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That Blessed Hope 
 
That Blessed Hope 
 
 The Second Coming of Christ 
 
 Considered with 
 
 Special Reference to Post-Millennial 
 
 and Pre-Millennial Discussions 
 
 2U0O an Bppenotr 
 treating of IRelateo topics 
 
 By 
 
 David Heagle, Ph. D., D. D. 
 
 Translator of the " Bremen Lectures 
 Author of "Moral Education," etc. 
 
 — Heb. 10 : 37 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 American Baptist Publication Society 
 
 Boston Chicago Atlanta 
 
 New York St. Louis Dallas 
 

 
 1l»3Hft3Y of CONGRESS 
 Two Cootes Received 
 
 AUG 30 190' 
 
 . CoovnyW Entry 
 CLASS A XXC, NO. 
 
 copy a. 
 
 Copyright 1907 by the 
 American Baptist Publication Society 
 
 Published August, 1907 
 
 from tbe Society's own press 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The particular object of the following treatise 
 is to mediate somewhat between post-millennialism 
 and pre-millennialism, especially as to the time of 
 our Lord's second coming. The discouraging view 
 taken by the former doctrine, namely, that before 
 Christ comes there must intervene yet a thousand 
 years or more of time, or a millennium of such ex- 
 traordinary nature that it cannot be regarded as 
 having, up to the present date, even begun, this 
 notion is, and in some shape, always has been, un- 
 satisfactory to thinking Christian minds, and even 
 to minds not much given to thinking. Consequently 
 that view has never been able to obtain universal 
 and prolonged recognition. On the contrary, it has 
 always had reactions appearing against it, usually 
 in the form of pre-millennial or other chiliastic 
 schemes — any doctrine that could furnish relief 
 from the discouragement and lack of interest con- 
 nected with the idea of our Lord's delaying so 
 long his advent. 
 
 So also, on the other hand, the pre-millennial 
 doctrine of the Saviour's setting up and ruling over 
 a kingdom more or less materialistic in its na- 
 ture, and a kingdom that should occupy the same 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 territory with sin and sinners, this notion too, is so 
 contrary to the general Christian conception of the 
 final outcome of Christ's redeeming work, or to 
 the facts connected with his parousia, that it has 
 never been able to obtain, and persistently hold, 
 anything like a universal assent of the Christian 
 world. Besides, the pre-millennial scheme natu- 
 rally tends to fanatical over-expectation, and often 
 teaches matters that are extravagant, or simply 
 absurd. 
 
 Especially in these times, therefore — so it seems 
 to the writer — there are not a few persons (and is 
 not the class a growing one?) who are dissatisfied 
 both with post-millennial and pre-millennial views. 
 Certainly objections can easily be made to at least 
 one or two items of post-millennialism, and also 
 to nearly the whole pre-millennial doctrine — all of 
 it, we may say, except its earnest protest against 
 putting off the coming of our Lord to so distant 
 a date. Such being the case with the two general 
 views mentioned, it must, after all, not be con- 
 cluded that because neither of these views has, as 
 a whole, been universally received, therefore there 
 is no truth in either. On the contrary, this very 
 fact of only a partial reception of each of the views, 
 is conclusive proof that there must be at least some 
 truth, as well as error, in them both. That is the 
 position taken by this work. 
 
 The truth in pre-millennialism is undoubtedly, 
 as has been said, its vigorous and persistent protest 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 against interjecting yet so long a period of time — 
 a thousand years or more — between the coming of 
 Christ and our day. And the truth or truths in 
 post-millennialism are, first, its teaching relative to 
 the spiritual nature of our Lord's kingdom; and 
 secondly, its doctrine respecting the purposes for 
 which Christ will come the second time — to raise 
 the dead, judge the world, and " restore all things," 
 or usher in his everlasting kingdom. 
 
 In this way it is attempted to reconcile at least 
 some of the teachings of pre-millennialism with 
 those of post-millennialism, and thus deduce a doc- 
 trine respecting the advent of our Lord which shall 
 be both more comforting and inspiring to the 
 Christian heart and mind, and also more scriptural 
 in its character, than is either of the common or 
 well-known doctrines we have been considering. 
 
 To accomplish this purpose it was found neces- 
 sary to eliminate from the time-determining factors 
 of the second advent, that malum discordice which 
 has always been so prominent in eschatological dis- 
 cussions, namely, the millennium, or Christ's reign 
 of a thousand years with some of his saints, as is 
 prophesied in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. 
 The reign there spoken of we understand to be an 
 insolvable mystery, which no interpretation ever 
 yet proposed has been able so to explain as not to 
 come into conflict with other and clearly taught 
 doctrines of Scripture ; the best interpretation of 
 that passage probably being that it refers to some 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 privileges which were to be enjoyed only by certain 
 of the saints, i. e., the martyrs and confessors, 
 who " were beheaded for the witness of Jesus," etc. 
 But whether those privileges were to be experienced 
 on earth or in heaven, or what was to be the time of 
 Christ's millennial reign, or just what should be 
 its peculiar character — respecting all that, reve- 
 lation is silent. We regard, therefore, this whole 
 matter of the millennium as a mystery; and we 
 affirm of it only that it cannot be used as a time-de- 
 termining factor with which to figure out the date 
 of our Lord's second coming. Consequently we dis- 
 miss the millennium from our discussion of that 
 particular ; and by so doing we have been able, we 
 think, not only to avoid the difficulties into which 
 pre-millennialism and post-millennialism necessarily 
 fall, but also to construct a doctrine respecting the 
 second advent which embodies, in a consistent 
 and easily to be understood whole, the various 
 teachings of Scripture on the subject. 
 
 The most distinguishing feature, therefore, of 
 this treatise, is the disposition which it makes of 
 the millennium, and also its reconciliation of post- 
 millennial views with those of pre-millennialism. 
 Its design being pacificatory, the work may prop- 
 erly be termed an irenicon. 
 
 In an appendix quite a number of related topics 
 have been considered ; which addition is believed to 
 be particularly important as bringing the work more 
 up to date, and making it more complete. Also 
 
PREFACE 9 
 
 from the examination given to some of these special 
 topics it can be seen how thoroughgoing and funda- 
 mental recent discussions, on one side and another 
 of our Lord's parousia, have been in their work. 
 
 And it might still be remarked, in explanation of 
 certain features connected with the form and gen- 
 eral arrangement of the main portion of this work, 
 that this part was originally prepared, and appeared 
 as articles in a religious newspaper, in which shape 
 also it was widely read. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE . . . . * 5 
 
 I 
 
 PRELIMINARIES 
 
 "That Blessed Hope" 15 
 
 History of the Doctrine 17 
 
 A New Eschatological Movement 20 
 
 Differences of Opinion 23 
 
 What May be Expected 25 
 
 II 
 
 MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 
 
 Certainty of the Lord' s Coming 27 
 
 Testimony of Science to End of the World ... 28 
 
 Scripture Declarations 31 
 
 Personal Form of the Advent 34 
 
 Jesus' Return Not a Coming at Death 36 
 
 Other Items as to the Manner 37 
 
 Special Objects of the Parousia 38 
 
 Raising of the Dead • . 38 
 
 General Judgment 39 
 
 "The Restitution of All Things " 41 
 
 11 
 
1 2 CONTENTS 
 
 III 
 TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING PAGE 
 
 Two Leading Views 45 
 
 The Millennial Controversy 47 
 
 Objections to Pre-Millennialism 49 
 
 Objection to Post-Millennialism 52 
 
 The Millennium More Fully Considered .... 55 
 
 Solution of the Difficulties 58 
 
 Time Estimates 60 
 
 IV 
 
 TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 
 
 The Millennium Again 62 
 
 Time-determining Facts 65 
 
 Progress of Fulfilled Prophecy 65 
 
 Prophetic Numbers 67 
 
 Line of Jewish Tradition 68 
 
 ' ' Times of the Gentiles " 70 
 
 The Two Thousand Three Hundred Days of 
 
 Daniel 71 
 
 Time of the Papal Supremacy 74 
 
 Value of These Predictions 75 
 
 TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 
 
 Symbolical Beasts 79 
 
 The Seals, Trumpets, and Vials 82 
 
 Matters More Specially Determinative. List of the 
 
 Signs 85 
 
 Wars and Rumors of Wars, etc 87 
 
CONTENTS 1 3 
 
 VI 
 
 TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING — THE SUBJECT CONCLUDED 
 
 Three Great Antecedent Events — PAGK 
 
 (i) Ingathering of the Gentiles 90 
 
 (2) Conversion of the Jews . . • 98 
 
 Question of Their Return to the Holy 
 Land, Rebuilding of Jerusalem, etc. . 10 1 
 
 (3) Antichrist ; or the Great Apostasy . . . 103 
 
 Possibility of a Second Apostasy . . .108 
 
 VII 
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS I09 
 
 PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT OF SUBJECT 112 
 
 APPENDIX 
 TREATING OF RELATED TOPICS 
 
 (For Index to Appendix see pp. 173-176.) 
 
"The Redeemer's second appearing is the very pole- 
 star of the church. That it is so held forth in the New 
 Testament, is beyond dispute. Let any one do himself the 
 justice to collect and arrange the evidence on the subject, and 
 he will be surprised — if the study be new to him — at once at 
 the copiousness, the variety, and the conclusiveness of it." 
 
 — Dr. David Brown {post-millennarian). 
 
 • • Bickersteth affirms, after careful examination, that one 
 verse in thirty of the New Testament relates to the second 
 coming of Christ. If to these are added the numerous 
 references in the Old Testa?nent to the same momentous 
 event, surpassing the allusions that are made to his first 
 coming in the proportion of at least twenty to one, some 
 conception may be formed of the prominence given in the 
 word of God to the doctrine here advocated." 
 
 — Dr. James H. Brookes (pre-millennariari). 
 
 "It is moreover, in the New Testament, the great event 
 that towers above every other. The heaven that gives back 
 Christ, gives back all we have loved and lost ; solves all 
 doubts and ends all sorrows. His coming looks in upon the 
 whole life of the chzirch, as a lofty mountain peak looks in 
 upon every little valley and sequestered home around its 
 base, and belongs to them all alike. Every generation lies 
 under the shadow of it, for whatever is transcendently great 
 is constantly near, and in moments of high conviction it 
 absorbs petty interests and annihilates intervals." 
 
 — Rev. John Ker, of Scotland. 
 
That Blessed Hope 
 
 PRELIMINARIES 
 
 This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, 
 shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into 
 heaven. Acts 1 : 1 1. 
 
 rHAT Blessed Hope. The hope of the second 
 coming of Christ is one of the strongest 
 and also one of the most widely operative of all 
 that belong to our Christian faith. Moreover, this 
 hope is one that acts not merely at present, or 
 upon our own day and generation; but also in 
 times past it has commanded the attention and in- 
 terest of multitudes of people, and so undoubtedly 
 it will continue to do in the future. Generations 
 yet unborn will be stirred more or less widely and 
 deeply by this great expectation of the Lord's com- 
 ing, as has been the case with not a few generations 
 now dead. 
 
 One peculiarity of this hope is the fact that, not- 
 withstanding it has often failed in the past, or has 
 so frequently disappointed expectations regarding 
 
 15 
 
1 6 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 itself, it yet has always survived these disappoint- 
 ments, and despite all its failures or seeming fail- 
 ures, it again comes to the front, and is to-day as 
 active and wide-awake a topic as ever before. In- 
 deed it is, as an eminent writer on the subject has 
 called it, " the very pole star of the church " — the 
 star not only directing and prompting our Christian 
 activity, but the object also of our aspiration and 
 desire. For the realization of this hope it is that 
 we labor and pray. For its realization it is that 
 all our missionary operations are undertaken and 
 carried forward; and for the attainment of this 
 same great end of the Saviour's second advent it is 
 that all preaching and praying and all other religious 
 exercises are, at least in a measure, conducted. In- 
 deed, all our religious endeavor circulates, it may 
 be said, more or less around that " blessed hope, and 
 the glorious appearing of the great God and our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ," as the apostle terms the 
 matter. 
 
 To be sure, there are now-a-days, as there have 
 been always, persons who, like the scoffers of whom 
 Peter speaks, tauntingly ask : " Where is the prom- 
 ise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep 
 all things continue as they were " : but after all, the 
 number of those who do not believe in the coming 
 of Christ at some time is comparatively small. In 
 all the ages, and wherever Christianity has been, the 
 great majority of persons who have been willing 
 to confess to anything whatever of a positive nature 
 
PRELIMINARIES 1 7 
 
 respecting the facts or doctrines of our Christian 
 religion, have been willing, and have rejoiced, to 
 confess to this doctrine of Christ's advent. So, for 
 example, in that oldest of all the creeds formulated 
 in Christendom — the creed known as the Apostles', 
 — it reads not only " I believe " that Jesus Christ 
 " rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and 
 is now seated at the right hand of God the Father," 
 but also that " from thence he will come to judge 
 the quick and the dead " ; — and because this sym- 
 bol so states, it is able to add, " I believe also in 
 the resurrection of the dead, and in the life 
 everlasting." 
 
 History of the Doctrine. But now, when we look 
 over the history of this doctrine as it has been in the 
 past, we see that there have been times when the 
 subject has taken, so to speak, a wider and more 
 inspiring lodgment in the minds and hearts of men 
 than it has at others, or that there have been special 
 movements in the interest of this topic, and move- 
 ments that have generally been connected with the 
 idea of Christ's coming speedily. So, for instance, 
 it was even in the days of the apostles. Indeed, 
 it would seem that scarcely had the words of the 
 angels who — as in the quotation at the head of this 
 chapter — promised the disciples on the mount of 
 Olives, as they stood there gazing after their as- 
 cended Lord, that " this same Jesus who was taken 
 up from them into heaven, would so come again in 
 like manner as they had seen him depart " ; scarcely, 
 
 B 
 
1 8 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 it would seem, had these comforting words of 
 the angels died away in the hearing of the disciples, 
 before they, or at least some of them, began to in- 
 dulge the hope of Jesus' speedy return. For we 
 read that " with great joy " did these disciples re- 
 turn to Jerusalem, after having witnessed the ascen- 
 sion. But be this as it may, we know from other 
 sources that, very early in the history of the apos- 
 tolic church, there occurred quite an extensive 
 movement in the interest of the idea that Christ 
 would come soon, possibly even in the days of the 
 apostles; and especially was this movement rife 
 in that portion of the church which had come 
 into it from the ranks of the Jews. To overcome 
 this tendency, and to give the churches better ideas 
 in general respecting the matter of Christ's com- 
 ing again, it was that Paul wrote, e. g., his second 
 letter to the Thessalonians, besides other words of 
 his in the same line. Also similar efforts were 
 made by some of the other writers in the New 
 Testament. 
 
 But of course Christ did not come in that period ; 
 and the next we read of any special interest being 
 excited as to the matter of his advent, is in the 
 second and third centuries, and perhaps also in a 
 part of the fourth. At this time great and wide- 
 spread interest took place not only regarding the 
 matter of Christ's coming speedily, but also and 
 especially regarding this idea as connected with 
 that of the millennium, or the literal personal reign 
 
PRELIMINARIES 1 9 
 
 of the Saviour on earth for a thousand years. So, 
 under the excitement of these two ideas obtaining at 
 once, the movement became very general, and num- 
 bered among its adherents many learned teachers 
 of theology. So much was this the case, or so 
 general did the movement become, and so respect- 
 able was it in character, that the period of it has 
 been called the golden or flowering one in the 
 history of the doctrine, and especially of this 
 doctrine as related to the millennium. 
 
