevention should be
suspended, or gospel restraint removed, law¬
lessness would soon inundate the land, and
would quite probably find its leader, who
would be the Lawless One. Professor Ely,
quoted by the same author, employs the fol-
96
THE END OP THE WORLD.
lowing striking language: " It is an un¬
doubted fact that modern socialism of the
worst type is spreading to an alarming ex¬
tent among our laboring classes, both foreign
and native. I think the danger is of such a
character as should arouse the Christian
people of this country to most earnest efforts
for the evangelization of the poorer classes,
particularly in large cities. What is needed
is "Christianity; and the Christian Church
can do far more than political economists to¬
ward the reconciliation of social classes.
The Church's remedy for social discontent
and dynamite bombs is Christianity as
taught in the New Testament. Now in this
you will find nothing new. It is only sig¬
nificant in this regard; others have come to
these conclusions from the study of the Bible;
from a totally different starting-point,—from
the study of political economy,—I have come
to the same goal."
Two points seem to be quite fairly admit¬
ted,—that disorderly and lawless elements of
society are increasing, both in numbers and
in power to work wide-spread destruction in
THE END OP THE WOULD.
97
consequence of increased scientific knowledge
and skill; and that society, because of its
refined and complex condition under advanced
civilization, is daily becoming less able, on
purely physical grounds, to protect itself.
The skill to construct and employ the most
destructive instrumentalities is already to be
found in the hands of the enemies of law and
order, and there is reason to apprehend that
this ability will steadily increase, in spite of
all merely repressive measures on the part of
the government; while as may readily be
seen on the other hand, our social order de¬
pends so largely upon accumulated wealth,
and we have deposited so nearly our all in
materiality, that almost entire nations might
be blown up with a few ounces of dynamite.
Should the man of sin develop a head in
proportion to the size of that body now strug¬
gling in the womb of our civilization, and
come forth with a spirit which these pre¬
natal signs portend, then woe indeed to the
paper nations whose only power is derived,
not from God who called them forth, but
from the consent of those who are governed
7
98 THE END OF THE WORLD.
by them. The departure of this consent
marks the departure of thoir power, and the
end of their positive history. A second point
admitted is, that the only power which can
restrain this lawlessness is the Christian re¬
ligion. Education, morality and patriotism
are not primary, but secondary, for they too
dej>end upon religion; and no religion can
prevail in this age among the nations with
which we are especially concerned, and espec¬
ially in this our land, except the plain Prot¬
estant Christian religion.
These seem to be current views, and it is
upon these views, placed alongside of the
words of the text, that the conclusion is
reached that the man of sin is not the Pope,
but anarchists, and the restraining power not
pagan Rome, but Jesus Christ.
The increase of intemperance and skepti¬
cism would indicate that the restraining power
is gradually slacking or going out of the way,
in consequence of the falling away spoken of
by the apostle. This falling away of the
faithful is the opening of the way for the
corning forth of the man of sin, and there is
THE END OF THE WORLD. 99
reason to look for his appearing in America.
Professor Hoppin, of Yale, has said: " Amer¬
ica Christianized means the world Christian¬
ized;" and Professor Park says : " If America
fail, the world will fail." It is right here,
in America, the concentrating point of all
the nations making the age we have been
tracing,—right here, where all the peoples of
this one destiny are gathering—that the end
of the world is to come, and the Kingdom of
Heaven to be purified. The nations are
gathering on this broad land, for the grand
and awful harvest-home near at hand, and
the fearful man of sin struggles now to come
forth.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TIME OF THE END.
ET us return to note the belief which
once prevailed, that the world
1 should run a course of six thousand
years, divided into three grand religious pe¬
riods of two thousand years each, the course
to be followed by a great Sabbath period of
one thousand years. We have seen that this
belief finds a possible support in the Divine
"Word, at least in some of its parts; and
should it represent the truth, of course the
end is nigh, speaking comparatively. A lit¬
tle more than a century would bring us to
the approach of the. millennium.
But there are other prophecies, containing
the element of chronology, which look to a
point even earlier than this date. Jerusalem
100
THE END OF THE WORLD. 101
should be trodden under foot until the times
of the gentiles should be fulfilled. These
times are definitely mentioned in three forms:
(1) a time, times and a half-time, equivalent
to three years and a half; (2) forty and two
months, equal to the same period; and (3)
twelve hundred and sixty days, which, of
course, amount to the same length of time.
Circumstances have led all commentators of
note to regard these expressions as descriptive
of a period of twelve hundred and sixty
years, at the end of which time the events
referred to as the end of the world should
come.
The point, therefore, to be determined is,
that point of time from, which these twelve
hundred and sixty years are to be counted.
Some have started from the rise of the papacy
in a. d. 538, and, consequently, make the
period terminate in a. d. 1798. Others put
the beginning at a. d. 606 and the end con¬
sequently at a. d. 1866. Others fix the
starting-point at a. d. 712, and still others at
a. d. 755.
While we cannot fix the exact date of the
102 THE END OF THE WORLD.
beginning of the 1260 years, we can approx¬
imate it as has been seen; and I think, as
time draws on, we will be able to fix it quite
definitely. The fulfillment of the prophecy,
as has been remarked by others, will be its
best commentary. But a few things seem
quite clear: the 1260 years will mark the
duration of a peculiar power or kingdom,
which shall speak great words against the
Most High and make war with the saints;
and there seems reason to believe that this
power is that represented by the Pope. If
so, the Pope is to have his dominion taken
from him, and is to be destroyed unto the
end. If we count from the rise of the papal
power in 538 to the capture of the Pope in
1798, we shall find just 1260 years, and from
that time the papacy has quite steadily de¬
clined. In 1848 the Pope was driven from
his capital, and in 1870 he was stripped
of all his temporal dominions by Victor
Emanuel. Granting this to be the correct
exposition of the prophecy, it is literally true
that during all that period Jerusalem has
been trodden down by the gentiles.
THE END OF THE WORLD. 103
Before we proceed, however, to settle the
question of dates in regard to this particular
term of years, let us consider the second series
of events which are to be contemporary with
the duration of the power of the little horn,
or to cover the same period of 1260 years.
Mr. Smith (Uriah Smith) has shown con¬
clusively that the "little horn" of Daniel's
prophecy, and the "leopard beast" of Reve¬
lation are identical in signification, because
he shows they represent " powers that come
upon the stage of action at the same time,
occupy the same territory, maintain the same
character, do the same work, exist the same
length of time, and meet the same fate."
Hence he says, " those symbols represent the
same identical power." We may, therefore,
dismiss the consideration of this symbol in
particular, as according to views already ad¬
vanced, this is but another symbolic repre¬
sentation of the papacy, which is to continue
1260 years, and afterward to exist in a state
of decline until the end shall come.
Another quite distinct event is that sym¬
bolized by the woman who fled into the wil-
104 THE END OF THE WORLD.
derness with her " man-child," and was nour¬
ished there for "a time, times and a half
time." This has quite generally been re¬
garded as representing the true and opposing
church, which did not endorse the papacy,
and which remained in obscurity until about
the time of the wounding of the papal power.
Commentators of the last century, i. e., of the
earlier part of it, were disposed to couple two
events in their forecast regarding this pro¬
phecy, viz., the overthrow of the papal power
and of the Ottoman Empire. Bishop Newton
weaves all these prophecies respecting the
concealment of the true church, the treading
down of Jerusalem by the gentiles, the pro¬
phesying of the faithful witnesses, the dura¬
tion of the papacy as a horn of power, into a
very calm and learned discourse, and says,
" that during the 1260 years, while the woman
is fed in the wilderness, the beast and the
scarlet whore are reigning and triumphant,
and at the latter end the whore is burnt with
fire, when the woman, as his wife, hath made
herself ready for the marriage of the Lamb."
Concluding his observations on these pro-
THE END OF THE WORLD. 105
phecies, he has the following : " It appears,
then, that this Antichristian power was to
arise in the latter times of the Roman Em¬
pire, after an end should be put to the im¬
perial power, and after the empire should be
divided into ten kingdoms: and it is not
only foretold when it should prevail, but
moreover how long it should prevail. Here
we cannot but observe, that the very same
period of time is prefixed for its continuance,
both by Daniel and by St. John. Wonderful
is the consent and harmony between these
two inspired writers, as in other circum¬
stances of the prophecy, so particularly in
this. In Daniel (vii. 25), the little horn
was to 'wear out the saints of the Most
High, and think to change times and laws; '
and it is said expressly, that they ' should be
given iiito his hand until a time, times and
the dividing of a time;7 or as the same thing
is expressed in another place (xii. 7), 'for a
time, times and a half.' In the Revelation,
it is said of the beast (xiii. 5), to whom, in
like manner, ' it was given to make war with
them,' that 'power also was given unto him
106 THE END OF THE WORLD.
to continue forty and two months.' And
'the holy city (xi. 2) the Gentiles should
tread under foot forty and two months;'
and the two witnesses (ver. 3), should pro¬
phesy a thousaud two hundred and three¬
score days clothed in sackcloth.' And the wo¬
man, the true church of Christ, who fled into
the wilderness from persecution (xii. G, 14),
should be fed and nourished there 'a thousand
two hundred and three-score days,' or as it is
otherwise expressed in the same chapter, (for
a time, and times and a half time.' Now
all three numbers you will find, upon com¬
putation, to be the same, and each of them to
signify 1260 years. For a time is a year,
and a time and times, and the dividing of a
time or half a time, are three years and a
half, and three years and a half are forty-two
months, and forty-two months are 12G0 days,
and 12G0 days in the prophetic style are
1260 years. From all these dates and char¬
acters it may fairly be concluded that the
time of the Church's great affliction and of
the reign of Antichrist, will be a period of
1260 years.'' And, finally, on this subject;
THE END OF THE WORLD. 107
he says: " What appears most probable is
that it (these 1260 years) is to be dated from
the year 727, when Rome and the Roman
Dukedom came from the Greeks to the
Roman Pontiff ... If, then, the beginning
of the 1260 years of the reign of Antichrist
is to be dated from the year 727, the end
will fall near the year 2000 after Christ; and
at the end of the 6000th year of the world,
according to a very early tradition of Jews
and Christians, and even of heathens, great
changes and revolutions are expected, both in
the natural and in the moral world; and
there remaineth, according to the words of
the apostle (Heb. iv. 9) a sabbatism, or holy
rest to the people of God."
Here, then, all these lines of chronological
prophecy converge and point to certain re¬
ligious events, which will occur at the end of
the world. The papacy will be overthrown,
the true church shall come out of the wilder¬
ness, Israel shall come back to the Divine
favor, and the kingdom of heaven shall be
purged. These are specially religious events ;
but there are other events of a national char-
108 THE END OP THE WORLD.
acter occurring about these times, which are
also symbolized by the same prophets.
Among these striking national events are
first, the battle of that great day of God
Almighty. This battle seems to be partici¬
pated in by all the nations of this age, and
will be the fulfilling of those wars and
rumors of wars, spoken of by our Saviour.
This war is further described as the gather¬
ing together of the whole ten kingdoms
against the Lamb, but it is said they shall be
overcome by Ilim. And with Him in this
conflict shall be some who are called, chosen
and faithful. After these events, that is after
the overthrow of this Babylon (i. e., the
papal church), and after the scattering of
those nations which make war on the Lamb,
then God will call Ilis people out of this
doomed aggregation of the broken ruined
nations by saying: "Come out of her my
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins,
that ye receive not of her plagues." The
patience of God having been exhausted, the
Kingdom of Heaven will assume antagonis¬
tic and destructive characteristics, and will
THE END OF THE WORLD. 109
demolish those nations who have specially
betrayed its principles.
But there are two other matters of time
that deserve to be considered here. They
are the " thousand two hundred and ninety
days," and the "thousand three hundred five
and thirty days." That is, 1290 years and
1335 years. The 1290 years seem to count
from some remarkable profanation of Jeru¬
salem or of Christendom. Bishop Newton
thinks this period ought to count from the
Mohammedan invasion. If so, it would end
about the close of the period marked by the
Roman Church, perhaps thirty years later;
and, forty-five years after that should arrive
the blessed period of the end of the 1335
days. The Adventists count these periods as
follows: The 1260 years from a.d. 538 to
a.d. 1798, when the papacy received its
practical overthrow as a civil power. The
1290 from a.d. 508 to the same date. The
1335 from a.d. 508 to a.d. 1843, and the
2300 years b.c. 457 to about the same dates.
Hence their great dates are 1798, quite con¬
temporary with the rise of Protestant Amer-
110 THE END OF THE WORLD.
ica, and 1843 the period of the rise of the
Second Advent Church, and the great revi¬
vals which followed. They conclude, with
all reason on their side, that the present
state of knowledge indicates that we have
reached the times of the end, . . . these
times having begun about the close of the
past century. In the light of the discov¬
eries and inventions of the past one hundred
years, and in the great increase of historic
and sacred learning, they say, " That we are
in the time of the end, when the book of this
prophecy should no longer be sealed, but be
open and understood, is shown by Rev. x. 1,
2, where a mighty angel is seen to come
down from heaven with a little book in his
hand open." The time of the end has come,
and God by historic events is breaking the
seal off these books of wonderful prophecy.
CHAPTER IX.
EVENTS OF THE END—AFTER EVENTS—
CONCLUSION".
F the reader has followed the thread
of the argument thus far advanced,
he has been led to observe that in
the view of the writer, world as used in the
phrase, the end of the world, signifies a par¬
ticular age. The revised version of the
Scriptures everywhere gives th'e marginal
reading, age, as the exact representation of
the Greek word aiwv, and consummation of
the age the exact rendering of.the words
translated in the text, " the end of the
world." We may, therefore, confidently
rest upon the conclusion that an age, well-
known and clearly definable, an age having
111
112 THE END OF THE WORLD.
its germinal point, and destined to reach its
point of ultimate development is contemplated
by this phrase. While the Kingdom of
Heaven is represented as having its obscure
beginning, its successive stages of develop¬
ment and its culminating glory, we have
seen that this is not the age referred to which
is to be brought to its consummation, for the
kingdom will reach its happiest condition
after the consummation of the age. There
is reason to believe further, that this phrase,
the end of the world, is equivalent to " the
consummation of this age," i.e., the one now
current, in distinction from the ages past,
and the ages to come. In Luke xx. 34, 35,
the contrast between the present age, and the
future is sharply brought out.
The consummation of the age must, of
course, mean the consummation of the things
belonging to this age, especially those things
which give it character. As to mere duration,
of course no change can be effected in it, ab¬
stractly considered. The on flowing current
of duration is only capable of division as it
comes in contact with persons and things.
THE END OF THE WOULD. 113
So long as the stream may be occupied by a
man, it may be called a man's age. So long
as it may be occupied by men at large in suc¬
cession, it may be called the age of man.
So long as God may hold a place in duration,
it may be spoken of as the age of God, which
is eternity.
The views, then, of the consummation of
the age have been about these: First, the
consummation of all things to be followed
by the destruction of all things. Second,
the consummation of all things, to be followed
by the judgment and separation of the wick¬
ed from the righteous. Third, the consum¬
mation of all things, to be followed by the
Millennium. Fourth, the consummation of
all things, to be followed by the final de¬
struction of the wicked and the renovation of
the earth, after which the righteous will
dwell on the renewed earth. The view
maintained here, is that by the consumma¬
tion of the age, we are to understand the
bringing to their final stage those particular
nations which have been pointed out by
prophecy, and which, up to this hour, have
8
114 THE END OF THE WORLD.
been intimately associated with God's chosen
people, Israel, and with the Christian religion.
The process by which we come to this con¬
clusion is about as follows: The consumma¬
tion of the age is equivalent to the consumma¬
tion of this age. It must mean the consum¬
mation of the things belonging to this age.
It doubtless refers to people and makes special
mention of kingdoms and nations. It is
identified by the prophecies of Daniel and
the Revelation, as embracing the nations
growing out of the Roman Empire. The
Kingdom of Heaven, i. e., the Christian
Church, is involved within these nations.
These nations are rapidly bounding to the
dangerous heights of a refined civilization,
and paving the way by their own confession
to a speedy destruction. The laws of nature
seem to be tending toward the end, and
there are now indications of the greatest war-
movement the .world ever saw. Their relig¬
ion and civilization are so distinct from the
rest of mankind, that there seem no physical
or moral reasons why others should be par¬
takers of their fate. Their inclusive and
THE END OF THE WOULD. 115
exclusive policy, has been such as to bring
them all within the domain of a quite com¬
mon set of ideas, a quite common history,
and bind them to what would seem a com¬
mon destiny. Hence, there is ground for the
belief, that these natural laws will work out
the complete fulfillment of these great pro¬
phetic outlines and accomplish the purpose of
heaven.
Earlier than the prophecies referred to,
the Lord said unto Abraham, "Get thee out
of thy country, and from thy kindred, and
from thy father's house, unto a land that I will
show thee: And I will make of thee a great
nation, and I will bless them that bless thee
and curse them that curse thee: and in thee
shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
Gen. xii. 1, 3. And in chapter xxii. 18:
"And in thy seed shall all the families of
the earth be blessed." Again, chapter xxvi.,
"And in thy seed shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed." Paul in his letter to the
Galatians makes the following use of this
passage : " And the Scripture foreseeing that
God would justify the heathen through faith,
116 THE END OF THE WORLD.
preached before the gospel unto Abraham
saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed."
(Gal. iii. 8). He argues that this promise
was made earlier than the giving of the law,
and, therefore, has precedence, and that the
law which came four hundred and thirty-
years after,#could not "disannul " it, " that it
should make the promise of none effect."
It is to be observed that this promise of
universal blessing in Abraham's seed was
made when man was few upon the earth, and
when nations were but beginning to take
shape. It came before the distinctions of
Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian were
made, and must be accepted without restric¬
tion. It is an absolute promise that, Christ
or Christianity should be given to all nations.
This blessing which was promised through
Abraham's seed came " on the Gentiles
through Jesus Christ," who was the special
seed referred to. Its acceptance involves the
conversion of families and nations to Chris¬
tianity, for, it is said, "they which be of
faith are blessed with faithful Abraham."
See the whole of the third chapter of Gala-
tians, where the subject is treated at large.
THE END OF THE WORLD. 117
Two things seem to be involved in the
New Testament exposition of the subject:
First, that all nations are equally acceptable to
God, through Jesus Christ, and are blessed
with the hand of faith with which they may
lay hold of Jesus Christ. Second, that Christ
shall be offered to all nations and be accepted
by representatives from among all peoples.
The first of these is demonstrated by the
character of the promise we have been con¬
sidering, and also by emphatic New Testa¬
ment statement and experience. St. Paul de¬
clares, "There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abra¬
ham'sseed and heirs according to the promise."
St. Peter says : " Of a truth I perceive that God
is no respecter of persons : But in every na¬
tion he that feareth him and worketh right¬
eousness is accepted with him." The Gen¬
tiles who believed Peter's word as he preached
the Gospel to them received the Holy Ghost
in like manner with the Jews, and Paul
gloried in being the apostle of the Gentiles.
118 THE END OF THE WORLD.
Hence we also see, in regard to the second
point, that full provision was made in the
commission of the church, in the operations
of the Spirit, and in the promise of the Old
Testament for the offering of Christ to the
Gentile world ; and we have seen people of
a great variety of kindreds accepting him.
Nevertheless, it is safe to say, as we con¬
template the perilous position of all the
Christian nations upon the face of the earth,
and the populous character of the non-Chris¬
tian nations, that the promises made to
Abraham, the promises which could not be
set aside by the law, and which were quoted
as in force by the apostles in their day, and
in accordance with which the Iloly Ghost has
operated from time to time, have not yet been
fulfilled. It cannot be said in any just sense
that all the nations of the earth have been
blessed in Christ, and, should all these non-
Christian nations of the earth be gathered for
judgment and destruction, as pictured in
Matt, xxv., it could not be said to many of
them: 1 was a stranger (among you) and
ye took me not in," because to many of
THE END OF THE WORLD. 119
them Christ has not yet come, neither in a
saving nor in a damning sense.