 The next manifestation of special interest in 
 this subject took place away down the centuries, or 
 in the Middle Ages at about the year iooo, and 
 also some considerable time after that, in connection 
 with the first Crusades. The year iooo, it was 
 thought, indicated not only that the first thousand 
 years of Christian history was past, but also that — 
 inasmuch as this period might, by being properly 
 regarded, be identified with the millennium — it in- 
 dicated also that the time for the end of the world 
 had come, and so also, of course, for the return of 
 Christ. Because of such belief, therefore, a wide- 
 spread feeling of uneasiness existed at the time. 
 Moreover, in connection with the victories at first 
 achieved by the Crusaders, it was thought that these 
 extraordinary events portended others still more 
 extraordinary and glorious — perhaps even the com- 
 ing of the Lord. This belief — or rather it was a 
 kind of vague apprehension — seems to have spread 
 all through Europe and in other parts of the world, 
 
20 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 wherever Christians dwelt or happened at the time 
 to be. 
 
 But the period passed, and even yet Christ did 
 not make his appearance; and so we are brought 
 down to the time of the Protestant Reformation. At 
 this period there sprang up, in connection with the 
 great successes achieved by Luther and his coad- 
 jutors, and especially in connection with the widely 
 spread popular belief that the pope was Antichrist, 
 or the opposing wicked power which was to be 
 destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming, 
 quite a number of movements in the interest of this 
 same idea of the Lord's coming speedily. Also 
 since that day there have been several movements, 
 more or less extensive, of a similar nature. The 
 Millerite excitement, which occurred, or came to 
 its end, in 1843, an d which was so disastrous in 
 many instances, was a movement of this kind. 
 
 A New Eschatological Movement. But now 
 again, in these times of ours, despite all the failures 
 which have taken place in the past, and despite the 
 fact that all attempts at locating or prophesying 
 the time when the Lord would appear, have, so far 
 at least, proved utterly futile and in vain — even yet 
 we have, here at the beginning of our century, a 
 movement in progress respecting this same idea of 
 Christ's speedy coming. It is a movement which 
 has spread far and wide among the different de- 
 nominations of Christians, and which, so far as 
 enthusiasm is concerned, is or has been perhaps 
 
PRELIMINARIES 21 
 
 the equal of any of those which have preceded it. l 
 Now, we are assured, the Saviour will come with- 
 out failure. Notwithstanding that, in time past, 
 there have been so many disappointments, there 
 will be none now. Not only is it certain that our 
 Lord will come soon, but he may be expected at 
 any time. This is a view held, not simply by a 
 few fanatics, but by great numbers of people, and 
 by many who are earnest and sober-minded schol- 
 ars, persons standing high in the church and in 
 some of our theological schools, and noted both 
 for their scholarship and good judgment. This 
 being the case, of course the movement must be 
 pronounced a very respectable one; and it has 
 stirred up a good deal of interest, even outside of 
 itself, in the general subject of our Lord's coming. 
 When will Christ make his appearance? That is 
 the question now engaging the attention of many 
 minds. Men are anxious, earnest, wistful about 
 this matter. They have been looking out eagerly 
 into the spiritual heavens, to see if they could dis- 
 cern from the signs of the times when that great 
 event will take place. And not only this, but they 
 have been looking also into the Bible for its prom- 
 ises, to see if they could find in these anything 
 that would direct them in their study, or at least 
 confirm them in views already formed. 
 
 1 The enthusiasm and general interest connected with this view 
 does not seem to be as great now (1907) as was the case a few 
 years ago, when the above was written. 
 
22 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Perhaps some persons who may read this are con- 
 nected with that movement, or have adopted some 
 of its notions. However that may be, certainly all 
 Christians can unite in the desire for the Saviour's 
 speedy coming. All can earnestly say, in the words 
 of the well-known hymn: 
 
 How long, dear Saviour, oh, how long 
 
 Shall that bright hour delay? 
 Roll swiftly round, ye wheels of time, 
 
 And bring the appointed day! 
 
 Or they can say, in the words with which John, 
 closing his Revelation, responds to the Master's 
 promise that he would come quickly, " Even so, 
 come, Lord Jesus! " — come quickly! 
 
 Now, whatever may be one's opinion respecting 
 the movement which we have noticed, or whatever 
 ideas he may have respecting the speedy coming of 
 Christ, or of that coming as being yet away off in 
 the future, certainly the movement itself is, as we 
 have said, a very respectable one, and equally cer- 
 tain is it that the subject which is thus brought, so 
 to speak, afresh to our minds, is of no little impor- 
 tance, and one that is well worthy of study. If it 
 is so, as they tell us, that we are now living near 
 the borders of a new and most extraordinary era 
 in the history of our world and of ourselves, then 
 surely we ought to know all we can about that 
 matter; and whether this is true or otherwise, the 
 general topic of Christ's second and glorious 
 
PRELIMINARIES 23 
 
 appearing is surely one to which attention and 
 study can be profitably given. 
 
 Differences of Opinion. Coming then to the gen- 
 eral theme of our Lord's second advent, we may 
 remark of it, yet in a preliminary way, that prob- 
 ably no one of all the doctrines connected with the 
 general system of our Christian faith has been or 
 is now more under discussion, or has had connected 
 with it more differences of opinion than has been 
 the case with just this one. Opinions here differ 
 not only regarding the doctrine as a whole, but 
 seemingly also regarding every individual feature 
 of this doctrine. For example, there are differences 
 of opinion with regard to what may be called the 
 manner or the form of the Saviour's appearing. On 
 the one hand is the orthodox doctrine, which we 
 think is also the true one — that Christ will come 
 in person, or that, as his firs f advent was made by 
 himself physically, so it will be also with his second 
 advent. But now, as opposed to this view, the 
 rationalistic theory teaches that the coming of our 
 Lord will be, or is, only one through intermediate 
 agencies, by his word or Spirit, or in " the clouds 
 of events," as the matter has been worded. Then, 
 again, as to the purposes, or concomitant events, of 
 the Saviour's advent there have been the widest 
 differences of opinion. For example, the pre-mil- 
 lennial theory, instead of accepting the more com- 
 monly taught doctrine, that Christ will come to 
 raise the dead, judge the world, and usher in his 
 
24 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 everlasting kingdom, teaches that at least one pur- 
 pose of that coming will be to bring about what in 
 pre-millennial language is called the rapture — that 
 is, a catching-up of the saints to dwell with the 
 Lord for a time in the air, during which period the 
 judgments of God will — so the pre-millennialists 
 tell us — be poured out upon the wicked. Then after 
 the rapture, this theory teaches, there will come a 
 thousand years of literal personal reign by the 
 Saviour on the earth with his saints, or the millen- 
 nium; and then, after the millennium, comes the 
 judgment of the ungodly, and lastly the end of the 
 world. In many points this pre-millennial scheme 
 is different from the theory which, being more 
 generally received, we will call the reigning view. 
 
 The particular feature of our doctrine, however, 
 regarding which there have been most different 
 opinions, or at all events, regarding which opinions 
 have differed most widely, and seemingly with most 
 irreconcilable opposition, one from another, is that 
 feature which has to do with the time of the Sav- 
 iour's advent. Is that time away off in the future? 
 or is it to be regarded as near ? The answers given 
 to these questions have differed so much, and have 
 been so directly in contradiction one to the other, 
 that all attempts at reconciling them, or at coming 
 here to any satisfactory and definite conclusion, 
 would seem to be in vain ; and therefore many peo- 
 ple have come to look upon this part of our subject 
 as involved in hopeless confusion or uncertainty. 
 
PRELIMINARIES 25 
 
 What, then, are we to do with this matter? Is 
 there no way of coming to a solution of the time 
 when our Lord will make his appearance ? or is this 
 whole subject to be dismissed as an inscrutable mys- 
 tery, one respecting which nothing can be really 
 known, and therefore as a thing all study spent upon 
 which must be spent in vain ? Not a few people take 
 this view of the matter. To them it seems that 
 neither in the Bible, nor out of the Bible, nor from 
 any source whatever, is there to be derived any im- 
 portant light that will elucidate this dark and in- 
 solvable problem; and so they just dismiss it — pass 
 it by without investigation. Then there are others 
 who seem to have a kind of superstitious feeling to- 
 ward this particular subject; and because they read 
 in their Bibles that " of that day and hour knoweth 
 no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but the Father 
 only," therefore they look upon this matter of the 
 time of Christ's coming as something that is sacred 
 or forbidden, and hence as something all studying of 
 which would seem to be almost wicked. 
 
 But neither with one nor the other of these views 
 do we sympathize. Our position is that nothing in 
 the Bible is too sacred for investigation, otherwise 
 it would never have been placed there, nor would 
 we be told, as we are in the Apocalypse, respecting 
 this very matter under consideration, that this book 
 of John's prophecy was " a revelation which God 
 gave to Jesus Christ, to show unto his servants 
 things which must shortly come to pass." And on 
 
26 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 the other hand, we do not sympathize with the view 
 which regards the whole subject of the time when 
 our Lord will appear as an inscrutable mystery; 
 for we think there is given to us from the Bible, 
 from human history, and even from the natural 
 world round about us, no small amount of light, 
 that will very largely at least elucidate this mystery. 
 What we mean is, that there are facts in the Bible, 
 and in human history, and even some in nature, all 
 bearing upon the topic of the world's end, or of 
 the time when Christ will make his appearance ; and 
 by using these facts rightly, ascertaining what they 
 are, and comparing some of them with others — 
 facts in the Bible with those outside of the Bible — 
 we can in this way come to some conclusions respect- 
 ing the matter in hand that will be both definite and 
 satisfactory. At all events, we can thus come to 
 some convictions of our own; and so far as these 
 convictions are intelligent or well founded, so far 
 they should be also both satisfactory and definite. 
 
II 
 
 MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 
 
 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, 
 when we made known unto you the power and coming 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1 : 16. 
 
 IN our last chapter we spoke of some differences 
 of opinion respecting various items belonging 
 to the Lord's second coming. But there are some 
 other matters connected with that great and im- 
 portant event which are so clearly and fully re- 
 vealed in Scripture that no doubt can be entertained 
 regarding them. One of these matters is the 
 
 Certainty of the Advent. That our Lord will most 
 surely come at some time is a matter very abun- 
 dantly taught in the Bible. Indeed, it would seem 
 that, even from the light of nature, one might here 
 come to a definite and positive conclusion. For even 
 a scanty examination of facts belonging to nature, 
 is sufficient to show that, as our world very evi- 
 dently had a beginning, so it must also have an end ; 
 and in the usual theological way of thinking the 
 end of the world means the same thing as the sec- 
 ond coming of Christ. When the one occurs the 
 other will occur also, or the two events are simply 
 concomitant. Any line of argument, therefore, 
 
 27 
 
28 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 which establishes the event of the world's termina- 
 tion as one that is sure to occur at some time, estab- 
 lishes also, and with equal certainty, the second 
 coming of Christ. 
 
 Testimony of Science. But as we have already 
 said, there are facts appearing in the natural world 
 which justify the belief that it, or at least the present 
 order of things belonging to it, must at some time 
 end. So, for example, the great epoch-making facts 
 revealed in a geological study of our globe — these 
 teach us that, in the past at least, there have been 
 great changes occurring in the physical formation 
 of our earth, changes which have amounted to real 
 beginnings and endings; and if such has been the 
 case in times gone by, why shall not the same state 
 of things continue in the future? In other words, 
 geology testifies to the effect that the same laws 
 continuing in the future which have been operative 
 in the past, then an end to the present order of 
 things belonging to our world must certainly occur. 
 And so we have a doctrine taught by natural science 
 that, to say the least, is not at variance with the 
 teaching of Scripture, namely, that there is an end 
 of the world coming, which is inwrought as it were 
 into its very structure, and so also that Christ's 
 advent will take place. 
 
 The same, or a very similar doctrine, is taught by 
 facts connected with what may be called the science 
 of political economy. If in the future the population 
 of our globe continues to increase at the same rate 
 
MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 20, 
 
 as it has in the past, 1 then evidently the time must 
 come when, notwithstanding all the improvements 
 made in obtaining and in economically using the 
 necessaries of human life, the whole earth itself 
 will, as a producing power, be insufficient to furnish 
 these necessaries; and when that state of things 
 arrives, then, of course, the existence of man upon 
 this planet is doomed. So here again we have 
 prophesied, even by some of the facts of nature, the 
 second coming of our Lord as an event concomitant 
 with the world's termination. 
 
 But the most numerous and convincing testi- 
 monies of a physical order, which have a bearing 
 upon the topic under consideration, are those which 
 can be gotten from the study of astronomy. Here 
 the facts teach us not only that other worlds, like 
 ours, have already ceased to exist — or at all events, 
 such were the appearances of things occurring in the 
 heavens — but also that, if the nebular hypothesis 
 is to be accepted as correct, then perhaps there is 
 something in the nature of things requiring worlds, 
 once having an existence, to return, after a long 
 
 1 According to Malthus, population increases in geometrical 
 progression, while food-supply increases only in arithmetical pro- 
 gression; which law, if correct and universally applicable, would 
 soon fill the world so full of human beings that general starva- 
 tion would necessarily result. Hence nature provides checks in the 
 way of wars, plagues, etc., for keeping down population. Still, 
 with all the checks, the population of the earth continually grows; 
 and it is estimated that during the last one hundred years it has 
 about doubled, or increased from some six or eight hundred millions 
 to, perhaps, over fifteen hundred millions. 
 
30 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 period of years, to their original nebular, or more 
 or less chaotic, state of being. To explain this idea 
 more fully : there have, we are told by astronomers, 
 disappeared from their places in the heavens, dur- 
 ing the last two or three hundred years, something 
 like thirteen of the fixed stars — that is, stars all of 
 which were suns ; and the evidence of this being the 
 case is that these stars, once having been seen, are 
 now seen no more. A remarkable instance of the 
 kind occurred in the time of Tycho Brahe — or in 
 1 572- 1 574 — when there shone out in the northern 
 heavens (in the constellation Cassiopeia), for some 
 considerable time, a star that attracted a good deal 
 of attention. It was so bright and large that even 
 in the daytime it could be seen with the naked eye ; 
 and one peculiarity of its light was that it changed 
 its color, at first appearing as a dazzling white, then 
 turning to reddish yellow, and lastly to a pale ash. 
 These phenomena continued with the star for some 
 sixteen months, and then it wholly disappeared. 1 
 
 1 Grant, in his " History of Physical Astronomy," mentions quite 
 a number of similar instances; where, apparently, stars have for 
 a time shone out with extraordinary or unusual brilliancy, and 
 then, by gradual changes in appearance, have seemed to become 
 extinct. But now whether in such cases an actual destruction 
 occurs, or whether the changes are due only to some causes mak- 
 ing the phenomena periodic — about this astronomers are not agreed. 
 Prof. G. W. Hough, director of the Dearborn Observatory, at 
 Evanston, 111., to whom we referred for the latest knowledge or 
 settled opinion on the subject, informs us that no fully satisfactory 
 theory with regard to the matter has yet been advanced; but 
 that nothing is known or believed among astronomers subversive 
 of the idea that the phenomena in question are really worlds 
 
MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 3 1 
 
 Now, from the peculiar appearances connected with 
 the object Tycho Brahe supposed that in the first 
 place it originated from an ethereal substance, of 
 which he imagined the Milky Way to be composed, 
 and that afterward it was dissipated by the light of 
 the sun and of the other stars, or by some cause 
 acting internally. But a more modern theory is that 
 the phenomenon was a world in conflagration — an 
 idea which would seem to be supported especially by 
 the changes of color mentioned. 
 