It is therefore, from a standpoint of the
broad promise given to Abraham that we
look for events to arise which will make pos¬
sible the vision of St. John, when he beholds
a multitude which no man could number "of
all nations and kindreds and tongues stand¬
ing before the throne and before the Lamb,"
and learns that " these are they which came
out of great tribulation and have washed
their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb." And hence, although we may
look for the consummation of the age, neither
science nor religion, philosophy nor prophecy
would compel us to associate all the nations
of the earth, Christian and non-Christian in
a common destiny.
To-day about one thousand millions, or
more than two-thirds of the entire human
race are beyond the pale of the civilization
classed as Christian, and hence they have
but little connection whatever with the na¬
tions of this age. The two hundred and six
millions of Africa, and the seven hundred
120 THE END OF THE WORLD.
and ninety-five millions of Asia, making up
two-thirds of the world's population, are
practically non-Christian, and the spectacle
is presented of the fearful color line. It has
bounded oif these great races, and has also
served as a cord, drawing together the na¬
tions of prophecy. A great two-fold fact ex¬
ists to-day, viz.: that the white races of the
earth have formed a mighty confederation
with the Anglo-Saxon leading, and that they
have modified the Christian idea to an alarm¬
ing- extent by this clan principle, so that it
has become a white man's religion, and is so
recognized by the darker races ; and that in
consequence of this attitude and also of the
recognized vices which these nations carry
into heathen lands, the darker races have
failed to see that acceptable Christ who gave
himself freely for all. That these darker
races would receive Christianity if presented
to them unmuzzled by these inventions of
men, is proven by their ready acceptance of
Mohammedanism. Evidence will show that
some of these races instead of being blessed
by Christian intercourse have been cursed by
THE END OF THE WORLD. 121
it; not because of the character of Christian¬
ity, all honor to its holy teachings ! but be¬
cause of the character of the representatives
of the so-called Christian nations who come
among them. It was Christian America
that robbed Africa of millions of her popu¬
lation and committed unheard of horrors on
her shores and on the seas. Christian Bos¬
ton to-day, taking advantage of the opening
of the region of the Congo, ships to that
region the largest cargo of rum, perhaps, ever
leaving our ports. Christian England has
scraped by hook and by crook the fortunes
of India and China into her great pockets,
while combined representatives of all Chris¬
tendom in America have Christianized the
Red man off the face of the earth. This ter¬
rible conclusion is therefore reached, that the
darker races are excluded from Christianity
because the white races who preach it to
them have so little of brotherly love. Of
course, there are notable and grand excep¬
tions, but the rule holds that white races
taken as a whole, have much more of clan
than of Christ, and the clan spirit repels
122 THE END OF THE WORLD.
more generally than the Christ-spirit at¬
tracts.
Hence these excluded darker races, repre¬
senting about one billion of people, beloved
by God, and people for whom Christ has
died, — people destined to be represented
in that saved Christian multitude which
John beheld, remain waiting for the light.
Are there any signs in their favor? any
prophecies speaking good of them? Yes!
The promise of Abraham and the vision of
St. John, the one at the beginning, the other
at the end of the course, demand that these
peoples shall be brought in, and, we may add,
the whole tenor and spirit of the New Testa¬
ment demand it also.
The question, then, remaining for dis¬
cussion is this: Is it probable that they will
be brought in before the consummation of
the age, or after that event ? Dr. Strong holds
that, if they are brought in during this age,
that is, while the Anglo-Saxons continue to
have Christianity, as it were, harnessed to
their chariot, they will have to become
Saxonized. He says: " This mighty Anglo-
THE END OF THE "WORLD, 123
Saxon race, though comprising only one-
fifteenth part of mankind, now rules more
than one-third of the earth's surface, and
more than one-fourth of the people,"' and his
view is, that to become Christian means to
become subservient to the Saxon race. Hence,
if these races become Christian during the
age, their moral and intellectual identity, if
not their physical, would pass away, and
John's multitude would be of one nation and
accessories.
The writer thinks that the indications
point about as follows: A great crash of the
Christian nations, and a liberation of the
Christian idea from the dominance of the
principle of clan, and a consequent purifica¬
tion of the Christian Church.
Second, A call to these darker races by a
church filled with brotherly love and adapted
to their feelings, to be followed by a very
rapid conversion of these people to Chris¬
tianity.
After God shall have scattered the fierce
nations who delight in war, and who have
carried the destructive science to a height never
124 THE END OF THE WORLD.
before conceived of, then " Princes shall come
out of Egypt, and Ethiopia shall stretch out
her hands unto God." To show how per¬
sistently the Anglo-Saxon mind unites im¬
perialism with Christianity, and regards the
world as his heritage, and the remaining
races of mankind as his serfs, again let us quote
from this representative book written by Dr.
Strong and published by the American Home
Missionary Society. He says: " It is not
unlikely that before the close of the next
century this race will outnumber all the other
civilized races of the world. Does it not
look as if God were not only preparing in
our Anglo-Saxon civilization the die with
which to stamp the people of the earth, but
as if He were also massing behind the die
the mighty power with which to press it?"
Is it at all reasonable, let us inquire, to sup¬
pose that any considerable number of these
so-called inferior races will accept even Chris¬
tianity from the haughty hands of people
who come first to conquer and afterwards to
convert? Hence it is safe to say, after
the many years of experiment, that if the
THE END OF THE "WORLD. 125
promise of Abraham is to be fulfilled and
the conditions of the vision of St. John
met, we may expect another religious move¬
ment after the consummation of this age.
During all this period marked out by the
twelve hundred and sixty prophetic days God
has maintained for Himself a witness in the
Church of Abyssinia. This Church for four¬
teen centuries has held on to the ancient faith,
although desperate attempts have been made
by Rome to bring it into subjection, and
during a brief period these attempts were at
one time partially successful, but the founda¬
tion of God in that land still stands secure.
Nearly four millions of souls adhere to
Christ; and, although their religion, is re¬
presented as being corrupt, and the people
are said to be immoral, yet competent wit¬
nesses say that their religion is not without
its life-giving power.
"Who knows but this is the church that
God is nourishing in the wilderness during
the age that Jerusalem shall be trodden under
foot, that is, until that time when the fulness
of the Gentiles, the more than one billion
126 THE END OF THE WORLD.
who are still beyond the pale of Christianity,
shall be brought in ? This church, corrupt
as it may be regarded, has the Scriptures,
has a priesthood and has the Holy Spirit,
hence it has all the needed enginery of puri¬
fication and reform.
When, therefore, the clan principle that
now binds Christianity down shall have been
broken, and those things shall have been re¬
moved out of the kingdom which cause
people who would enter to stumble at the
door, then the really righteous, unobscured
by the perverse civilization,—a civilization
which is called Christian, but which is essen¬
tially Saxon,—shall shine forth as the sun,
and this hidden church of the wilderness shall
come forth to lead Africa's millions, as a part
of that fulness of the Gentiles which is to
come to welcome the universal Christ. The
first fruits 6f the Gentiles have long walked
in the light of Christ, but the fulness of the
Gentiles abide that time which has long been
appointed. They await the bursting of race-
bonds, and the world-wide development prom¬
ised in Abraham's blessing. They await the
THE END OF THE WOULD. 127
call of that blessed Saviour who is the desire
of the nations and the light of the world.
They await the triumphant coming of Him
whose right it is to reign, to whom the
heathen are promised for an inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for a
possession. They await thy law, oh, God!
Devoutly do we pray thee, oh, Christ, for
the elect's sake, to shorten the days of afflic¬
tion, and for the sake of the millions groping
still in darkness, hasten Thy work in its
time ! Let the gates of Thy salvation open
wide to all the races of the earth! And may
the people of all kindreds arise and, in all
the languages of the earth, say each to his
neighbor, " Come ye, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the
God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his
ways, and we will walk in his paths."
Let us now sum up the entire argument
of the book and restate it in such a form
that it may be readily grasped and conveni¬
ently employed. In doing so the same order
which has been observed in the general
course of treatment will not be maintained,
128 THE END OF THE WORLD.
but we will take that course wliich seems
*most simple and logical and consequently
easiest of comprehension.
Let us begin with the promise to Abra¬
ham that all the nations of the earth should
be blessed in his seed. Gesenius shows that
we should read the passage as follows: "and
in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth
bless themselves " signifying as he says, that
"they shall invoke for themselves the lol of
Israel." lie adds the following, however:
" But many interpreters, as I also formerly,
prefer to follow the Sept. and Chaldaic
(Comp. Gal. iii. 8) and explain this pas¬
sively: and in thy seed shall all the nations
be blessed, i. e. prospered, be brought by them
to the knowledge of the true God."
The difference between these two readings
is quite important, but it is possible to con¬
ceive the promise as involving the sense of
both. Blessings may be brought to all the
nations of the earth by Abraham's seed, and
these blessings may be actively appropriated
by all nations. The act is regarded from
both sides. With one view we see the work
THE END OF THE WORLD. 129
of Abraham's seed in handing out the bless¬
ings to the nations of the earth; with the
other view we see the nations of the earth
arising and clothing themselves with these
blessings. The promise involves the will¬
ingness of the recipients as well as the ful¬
ness of the stores of blessings.
St. Paul shows us in Galatians iii. that
this promise was to be fulfilled in Christ who
was the special seed referred to, and that
those who believed on him became heirs of
the blessing. While the blessing was for all
nations it would be received, by those only
who believed. Dr. Clarke says on this pas¬
sage, "as the door of faith was opened to all
the Gentiles, consequently the promise was
fulfilled." So again, in Romans iv. 5, he
says : " there can be no other mode of justi¬
fication than by faith in that Christ who is
Abraham's seed; and in whom, according to
the promise, all the nations of the earth are
to be blessed."