 Whatever the interpretation, certain it is that such 
 phenomena agree not only with what would seem to 
 be the requirement of the nebular hypothesis — 
 namely, that a burning gaseous form of existence 
 is the original state from which all the worlds have 
 derived their being, and also the state to which they 
 all will return — but also with the Scripture doc- 
 trine, that " the heavens and earth which are now, 
 are reserved unto fire, and the elements shall melt 
 with fervent heat" (2 Peter 3 : 7-10). Hence even 
 on a theme so peculiarly Christian as that of our 
 Lord's second advent, there is at least confirmatory 
 evidence from good scientific sources. 
 
 Scripture Declarations. But, of course, all this 
 testimony about the end of the world is at best only 
 a far-off and an indirect deposition in favor of the 
 
 burning up. He also regards, as very probable, the notion now 
 prevalent among astronomers, that our sun is doomed at some 
 time to become, from combustion, a dark and cold body; which 
 notion would also seem to indicate an ending of all material worlds, 
 or of their returning to an original chaotic state. 
 
32 
 
 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 subject which we have in hand ; the only positive and 
 thoroughly convincing evidence is, after all, that 
 which comes from the Scriptures. The Scripture 
 testimony, however, is thoroughly convincing, and 
 exists in greatest abundance. 
 
 To select from the mass only here and there a 
 specimen, we have, for example, away back in the 
 Old Testament times, the words of Enoch, the sev- 
 enth from Adam, which words are preserved in the 
 book of Jude (ver. 14, 15). Enoch says, " Behold, he 
 cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute 
 judgment upon all, and to convince all that are un- 
 godly among them of their ungodly deeds. ,, So 
 Moses also, living in the older period of the world's 
 history, says, " The Lord came from Sinai, and rose 
 up from Seir; he shined forth from Mount Paran, 
 and he came with ten thousand of his saints " (Deut. 
 33 : 2) . Job too, one of the Old Testament worthies, 
 deposes in favor of the Lord's coming, as a matter 
 connected with the resurrection of the body. Says 
 he, " For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that 
 he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth : and 
 though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet 
 in my flesh shall I see God" (19: 25, 26). 
 Very plainly also does David — as, for instance in the 
 Ninety-sixth Psalm (ver. 11-13) — testify and rejoice 
 concerning the Lord's advent, saying, " Let the 
 heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, before the 
 Lord ; for he cometh, he cometh to judge the earth ; 
 he shall judge the world with righteousness, and 
 
MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 33 
 
 the people with his truth." So also in many other 
 places of the Old Testament there are testimonies 
 and prophecies, some of them very glowing and 
 grand, respecting the Messiah's coming; only one 
 of which we will mention. It is found in the book 
 of Malachi, at the very end of the Old Testament 
 revelation. " Behold, I will send you Elijah the 
 prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful 
 day of the Lord " — words which refer undoubtedly 
 to the last coming of Christ as judge of the world, 
 as well as to his first coming as a Saviour. 
 
 But it is especially the New Testament affirma- 
 tions that exist in abundance, as well as that they 
 also are most conclusive. Says the Saviour himself, 
 respecting this matter of his second advent, " I will 
 come to you" (John 14: 18) ; and " I go to pre- 
 pare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a 
 place for you, / will come again and receive you 
 unto myself" {ibid., 2, 3). So, in reference to his 
 coming in judgment, he says, " When the Son of 
 man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels 
 with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his 
 glory" (Matt. 25 : 31). So also Paul and Peter, 
 and other of the apostles, or writers in general who 
 speak to us in the New Testament Scriptures — they 
 assure us again and again, and in language unmis- 
 takably clear and positive, that the Lord, as cer- 
 tainly as he was taken up into heaven, so certainly 
 will he come again. Peter is enthusiastic about the 
 matter, saying, " We have not followed cunningly 
 c 
 
34 ?HAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 devised fables, when we made known unto you the 
 power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 
 Peter 1 : 16). Hebrews also emphasizes the matter, 
 declaring, " Yet a little while, and he that shall come 
 wjll come, and will not tarry" (10 : 37). 
 
 The second coming of our Lord, therefore, is as 
 well established by Scripture testimony — to say 
 nothing of the argument which we drew from facts 
 in nature bearing upon the end of the world as a 
 concomitant event — as it is possible for a matter 
 thus to be established. 
 
 Personal Form of the Advent. Christ will, then, 
 most surely come ; and that the form of his coming 
 will be a personal one, and not simply a coming 
 through intermediate agencies, in events, or by 
 his word, or Spirit, is a matter as to which we have 
 the clearest and most abundant proofs from the 
 Bible. His first advent was a personal one; and 
 the prophecies relating to it are no clearer, and no 
 more of a personal nature, than those which relate 
 to his second advent. Moreover, it is the same 
 Jesus who ascended into heaven that will come 
 again, and in like manner as he departed. " I go 
 away," said the Saviour, " and come again unto 
 you" (John 14:28). The acts and experiences at- 
 tributed to Christ in connection with his second com- 
 ing, such as the part he is to take in the scenes of 
 the judgment, are all of too intensely a personal 
 nature to admit of any dispensing with his real 
 presence. Besides, the very fact that at his coming 
 
MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 35 
 
 our Lord is to appear, or come in such fashion 
 as that he can be seen, implies not only his bodily 
 presence at that advent, but also that he will come 
 himself in the body. " Every eye shall see him," 
 says John, " and they also which pierced him " 
 (Rev. 1:7). Also in another place, "It doth not 
 yet appear what we shall be; but we know that 
 when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we 
 shall see him as he is" (i John 3:2). Christians 
 are described as those who are " looking for that 
 blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great 
 God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2 : 13). 
 And " unto them that look for him shall he appear 
 the second time without sin unto salvation " — so 
 promises the author of the letter to the Hebrews 
 (9:28). Paul also, if possible to make the 
 matter still stronger, says not only that " when 
 Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye 
 also appear with him in glory " (Col. 3:4), but also 
 that it is " the Lord himself " who " shall descend 
 from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch- 
 angel, and with the trump of God " ( 1 Thess. 4 : 16) . 
 If it is possible, therefore, by the use of the most 
 intense personal pronouns, and by the use of other 
 such descriptions and words as can mean the 
 Saviour and no one else, to signify that Christ will 
 surely come in person, that is the very thing abun- 
 dantly taught in the Scriptures. 1 
 
 1 For a discussion of the theories of Christ's coming in the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, by his Spirit, and like views, see Appendix. 
 
& 
 
 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Jesus' Return Not a Coming at Death. Moreover 
 we are to understand, by the Scripture representa- 
 tions, that our Lord's second advent is a different 
 thing from his coming to individuals at death. In 
 the last chapter of John's Gospel there is an account 
 of nearly the last meeting that Jesus had with his 
 disciples. It was after the resurrection, and the 
 meeting took place on the shore of Lake Genesaret. 
 At this solemn and interesting interview, some con- 
 versation took place between Jesus and his disciples 
 relative to the death of John. Already Jesus had 
 intimated to Peter that he (that is Peter) should die 
 by crucifixion. Then Peter, turning about, and 
 seeing John stand near-by, says : " Lord, and what 
 shall this man do ? " That is, what shall be the man- 
 ner of John's death ? The answer which Jesus gives 
 to this question marks a very clear distinction be- 
 tween death as a human experience and his return 
 to our world. Said he, " If I will that he tarry till 
 I come, what is that to thee ? " These words imply 
 not only that John might survive all the other dis- 
 ciples, and live until Jesus came, but also that, in 
 the mind of Jesus, his return was not connected, or 
 to be connected, with death as experienced by the 
 other disciples, or by any person whatever. For 
 it is not to John as dying, but as living, as tarrying 
 until after the other disciples were dead, that this 
 promise of experiencing Christ's return is obviously 
 made by the words under consideration. The two 
 things therefore, death as a human experience and 
 
MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 3? 
 
 Christ's second advent to our world, cannot mean 
 the same thing. Other testimonies in the same line 
 could be easily adduced. 
 
 Other Items as to the Manner. Certain it is, then, 
 not only that Christ will come and that his advent 
 will be one of a personal nature, but also that, as we 
 have just seen, there is a very great difference be- 
 tween his coming to individuals at death and his 
 coming to the world the second time. These are 
 all items, as we conceive them, belonging to the 
 general manner of his appearance. 
 
 Other such items are, first, that the Lord will 
 come in a glorious fashion. Not the second time 
 will he appear as a little child lying in a manger; 
 but he will come seated high upon a throne ; he will 
 make his appearance " with power and great 
 glory " ; " with a shout, with the voice of the arch- 
 angel, and with the trump of God " — in that glorious 
 fashion will he descend. 
 
 Moreover, he will not come alone, but attended 
 by "all the holy angels" (Matt. 25:31), and by 
 " ten thousand of his saints." " Them also which 
 sleep in Jesus will God bring with him " ( 1 Thess. 
 4 : 14) ; and John saw, among the redeemed, " a 
 great multitude, which no man could number." 
 
 Also he will make his appearance very suddenly. 
 " As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shin- 
 eth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of 
 the Son of man be " (Matt. 24 : 27). And his ap- 
 pearance is compared to a thief stealing upon one 
 
38 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 in the night; also to travail coming upon a woman 
 with child. Moreover, it is likened to Noah's flood 
 destroying the world, and to the destruction of 
 Sodom by fire coming down from heaven. " They 
 did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they 
 planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot 
 went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone 
 from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Luke 17: 
 28,29). 
 
 Still one other item it may be well to notice as 
 connected with the general manner of Jesus' com- 
 ing. It is that, as Zechariah says (14:4), when he 
 comes, " his feet shall stand upon the mount of 
 Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east," an 
 expression which may signify that, as the Mount 
 of Olives was the place from which he ascended 
 into heaven, this may be also the place first visited 
 by him on his return to our world. But how 
 this is we will not attempt to say, not believing 
 much in the materialistic or literal method of 
 interpretation. 
 
 Special Objects of the Parousia. There are still 
 the special objects or designs for which it is that 
 the Lord will make his appearance ; and these also, 
 we believe, are so clearly indicated by the Scriptures 
 that no doubt need be entertained in their regard. 
 There are three such objects, as we understand them 
 from the Scripture representation. One of them is 
 the raising of the dead, or to accomplish what is 
 called the general resurrection. " The hour is com- 
 
MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 39 
 
 ing," said the Saviour, " in the which all that are in 
 the graves shall hear his voice (that is, the voice of 
 the Son of God), and shall come forth; they that 
 have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and 
 they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of 
 damnation" (John 5 : 28, 29). Daniel also, in 
 nearly the same form of expression, says there will 
 be a resurrection both of the wise and the unwise 
 (12 : 2, 3). And that this general resurrection will 
 occur at the same time with the Lord's coming, is a 
 matter that is taught in various Scriptures ; for ex- 
 ample, in the last part of the fourth chapter of First 
 Thessalonians, and also in the last part of the twen- 
 tieth chapter of Revelation. (See Rev. 20 : 11-15, 
 
 1 Thess. 4 : 16; 1 Cor. 15 : 22, 23. Also as con- 
 nected, indirectly through the Lord's coming, with 
 the final judgment, Matt. 24 : 30, 31; 25 : 31-46; 
 
 2 Thess. 1 : 7-10.) 
 
 Another object of the Lord's coming, is to judge 
 the world. " For we must all appear," says Paul, 
 " before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one 
 may receive the things done in his body, according 
 to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad " 
 (2 Cor. 5 : 10) . There is then to be a general judg- 
 ment, as well as a general resurrection. 1 These two 
 things go together. And that the general judg- 
 
 1 Pre-millennialists teach that there are to be two resurrections, 
 one of the righteous and the other of the unrighteous; but the 
 post-millennial doctrine is that the first one of these resurrections, 
 that mentioned in Rev. 20 : 5, 6, is to be understood spiritually, 
 
40 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 ment will take place in connection with the second 
 advent, we have, as proof, any number of Scrip- 
 tures. " Let both grow together " — says Jesus in 
 his parable of the tares — " until the harvest ; and in 
 the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather 
 ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles 
 to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn. 
 So shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of 
 man shall send forth his angels, and they shall 
 gather out of his kingdom all things that offend ; and 
 shall cast them into a furnace of fire. Then shall 
 the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom 
 of their Father" (Matt. 13 : 30, 40-43). So also: 
 " The Son of man shall come in the glory of his 
 
 and so the only or literal resurrection is what they conceive to 
 be a general one, as described in verses 12-15 of the same 
 chapter. A more correct interpretation of these two Scripture pas- 
 sages, however — more correct because more literal — is, we believe, 
 that the two resurrections mentioned or described are to be under- 
 stood literally. But the first resurrection is evidently only one 
 of a certain class of the saints — the martyrs and confessors — who 
 " were beheaded for the witness of Jesus " or " had not worshiped 
 the beast," etc. This class of saints were not only to be raised 
 from the dead, but were also to enjoy the privilege of reigning 
 with Christ for a thousand years. To include among these the 
 whole number of the saints, as the pre-millennialists do, is cer- 
 tainly doing violence to the plain teaching of Scripture. So also, 
 on the other hand, to interpret the first one of these resurrec- 
 tions in a spiritual sense, as is done by the post-millennialists, is 
 not only doing violence to Scripture, but is, more especially, to 
 prefer a figurative interpretation to a literal one, which, when a 
 literal interpretation is possible, is not gjod exegesis. 
 
 But what this literal resurrection of the martyrs and confes- 
 sors, in connection with the thousand years' reign, really signifies, 
 is not definitely or fully stated in Scripture; consequently that 
 point must be left undetermined. 
 
MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 4 1 
 
 Father with his angels, and then he shall reward 
 every man according to his works " (Matt. 16: 27). 
 Paul says, " Who (that is, the Lord Jesus Christ) 
 shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing " 
 (2 Tim. 4:1). Also, "Judge nothing before the 
 time, until the Lord come" (1 Cor. 4:5). And 
 John, near the close of his Revelation, gives us the 
 words of Jesus, saying, " Behold, I come quickly ; 
 and my reward is with me, to give to every man 
 according as his work shall be" (22: 12). 
 
 Two concomitant events, therefore, of our Lord's 
 second advent are, first, the resurrection of the 
 dead ; and second, the general judgment. These are 
 purposes for the accomplishment of which it is that 
 he will come. But now there is still another such 
 purpose, or concomitant event, which we wish to 
 consider. It is what in Scripture language is called 
 " the restitution of all things." That expression, as 
 used by Peter (Acts 3 : 21) and as it or expressions 
 similar to it in meaning are found in the Scriptures, 
 does not, as we understand, signify merely a res- 
 toration to Israel of any position or privileges that 
 may have been lost by that people as a nation. 
 Neither does it mean altogether, or in its whole 
 significance, a re-establishment of our entire race 
 in Edenic privileges and condition, or in such a 
 state of happiness and virtue as was that enjoyed 
 and lost by Adam. But these words, in their widest 
 and most particular reference, mean, we think, a 
 re-instatement of the whole order of nature in its 
 
42 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 pristine condition. In other words, the meaning 
 is, that this whole earth of ours and all its surround- 
 ings, so far as these things have been affected by 
 human sin, shall be cleansed from that sin, and from 
 all its consequences ; so that the result will be a new 
 heaven and a new earth, wherein righteousness shall 
 dwell, and where God will wipe all tears from 
 human eyes. 
 