The best that can be said by close reference
to St. Paul's letters to the Romans, and to
the Galatians is that this promise made to
9
130 THE END OF THE WORLD.
Abraham took its first step towards fulfil¬
ment in the apostles' • days. The apostles
found under that promise, great encourage¬
ment to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles;
but St. Paul who was specially delegated by
the Holy Ghost, and the arrangement of the
apostles, spoke of those who, came in as the
first fruits, and looked forward to the time
when the fulness of the Gentiles should come
in. Dr. Clarke explains as follows: " the
apostle therefore, seems to give this sense of
the mystery, that the Jews will continue in
a state of blindness, till such a time as a
multitude of nations or Gentiles shall be
converted to the Christian faith." When
that time shall occur the Abrahamic promise
will be fulfilled. The Jews still continue in
their state of partial blindness; the fulness
of the Gentiles has not come in, hence, we
may regard these events as future.
Again, our Saviour says, Luke xxi. 24,
"Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the
Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled." The plain inference is, that when
these times shall have been fulfilled, Jeru-
THE END OF THE "WORLD. 131
salem will cease to be so trodden down. In
the same connection, he says, the people of
Jerusalem "shall fall by the edge of the
sword, and shall be led away captive into all
nations." From this passage it would be
easy to infer that the Jews shall remain
scattered abroad, and Jerusalem shall be
occupied by the Gentiles until the time
referred to by our Saviour. The period of
time referred to by the apostle includes the
period during which they will remain dis¬
persed. Their blindness was the occasion of
their fall, and this is the final and chronic
stage of their fall. Hence, the dispersion
and blindness will continue as long as Jeru¬
salem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles.
Now as the blindness is to continue until
the great harvest of the nations shall have
come to pass, in fulfillment of the Abra-
hamic promise, and as this dispersion is to
last until the times of the Gentiles shall
have been fulfilled, we may conclude two
things. First, that the period of the partial
blindness, and the period of dispersion will
terminate simultaneously. Second, that the
132 THE END OF THE WORLD.
time, when " the times of the Gentiles shall
be fulfilled," will be the same time when,
the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in.
Hence, if we can tell when the times of the
Gentiles shall be fulfilled, we can also tell,
when the multitude of Pagan and Moham¬
medan nations shall be gathered to Christ,
when the Jews shall be recalled from their
dispersion and their blindness be taken away,
and they, provoked to jealousy by the
generous rush of nations to the Messiah, will
also hastily embrace him. Consult the
whole book of Romans.
Bishop Newton says: The times of the
Gentiles will be fulfilled when the times of
the four great kingdoms of the Gentiles
according to Daniel's prophecies shall be
expired, and the fifth kingdom, or the King¬
dom of Christ, shall be set up in their place,
" and the saints of the Most High shall take
the kingdom forever, even forever and ever."
If this be true, we may then say, when the
time of this Itoman age which is now run¬
ning its course shall end, then the fulness of
the Gentiles shall come in, then Israel shall
THE END OF THE WORLD. 133
be regathered, then Jerusalem shall cease to
be trodden down of the Gentiles, and the
saints of the Most High shall take the
kingdom.
Wesley, on this passage, says these times
shall "terminate in the full conversion of
the gentiles." Clarke paraphrases it " till the
time of their conversion to God." Hence,
at the consummation of this Roman or last
age, we look for the conversion of the na¬
tions at large and for the special conversion
of the Jews, and to this congeries of events
I have referred the phrase " the end of the
world."
Bishop Newton limits the entire discourse
of our Saviour in Matt. xxiv. to the destruc¬
tion of Jerusalem and the culmination of the
Jewish polity. He therefore limits the
phrase " end of the world " to the end of the
Jewish polity. Clarke does the same; Wesley
divides between the destruction of Jerusalem
and the end of the world in the popular
sense. The revised version everywhere gives
"the consummation of the age" as the exact
rendering of the words auvTehca too
134 THE END OF THE WORLD.
atwvoz, the end of the world. The disciples
seemed to understand that the overthrow of
Roman domination and the restoration of
Israel, with Christ as their King, would
occur at the consummation of the age. Cle-
opas says of Christ, we trusted that He
would restore the kingdom to Israel; and
after the resurrection they ask, wilt thou now
restore the kingdom to Israel ? Hence, when
they asked of his coming and of the consum¬
mation of the age, they quite probably had
reference to the same things. When shall
Israel's humiliation end? When shall Roman
domination end ? These things shall occur,
as we have seen, when "the times of the
gentiles shall be fulfilled j" and if the suppo¬
sition above be correct, the fulfilling of the
times of the gentiles will be the consumma¬
tion of the age. Now, if the fulfilling of
the times of the gentiles be as Bishop Newton
supposes, viz., the completion of the days of
those four great kingdoms described by
Daniel, then the consummation of the age
means the bringing to completion and con¬
clusion all that course of monarchy and gov-
THE END OF THE "WORLD. 135
ernment, beginning with Babylon and ending
with Rome, and not the end of the Jewish
age, or the end of all the nations of the
earth.
We have seen that the prophecies point to
a violent end to those nations which are the
legitimate successors of Rome. The circum¬
stances of to-day indicate the approach of
such a catastrophe. It must occur before the
fulness of the gentiles shall come in. It
must occur before the saints take the king¬
dom, and before Israel shall be gathered.
We believe that the harvest-time of Christian
nations is near, when all offenders shall be
gathered out of the kingdom, and then the
purified Church shall shine forth as the sun,
and the thousand millions of gentiles who
are now standing without will come in. It
is not Saxonism that is to become universal,
but Christism. The sin of the age has been
in associating Saxonism with Christianity, if
not in placing it above Christianity. Saxon¬
ism must utterly and signally fail, in order
that Christ may be all in all. These conclu¬
sions may appear somewhat gloomy to those
136 THE END OF THE WORLD.
who have built upon some other rock than
the Rock of Ages, but to those who have
placed their all in the fortunes of Jesus no
future can appear gloomy. To those who
love Christ more than race and who rejoice
in the salvation of all men, these conclusions
are full of hope, promise and glory. " Let
the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He
hath redeemed from the hand of the en¬
emy."
CHAPTEK X.
AN EXPOSITION OF PSALM LXVIII. 31.
BY JAMES A. HANDY, D.D.
"Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall
soon stretch out her hands unto God.'' 68th
Psalm, 31st verse.
GYPT is a country on the northeast
of Africa and southwest of Canaan,
or, geographically speaking, is situ¬
ated between the twenty-fourth and thirty-
third degree of north latitude and between
the twenty-ninth and thirty-fourth degree of
east longitude from London. It was anciently
called the land of Ham. Its founder is
supposed to have been Mizraim, Ham's
second son. Moses records in the tenth chap¬
ter of his first book, that Mizraim, son of
137
138 the end of the world.
Ham, founded the monarchy of the land of
IJam (2188 b. c.). This monarchy was af¬
terward divided into four dynasties: Ethio¬
pia, Thin, Tanais and Thebes. Under or
from these four grand divisions arose those
empires, kingdoms and cities that have made
the inhabitants of the land of Ham famous
in the world's history. The ancient name of
this part of the globe was the land of Miz-
raim, or Chemi; the Coptics call it Chemi to
this day. The name Egypt was given to
this country by the Greeks, and signifies
blackness, the soil being black and the water
a dark color. Hence the word Egypt had
reference to the color of the ground and
water, and not to the color of the inhabit¬
ants. The Chaldeans and Hebrews called it
the land of Mizraim. The Arabs to this
day call it Mesr, from Mizraim, its first
settler.
All that can be gathered about Ethiopia
is more or less connected and interwoven
with Egypt. It possibly is the most power¬
ful and important member of the divided
monarchy set up by Mizraim. At one time
THE END OF THE WORLD. 139
it embraced two-thirds of what is now the
African continent. Within its boundary and
under its sway were the cities of Thebes,
Memphis, Odin, Argas, Utica, Athens, Jeru¬
salem, Carthage and a number of others of
less celebrity. Their eminent men have
never been excelled in either civil or military
life. Euclid, the author of the elements of
geometry, teaches in our schools to-day;
Ogyges, an Egyptian, founded Greece. He
was followed by Cecrops, who built Athens.
He it was who instituted the celebrated judi¬
cial tribunal, the areopagus (the Hill of
Mars), so called because Mars, a prince of
Thessaly, who had committed murder, was
the first criminal tried and condemned by
this court, 1532 b. c. The Septuagint (the
translation of the Old Testament from the
original Hebrew into Greek, so called from
the seventy-two Egyptian translators em¬
ployed by Eleazer, the High Priest, from
Jerusalem—Philadelphus being at that time
King of Egypt),—was made at Alexandria,
in Africa. I need not speak of her military
triumphs—almost every school-boy is ac-
140
THE END OF THE WORLD.
quainted with them. They are to-day the
basis upon which all modern military nations
operate.
Thus you have in this birdseye view the
rise of the Egyptian or Hamite monarchy,
born 2217 b. c., and subsisting through va¬
rious changes and revolutions for twenty-one
hundred and fifteen years, until subjugated
by Rome 31 b. c. " There are," says Dr.
William Blackwood, "no accounts of the
foundation of the Christian Church in Af¬
rica," which dates, says Rev. John Brown,
of Haddington, "from the return of the
Treasurer of Candace home from his conver¬
sion and baptism on the road southward from
Jerusalem to Gaza." The Coast of Africa
at this time was crowded with Roman colo¬
nists, so that it was in the same position as
Rome itself. Quinturs, Septimius, Florens,
and especially Tertullian, the first bishop and
one of the most celebrated of the fathers,
though a Latin, were born in Carthage. Cyp¬
rian, of Carthage, and Augustine belong to
the early African Christian Church. I need
not speak of the division that arose among
THE END OF THE WORLD. 141
them, developing into Montanism and Dona-
tism, that long disturbed and weakened the
Church, or of the persecution of the Vandals
in the fifth century, and the spread of the
Mohammedan power later. These eventually
caused the fall of this once flourishing church,
which has now no representative if you ex¬
cept the poor Coptic Church. Mohammed¬
anism rules the continent. The millions of
Hamites in Africa and Asia are the worship¬
ers of the false prophet. Since the Refor¬
mation, the Christian church is extending
with considerable rapidity in the southern,
the western and northern parts of the conti¬
nent; the subjugation of Algiers by the
French has given a firm footing to the Roman
Catholic Church along the Mediterranean;
at the Cape of Good Hope, in Natal, and the
British possessions in Southern Africa, the
English Episcopal, the Church of Scotland
and the Free Church of Scotland are estab¬
lished and are doing a good work near the
coast, not only among the colonists, but also
among the native tribes. On the west coast
and among the tribes of the interior that can
142 THE END OF THE WORLD.
be reached from Liberia, Cape Coast Castle
and the different districts of Guinea, a very
vigorous missionary effort has been and is
being put forth by the churches of Britain
and the United States. The American Board,
the Presbyterian Board (including the Re¬
formed Presbyterian), the Episcopal Board, the
Southern Baptist and the American Mission¬
ary Association are all engaged with great
zeal in this work of stretching out the hands
of the inhabitants of the land of Ham unto
the Lord. From Great Britain there are
workers representing the London Missionary
Society, the Baptist Missionary Society, the
Church of Scotland, the Free Church of
Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church
of Scotland, who, by schools, by publications,
and all the forms of missionary effort, are
seeking to have the Hamites in their own
land stretch out their hands unto the Lord.