 This, it seems to us, is what Paul means by those 
 great words of his in the eighth chapter of Romans : 
 " For we know that the whole creation groaneth 
 and travaileth in pain together until now, waiting 
 for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. 
 For the creature," says he, "was made subject unto 
 vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who 
 hath subjected the same in hope." That is, the 
 whole order of nature was made subject unto sin and 
 death, because of human transgression. But then, 
 Paul tells us, " The creature itself also shall be de- 
 livered from this bondage of corruption into the 
 glorious liberty of the children of God." In other 
 terms, the law of necessity and death, which for so 
 long a time has been ruling over all our natural 
 world because of man's sin, shall be removed; and 
 then nature will be changed and glorified, and made 
 in its being like unto the glorified bodies which we 
 shall have after the resurrection, or as is now the 
 raised and glorified body of the Saviour. This, it 
 seems to us, is what Paul means by the words which 
 we have mentioned ; and the idea is the same as that 
 
MATTERS CLEARLY REVEALED 43 
 
 expressed elsewhere in Scripture by the words " a 
 new heaven " and " a new earth." 
 
 So also Peter speaks of the same thing, in his 
 second letter. He says, " The heavens shall pass 
 away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt 
 with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that 
 are therein shall be burned up. Nevertheless,' , says 
 he, " we, according to his promise, wait for new 
 heavens and a new earth" (3 : 10, 13). And 
 John says that in his apocalyptic vision he " saw a 
 new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven 
 and the first earth were passed away." Or, as he 
 has it in another verse of the same chapter, " The 
 former things are passed away " (Rev. 21 : 4). 
 
 This great renewing of things, moreover, will 
 occur at the time of the Saviour's advent. Thus, 
 e. g., Peter indicates, several times, in the chapter 
 from which we have quoted (see ver. 4, 7, 10, 12). 
 
 Now we come to the most difficult and obscure 
 part of our subject. It is the time when our Lord 
 will appear. That will, from here on, form the 
 special subject of our discussion. 
 
Ill 
 
 TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 
 
 Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
 angels of heaven, but my Father only. Matt. 24 : 36. 
 
 Learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet 
 tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is 
 nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, 
 know that it is near, even at the doors. Matt. 24 : 32, 33. 
 
 THE most difficult item connected with the whole 
 subject of Christ's parousia is the one respect- 
 ing the time at which that event will occur. There 
 are so many different opinions obtaining with regard 
 to this particular, and withal there is so much real 
 obscurity covering the matter, that any attempt to 
 come to definite and satisfactory conclusions here 
 would seem to be almost hopeless, or even a kind 
 of foolish temerity. But the topic is, after all, one 
 well worthy of study ; or, at all events, it is full of 
 interest, and there is even a kind of fascination 
 belonging to it that is peculiar. 
 
 Then too, as to whether the Lord's coming is to 
 take place away off in the future, or whether he will 
 appear at a date not distant from us — this if an- 
 swered either in one way or the other, determines 
 also matters of no little practical moment in our 
 experience. For just as we regard the advent of 
 44 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 45 
 
 Christ — far in the future or nigh at hand — in that 
 way also do we order conduct ; not only our expecta- 
 tions and desires, but also our prayers and efforts. 
 No man, for example, is going to do much for the 
 salvation of the world, and especially of the heathen, 
 who believes that to-morrow, or in a very short time, 
 Christ will make his appearance. And, on the other 
 hand, no man who expects that the coming of the 
 Saviour will not take place until at a very distant 
 date, is in condition either to appreciate the grandeur 
 and importance of a nearer expectation, or to pre- 
 pare himself and his immediate surroundings as he 
 ought for the event. A mistake, therefore, on either 
 the one side or the other, is fraught with real evils ; 
 and in this discussion of the time when our Lord 
 will come, the practical bearing of matters must, 
 with other considerations, be taken into account. 
 
 Two Leading Views. There are, then, as we have 
 intimated, really only two main or leading views 
 that are, or have been, taken with reference to the 
 time of Christ's advent. One of these views is that 
 he will come at a very distant day, and the other is 
 that the date of his appearance is near. Nigh at 
 hand or away off in the future — these are the two 
 poles between which the question ranges, and the 
 answer is given sometimes on one side, and some- 
 times on the other. To be sure, there are more than 
 two views taken with respect to the particular time 
 of the Saviour's advent; but yet a division among 
 them may be made in the manner we have suggested. 
 
46 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 That is to say, there are what may be called long- 
 range views, and others of a shorter range. 
 
 Let us look at each class somewhat more particu- 
 larly. The long-range views, then, however they 
 may differ in other respects, yet all agree in one 
 particular, viz., that the coming of Christ is, as to 
 time, distant from us. And on the other hand, the 
 shorter range views agree generally in locating the 
 time as near. On the one side it is said, before the 
 Lord comes some other events must take place, such 
 as the conversion of the Jews, the gathering in 
 of the fulness of the Gentiles, and possibly also a 
 return of the Jews to the Holy Land and their re- 
 establishment as a nation. And among other mat- 
 ters that, it is affirmed, are sure to occur, is the in- 
 tervention yet, before the second advent, of a long 
 period called in theological language the millennium. 
 
 On the other hand, the shorter range views gen- 
 erally agree in saying: The coming of the Lord 
 is nigh. Most or quite all of the prophecies have 
 already been fulfilled. And as to the millennium, 
 that is either located in the past or interpreted in 
 some mystical or spiritual sense ; or else, as is done 
 by the pre-millennialists, it is put not before, but 
 after Christ's coming. The one point on which all 
 these views are agreed is that the second advent 
 must be regarded as near, while different interpre- 
 tations are taken of the millennium. And so it is 
 with the two more general classes of views: one 
 looks away into a distant future for the coming 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 47 
 
 of the Lord, and the other beholds that event as 
 nigh. What divides them one from the other is 
 mostly the millennium, although other matters come 
 in here with some determining effect. 
 
 The Millennial Controversy. But the principal 
 cause of difference between these two sets of views, 
 as also the great occasion for difference of opinion 
 as to the time of the Saviour's advent, is what is 
 called the millennium. That period of a thousand 
 years during which Christ shall reign on the earth, 
 is the great bone of contention, or subject of con- 
 troversy, between different parties. Take this mat- 
 ter, or the customary notions respecting it, out of 
 the way, and there exists no longer any very great 
 cause for dissension. But just so long as the millen- 
 nium, differently interpreted and located as it is, 
 exists as a fully defined doctrine among men, 
 so long, of course, will differences of opinion 
 exist, and so long too, will the whole matter of 
 Christ's second advent — respecting which, if with 
 regard to anything, there should be peace among 
 Christians — be the occasion not of peace, but of 
 strife. Is there any way, then, of overcoming this 
 difficulty? We think there is. At all events, the 
 millennium can be so interpreted as that, whatever 
 there is in it according to the Scripture representa- 
 tion, it need not interfere with a practical determina- 
 tion of the time when our Lord will come. That is 
 to say, it is practicable to leave the millennium, 
 either wholly or in part, out of the question. 
 
48 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 But before indicating any solution we may have 
 of the difficulty or difficulties mentioned, it may be 
 advantageous for us to observe a little more fully 
 the nature of the millennium, and to notice how it 
 operates in affecting the views held respecting the 
 coming of Christ. As the word itself signifies, 
 millennium means " a thousand years " ; and the 
 theological idea attached to it is that Christ with 
 his saints shall reign on the earth during that period 
 of time. So far all eschatologists are agreed. 
 But now whether this reign shall, on the part 
 of Christ, be one of a literal personal nature, or 
 whether he will rule through influences, or in a 
 spiritual sense — here it is where opinions differ ; the 
 old, or at least the most commonly received view 
 being that this dominion is to be interpreted in a 
 spiritual sense, and the other, or the pre-millennial 
 notion, being that it is to be understood in a 
 temporal or literal sense. 
 
 But, however these views may differ as to the 
 nature of Christ's reign, it is rather the location of 
 the millennium that creates the trouble in eschato- 
 logical matters, particularly so far as they relate to 
 the time of our Saviour's advent. Put the millen- 
 nium or any long period of time during which 
 Christ is to reign on the earth, put anything of 
 this kind before his coming, and, of course, you 
 have removed his second advent far away to an 
 indefinite period; at all events, to a period a thou- 
 sand years or more still distant from us. And on 
 
 
TIME OF THE LORD S COMING 49 
 
 the other hand, if you put this period of a thousand 
 years after Christ's coming, then you find it to the 
 interest of your theory, to locate the advent just as 
 near as possible to the present time. 
 
 Objections to Pre-millennialism. To both of 
 these views respecting the date of our Lord's com- 
 ing we object ; and in the first place, we object to the 
 pre-millennial notion for the following reasons : 
 
 i. The doctrine of a literal, personal reign of 
 Christ in our world, constituted as it now is, is 
 nowhere taught in the Scriptures. The kingdom of 
 the Messiah which was to be set up and become uni- 
 versal on the earth, and then to last forever, is ex- 
 plained by Scripture itself as being not a material, 
 but a spiritual kingdom. " The kingdom of God," 
 says Paul, " is not meat and drink ; but righteous- 
 ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost " (Rom. 
 14 : 17) . So he also says : " Flesh and blood cannot 
 inherit the kingdom of God " (1 Cor. 15 : 50). And 
 the Saviour adds, " The kingdom of God cometh not 
 with observation; it is within you" (Luke 17:20, 
 21). It is therefore something that is not material 
 or temporal, but spiritual in its nature. 
 
 2. This doctrine of Christ's personal reign on 
 earth for a thousand years is only an old Jewish no- 
 tion revived. Even up, as it seems, to the very day 
 of Christ's ascension, the disciples, who were Jews, 
 appear to have carried with them this notion of a 
 material kingdom, so deeply was it imbedded in 
 their nature; and Jesus had, so to speak, to rebuke 
 
 D 
 
50 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 them for it. " Lord," said they, " wilt thou at this 
 time restore again the kingdom to Israel ? " (Acts 
 1:6). But Jesus, answering, showed them that it 
 was not for them to know the times or the seasons 
 which the Father had put in his own power, but by 
 directing their attention to the Holy Spirit, as a 
 power that was to be received by them, he thus 
 taught them the spiritual nature of his kingdom. 
 
 3. This notion of a material kingdom, and of 
 Christ's reigning in it, includes also the idea of sin 
 and sinners existing in the same territory with 
 the kingdom — a conception that is totally repugnant 
 to the whole spirit and teaching of the gospel. It 
 was enough for the holy Saviour that he endured 
 the contradiction of sinners once. When he comes 
 the second time, he will come "without sin unto sal- 
 vation " (Heb. 9 : 28). He will do no more aton- 
 ing for sin after that ; but his coming will be for the 
 purpose of accomplishing in his saints complete re- 
 demption, and also for the purpose of punishing or 
 destroying the ungodly. (See 2 Thess. 1 : 7-10; 
 also Rom. 2 : 5-10.) 
 
 Moreover, as represented in the Scriptures (Matt. 
 25 : 31-46; Rev. 22 : 11), Christ's second coming 
 will be the end of all mediatorial work ; but the pre- 
 millennial scheme continues the work of saving 
 men, all through the period of a thousand years. 
 Besides it introduces, or finds in its theory the neces- 
 sity of introducing, new means of grace, as though 
 the present forces of redemption were insufficient 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 5 1 
 
 for accomplishing the world's salvation ! These and 
 still other notions, utterly foreign to the teaching 
 and spirit of the gospel, are taught by pre-millen- 
 nialism. 
 
 4. But if there were no other reason for rejecting 
 that theory of Christ's second coming which locates 
 it as an event before the period of years called the 
 millennium, whatever may be signified by that word, 
 then the fact that this pre-millennial notion wholly 
 misconceives of the purposes or designs of Christ's 
 parousia is, of itself, a sufficient and a decisive 
 reason. According to pre-millennialism, our Lord 
 will come, not, as we saw when especially noti- 
 cing the objects of the advent — to raise the dead, 
 judge the world, and accomplish "the restitution 
 of all things " — but simply or primarily for the pur- 
 pose of setting up a temporal kingdom. He will re- 
 establish, so pre-millennialists say, the throne of 
 David, and from Jerusalem as a center, he will rule 
 even to the ends of the earth. But this idea, besides 
 being Jewish and materialistic in nature, is thor- 
 oughly contradictory to the Scripture teaching as 
 to what are the purposes of Christ's coming. Those 
 purposes, are very different from the setting up of a 
 temporal or worldly kingdom. 
 
 For these reasons, and others that might easily be 
 adduced, we reject, for the most part, this pre-mil- 
 lennial scheme; accepting only of its teaching, that 
 the coming of our Lord must not be regarded as 
 so very far away. 
 
5^ 
 
 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Then, on the other hand, as to post-millennialism, 
 which locates the coming of the Saviour so dis- 
 tantly from us — this theory also, it seems to us, 
 cannot be fully accepted ; for the reason that it does 
 not in all respects accord with Scripture teaching. 
 
 Objection to Post-millennialism. However, this 
 post-millennial view does, in our judgment, accord 
 mostly with Scripture; and therefore, as a system 
 of doctrine, it is much preferable to pre-millennial- 
 ism. It agrees with the Bible so far as the nature of 
 Messiah's kingdom is concerned, and also as to the 
 form and manner, and the special purposes, of our 
 Lord's coming. But when it comes to locating the 
 time of the advent, here is where we object to post- 
 millennialism as being in error. It is, we think, in 
 error here for the special reason that, contrary to 
 the Scripture representation, it interjects a long and 
 more or less definite period of time yet to elapse 
 before the Saviour will come. 
 
 According to the teaching of the Bible, Christ 
 may be expected at almost any time. His coming, 
 no matter how long it may be delayed, should al- 
 ways be regarded as near. 1 " What I say unto you, I 
 
 i Dr. James H. Brooks, in his " Maranatha " (p. 75), says the 
 proper attitude of the believing soul is to look for the Lord's 
 coming as " possible every hour, and not improbable any hour " — 
 to the latter of which assertions we object, as also to his view 
 that Christ will probably come during the present generation. There 
 are a number of events which seem to be quite clearly foretold 
 in Scripture, that must take place yet before the advent; and 
 surely Christ will not make his appearance before all things which 
 are prophesied to occur beforehand shall have been fulfilled. Hence 
 we think the pre-millennialists are wrong in saying that Christ 
 
TIME OF THE LORD S COMING 53 
 
 say unto all," said the Saviour, "watch' 1 (Mark 
 13 : 37) . " Watch, therefore ; for ye know not what 
 hour your Lord doth come " (Matt. 24 : 42) . More- 
 over, we are told that Christ will come " quickly " 
 (Rev. 22:20) ; and that "the coming of the Lord 
 draweth nigh " (James 5:8). Also, that " the Lord 
 is at hand" (Phil. 4: 5) ; and that "the end of all 
 things is at hand " (1 Peter 4:7). Hebrews says, 
 " So much the more as ye see the day approaching " 
 (10 : 25). These and many similar Scripture 
 teachings are too clearly worded and too positive in 
 their nature to be passed by, without one's gaining 
 from them the idea that, according to inspiration, 
 the coming of Christ should be regarded as a near 
 event, and not as one remote in the future. More- 
 over, the Bible makes abundant practical use of the 
 doctrine. Christians are told to look for, and hasten 
 unto, the coming of the day of God (2 Peter 3 : 12) . 
 Also they are described as those that are " waiting 
 for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ " ( 1 Cor. 
 1:7). " Now we beseech you," says Paul, " by the 
 coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gather- 
 ing together unto him" (2 Thess. 2:1); and in 
 another place he promises a reward to " all them 
 that love Christ's appearing" (2 Tim. 4:8). 
 