Then, again, the Moravians, the Iihenish
Society, the French Evangelicals, the Berlin,
the Norwegian and the North German Mis¬
sionary Societies are all laboriously toiling
for the same grand object. The English
THE END OF THE WORLD. 143
Episcopal Church had eight dioceses estab¬
lished there in 1880; and at the same time
the Wesley an Methodist had six missionary
districts with seventy-five circuits, two hun¬
dred and four chapels and three hundred
and sixty-six other preaching places. In
Western Africa the Methodist Episcopal
Church has a large number of preachers and
teachers employed in church and school
work on the coast and in the Island of
Madagascar. This summary does not in¬
clude the recent operations of the Christian
churches in the free Congo States. And
still the hands of Ethiopia are not fully or
even in any very extended sense stretched
out unto the Lord. In the investigation of
this subject we find great difficulty in two
very important factors in the elucidation of
this passage: First, the absence of trust¬
worthy statistics is a serious obstacle to a
correct estimate of the aggregate population
of Africa, some authorities placing it as high
as two hundred millions, while others place
it as low as one hundred millions. Second¬
ly, the ethnological classification of the native
144 THE END OF THE WORLD.
races also presents many difficulties, especially
if we consider the scientific inaccuracy of the
old division of the human family into the
Caucasian, the Mongolian, Tartar and kindred
groups,—for you will remember that under
that system the inhabitants of Africa north
of twentieth parallel of .north latitude were
regarded as belonging to the Caucasian va¬
riety, which included the Moors, the Arabs,
the Berbers, the Copts and the Egyptians,
while some writers include even the Abys-
sinians.
The International African Association was
established in 1876, under the patronage of
the King of Belgium, with the aim of or¬
ganizing explorations upon a systematic
plan. The German African Society and
the French section of the French In¬
ternational Association, were organized as
branches and occupied themselves with the
exploration of West Equatorial Africa. The
Germans sent out, in 1884, Messrs. Schutts
and Buchner and later Messrs. Pogge and
Wissman to the Angola coast, and the French
sending Monsieur De Brazza and Dr. Ballay
THE END OF THE WORLD. 145
to explore the Oserve. The Belgian Society
subsequently placed its resources at the dis¬
posal of Mr. H. M. Stanley. At this writ¬
ing, all of the great commercial nations of
the world are connected with the Congo
enterprise. King Leopold, with the approv¬
al of the Belgian Diet, in 1885, assumed
the title of Sovereign of the Free Congo
States. In the wake of Stanley's progress
the Baptists of England, the American
Baptist Mission, and the M. E. Church,
under Bishop Taylor, with other associations
are at work in the Congo Free States. As
far as the solution of this passage refers to
the Soudan, you have your answer in the
present attitude of King John and his army.
I grant that much that has been said, up to
this point, may appear superficial, but it is
not; and doubtless it has been quite neces¬
sary in order to bring this passage clearly
into view; a passage grand in its conception,
grand in its phraseology and grand in its
promises. That this land and its inhabitants,
notwithstanding the lowest depths of sin
and idolatry that it has touched and its pre-
10
146 THE END OF THE WORLD.
sent state of Pagan, Heathen and Moham¬
medan superstition, shall learn the narrative
and history of the Manger, the Cross and
Calvary, and bow and worship, and serve
and love the Lord Jesus Christ, our common
Saviour. A clear rendering of this passage
is, " Princes shall come out of Mizraim.
Cush shall soon stretch out her hand unto
God." Ps. Ixviii. 31. First let us say that
the few* thousand Christians, marshalled under
Tertuilian, Cyprian, Augustine, Origen and
others during the first two or three centuries
of the Christian era, or the church under
the lead of Constantine the Great, are not
events of sufficient magnitude to justify the
conclusion, (although scores of thousands may
have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb), that this
prophecy was fulfilled in this early age of the
Christian church. The close of the second
century introduces us to a new stage of the
church's progress, not in or over the land of
Mizraim, but from Britain to the Ganges.
It had already made its mark, but in all its
oriental identity we find it only along the
THE END OF THE "WORLD. 147
Mediterranean. It is vigorous in Gaul,
penetrating Europe, crossing over to Ameri¬
ca, but still there is a barrier to its entering
Africa. Alexandria, in lower Egypt, is the
brain of Christendom, down to 217 A.D.
After that period the heart of the church is
at Antioch, until a new depository is found
at Rome. Is this chance ? No, my brethren.
" God is his own interpreter." Every Chris¬
tian must recognize the fact that after Jeru¬
salem came Alexandria, and well may we
reflect what Alexandria has been to the
Church of Christ, and yet the onward march
of the church has been westward.
A word upon the phraseology' of this pas¬
sage : Princes, in a general sense, signifies
sovereigns, chiefs, independent rulers of
nations or states, a sovereign in a certain
territory, the chief of a body of men. In
the scriptures the iiame Prince is given to
God: Daniel viii. 25. It is also given to
Christ: Isaiah ix. 6. In Numbers xvii. 6,
we read : " And Moses spake unto the chil¬
dren of Israel, and every one of their Princes
gave him a rod a piece, for each prince one
148 THE END OF THE WORLD.
according to their father's houses, even twelve
rods and the rod of Aaron was among their
rods." Thus you see, it is given to the heads
of families. Stretch forth their hands—
stretch forth to draw out, to extend forward
in place or in order, stretch forth, reach.
The radical sense of desire as in Psalm xxvii.
4 : " One thing have I desired of the Lord."
Stretch out, to make an effort, ready to come
forth as said the great apostle, to the church
at Philippi, " I press toward Ihe mark,"
for the prize, forgetting or leaving those
things which are about, around and behind,
I press toward the mark, etc.
Commencing at the 9th verse of this Psalm
we are presented with the great works of
God; not those of creation and providence
alone, but also of salvation, deliverance
from a state of sin and misery into a state of
union with Christ. Then in the subsequent
verses up to the 24th we have the purpose of
God declared; that He will bring again
from Bashan, He will bring His people from
the depth of the sea—and then we are pre¬
sented with the work in the church,—God's
THE END OF THE WOPLD. 149
going forth in the sanctuary, Juda, Benja¬
min, Zebulun, Naphtali, are mentioned, and
then the warlike descendants of Japheth and
their cousins of Persia, Assyria, Lydia and
Syria, and then Egypt and Ethiopia, or Miz-
raim and Cush, all—all of Adam's race shall
come to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation,
verse 31. Its meaning, plain and simple, is
that the land of Mizraim and Cush—the
heads of her numerous tribes—princes, her
petty Kings—;shall be converted to God and
lead on the host. These kings shall come to
Christ, they shall be ministers at the altar of
God, they shall proclaim salvation to the
millions of Cushites there, and from her arid
plains, from her Atlas mountains, from her
jungles, plateaus and her table lands, her Nile,
Congo, Zambezi and Limpopo, her beautiful
lakes, cataracts and falls, her coast and har¬
bors, from the whole continent, the whole
people led on by their princes, shall go up
the shout, Hallelujah, the Lord God Omnip¬
otent reigneth ! Unto Him be the glory !
That day will come. The moment is on the
wing; commerce and the press, contact with
150 THE END OF THE WORLD.
European and American cupidity, are the
most we can see to-day. But our God moves
in a way that is not always clear to us. Gen¬
eral Gordon, Baker Pasha, Osman Digna,
Tewfik Pasha, General Graham, the treaty
with Abyssinia, Admiral Hewett, King John,
the Suez Canal, Sir Henry De Wolff's
mission to the sultan of Turkey, Lord
Wolseley's expedition, Gordon's death, Eng¬
land's withdrawal, King John,—still in the
field,—the Free Congo States, with Leo¬
pold at their head, all make up an unex¬
plained enigma, not only to the writer
but to the world. Nevertheless, this Scrip¬
tural prediction will yet be fulfilled.
Will Africa receive the present Christian
church, warped and twisted, mixed and adul¬
terated as it is? Humanly speaking her
millions turn from it, nevertheless there is a
leaven in her midst that will yet permeate
her millions. In the fulness of time, ap¬
pointed by unerring wisdom, Mizraimites
and Cushites from centre to circumference of
Africa, shall unite in one Christian faith and
fellowship, led on by Jesus Christ, the cap-
THE END OP THE WORLD. 151
tain of our common salvation with her
Egyptian princes in the van and her millions
following, they shall be conducted into the
militant mansions of bliss to possess the ever¬
lasting enjoyments of God on earth, and
afterwards the ceaseless, wasteless round of
eternal felicity with the Father, and the Son
and the Holy Spirit, together with the church
triumphant. Amen.
APPENDIX.
DISSERTATIONS ON THE GREEK WORDS
y/j, xoafio^, oixou[iivq, aiajv AND auvreXeca.
BY W. S. SCARBOROUGH, A.M., LL.D.,
Professor of Ancient Language and Literature in
Wilberforce University, Ohio; Member of the
American Philological Association, of* the
Modern Language Association of Amer¬
ica, and of the American Social
Science Association,
AND PROF. R. H. TERREL, A.M.
Of the Washington Iligh School.
yrj (Classic Greek).
a. Earth as opposed to heaven ('obpavoq).
b. Land as opposed to sea (Vdkatraa).
To express these two ideas is most fre¬
quently employed in Latin as well as in
Homeric Greek; the usual meaning, is
152
THE END OF THE WORLD.
153
from the root ye, or yat, (Sanscrit gd, gads ;
Zeud, gava ; Gothic, ^ai>i)=earth or land in
its most comprehensive sense. One may
travel by land (xard yrjv) rather than by sea
(xara iMXa<r<rav) or by ship (vavai, Thucyd. I.
18). There are many examples illustrative
of this meaning in Xenophon, Thucydides
and their contemporaries. Vide Homer also.
yyj is sometimes used to convey the idea of
country in opposition to city (xai yij xa\ noXis).
Vide ^Esehylus. Again, take the expres¬
sion yT,v npd y7tc=from country to country,
or from land to land. Vide ^Eschylus, Aris¬
tophanes, etc. Country is here used in its
broad sense, which is similar to our " from
continent to continent." yy is sometimes
used after adverbs, e. g. onou yrj<;, " where
in the world," like the*Latin, gentirem or ubi
terrarum. This is a common usage after ad¬
verbs. Plato sometimes uses yrj in the sense
of ground, tilling the ground, etc.
The expression rd h tT^ yTtq} either with
or without <puofieva, may imply what springs
up out of the ground (yyj) as grain or seed,
in other words, the product. Vide Xen.
Mem. Bk. IV. 3, 10.
154 THE END OF THE* WORLD.
In Lysias yjj is used with nptaa&ai the
sense of an estate—to purchase an estate;
in Herodotus with oSwp aheXv} it expresses
submission, e. g. yrjv xat u8wp aireto de¬
mand (ask) land and water, hence to demand
the enemy's surrender. Vide Herodotus.
Again, it sometimes has a particular mean¬
ing, e. g. minerals, from a particular kind of
earth. There are numerous examples in
Homer (Iliad and Odyssey) of a and b
given on the first page of these notes. One
example is sufficient: al yalav re xa\
oupaudv an<p\q k'^oufftv = which separate the
earth and heaven, or heaven and earth, as we
would say.
II. yy (New Testament Greek.)
in the mouth of the Hellenizing Jews
(<>l 'Ioudaiot) lost little of its original etymologi¬
cal meaning. The four Evangelists, likewise
Paul, used it with the meaning of land or
earth frequently.
It is well to keep in mind, however, that
when the article is used, r*i generally signifies
earth; when it is omitted, it is rendered land,
THE END OF THE WORLD. 155
especially when the name of the country fol¬
lows. This is not an invariable rule, as such
passages as 2 Pet. iii. 5, 10, Acts xvii. 24,
Luke ii. 14, Eph. iii. 15, Mark xiii. 27,1 Cor.
viii. 5, etc., will show. In Matt. xiv. 34—
" And when they were gone over, they came
into the land of Gennesaret" (zau S«n:epd<iavTe<;
yjX^ov e!<; rijv y^v Ttwt]<japir^, This is only one
of the deviations from the rule in regard to
the use and omission of the article.
In the New Testament yyj is sometimes
used for one's native land, or his own country,
Acts vii. 3; again, for the inhabitants, Matt,
x. 15; xi. 24; also, the world as a whole,
iax; S.v Ttapiblrj 6 obpavbs xal ^(Matt. V. 18),
" till heaven and earth pass." In this sense
it approaches y olxou/iivvj (the inhabited world).
These are figurative uses—sometimes me¬
tonymy and sometimes synecdoche, seemingly,
as fancy or circumstances demanded.
K6ap.os (Classic Greek).
The first meaning of x6<t/io<t from (xo<t[ila>
to arrange, to put in order), is arrangement,
order, good order, good behavior, hence
156 THE END OF THE WORLD.
decency. Growing out of this comes a
second meaning, decoration, embellishment,
hence dress, especially for women. For ex¬
amples illustrative of these cases, I cite
Homer (Iliad and Odyssey) Pindar, Thucy-
dides, Herodotus, Plato and Xenoplion.
Metaphysically, x6ijh<><; also moans credit,
honor, e. g. x6a;xov <p(pst riv(, "It brings
(does) one credit," Herodotus £, 60, 142.
Again, in Sophocles, Ajax, 293, yuvat, yuvatR
x6<r,uov ij fftyij <plpst, "Woman, silence brings
honor to woman.'* A similar sentiment
is found in Euripides, e. g. yuvacxl, ykp <riyu
re xal t<) otoyyovetv xdAAtarov. Growing out
of the same idea of order, we have xdanoq
as ruler, governor, regulator. Then again,
from order or arrangement, comes the idea
of beauty or ornamentation; thence, be¬
cause of the perfect adaptation of part to
part as we see it every day in nature, it sig¬
nifies world with all its beauty and exquisite
harmony. Koa/ioq was frequently used by
the philosophic poets, Xenophanes, Par-
menides, etc. According to the Stoics', it was
the soul of the universe (anima mundi).
THE END OF THE WORLD. 157
3Iundus is used here in its broad sense per¬
haps—heavens and heavenly bodies. Ordi¬
narily it was to the ancient Romans what
x6ff[j.o<; was to the Greeks. Sometimes x6<t/jlo<7,
in a limited sense, means the earth, then
again the firmament; sometimes both. Vide
Isocrates, 78 C. In the plural it may refer
to the several stars. Like 9 olxoup.£vu, xo<t/j.o<;
among the Alexandrian Greeks, often meant
the known world—the part with which the
learned few were acquainted, the inhabited
parts. Sometimes it was a term applied to
philosophy—thus used by Pythagoras.
The following from Pliny will explain
itself:
" Nam quern xoapov Grceci, nomine orna-
menti, appellaverunt eum nos a perfecta ab-
solutaque elegantia mundum." In other
words that which the Greeks called x6<r/io<;}
on account of its beauty, we call mundus,
because of its perfect and absolute elegance
(beauty).
New Testament Greek.
Kooiuk is used by the sacred writers, more
or less, in the sense of world or universe, Matt.
158 THE END OF THE WORLD.
xiii. 35; xxiv. 24; Lake xi. 50; John
xvii. 5, 21, etc., etc. In many instances it
undergoes no change of meaning—classic and
Hellenistic being the same.
Then again it is used to refer exclusively
to the abode of man in the lower world as
opposed to the upper; also the world where
the inhabitants are simply referred to.
It sometimes approaches (in meaning)
b aiwv (this world, this age), ouroc being ex¬
pressed or understood. The idea of short
duration is here implied.—Mark xvi. 15;
John xvi. 21: 2 Peter iii. 6; John iii. 19;
John vi. 14; Matt. v. 14; xiii. 38; Bom.
iii. 6, etc. etc., with many more examples
may be cited to illustrate what has been said.
Koofjux; as was used, means the peopled
world—created world, with all its beauty,
order and regularity. We may safely rest
upon this. In this sense it is equivalent to
oixoojievtj which see.
OhovfxivT] (Classical Greek).
This is strictly a participle, and has un¬
derstood with it yrj. As generally used, it
THE END OF THE WORLD.
159
signifies " the inhabited world " or inhabited
portions of the same. It is sometimes trans¬
lated populous. It occurs very often in the
Anabasis in this sense, also in Herodotus,
Demosthenes, etc. The word was used by
the Greeks to designate their own country
from the barbarian lands.
It was also used to denote the Roman
world at a later date with its numerous in¬
habitants in which the expression o xvpioz
tyjz olxoofievYjz (ruler of the world) applied
to the emperor. This was the case, especially,
in N. T. Greek, vide Acts xvii. 6 ; xxiv. 5.
Again it denotes mankind, the whole human
race as in Acts xvii. 31; xix. 27; Rev. iii.
10. In Hebrews (ii. 5) $ oly.oup.ivq *}
[xiXXouaa—" the world to come." Compare
with this Hebrews vi. 5, duvdfieic
fiiXXovTos alwyos—"the powers of the world
to come." Idea the same, but viewed from
different standpoints, probably.
Compare Luke iv. 5, with Matt. iv. 8.
T2JC OtXOUfJLSVTjC TOO XOffftOt).
Luke Matt.
idea. = .idea.
160 THE END OF THE WORLD.
Conception not the same, though oixoujiii/y
and xdofxos seem to be used in a synonymous
sense. There are many other examples in
the N. T. Gr. of a similar use of this and
many other words, which are more or less
fixed in classic Greek.
Aiwv (Classic Greek).
There are, possibly, few words in classic or
sacred Greek, and especially in the latter,
that have given rise to greater discussion as
to their exact meaning than this little word
aiiov (doubtless from det always). We find
it translated in the poets and in some of the
prose writers, an age, a life-time, the age of
man (Latin, cevum). In Homer we find
and acd)v joined together e. g., re
xal aluiv (Iliad xvi. 453)=animaque et
vita=" soul and life." Again (Odyssey ix.
523) . . . (poyjjZ re xal acaivdc <re di>vai'[xrjv.
Again it is used to express a long space of
time, eternity (Latin, cevum), forever, vide
'Plato, Aristotle, etc., etc.
Demosthenes uses 6 filXfoov accoy for pos¬
terity (the future generation).
THE END OF THE WORLD.
161
We may justly conclude from these obser¬
vations based upon the usage of the Greek
poets and prose writers, that aubv, as found
in classic Greek generally refers to this life,
the age of man, without reference to eternity
as viewed from our standpoint. If this be
true, as I believe it to be, and if aiwv is
from as: as it is conceded to be, thus aiwv
has evidently in some respects lost its orig¬
inal, etymological meaning of forever in the
classic tongues—forever, beginning now, or
back of now, from this period or before this
epoch to all eternity. Its various uses may
be determined by the context of the passage
in which it occurs. Theologically the term
seems to be in a transition state, likely never
to be settled to the satisfaction of every
scholar.
Aiwv (New Testament Greek).