 There is, therefore, a practical interest connected 
 with our Lord's parousia; and this, as well as a 
 
 will probably come during the present generation. His advent is 
 Possible at nearly any time; but the prophecies still remaining un- 
 fulfilled hardly permit the use of the word " probable " as appli- 
 cable to his coming so soon, or while the present generation lives. 
 
54 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 regard for Scripture teaching, should be taken into 
 the account in our attempts at determining the time 
 of that event. But now, as we have already said, 
 the post-millennial programme interjects between 
 the coming of Christ and the present day a very long 
 period of time, called the millennium; and it says 
 that before the Saviour can come this millennium 
 must all take place. In this way the advent is 
 pushed far into the future, and post-millennialism 
 puts itself on record as opposed to plain Scripture 
 teaching, or at all events, to some of the practical 
 instruction of the Bible. The Bible tells us that our 
 Lord's coming should be watched for as a thing 
 that is nigh; post-millennialism, with its thousand 
 years or more of time necessarily interjected before 
 the advent, practically destroys all, or nearly all, 
 interest in the doctrine, and makes the coming of 
 Christ a mater of little or no concern to our world. 
 " My lord delayeth his coming," is what the " evil 
 servant " said in the parable ; and because he so 
 thought, he " began to smite his fellow-servants, 
 and to eat and drink with the drunken," or, in other 
 words, to be careless. With a thousand years or 
 more of time put in yet before our Lord's return, 
 it is just impossible for any one, Christian or im- 
 penitent man, to be very attentively interested in it. 
 Hence we say, there must be something wrong 
 somewhere in this post-millennial doctrine, opposed 
 as it is directly to some of the plain teachings of 
 Scripture. 
 
TIME OF THE LORD S COMING 55 
 
 The Millennium More Fully Considered. The 
 whole difficulty is again connected with the millen- 
 nium. This period of a thousand years put in before 
 the Lord makes his appearance — it is this that 
 creates the trouble. But is there no way of avoiding 
 this interjection of a thousand years? Let us see. 
 To be sure, we desire to be scriptural ; and so, turn- 
 ing to the twentieth chapter of Revelation, we have 
 there all that is known for certain respecting the 
 millennium. This passage teaches that during a 
 period of a thousand years Satan shall be bound with 
 chains, and shut up in the bottomless pit, so that 
 during this time he cannot go forth to deceive the 
 nations ; also, that during this same period the saints, 
 or at least some of them — those who " were be- 
 headed for the witness of Jesus, and for the word 
 of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, 
 neither his image, neither had received his mark 
 upon their foreheads or in their hands," — that these 
 saints lived again and reigned with Christ a thou- 
 sand years. But now whether this living again and 
 reigning is to be regarded as taking place in heaven 
 or on earth, or exactly what is to be the scene of the 
 events named, the revelator does not tell us. Neither 
 does he give us any indication as to what will be the 
 character of that thousand years' reign, save that 
 during this period Satan shall be bound, and as a 
 consequence, the nations shall not be deceived by 
 him. 
 
 This is all that can be learned from the Bible, of 
 
56 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 a definite and positive nature, touching the millen- 
 nium regarded as a period. There are many other 
 facts indicated in Scripture as belonging to the 
 Saviour's reign — some of them referring to his 
 dominion on earth, and others to his rule in heaven, 
 or in the future world. But now whether these facts 
 or how many of them, can or should be assigned to 
 the millennial period of Christ's reign — this is a 
 question regarding which there can be, and have 
 been, very different opinions held. The fault, we 
 conceive, of the post-millennial view, is that it takes 
 all, or nearly all these facts — and especially the 
 glowing descriptions of Messiah's kingdom found in 
 the Old Testament — and not only puts them to- 
 gether in a period by themselves, but says that this 
 period is the same as the thousand years mentioned 
 in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. In other 
 words, it takes all the scattered scriptural notices 
 respecting the glories and other extraordinary fea- 
 tures of Messiah's kingdom, and then applies them, 
 without discrimination, and without any authority 
 from Scripture, to a period mentioned in only one 
 or two verses of the Bible, and these verses con- 
 fessedly very obscure and highly figurative in their 
 language! But it does not follow that, because a 
 period of time is mentioned in one part of the Bible, 
 therefore all the events, or any events mentioned 
 elsewhere in the same book, are to be assigned to 
 this period. On the contrary, the extreme likeli- 
 hood is that at least a large number of these events 
 
TIME OF THE LORD S COMING 57 
 
 belong to some other period, or will take place 
 outside of that particular one. So we say re- 
 garding the millennium, it does not follow that be- 
 cause there are extraordinary events and very great 
 glories mentioned here and there in the Scriptures 
 as belonging to Messiah's kingdom, that therefore 
 they all belong to the millennial period of that king- 
 dom. 1 On the contrary, there are at least some of 
 these events and glories which are best understood 
 as belonging to a period which comes after, and not 
 before, Christ's second advent — that is to say, to 
 the eternal kingdom of the Messiah. So it is with 
 the everlasting continuance of Messiah's empire, 
 and also with the universal reign of peace, and the 
 
 1 Scholars have noticed some four differences between the mil- 
 lennium as described in Rev. 20 and the general picture of the 
 Messianic era as given especially by the Old Testament prophets. 
 First, that era was to last forever; whereas the millennium is 
 described as enduring only for a thousand years. Second, the 
 Messianic age was to be characterized by universal holiness, right- 
 eousness, and peace; but the binding of Satan, as mentioned in 
 Rev. 20, may signify only a partial restraint put upon the power of 
 evil in our world; and some have thought that this restraint is 
 put only upon Satan's persecuting power, because after the mil- 
 lennium he is represented as stirring up the nations, by his de- 
 ceptions, to persecuting the church. Third, according to the pro- 
 phetic descriptions of Messiah's reign, he was to subdue all na- 
 tions under him. He should reign from the river to the ends of 
 the earth, and the nation or people that would not serve him should 
 perish; but during the millennial period wicked nations, or peoples, 
 as the progenitors of those who were stirred up to rebellion and 
 persecution, seem to have existed, perhaps everywhere in the world, 
 alongside of the saints. Lastly, an important difference is that after 
 the thousand years' reign of the martyr saints with Christ, a great 
 rebellion and persecution breaks out against the church, which is 
 a thing utterly unknown to the prophets, as connected with 
 Messiah's empire. 
 
58 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 all-pervasive righteousness, to be accomplished in 
 the world by it. Moreover, some of the Messianic 
 events are surely being accomplished now in the 
 world, and others will continue right on in the 
 regular way to be accomplished, so that although we 
 may look for largely increased victory given to the 
 church, and very great glory to be experienced by 
 Christianity in its latter-day rule, yet the writer does 
 not find that any period of a thousand years' glori- 
 ous reign of the Saviour on earth, to come in yet 
 before his second advent, is anywhere taught defi- 
 nitely in the Scriptures, or at all events, so taught 
 as that some other interpretation of the matter can- 
 not to be legitimately taken. 1 
 
 Solution of the Difficulties. For the reason above 
 given, as well as for perhaps the stronger one that 
 the practical representation of the Scriptures de- 
 
 1 Doctor Wordsworth, with Augustine and others in ancient times, 
 holds that the millennium began with Christ's first advent. Grotius 
 advocated the notion of its commencing with Constantine's acces- 
 sion to power in the Roman empire. So also, in more recent 
 times, Bush, Lord Napier, Forbes, Prof. C. A. Briggs, Dr. I. 
 P. Warren and others. Over Constantine's palace-gate there was a 
 picture of the emperor holding above his head the labarutn, 
 or banner of the cross; and underneath his feet Satan was rep- 
 resented as a serpent, pierced with arrows and falling into the 
 abyss; this being intended to convey the idea that Constantine's 
 elevation to power and the consequent ceasing of heathen perse- 
 cution, was the overthrow of the great Adversary, which notion 
 afterward was understood as denoting also a beginning of the 
 millennium. 
 
 The Reformers, in general, did not believe in any millennium; 
 considering the church to be the proper kingdom of God on earth, 
 and the whole matter of the thousand years to be one of those 
 " opiniones Judaicae " which have often appeared in Christian history. 
 
 
TIME OF THE LORD S COMING 59 
 
 mands that Christ's second advent be regarded as 
 nigh, and not as an occurrence away off in the fu- 
 ture, we propose to omit, from our computation of 
 the time when the Lord will come, at least so much 
 of the millennium as necessitates yet the interven- 
 tion of a thousand years, or of any similarly long 
 period of time, before the scriptural prerequisites 
 to the advent shall have taken place. In our view, 
 then, the millennium is not a scriptural prerequis- 
 ite to the Lord's coming ; or at all events, it is not a 
 prerequisite so clearly taught that, where it comes 
 into conflict with the practical representation of 
 Scripture, that the second advent should always be 
 regarded by the church as near, it ought not to give 
 way before this more clearly, and in the Bible far 
 more generally taught practical doctrine. 1 Leav- 
 ing, therefore, the millennium, or at least such part 
 of it as requires yet before Christ comes the inter- 
 
 1 In all Jesus' utterances he says not a word about his reign- 
 ing for a thousand years, either literally or spiritually, in our 
 world. But he teaches positively that wjen his gospel shall have 
 been " preached unto all nations for a witness," then " the end " — 
 that is, a complete end of all earthly history — will come. So also, 
 in none of the apostolic letters, nor indeed anywhere in the Bible, 
 except in Rev. 20, is there any mention made of a millennium. 
 That idea of a thousand years' reign by the Messiah seems to 
 have originated in some of the Jewish apocalypses composed be- 
 fore the time of Christ; which idea John adopted in his Revela- 
 tion. But he sheared it of its peculiarly Jewish and sensuous 
 features, made it more spiritual in character, and limited its 
 enjoyment especially to certain classes of the saints — those who were 
 beheaded for the witness of Jesus, etc. 
 
 Semisch, in the Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia, pronounces the mil- 
 lennium, as depicted in Rev. 20, " a hieroglyph whose meaning 
 has not yet been satisfactorily solved." 
 
60 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 vention of any long period of time — leaving all that 
 out of the computation, we are able, the writer 
 thinks, from other data furnished by Scripture, to 
 make some estimate, more or less definite, of the 
 time when the Lord may be expected. 
 
 Time Estimates. That is to say, we can approxi- 
 mate the time, not in absolute figures, but in figures 
 which may be regarded as correct within certain 
 limits. It is in this matter a good deal as it was with 
 the estimate made by a celebrated humorist with re- 
 gard to the teachings of phrenology. When asked, 
 at one time, whether he believed in phrenology, he 
 replied : " Yes, I believe in it to some extent. I 
 believe in it so far as the great continents of the 
 head are concerned. And I am willing also to ac- 
 cept its teachings with regard to the cranial political 
 divisions, perhaps even respecting the states and 
 counties. But," said he, " when you come, with 
 such teachings, down to the townships and school 
 districts, then I shall have to be excused." 
 
 Somehow so it is with the matter under con- 
 sideration. It is not very difficult to estimate in 
 a general way about how far off or how near at 
 hand the Lord's coming may be yet; but when any 
 exact determination of the time is attempted, then 
 comes even an impossible task. To make another 
 comparison, this determination of the time of the 
 Saviour's coming is much like those computations 
 which astronomers make with regard to the distance 
 of the fixed stars from our earth, or the return of 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 6 1 
 
 some of the comets in their orbits — matters which 
 cannot be determined exactly, but only in a general 
 or approximative way. 
 
 " When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with 
 armies," said the Saviour, " then know that the 
 desolation thereof is nigh " (Luke 21 : 20). So he 
 also said : " Learn a parable of the fig tree, when 
 his branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye 
 know that summer is nigh : so likewise ye, when ye 
 shall see all these things " — matters of which he had 
 previously spoken — then " know that it is near, even 
 at the doors " (Matt. 24 : 32, 33) . He was speaking 
 of his own second coming, togetner with the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem ; and the signs he gives respecting 
 both those events, are the encompassing of a city 
 with armies and the unfolding of the leaves on a 
 tree. By such events or signs it could be told how 
 near, or far off, were the great events in human his- 
 tory that were prophesied. So, more particularly 
 regarding the event of our Lord's second coming, 
 we understand it to be the Saviour's teaching that 
 here something positive can be known with regard 
 to even the time or date. We can at all events tell, 
 from the signs given us in the Bible, whether that 
 greatest of all events yet awaiting the history of our 
 world is near at hand or away off in the future. 
 
IV 
 
 TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING — THE SUBJECT 
 CONTINUED 
 
 When shall these things be? And what shall be the 
 sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? Matt. 
 24:3. 
 
 FIE Millennium Again. It was remarked in 
 our last chapter that, as the writer views the 
 millennium, it is not a scriptural prerequisite to our 
 Lord's second advent. By this observation it was 
 intended to say two things: first, that nowhere in 
 the Bible is it taught definitely, and with such clear- 
 ness as not to leave room for difference of opinion, 
 that before Christ comes the second time he must 
 reign (spiritually, of course) upon our earth for a 
 thousand years ; and secondly, that the word millen- 
 nium as used in this connection means particularly 
 a long period of such exceeding religious prosperity, 
 or of such triumph and glory to the gospel as that 
 it cannot properly be conceived of as having yet 
 commenced. This double view of the matter is the 
 one taken by Drs. Charles Hodge, Albert Barnes, 
 Daniel Whitby, Rev. David Brown, and other like 
 eminent authorities on Christian eschatology. 
 Moreover, it is the common post-millennial notion. 
 But that this idea of the millennium must be 
 62 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 63 
 
 incorrect, or that in some respect post-millennialism 
 needs to be considerably modified, is evident from 
 the fact already insisted on in this treatise, that ac- 
 cording to the biblical representation Christ's sec- 
 ond advent should be regarded as nigh, and not as 
 distant from any Christian age. This practical 
 representation of the Bible, we say, makes it im- 
 perative that no period of one thousand years shall, 
 in one's conception of the time of the Lord's parou- 
 sia, come in between that date and the time in which 
 the person lives. Moreover, in order to preserve to 
 our idea of the future glories of Christianity, every- 
 thing that in the Scriptures is really prophesied as 
 such, it is not necessary to regard all these glories as 
 belonging to a millennial period, to come in either 
 before or after Christ's advent, nor to regard these 
 glories as all of so extraordinary a character that, 
 at least some of the number may not be conceived of 
 as having already begun, or even as being now mat- 
 ters of the past. For these two reasons, therefore, 
 we propose, if it is necessary to accept any millen- 
 nium, to so modify the old post-millennial notion 
 that at least a part of the period, and perhaps a 
 good part, may be considered as having already 
 elapsed. We can therefore regard ourselves still 
 as believers in the millennium, even though we do 
 not assent to all that post-millennialism teaches. 
 Furthermore, we wish to say yet, before closing 
 this part of our examination, that inasmuch as the 
 millenary reign of Christ with his saints (or rather 
 
64 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 of the saints with Christ — that is the way the words 
 stand in Rev. 20 14) is a matter spoken of only in 
 a single passage of Scripture — and that, as most 
 scholars confess, a highly figurative and very ob- 
 scure pasage — it may not be well to build up, over- 
 confidently, either post or pre millenary theories 
 upon it. Surely, one would think, if a great doc- 
 trine, affecting many other Christian teachings and 
 interests, is to be grounded only on one Scripture 
 text, that text ought to be at least unmistakably 
 clear, to say nothing of its being in harmony with 
 others. But such is not the case with this passage in 
 the twentieth chapter of Revelation. It is both an 
 obscure text, and one, so far as the period of time 
 mentioned in it is concerned, not supported by any 
 other text of Scripture. We shall, then, for the 
 various reasons indicated, dismiss this passage, or 
 what is virtually the same thing, the doctrine of the 
 millennium, very largely from our consideration; 
 believing, that in attempts generally at determining 
 the time of the Lord's coming, this doctrine has fig- 
 ured too extensively, or widely out of proportion to 
 its slight mention in the Bible. 
 