0' acwv ovro<z (this 'present world) is con¬
trasted with o fiiXhov (the future=the world
to come).
0c aiwv may mean endless duration, eter¬
nity without limit.
11
162
THE END OF THE WOULD.
The plural sometimes occurs for intensity
or emphasis: et% roue acawaz ztpv acu>Y(ovf
for ever and ever. In Mark x. 30 xai iv r«5
aiiZvc Tty ip%o/iivu) £<jl>uv aiwvtov, and in the
world to come eternal life (ev Ttp at(pvt)}
{£iobv acwvtov).
Observe world and eternal. Vide Luke
xviii. 30; xx. 35. Again 1 Tim. i. 17; 2
Peter iii. 18; ii. 17; Jude 13; Mark iii. 29,
etc. Acduv, with £f'c, always seems to imply
endless duration, eternity in its most com¬
prehensive sense.
Jcwv = eternity from beginning, Eph.
iii. 11.
Acu>v=etermty hereafter, John vi. 51.
I!ovtiXz.ta (Classical Greek).
ZuvTeXsta (from govt skew) is a joint pay¬
ment for public burdens. At Athens a cer¬
tain number of citizens, who contributed
toward equipping a ship for public service,
were called <ruyrs^e7f. They formed a part
of the <jumiopia (copartnership), a term
which was used after the census of 377 b.<\,
when twelve hundred of the richest citizens
the end of the world. 163
at Athens were divided into twenty divis¬
ions ((TUfifiopmc), etc., etc. Each a6ji[j.opia
was compelled in turn to discharge a heavy
war debt by payment of the property-
tax, etc.
ZuyriXeia was often used for any co-part¬
nership for bearing public burdens; hence
joint action, combination of action, etc. Vide
Demosthenes and Plato. In grammar the
term is used to express completed action=
perfect tense. Vide Liddell & Scott's Greek
Lexicon (revised ed.).
ZuwuiXtta (New Testament Greek).
The Hellenistic use of this word is unlike
the classical. Here it means completion or
consummation. It is found in the phrase
<TUvzeXeia zoo acujvoi- (the end of time, the end
of the world=the consummation of all things),
Matt. xiii. 13, 40, etc., etc. In Hebrews
(ix. 26) we have these words: "For then
must he often have suffered since the foun¬
dation of the world (dnd xazafioXffi xbop.ou'');
but now once in the end of the world (eni
auvzeXsca zujy al<bvtov) hath he appeared to
164
THE END OF THE WORLD.
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."
Observe the two words for " world " as used
in this passage, and note the differences be¬
tween them.
K6(T/ioz=t\\e world as a beautiful globe,
as it issued forth from the hand of God ;
a/wi'=the world as composed of a number
of indefinite periods, the end (ffovr^Xsea) of
which is reached. That seems to be the
thought as it is suggested to my mind.
W. S. Scarborough.
Dissertation on the Greek Words, ouvrihia,
etc., by Prof. 11. II. Terrell, of the
Washington City High School.
Zu<;TiXeta. Of the meanings which this
word has, I find that the two which differ
most widely from each other are the follow¬
ing: 1. "A joint payment, joint contribution
for the public burdens;" 2. "The consumma¬
tion of a plan."
If ffuvriAeca was immediately associated
wTith guvtzUw in the mind of a Greek, the
primary sense of the word is, without doubt,
the consummation of a plan. For ouvtzUw
THE END 03? THE WORLD.
165
is compounded of <rl>v and reXiw. I6v (in
composition, of the completion of an action)
means "quite," "thoroughly;" rsXi<o means
" to complete;" therefore awriXzia means
"to complete thoroughly." T£Xo<;, too, to
which (Tuvriksia is related, means "high point,
acme, consummation." Therefore, when aw-
tiXeia is associated with auvreXiu) and t(Xo?,
its primary meaning must be as indicated
above. But the word may have suggested
to the Greek ffovTeXijs, which means " effect-
ing joint payments," hence the meaning
given under 1.
AIdtv means (1) a long space of time, an
age ; (2) a space of time clearly marked out,
an epoch. These are some of the meanings
given for the word in Liddell and Scott's,
and Passow's lexicons.
An eminent authority says the words al6v
and aimvzs never denote, in the New Testa¬
ment, absolute eternity or duration without
beginning and without end. But still we
find in Galatians, chap. i.; efc alwvaq ru>v
alu)vwv, meaning, " unto the ages of ages, or
forever and ever."
166 THE END OF THE WORLD.
Aristotle certainly had the conception of
eternity, and his word for it is ai&wnyr.
This word and aid* must be put in the same
group etymologically with (alls, al£v),
which means " always, forever."
As to the words yij, xoanoq and oixouplvi},—
yy signifies what we mean by "earth" as op¬
posed to heaven, or " land" as opposed to
sea, and is a broad term. Since yrj signifies
" earth " as opposed to heaven, I can draw no
other conclusion but that the word has the
same sense as our word "globe." Its etymol¬
ogy is uncertain. Curtius says, perhaps, it
belongs to the root ya seen in ylyaa (yiyvoixai).
Homer regarded the earth as a flat circle
surrounded by the ocean. The conception
of the earth as spherical is, perhaps, first
found in Plato.
The word olxuu,uivij (olxiw, oho-) is nothing
but the participle of the verb with yrj under¬
stood after it, and means "the inhabited
(world)." This word was first used by the
Greeks to designate their part of the world
as opposed to the barbarian lands.
Kotriioq means "the universe from its per-
THE END OF THE WORLD. 167
feet order and arrangement, as opposed to
the masses of chaos." It cannot be classed
with yrj and ohooiiiv-q in a list of synonyms,
because it means " world " in sense of " uni¬
verse," and includes the firmament. I have
high authority for saying that if -/.uap-oq in¬
cludes the inhabitants of the world, there is
certainly no emphasis on the fact to be
found anywhere.
.Robert H. Terrel.
NOTE A.
dean" alford on" the future advents
of christ.
Dean Alford, on this chapter (Matt, xxiv.),
says: " Our Lord still has in view the proph¬
ecy of Daniel xii. 1, and this citation clearly
shows the intermediate fulfilment by the de¬
struction of Jerusalem, of that which is yet
future in its final fulfilment."
He says, again: " When the cup of gen¬
tile iniquity is full and when the gospel shall
have been preached in all the world for a
168 THE END OF THE WORLD.
witness, and rejected, by the gentiles shall
the coming of the Lord himself happen."
But this coming, he holds, is not the coming
to judgment mentioned in Matt, xxv., but
the coming to set up His Kingdom at the
commencement of the millenium—the com¬
ing described in 1 Thess. iv. and Rev. xix.
He believes the latter days of this age
will be attended with great troubles, for he
thus sums up his comments on Matt. xxiv.
23-26. * * * "In their main view they will
preserve the Church firm in her waiting for
Christ, through even the awful troubles of
the latter days."
The points made by Alford, where the text
upon which he comments is kept closely in
mind, are these: 1. When the cup of gen¬
tile iniquity shall have become full, then
Christ will come to set up his Kingdom. 2.
That this coming will not be the final coming
to judgment. This would indicate that he
understood the phrase, the end of the world,
to point to this very time. On Luke xxi.
24, he says, " The times (xacpot) are, the end
of the gentile dispensation J just as the time
THE END OF THE WORLD. 169
(xcupoz) of Jerusalem was the fulfilment of
the Jewish dispensation.
On Romans xi. 27, he says : " He is deal¬
ing with nations—with gentile nations and
the Jewish nation. And, thus dealing, he
speaks of to nl-qpoifia twv edvwv, coming in,
and of 7ta<z y<;=I<;f>qsA being saved—having no
regard for the time, to individual destinies of
gentiles or of Jews, but regarding nations as
such included under the common bond of
consanguinity, according to the flesh. The
7tfo]pwjM I would regard as signifying the
full number, the totality of the nations, i. e.
every nation under heaven."
This will take place, according to his view,
after our Lord's first coming; for, in Rev. xx.
he has the following comment: 11 It will have
been long ago anticipated by the readers of
this commentary, that I cannot consent to
distort words from their plain sense and
chronological place in the prophecy,, on ac¬
count of any considerations of difficulty, or
any risk of abuses which the doctrine of the
millenium may bring with it. Those who
lived next to the apostles and the whole
170 THE END OF THE WORLD.
Church for three hundred years, understood
these in the plain literal sense." Hence, he
holds to two resurrections; and says, further,
" There will be nations on earth besides
the saints reigning with Christ, who, during
the binding of Satan, have been quiet and
willing subjects of the Kingdom, but who,
on his being let loose, are again subjected to
his temptations, which stir them into rebel¬
lion against God." Ilence, you will see that
he expects the ingathering of the nations
after the coming, or at the time of the com¬
ing of our Lord, and hence after the close of
the present age. It will be seen that this
great commentator sustains the views set forth
in the foregoing volume in the following
particulars :
1. That the end of the gentile dispensation
is to be followed by the Kingdom of Christ
on earth.
2. That all nations, gentile and Jewish,
shall come into this Kingdom.
3. A period will follow in which Satan
will be bound and God glorified.
4. He also believes that the gentile dis-
THE END OF THE WORLD. 171
pensation will end amid great troubles. In
the definition of the gentile dispensation I
have gone farther than he, but I think I
have not gone beyond the scriptural infer¬
ence, as may be seen in the following note
on THE MAN OF SIN.
NOTE B.
THE MAN OF SIN.
In his prolegomena to the Second Epistle
to the Thessalonians, after showing how this
prophecy of St. Paul had been interpreted
by various commentators, and how it had
been applied since the eleventh century to
the pope, and by the Greeks to Mohammed,
he reaches the following conclusion :
" The avo/xotr in the full prophetic sense is
not yet come. Though eighteen hundred
years later, we stand with regard to him
where the apostle stood."
"According, then, to this view, we still
look for the man of sin in the fulness of the
172 THE END OF THE WORLD.
prophetic sense, to appear, and that imme¬
diately before the coming of the Lord. Wo
look for him as the final and central embodi¬
ment of that dvo/ua, that resistance to
God and God's law which has been for these
many centuries fermenting under the crust of
human society, and of which we have already
witnessed so many partial and tentative erup¬
tions.