 Looking, then, at the time of the Saviour's advent 
 rather in the light of other data, than of the millen- 
 nium, we see in these data no sufficient reason for 
 locating that time so very far in the future. On the 
 contrary, in these data we think we see some very 
 good reasons for regarding the time rather as some- 
 what nigh. But before giving our final determina- 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 6$ 
 
 tions, let us examine, at least briefly, the special 
 facts, or the events and figures which are furnished 
 in the Bible as bearing upon a solution of the 
 problem before us. 
 
 Time-determining Facts. The first of these time- 
 determining data that we will notice is one of rather 
 a general nature. It is what may be called the 
 progress of fulfilled prophecy. As was the case with 
 the prophecies appertaining to the first advent of 
 our Saviour, so it is with these also which relate to 
 his coming the second time, there is, and has been 
 connected with them a gradual fulfilment. With- 
 out here attempting to catalogue, or to mention in 
 any great number, these prophecies, it may be said 
 that such predictions, for example, as the destruction 
 of Jerusalem ; the triumph and success of the gospel 
 in heathen lands, as well as among the Jews; the 
 downfall of the Roman empire; the rise of the 
 papacy; the irruption into Europe and other Chris- 
 tian countries of the Saracens, and later of the 
 Turks, these and other like announcements made 
 in the Bible of events which would come to pass 
 before the end of the world, these have already oc- 
 curred. And so we have, in the history of fulfilled 
 prophecy, not only a pledge of the fulfilment of 
 other predictions recorded in Scripture, but also an 
 exhibition of the gradual manner in which Bible 
 prophecy has already come to pass. 
 
 Just where in the general programme of events 
 predicted to occur before our Lord's coming human 
 
 E 
 
66 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 history is now, it would be difficult, or perhaps im- 
 possible, to determine. Some students in eschatol- 
 ogy think they can locate our particular time. It is, 
 they tell us, the period described in Revelation 
 ( 1 1 : 14) by the word " quickly," in the interim 
 between the sounding of the sixth and the seventh 
 trumpet. Six of the trumpets, they say, have already 
 sounded, and six of the seals have been opened, and 
 six of the vials poured out; and so there only re- 
 mains the seventh one of these three symbolic acts to 
 take place, and then, of course, comes the end. 1 
 But whether this is so or not, or whatever one of 
 the prophecies is at present being fulfilled, certain 
 it is that in the fulfilment of prophecy there is 
 progress, and certain also that we are now so much 
 nearer the time when the Saviour will come, as 
 there have been from the beginning prophecies 
 wrought into history. 
 
 In the material heavens there is evidence that our 
 whole solar system is moving in a northerly direc- 
 tion. The evidence is the constant increase of the 
 spaces between the stars in that portion of the 
 heavens, or particularly in the constellation Her- 
 cules, a fact that for a considerable time has been 
 
 1 This general reckoning is in accordance with what is known 
 as the synchronous-historical theory of interpreting the book of 
 Revelation. We prefer the continuous-historical theory as being 
 more natural. Or rather we prefer both the preterist theory and 
 the continuous-historical; the one furnishing the historical setting 
 of the book and in part a key to its interpretation, and the other 
 furnishing a sufficiently extensive and varied series of facts to cover 
 the different prophetic symbols. 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 6? 
 
 well known in astronomical circles. Now from this 
 circumstance it is argued, not that there is an abso- 
 lute separating of the stars, but, as with the masts 
 of a number of vessels lying in a harbor to a 
 person coming in from the sea, so those stars 
 appear, the nearer we get to them, to separate more 
 and more, one from another. This fact is sufficient 
 to prove that our entire solar system is moving in 
 the direction indicated ; and not only that, but mov- 
 ing also in a mighty orbit around some central point 
 in the depth of the universe. But where we are at 
 present in this great revolution, or just how near 
 to the stars mentioned, it would be difficult, yes, im- 
 possible, to determine ; we only know, from the evi- 
 dences at hand, that for the present we are moving 
 toward the constellation Hercules. So also, from the 
 evidence given us in the spiritual heavens, we know 
 that we are moving toward that object of great de- 
 sire in the church, the " glorious appearing " of 
 our Lord. We know moreover, from the same evi- 
 dence, that we are nearer now, ever so much nearer, 
 that event, than we were when the first one of the 
 prophecies respecting his coming began to be ful- 
 filled. 
 
 PROPHETIC NUMBERS 
 
 Line of Jewish Tradition 
 6000 years, less 4004 b. c, give a. d. 1996 
 
 Times of the Gentiles 
 2520 years, less 721 b. c, give a. d. 1799 
 
 (i ^gg .< ( < t, I93 2 
 
68 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 The 2joo Days of Daniel 
 
 2300 years, less 457 b. a, give A. d. 1843 
 425 " «• ■' 1875 
 
 Time of the Papal Supremacy 
 
 1260 years, added to A. d. 533, make a. d. 1793 
 " «« «« " «« 606, •« " 1866 
 
 .« ,, M «« «« 752, " " 2012 
 
 ,< (4 II ,« IQ73> 44 4. 2333 
 
 The above table is intended to represent the prin- 
 cipal lines of numbers that different persons have 
 discovered — or at least they have so thought — in the 
 Bible, as having a bearing upon the time when 
 Christ's epiphany will occur. There are four such 
 lines, as we have given them; and of the whole 
 table we wish to say, that our responsibility extends 
 only to the limit of its being a correct representation 
 of the ideas of others. Whatever value is to be at- 
 tached to the results of the calculations made, or 
 even to the correctness of the data assumed upon 
 which such calculations are based, we will not at- 
 tempt to determine; but we simply give the whole 
 table, with its data and results, for what it is worth. 
 
 As said, there are four lines of these prophetic 
 numbers. The first one is, or may be, called the 
 
 Line of Jewish Tradition. Not much importance 
 is to be attached to it, because it rests mostly upon 
 mere Jewish speculation, though it has some basis 
 also in analogy. The whole period of time here as- 
 sumed is six thousand years. That is to say, accord- 
 ing to this line there are six thousand years in the 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 69 
 
 entire history of the world, and this period of time is 
 arrived at by analogical reasoning. There were — 
 so the argument goes — six days of creation, and 
 then after these days came a seventh day, which 
 was the Lord's Sabbath ; and therefore, since a thou- 
 sand years are in the sight of the Lord as one day 
 (Ps. 90: 4), the six days of creation may stand for 
 six thousand years in the secular history of the 
 world, and then after these will come the eternal 
 Sabbath, or the end of the world. The same result 
 is reached by a different method of calculating. 
 It is that, as the rabbis said, there were two thou- 
 sand years before the law, and two thousand years 
 of Israelitish history under the law, so there would 
 be also two thousand years' reign by the Messiah, 
 and then would come the end. Some interpreters 
 have thought that the words in the fourth chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews — " there remaineth there- 
 fore a rest to the people of God " (that is, a Sabbath 
 rest, as the original word means, when properly 
 translated; and it is so rendered in the new ver- 
 sion) — that these words contain a reference to the 
 Jewish notion of an eternal Sabbath following a 
 period of secular history; and therefore that the 
 idea we are considering derives from these words 
 some scriptural support. But be this as it may; 
 the six thousand years, which we will take then 
 as the entire period for the history of our world, 
 this, less the four thousand and four years which, 
 according to the received chronology passed before 
 
JO THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 the coming of Christ, fixes the year a. d. 1996, for 
 the ending of all things earthly, or in more Christian 
 expression, for the advent of Christ. 
 
 Of all the prophetic lines in our table, this we 
 think to be the least worthy of credit; resting, as 
 it does, principally upon Jewish tradition or 
 speculation. 
 
 Times of the Gentiles. Another of these lines, 
 and one that we think is at least somewhat more 
 important, is one that has for its period of time 
 two thousand five hundred and twenty years. 
 This line is indicated in the Scriptures by the 
 words, " Times of the Gentiles." It is the 
 period during which God has punished, and will 
 continue to punish the Jews because of their sins. 
 In the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus and the 
 eighteenth verse, it says : " If ye will not yet for all 
 this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven 
 times more for your sins." That is to say, God will 
 punish the Israelites for their sins seven times not 
 merely in the sense of succession, nor of making 
 the chastisement perfect, but rather in the sense 
 that the punishment would last for a long period, 
 or during a certain number of years. The word 
 time, as used in Bible prophecy stands, we are told, 
 for a year. At all events, it often does so, and con- 
 sequently the words seven times, as used in the pas- 
 sage of Leviticus, mean really seven years. Not 
 only that, but according to the well-known theory 
 of having a day stand for a year, these seven years 
 
TIME OF THE LORDS COMING 7 1 
 
 would mean seven years of days, or seven years of 
 years, which would be three hundred and sixty 
 (the number of days in a Jewish year) multiplied 
 by seven, or two thousand five hundred and twenty 
 years. This is the period of time during which the 
 Jews should suffer by having the Gentiles triumph 
 over them. And now, if we date their punishment 
 from the first captivity, or the time when the ten 
 tribes were carried away by Shalmaneser, which 
 was the year 721 b. a, we have, by subtracting this 
 last date from the two thousand five hundred and 
 twenty years, the year A. d. 1799, as the time when 
 this punishment coming from the Gentiles should 
 end. Consequently, if that reckoning is correct, the 
 punishment has already passed. But now if, in- 
 stead of 721, we take the year 588 b. g, when the 
 tribe of Judah was despoiled and carried away to 
 Babylon — if we take this latter date as the one to 
 be subtracted from the two thousand five hundred 
 and twenty years, then we get the year a. d. 1932 
 as the time for the cessation of the penalty threat- 
 ened. Then too, the second coming of the Saviour, 
 which, according to the theory we are considering, 
 is an event intimately connected with the ending of 
 this Gentile domination, will occur at about the same 
 date, or the year 1932. 
 
 The Two Thousand Three Hundred Days of Dan- 
 iel. The third line, as given in our table, represents 
 a period of two thousand three hundred years. This 
 is a period that is derived from words found in 
 
J2 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Daniel. In the eighth chapter of his prophecies, the 
 thirteenth verse, one saint is represented as speaking 
 to another saint, and asking the question : " How 
 long shall be the vision of the daily sacrifice, and 
 the transgression of desolation, to give both the 
 sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?" 
 Then in the next verse the answer is given : " Unto 
 two thousand and three hundred days ; then shall the 
 sanctuary be cleansed." But these two thousand 
 three hundred days mean not simply that period 
 of time literally considered; but, according to the 
 theory of regarding a day as standing for a year, 
 which we noticed under our last heading, they mean 
 two thousand three hundred years. This two 
 thousand three hundred years is, therefore, the 
 period of time at the expiration of which the Jew- 
 ish sanctuary should be cleansed, and this cleansing 
 undoubtedly signifies a delivering of the Jewish re- 
 ligion, and perhaps also of Jerusalem, and even of 
 the temple area, from the defilements which have 
 been brought upon these holy places and worship in 
 consequence of long Gentile, and especially Moham- 
 medan, occupancy and dominion. At all events, at 
 the end of the two thousand three hundred 
 days, or years, there is to take place in connection 
 with the Jewish sanctuary, whatever this word may 
 mean, a cleansing experience that will be important ; 
 and when that has occurred, or in connection with 
 the cleansing itself, it is expected that the Lord will 
 appear. 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 73 
 
 But now, in order to know just when the two 
 thousand three hundred years will terminate, 
 it is necessary also to know from what point in 
 time we can date their beginning. To find out 
 that, we have to look into the next chapter of Daniel. 
 There, in the twenty-fourth verse, it is said that 
 seventy weeks are determined upon the Jewish peo- 
 ple, and upon the holy city, to finish the transgres- 
 sion, etc.; and it is believed that this vision is only 
 a part of the longer one of two thousand three hun- 
 dred days. If that is so, then in the next verse 
 there is furnished a date from which both visions 
 may start. It is there stated that " from the going 
 forth of the commandment to restore and to build 
 Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be 
 seven weeks, and three score and two weeks " ; and 
 now, if we take the year 457 b. c. as the date when 
 the last commandment to rebuild Jerusalem was 
 issued, then, by subtracting this period from the 
 two thousand three hundred years, we get, as 
 the time when the sanctuary would be cleansed, 
 the year of our Lord 1843. This was the date, as 
 will be remembered, that was fixed upon by Mr. 
 Miller and those who believed like him, for the end 
 of the world ; and the course of reasoning they fol- 
 lowed was much the same as that above given. 
 But some there are who tell us that Mr. Miller failed 
 in his theory, because he made the seventy weeks 
 of Daniel end with the crucifixion; he should have 
 continued them until the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
74 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 So taking another date, the year 425 b. c. — the 
 process of arriving at which we need not here indi- 
 cate — as the starting-point for our period of two 
 thousand three hundred years, we find this 
 period exhausted in the year 1875 ; and this also has 
 been one of the dates around which expectations 
 of the Lord's immediate or speedy coming have cir- 
 culated, and upon which, moreover, they have been 
 wrecked. Other dates of a similar character, based 
 upon Daniel's two thousand three hundred days, 
 have been selected by different parties; such, for 
 example, as the years 1868 and 1880. 
 
 Time of the Papal Supremacy. But there is still 
 one other line of these prophetic numbers, perhaps 
 the most important one in the table. 
 
 It is a line that defines the time of the papal 
 dominion. Here the period of years taken is one 
 thousand two hundred and sixty. They represent 
 the whole time during which the papacy as a ruling 
 power is to continue in our world. In some of the 
 last chapters of Revelation (13:5; 12 : 6, 14 ; 11:2, 
 3), as also in the book of Daniel (7:25; 12: 
 7), this period is represented under a variety of 
 terms, such as " a time, and times, and half a time," 
 " forty and two months," " a thousand two hun- 
 dred and threescore days," and not only during 
 this period will the papacy continue in power, but 
 God's two witnesses will prophesy clothed in sack- 
 cloth, and other important events will occur. But 
 at the end of these one thousand two hundred and 
 
TIME OF THE LORDS COMING 75 
 
 sixty years Christ will come. So at least it would 
 seem from the prophecy of his destroying Anti- 
 christ — which is the same thing, many think, as the 
 papacy — by the brightness of his coming. Conse- 
 quently, if we take, as the starting-point of the 
 papacy, the year 533, when Justinian by public de- 
 cree constituted the Roman bishop head over all the 
 churches, we get, by adding to this date the one 
 thousand two hundred and sixty years of the papal 
 continuance, the year 1793 as the time when that 
 power will end. Some think that then the papacy 
 did virtually terminate as a worldly power. But if 
 we take the year 606, when Phoeas granted about 
 the same privileges as before had been granted by 
 Justinian to the Roman bishop — if we take this date 
 as the point from which we shall start the papacy in 
 history, then, by adding the one thousand two hun- 
 dred and sixty years, we have, as the date of the 
 papal downfall, the year 1866. Or if we choose, we 
 may select the year 752 as the date of the rise of 
 the Roman supremacy, this being the year during 
 which Pepin conferred upon the pope his first tem- 
 poral estate ; then we get the year 2012 as the ending 
 period. Of if we select yet the year 1073, when the 
 greatest of all the popes, Hildebrand (or Gregory 
 VII.), came into power; selecting this as the his- 
 torical starting-point of the papacy, we get, as the 
 date when that institution will, according to proph- 
 ecy, become extinct, the year 2333. 
 