" Whether he is to be expected personally
as one individual embodiment of evil, we
would not dogmatically pronounce, still we
would not forget that both ancient interpre¬
tation and the world's history point this way.
Almost all great movements for good or for
ill have been gathered to a head by one cen¬
tral personal agency; nor is there any reason
to suppose that this will be otherwise in the
coming ages. In proportion as the general
standard of mental cultivation is raised and
man made equal with man, the ordinary
power of genius is diminished, but its extra¬
ordinary power increased, its reach deepened,
its hold rendered more firm."
The power that restrains he defines to be
THE END OF THE WORLD. 173
" the fabric of human polity and those who
rule that polity." Hence it is very plain
that Dean Alford regards the Man of Sin as
the concentration of active anarchy. The
great apostasy and the revelation of the Man
of Sin will occur immediately before the
coming of the Lord to set up His Kingdom,
and this will be, according to Daniel ii. 44,
and vii. 24-28, at the close of the Roman
age. It seems to me perfectly natural to
identify Daniel ii. 43-44. "And whereas
thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they
shall mingle themselves with the seed of
men; but they shall not cleave one to an¬
other, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
And in the days of these kings shall the
God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall
never be destroyed • and the kingdom shall
not be left to another people, but it shall
break in pieces and consume all these king¬
doms, and it shall stand forever," with chap,
vii. 18 and 25-27, and to identify the whole
with the great apostasy, the revelation of the
man of sin and the coming of the Lord,
mentioned in 2 Thess. ii., and then by com-
174 THE END OF THE "WORLD.
paring all with our Lord's exposition of the
parable of the tares, we have the following
points:
1. At the close of the Roman age there
will be great confusion, resulting in the de¬
struction of kingdoms. This destruction
will be brought about by—
2. Antagonism arising between "these
kingdoms" and the kingdom of heaven—
perhaps because of the general apostasy de¬
scribed by St, Paul; and in the conflict the
kingdoms will be broken in pieces and con¬
sumed—agreeing with the declaration of St.
Paul, that the Lord would "consume the
man of sin with the spirit of his mouth."
3. After these events the Kingdom of
Heaven shall prevail, and the saints shall
reign with their Lord,—agreeing with what
our Saviour says (Matt, xiii.) shall take place
at the "end of the age" (ver. 39), or at "the
end of this age" (ver. 40). Hence I identify
the culmination of the Roman age, the age
in which we now live, with the phrase
{aovz&hca Tot) acvivot;) the end of the world,
and apply it only to those nations coming
THE END OF THE WORLD. 175
within its scope. The saints will shine forth
as the obscuring evils of Christendom shall
be removed and other " nations besides the
saints" as Dean Alford describes them, will
become " quiet and willing subjects of the
Kingdomand this will be the " fulness of
the'gentiles coming in." The "saints" now
have their place within the territory of the
Roman domination, i. e. within the territory
occupied by the nations succeeding to Rome,
and hence, here now is the Saviour's king¬
dom in an obscured condition; but at the
end of the world the offending and obscuring
things shall be removed out of this kingdom,
and then the righteous, the saints of Daniel,
shall shine forth as the sun, and the other
nations—according to Alford the whole num¬
ber of nations—shall join themselves to
them. This is the coming of the kingdom
to be prayed for, when it may be said the
kingdoms have become the kingdoms of our
God and his Christ; but there will be great
conflicts and sorrows before the Kingdom
shall come and the new nations be born as
in a day.
176 THE END OF THE "WORLD.
NOTE C.
Patrick, Lowth'sand Arnaud's paraphrase,
etc., has the following notes on passages re¬
ferred to in the course of the volume.
Matt. xxiv. 2. "Christ so answers the
question touching the sign of his coming as
manifestly to show it contemporary with the
dissolution of the temple and polity of Jeru¬
salem, saying in verse 27, 'As the lightning
cometh out of the East and shineth even
unto the West; so shall also the (J} Tcapouata)
coming of the Son of man he,' for, verse 28,
' where the carcass is there will the eagles be
gathered together,' i. e., the Roman army,
whose ensign was the eagle, so that the com¬
ing of the army to destroy them and the
coming of the Son of Man must be contem¬
porary. Again, verses 37-39, As it was in
the days of Noe, etc., and verse 41 and Luke
xvii. 34-37."
This will be " still more evident," he says,
"by comparing other words of Christ with
those contained in these three chapters of
THE END OF THE WORLD. 177
Saints Matthew, Mark and Luke. For
Christ" saith, Mark ix. 1, "There be some
of them that stand here, which shall not
taste death, till they have seen the kingdom
of God come with power." . . . When there¬
fore it is said Matt. xxiv. 30, Mark xiii. 26,
Luke xxi. 27. . . . Ye shall see the Son of
man coming in the clouds of heaven with
great glory, this advent must be while some
were living that stood by Christ. . . . and
so not at the end of the world. And in like
manner that auvvekeca tod Acwvoc; or, the
end of the age is the same with the end of
the Jewish city appears from these words,
"Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of
wars," but the end (you inquire after) is not
yet. See verse 6 ; Mark xii. 7; Luke xxi.
9; verse 13. . . . Nor is it to be wondered
that the apostles, who had learned that the
coming of the Messiah and the end of the
then present world should be together, should
thus inquire of them together,or that this
should be the end of the Jewish age; Christ
being styled the father of the age to come
(Isaiah ix. 6), and the age of Christianity the
12
178 THE END OF THE WORLD.
age to come (Heb. iv. 5), and the end of the
ages (1 Cor. x. 11).
Luke xxi. 24. " And Jerusalem shall be
trodden down of the Gentiles till the times
of the Gentiles be fulfilled." That is, say
some interpreters, till the full number of
the Gentiles which God shall call shall be
complete. This, I confess, is a very ancient
interpretation of these words, but it is con¬
trary to the express word of the Apostle
Paul, who declares that, at the conversion
of the Jews, there shall be a greater and
more glorious conversion of the Gentiles
than that which happened at the fall of
them; that their fulness should be much
more the riches of the Gentiles than their
fall was, Rom. xi.y and that their coming in
should be to the Gentiles as life from the
dead, and should so much more enrich them
than their casting off. I, therefore, do inter¬
pret these words thus: Jerusalem shall be
inhabited, not by the Jews, but by the Gen¬
tiles ruling there till the season for the full
THE END OF THE WORLD. 179
conversion of the still heathen Gentiles shall
come. . . .
THE FULNESS OF THE GENTILES.—Rom. XI.
"First, That which is spoken, verse 12, in
these words if " the diminishing of them "
be " the riches of the Gentilesand this
(riches) consisted in the preaching the gospel
to all nations and the imparting of glad tidings
of salvation to them, and was in a great mea¬
sure to be accomplished before the destruc¬
tion of Jerusalem and the ruin of that
church and nation according to Our Lord's
prediction in these words, "This gospel shall
be preached," etc.; Matt. xxiv. 14; Mark
xiii. 10. Secondly, There is to be another
fulness of the Gentiles by a more glorious
conversion of them and a coming in of those
nations which have not hitherto embraced
the gospel, or have relapsed into heathenism
or Mohammedanism to be effected when this
rejection of the Jews shall cease and God
shall send the Deliverer out of Zion to turn
iniquity from Jacob. And of this only can
180 THE END OF THE WORLD.
we understand those words of the Apostle,
in verse 12. If the fall of them (the Jews,
that happened already) be the riches of the
world (Gentiles) and the diminution of them
the riches of the Gentiles; how much more
their fulness? i. e., the time of their con¬
version be the increase and fulness of these
same Gentiles. ... If the casting away of
them be the reconciling of the world what
shall receiving them again be (to the same
world) but even as life from the dead, and
verse 25. Blindness of interpretation I
think happened to the Jews until the fulness
of the Gentiles shall come in.
NOTE D.
PROPHECIES TO BE FULFILLED.
From the same authors "Jerusalem is yet
trodden down of the nations, and the Jews
are yet captives in all nations, whereas the
captivity and the treading down of Jerusa¬
lem are to cease when the times of the Gen¬
tiles are fulfilled. According to those words
of Christ concerning the .destruction of the
THE END OF THE WORLD. 181
Jews which shall fall by the edge of the
sword, and shall be carried captive into all
nations and Jerusalem shall be trodden down
till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled,
Luke xxi. 24, i. e.; till the times when they
shall 'no more lord it over them as now they
do, but serve them and flow unto them, and
to this purpose let it be noted; First, That
if we-consult ancient prophecies concerning
the vast extent of Our Saviour's kingdom
over all nations we shall find reason to be¬
lieve that it does not yet take the uttermost
parts of the earth for His possession, Ps. ii.
God hath not made all peoples, nations and
tongues to serve Him and all dominions to
©
obey Him. Dan. xii. 4-27. He hath not
yet filled' the whole earth or broken in pieces
and smote all other kingdoms; Dan. ii. 34,
35. That seems not yet fulfilled which was
foretold by Micah, That the Lord should be
King over all the earth, verse 4, and by
Ezekiel xix. 9, that there should be but one
Lord and His name one ; and by David that
all kings should fall down before Him, and
all nations serve Him ; that all the inhabi-
182 THE END OF THE WORLJ).
tants of the earth should remember and turn
to the Lord and all the kindreds of nations
worship before Him ; Ps. lxxii. 8. These,
and sundry other such like prophecies there
are which yet were not accomplished accord¬
ing to the full import of them. For as
Brerewood observes, 1 If you divide the
known religions of the world into thirty
equal parts, the Christian part is (only) as
five; the Mohammedan as six; the Idolaters
as nineteen.' Whence we have reason to
conclude that there is yet a time to come before
the consummation of all things in which Our
Saviour will yet once more display the vic¬
torious banner of Ilis cross, and like a
mighty man of war march on conquering and
to conquer until lie hath finally confounded
and converted Ilis enemies and consummated
His victories in a glorious triumph over all
the powers of the earth and made all nations,
tongues and languages to serve Him."