 Value of These Prophecies. Now, looking over 
 
j6 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 these prophetic numbers, arranged as we have seen 
 them into lines, we are tempted to ask the ques- 
 tion: What is their value? To be sure, with the 
 whole number of eschatologists, or with many of 
 the more sober-minded among them, this value 
 would not be esteemed great. And yet there are, 
 and perhaps have been in all the ages of Christian 
 eschatological inquiry, persons standing high in 
 point of biblical knowledge, as also of good common 
 sense, who have put considerable confidence in just 
 such numbers — giving them, of course, their own 
 interpretation, which sometimes has been like ours 
 in the table, and sometimes very different. As for 
 ourself, we have already said that, in this connec- 
 tion, our responsibility ceases with a correct repre- 
 sentation of the opinions of others. 
 
 There are, however, two or three points connected 
 with the results of this table to which we wish to call 
 special attention. One of them is, that all the dates 
 in the last line (that is, the line as running up and 
 down) are very nearly equal; showing that from, 
 or with, whatever prophetic number we start, the 
 result is about the same. So also another item of 
 at least some little interest, is that the average date 
 in each of the four sets is about equal to that in each 
 of the others ; and the average date of them all, 
 being about the year 1900, is a time that has only 
 recently passed. 
 
 One other thing to which we wish to call atten- 
 tion is that it is especially such dates as the year 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 77 
 
 1843, tne y ear J ^75' *793 anc * *799> ^ at nave been 
 in these later times the particular rallying points for 
 the parties or movements which have obtained in 
 the interest of Christ's speedy coming. Moreover, 
 it is these dates, or others like them perhaps, 
 though not so definite and fixed, which generally 
 furnish particular inspiration to the great eschato- 
 logical controversies. They are therefore of interest 
 to us, if for no other reason, than because they have 
 more or less profoundly, and to a greater or less 
 extent, interested others. 
 
Y 
 
 TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING — THE SUBJECT 
 CONTINUED 
 
 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, 
 and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, 
 with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's 
 hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those 
 things which are coming on the earth. Luke 21 : 25, 26. , 
 
 FROM what has been already said, it is doubtless 
 understood by the reader that we place little 
 confidence in any time-calculations based upon what 
 are called the prophetic numbers of the Bible. Yet 
 unquestionably there are such numbers; and what- 
 ever value belongs to them certainly ought to be 
 allowed, whether the computations which we have 
 given are right, or whether some others would be 
 more nearly correct. In any case, allowing all that 
 we can for the worth of these calculations, there are 
 still other data far more determinative, or at all 
 events, far more important, bearing upon the time 
 of our Lord's appearing. 
 
 These other data are certain events prophesied in 
 the Scriptures to take place before Christ comes. 
 But prior to examining these, let us give a hasty 
 glance at some other matters which are in their 
 character somewhat like the prophetic numbers, 
 78 
 
TIME OF THE LORD S COMING 79 
 
 perhaps, though an advance upon them in the way 
 of time-determining or chronological value. 
 
 Symbolical Beasts. What we allude to are the 
 " Symbolical Beasts " and other objects, animate or 
 inanimate, which are mentioned in the Old Testa- 
 ment or the New, or in both, as having a connection 
 with the Lord's epiphany, or rather as matters 
 which must go before that event. 
 
 There are mentioned especially in the Old Testa- 
 ment the " four beasts " and the " little horn " of 
 Daniel's prophecy ; also " the ram " and " the he 
 goat " with four horns, out of one of which there 
 came another " little horn " — this also in Daniel. 
 And, besides, there is also Daniel's great metallic 
 image, representing the four successive world 
 monarchies; and then the little stone cut out of the 
 mountain without hands, which smote the image, 
 destroying it, and becoming itself a great mountain, 
 thus filled the whole earth — this representing the 
 kingdom which the God of heaven would set up. 
 All these peculiar objects undoubtedly have some 
 connection with the Lord's advent, signifying as they 
 do, under an enigmatical form, events and institu- 
 tions which must exist in the general history of the 
 world. Moreover, these symbolical objects have, 
 each one of them, their own special teaching with 
 reference to the subject under consideration, that is, 
 the coming of Christ. So, for instance, it is with 
 the little stone cut out of the mountain without 
 hands, and filling the whole earth; this represents 
 
80 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 very strikingly not only the littleness of Christianity 
 at the beginning, but also the greatness of its influ- 
 ence before its work in our world is done, that is, 
 before the Saviour comes. And so also the little 
 horn that came up among the ten others on the head 
 of the fourth beast, and had in it " eyes like the eyes 
 of a man, and a mouth speaking great things " — 
 this may be conceived of as representing the papacy, 
 or Antichrist; and inasmuch as according to the 
 symbolical teaching this horn was destroyed and 
 consumed away after " a time, times, and the divid- 
 ing of time," we have here perhaps even a matter of 
 chronology, by which something may be determined 
 as to the date we are seeking. 
 
 So too, it is with each and all of those many sym- 
 bols which are found in John's Revelation; they 
 have connected with them each its own peculiar 
 teaching respecting the advent of our Lord. " The 
 great red dragon" (chap. 12), for example, is, as 
 many scholars understand, a symbol of persecuting 
 paganism, or of the Roman government as a de- 
 stroyer of the church ; the time for the existence of 
 which power, however, was limited, since " there 
 was war in heaven " — Michael and his angels fight- 
 ing against the dragon and his angels ; the result of 
 which engagement was that the dragon with his 
 angels, or the Roman dominion, was cast out, that is, 
 out of the political heaven, and after that the per- 
 secution was continued in a different form. From 
 this symbol, therefore, we learn not only of the 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 8 1 
 
 existence and cruel persecuting character of the 
 Roman empire, but also something as to the time 
 and manner of its end. When it did come to ex- 
 tinction, its power would be merged into another 
 dominion very much like itself in persecuting spirit 
 and act. This would be, as is understood, the pa- 
 pacy, which is further represented for us in the two 
 symbols which are next given in this same book of 
 Revelation (chap. 13), namely, the beast which rose 
 up out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns, 
 and crowns upon the horns; although this would 
 seem to be a combination of the papacy and the dif- 
 ferent governments into which the Roman empire 
 was divided. And then after this beast there was 
 another, perhaps more distinctively representing the 
 papacy, that is, the two-horned beast, one of the 
 horns standing for the papacy's temporal power, and 
 the other for its power of a spiritual nature. These 
 two dominions it is — that is, the papacy in its dis- 
 tinctive form, and the papacy as connected with the 
 ten kingdoms into which the Roman government 
 was divided — that, as many think, are symbolized 
 for us by the two animal forms which we have just 
 noticed. Moreover, we are told that the time dur- 
 ing which one of these beasts was to have power, if 
 not both of them, was " forty and two months," 
 giving us thus a time-indication which may have 
 some bearing upon the date of our Lord's return. 
 Besides these, there is still the " scarlet woman " 
 riding a beast having seven heads and ten horns; 
 
 F 
 
2>2 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 this symbol, perhaps, again showing the union of 
 the papacy as a seductive power with the kingdoms 
 of the world. And the end of all is that they are 
 finally destroyed; this event taking place, it would 
 seem, only directly before the coming of Christ, or 
 " the marriage supper of the Lamb " ( 19 : 2- 
 9). Thus again we have a time-indication that is, 
 perhaps, of advantage to us in our problem of the 
 date when the second advent will occur. 
 
 The Seals, Trumpets, and Vials. Perhaps, though, 
 of all these apocalyptic symbols the most significant 
 are the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the 
 seven vials. Whatever interpretation may be given 
 to these three chains of prophecy, they certainly 
 seem to span the entire distance between the time of 
 the Apostle John and the second coming of Christ. 
 Moreover, in our view these chains are best under- 
 stood as representing a continuous history of the 
 church in conflict with the great world-powers 
 around it — this history, indeed, sometimes seeming 
 to have great interruptions, and even to recede in its 
 course, but still ever moving forward, like a mighty 
 river, and bearing all opposition before it, until 
 finally it ends in complete triumph with the advent 
 of Christ. Or if we would divide this history into 
 periods, then it might be said that the first period — 
 the one represented by the seals — began with the 
 days of the Revelator John and continued until the 
 downfall of pagan Rome, or the conversion of Con- 
 stantine the Great. And the second period — the 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING $3 
 
 one represented by the trumpets — beginning with 
 the Christian dark ages, continued on until the 
 opening of the Protestant Reformation. And, ac- 
 cording to the same method of interpretation, the 
 last period in church history — the one represented 
 by the vials, or bowls — is the period now going for- 
 ward, or the one which began with the Protestant 
 Reformation and will be continued until the actual 
 parousia of our Lord. 
 
 This, in brief, would seem to be perhaps the best 
 interpretation that can be given of that long line of 
 prophetic symbols, in their application to the actual 
 history of our world ; and what is to us of especial 
 interest, in connection with the problem of the time 
 when Christ will come, is the fact that the whole 
 series of symbols ends, as we have said, with the 
 second advent. Indeed, there seem to be no less than 
 three or four, or perhaps even five, different endings 
 of the world prophesied in the Apocalypse of St. 
 John (see 6 : 12-17; ll : I 5" ][ 8; 14 : 14-19; 16 : 
 17-21 ; 20 : 11-15) ; but these terminations can, we 
 think, be most preperly understood as indicating 
 not, all of them, the final coming of Christ, but only 
 his coming in such events as would virtually do away 
 with a previous stage of history, and cause a new 
 one to be ushered in. However, these decided 
 breaks in the historic course of our world must be 
 regarded as prophetic of that greatest of all inter- 
 ruptions which will come to pass in connection 
 with the Lord's descent from heaven, when as is 
 
84 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 prophesied, a wholly new order of things will be 
 established. 
 
 From these prophetic symbols, therefore — the 
 seals, trumpets, and vials — we get what seem to be 
 important data for determining the time of our 
 Lord's parousia, especially since all those chains of 
 prophecy end with the final coming of Christ. More- 
 over, since each of the chains is divided into seven 
 different parts, each of these parts must, of course, 
 represent a special period in human history; and 
 therefore if we can tell just the symbol, or sub- 
 section of the general prophecy, under which we 
 are now living, then we shall be able also to tell 
 something about the date of our Lord's coming. 
 Suppose, e. g., we say, with the pre-millennialists, 
 that we are now living under one of the last symbols 
 in the last chain of apocalyptic prophecy, then, of 
 course, the second advent must be regarded as very 
 near. But suppose, with a class of interpreters 
 called the Futurists, we understand that much the 
 larger portion of John's prophecy refers to matters 
 which are still to take place, then the section of this 
 symbolism under which we are living must be re- 
 garded as proportionally farther from the end. 
 For the determination therefore, from these data, of 
 any precise time for our Lord's return, is a matter 
 respecting the practicability, as well as the results 
 of which there is, and always has been much differ- 
 ence of opinion. If from these data the time of the 
 advent is to be determined, it will be only with a 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 85 
 
 greater or less degree of uncertainty. Hence, after 
 all, it must be admitted that it is only a kind of con- 
 jecture we get from these three chains of symbols ; 
 and so also with respect to all the other symbolical 
 objects which have come under our consideration. 
 
 Matters More Specially Determinative. But if 
 from all the matters thus far noticed we obtain no 
 very reliable and satisfactory conclusion as to the 
 time we are seeking, there are still other data, which 
 will yield more definite, and consequently better re- 
 sults. These data are such events as are clearly 
 prophesied in the Bible to take place yet before, or 
 in connection with, our Lord's coming. In the 
 twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, Jesus gives us 
 what perhaps may be called a complete list of all 
 such matters. We are there told that before the end 
 of the world and Christ's appearing there will be 
 (partly also taking place in connection with the 
 destruction of Jerusalem) wars and rumors of 
 wars; nation shall rise against nation, and king- 
 dom against kingdom, and there shall be famines, 
 and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. 
 Also the sun shall be darkened, and the moon 
 will not give her light, the stars shall fall from 
 heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken; 
 false Christs will appear, and the love of many will, 
 because of persecution and of abounding iniquity, 
 wax cold, and there will be great tribulation. More- 
 over, what is perhaps the best, because it is the most 
 determinative, of all these signs, is that the " gospel 
 
86 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for 
 a witness unto all nations; and then shall the 
 
 END COME." 
 
 There are, to be sure, other phenomena or events, 
 predicted in various Scriptures, which must take 
 place prior to the coming of Christ; such, e. g., as 
 the conversion of the Jews, and perhaps their return 
 to Palestine ; the revelation of the " man of sin," or 
 " Antichrist " ; an increase of knowledge, and a 
 running to and fro of many (Dan. 12 : 4 — possibly 
 referring to increased traveling facilities) ; more 
 righteousness and a wider-spread reign of peace on 
 our earth than at present exists. But all these things 
 are virtually embraced in the list given in the twenty- 
 fourth chapter of Matthew. So, taking that list as 
 at least the most widely inclusive statement of the 
 events which we are considering, and classifying 
 these events, whether found in Matthew's twenty- 
 fourth chapter or elsewhere in Scripture — taking 
 these data somewhat in the order of their importance 
 as determinative of the time of the advent, we have : 
 
 1. Wars and rumors of wars; political disturb- 
 ances, changes and commotions among the nations. 
 
 2. Increase of knowledge, and of traveling facili- 
 ties, if this last is what is meant by Daniel's expres- 
 sion, " many shall run to and fro." Also a general 
 advance in all matters appertaining to culture and 
 industrial interests. 
 
 3. Startling natural phenomena, such as a dark- 
 ening of the sun and moon ; a falling of the stars, 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 8? 
 
 and a shaking of the powers of heaven ; earthquakes, 
 and as Luke adds, " the sea and the waves roar- 
 ing." Moreover, here might be located those occur- 
 rences of a distressful nature, which more particu- 
 larly affect human life — the famines and pestilences, 
 and other matters of the kind, for fear of which, in 
 their coming upon the earth, men's hearts shall fail 
 them (Luke 21 :26). 
 
 4. The gathering-in of the fulness of the Gen- 
 tiles, or a universal proclamation of the gospel, with 
 its attendant effects. Righteousness and peace ex- 
 isting to a greater extent than now in the world. 
 
 5. Conversion of the Jews as a nation. Possibly 
 also their return to the Holy Land. 
 
 6. The first great apostasy, believed by many 
 Protestant scholars to be the Roman Catholic de- 
 parture from the true faith, or, as an institution, 
 the papacy. Sometimes also known as Antichrist. 
 
 7. Possibly also a second apostasy, and connected 
 with it, great tribulation. (See Rev. 20: 7-10; Matt. 
 24: 29; taught also, as some think, in Rev. 17: 8-17; 
 19:19, 20.) 
 
 Now, looking hastily over the above numbers, 
 any one can see that the first three of them, being 
 matters only of common occurrence, do not signify 
 anything very definite or precise, in the way of de- 
 termining time. For wars and rumors of wars, 
 and matters of that kind, have occurred in all the 
 ages past, and, doubtless, will continue to occur; 
 so that, being so very common, no particular one of 
 
88 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 those events can be taken as a date from which to 
 estimate chronology. Still, admitting such to be the 
 case, these matters do, after all, have no little inter- 
 est as connected with the problem before us. For 
 they serve, whenever occurring, as reminders and 
 assurances that the great event which they precede 
 will come to pass in time; and also as to the exact 
 date itself they may be considered as furnishing cor- 
 roborative testimony, even if their evidence is not 
 definite enough to be a principal or independent 
 deposition in the case. Moreover, these events, al- 
 though they are common, or only of ordinary occur- 
 rence, may yet be, in their magnitude or quality, so 
 extraordinary, and of such uncommon nature, as to 
 serve, after all, as real way-marks on the road 
 toward the coming of Christ. So, for instance, the 
 great wars that took place in connection with the 
 downfall of the Roman empire, the clashing of na- 
 tion against nation, and the collision of kingdoms 
 which then occurred — these matters being so promi- 
 nent and conspicuous in their nature, they form, by 
 themselves, a kind of special event, and so from 
 them may be reckoned time toward the Saviour's 
 coming. So also, the great universal war, which 
 seems to be so widely expected among certain classes 
 of eschatologists, as a matter that will take place 
 somewhere in the East, and perhaps in connection 
 with the Mohammedan religion — called the war 
 with Gog and Magog, sometimes also Armageddon 
 (Rev. 20 : 8, 9; 16 : 14-16) — this too, if it really 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 89 
 
 does occur and the prophecy respecting it is not to 
 be interpreted in a spiritual sense, will surely be a 
 date having very close reference to the end of 
 worldly history and to our Lord's coming. For, im- 
 mediately in connection with that conflict, and, in- 
 deed, taking part in it, the Lord himself, according 
 to the prediction (this, though, may be interpreted 
 spiritually), seems to be present; and directly after- 
 ward he appears in judgment upon the great white 
 throne (Rev. 20 : 11). 
 
VI 
 
 TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING — THE SUBJECT 
 CONCLUDED 
 
 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all 
 the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall 
 the end come. Matt. 24 : 14. 
 
 Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness 
 of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be 
 saved. Rom. 11 : 25, 26. 
 
 Then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord 
 shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall 
 destroy with the brightness of his coming. 2 Thess 2 : 8. 
 
 /NGATHERING of the Gentiles. But the really 
 and unmistakably determining events are those 
 which remain to be considered, viz., the last four in 
 our list. The first one of these is what we have, a 
 number of times elsewhere, called the gathering-in 
 of the fulness of the Gentiles, It has been also 
 termed — with reference to the words of Jesus, in 
 Matt. 24 : 14, that " this gospel of the kingdom shall 
 be preached in all the world for a witness unto all 
 nations ; and then shall the end come " — the univer- 
 sal proclamation of the gospel. Of all the time- 
 determining events this, it seems to the writer is, 
 from our standpoint, the most serviceable as bear- 
 ing upon the date of the advent. For it is not only 
 an event that is clearly prophesied to take place 
 90 
 
TIME OF THE LORDS COMING 9 1 
 
 before the coming of Christ, but it is also one that 
 is now going forward, and will continue so to do 
 until it is all complete. Therefore, standing as we 
 do in the midst of this progressive event, or in its 
 presence, we are able, with some definiteness, to 
 forecast the time when it will be finished ; and so, of 
 course, since the " end " comes directly afterwards, 
 when our Lord may be expected. 
 
 The important question, therefore, now is, how 
 long before this prophecy of a universal proclama- 
 tion of the gospel, or if we choose to take the other 
 idea of the gathering-in of the fulness of the Gen- 
 tiles, how long before either or both of these pre- 
 dictions will be fully accomplished? Regarding 
 that matter, any number of different opinions may 
 obtain, and the question will be decided somewhat 
 by the view taken of the work to be done in the way 
 of converting the world. If, with the pre-millen- 
 nialists in general, we say that there is not neces- 
 sary any particular increase in the number of people 
 converted, or that the gospel has already been 
 preached in all the world, as the Saviour said, for a 
 witness to the nations, and this is about all that is 
 'required to be done; then, of course, accepting this 
 view, the work may be looked upon as already ac- 
 complished. But if on the other hand, we, with 
 the post-millennialists, affirm that the in-gathering 
 of the nations, or, as is the Scripture expression, 
 the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles (Rom. 
 ii :25), is the experience to be had by the world, 
 
92 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 and, in effect, the same as that intended by the 
 Saviour's words about a universal proclamation 
 of the gospel for a witness, then, to be sure, here 
 is a work that has not yet, it would seem, been ac- 
 complished, or even nearly accomplished. Far 
 from it. According to the usual post-millenary 
 conception, the part of the world now converted 
 is very small when compared with that part which 
 still remains to be converted; or, in other words, 
 the great bulk of humanity is yet to be brought in 
 faith and obedience to Christ, whereas that por- 
 tion of it which now occupies such relation to him 
 is comparatively small. According to this view, 
 then, a large share of the work still remains to 
 be done; and all that has thus far been achieved 
 is, in reality, only a beginning of the great work still 
 before the church. 
 
 The question again arises, what, according to 
 the Bible, is the truth in this regard? A consider- 
 able share of the world would seem to be converted. 
 The question is, must the great mass of humanity, 
 as post-millennialists affirm, be converted before 
 the work preparatory to the coming of Christ will 
 be all achieved? As said, post-millennialists affirm 
 this; pre-millennialists deny it. Perhaps the truth 
 lies somewhere between the two positions taken; 
 that is to say, between the view that it is not neces- 
 sary for the nations, or at all events, for the great 
 mass of the heathen world, to be converted, but 
 only for the gospel to be preached to these people 
 
TIME OF THE LORD S COMING 93 
 
 for a witness, and the view held by post-millen- 
 narians in general, that the great body of the people 
 in all nations must be brought to Christ before his 
 second advent can be expected. Suppose we say, 
 the gospel must indeed be preached to all nations 
 for a witness, but also there are legitimate results 
 to be expected from this preaching — the same 
 results, in truth, as those which Paul had in view 
 in his expression about the fulness of the Gentiles 
 coming in. But, on the other hand, suppose we 
 say that the " fulness of the Gentiles " does not mean 
 every individual belonging to all the heathen 
 nations, nor to the nations now Christian, nor even 
 the great mass of these peoples, but only that por- 
 tion of them which God intends shall be brought 
 in, or the elect? Then in each of these two ways 
 of stating matters we get about the same idea. 
 Carried out more fully, this view would be that 
 the conversion of the world means about the same 
 thing as bringing the heathen into a similar moral 
 and spiritual state to that now existing on the in- 
 side of Christendom — a conversion which is, to a 
 great extent, merely nominal. When all the hea- 
 then nations shall be converted to a recognition of 
 Christianity as the dominant religion among them, 
 and when the proportion of converted people in 
 these nations is as large as that now existing 
 among the so-called Christian peoples, then per- 
 haps, without doing violence to the Scripture 
 prophecies and representations, it may be expected 
 
94 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 that Christ will come ; because then all the evangel- 
 izing work required to be done before his advent 
 would seem to be accomplished. 
 
 To be sure, even with this limited view of the 
 work, there is still much evangelizing necessary. 
 But if the gospel continues to have as great tri- 
 umphs in the future as it has in the past, especially 
 if during, say, the next one hundred years, mission- 
 ary operations continue to multiply as rapidly, both 
 in the extent of territory occupied and in the appli- 
 ances used, as has been the case for the last fifty 
 years, who shall say that the time just specified is not 
 sufficient, perhaps more than sufficient, for accom- 
 plishing all the evangelizing work necessary ? Years 
 ago Doctor Hodge, of Princeton, said : " The won- 
 derful success of missions in our day goes to prove 
 that the conversion of the Gentile world is a work 
 assigned to the church under the present gospel 
 dispensation. Barriers deemed insurmountable 
 have been removed; facilities of access and inter- 
 course have been increased a hundredfold; hun- 
 dreds of missionary stations have been established 
 in every part of the world; many thousands of 
 converts have been gathered into churches, and 
 hundreds of thousands of children are under Chris- 
 tian instruction ; the foundations of ancient systems 
 of idolatry have been undermined; nations, lately 
 heathen, have become Christian, and are taking 
 part in sending the gospel to those still sitting in 
 darkness; and nothing seems wanting to secure 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 95 
 
 the gathering in of the Gentiles but a revival of 
 the missionary spirit of the apostolic age in the 
 churches of the nineteenth century " (" Systematic 
 Theol.," Vol. Ill, pp. 804, 805). Since then, as is 
 known, very extraordinary advancement has been 
 made in all lines of mission work. 
 
 In the same line, but more recently, Dr. Justin 
 A. Smith, in his " Commentary on Revelation " (p. 
 280), observes: "It has been said that in twenty- 
 five years more, if the present rate of progress con- 
 tinues, India will become as thoroughly Christian 
 as Great Britain is to-day ; there will be thirty mil- 
 lions of Christians in China, and Japan will be as 
 fully Christianized as America is now. The old 
 heathen systems, they tell us, are honeycombed 
 through and through by Christian influence. It 
 looks as though the day may soon come when 
 these systems, struck by vigorous blows, will fall 
 in tremendous collapse. Meantime every weapon 
 formed against Christianity breaks in the hand that 
 holds it. Already the Lord's right hand hath got- 
 ten him the victory." 
 
 The prospect, therefore, would seem to be pecu- 
 liarly encouraging. But, of course, all our reason- 
 ing in this case goes on the presumption that the 
 tares are to continue with the wheat, or in other 
 words, that the world is not all to be converted be- 
 fore Christ comes. This, we hold (though not 
 in the sense of the pre-millennialists), is the cor- 
 rect view. For proof we refer not only to the 
 
96 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 parable of the tares and wheat above alluded to, 
 and to the general teaching of that parable, but 
 also to the clearly asserted fact in Paul's descrip- 
 tion of Antichrist, or " the man of sin," that this 
 power is to continue until the very coming of 
 Christ; for it is to be destroyed by " the brightness 
 of his coming." Also, the Saviour's expression, 
 " When the son of man cometh, shall he find faith 
 on the earth ? " would seem to imply that in his 
 view the world would be far from being all Chris- 
 tian at the time of his coming; a fact which is 
 also very clearly taught in another of the parables, 
 — that of the drag-net, where the good and bad 
 fish are both not only caught, but kept in the net 
 until the general assorting; then each class is 
 dealt with by itself. " So shall it be," says the 
 Saviour, " at the end of the world : the angels shall 
 come forth and sever the wicked from among the 
 just." The fact, therefore, would seem to be defi- 
 nitely established, that the world, instead of being 
 all converted at the time of Christ's coming, will 
 have in it a great many impenitent and unbelieving 
 people. Many tares there will be; and many bad 
 fish, as well as good ones. If this is so, then the 
 glowing descriptions of abounding righteousness 
 given respecting Messiah's kingdom in the Old 
 Testament must be tempered by opposite descrip- 
 tions found elsewhere and particularly in the New 
 Testament — by Paul's description, for example, 
 of Antichrist, and of the continuance of this 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 9? 
 
 wicked power in the world, notwithstanding the 
 existence and all the widespread effects and tri- 
 umphs of the gospel. Certainly, the cause of 
 Christ is to attain supreme control in the world; 
 Satan, also, during the thousand years mentioned 
 in Revelation, is to be shut up in the bottomless 
 pit, and bound with chains, so that during that 
 time, the nations will not be deceived by him. Still, 
 the fact of Antichrist's existing during the same 
 period, would seem to indicate that the binding of 
 Satan must admit, to a certain extent, also of his 
 going free; and so it is with the other one-sided 
 descriptions found in the Bible of the triumphs and 
 influence of Christianity in our world. These glo- 
 rious features must be so toned down by other and 
 darker matters, which are revealed with equal clear- 
 ness in the Bible, that the picture we get will be 
 correct — correct, we may say, because harmonious, 
 and because inclusive of all the colorings and shad- 
 ings. * For want of observing so simple and yet 
 
 1 Two views are presented in the Bible regarding the state of things 
 to exist directly before the end of the world, or the coming of 
 Christ. One of these views is that the period will be one of 
 triumph and glory to the church, a period of the universal spread 
 of the gospel, of Christ's putting all enemies under his feet, and 
 of his reigning from the river unto the ends of the earth; also 
 a period of abounding righteousness and peace, and even of material 
 prosperity. Then, on the other hand, the Scriptures give us quite 
 a contrary picture; namely, one of apostasy from the truth, of 
 carnal security in the church, of more or less' extensive ungodli- 
 ness, of persecution and great tribulation — such tribulation, says 
 the Saviour, " as was not since the beginning of the world " (comp. 
 Matt. 24 : 21 with ibid. 29; also see Dan. 12:1; Rev. 16 : 18; 20 : 
 7-9). Now, of course, these two views cannot be regarded as 
 G 
 
9& tHAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 so rational a principle, not a few eschatologists have 
 made blundering work; and so, moreover, the two 
 schools of interpreters — pre-millennialists and post- 
 millennialists — have come into dissension with each 
 other. 
 
 Conversion of the Jews. Also the conversion of 
 the Jews is a matter that is clearly revealed in the 
 Scriptures to take place yet before the coming of 
 Christ; and therefore it is an event determinative, 
 in this relation, of time. This doctrine of the Jews 
 becoming converted is a very old one in the church. 
 So far back even as the times of the apostles, the 
 question, what would be the position of the Jews 
 as a nation to Christ, was a very interesting one, 
 and one often discussed one way and another by 
 the apostles. Many of that people did accept Jesus 
 as the true Messiah, but many of them also did 
 not accept, and would not accept him in that re- 
 lation. To this very day the great body of the 
 children of Abraham stubbornly refuse to acknowl- 
 edge our Saviour as their Saviour — or as their 
 prophet, priest, and king. The inquiry, therefore, 
 is still a pertinent one : Will this people, so unani- 
 mously having rejected Jesus, come back yet in 
 repentance and faith, with equal numbers or pro- 
 portionate numbers, to him? 
 
 There are many Scriptures, both in the Old 
 Testament and the New, which speak positively 
 
 mutually contradictory; but they are rather complementary one 
 to the other, and a complete picture is a combination of both. 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 99 
 
 on this point; but to notice only one fragment of 
 the argument, we may say that Paul's words in the 
 eleventh chapter of Romans establish the matter in 
 question beyond a peradventure. We are there 
 told, under the general figure of an olive tree in 
 relation to its branches, that the Jews are the 
 natural branches broken off from the original tree, 
 and that the Gentiles are branches taken from the 
 wild olive, and grafted into the parent stock; and 
 that after a time the natural branches will be re- 
 stored. For " blindness in part," says Paul, " is 
 happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles 
 be come in. And so " — that is, after the Gentile 
 fulness has been reached by the gospel — " all Is- 
 rael shall be saved." No question, therefore, about 
 the Jews being converted; and here, moreover, we 
 have a precise indication as to the time when that 
 event will occur. It is after the fulness of the Gen- 
 tiles — that is, the required number of heathen — have 
 been reached and saved by the gospel. Then, says 
 Paul, all Israel shall be saved. But the difficulty 
 here is that, after all, we make no advance in our 
 argument. For again, all depends upon the time 
 when the Gentiles will be converted ; that being the 
 date indicated, from which will begin the conver- 
 sion of the Jews. 
 
 Still some advantage is gained by the discussion 
 we are having; for even if there is no independent 
 or special Scripture indication given us as to the 
 time when the Jews will be converted — save the 
 
 LOFC. 
 
100 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 conversion of the Gentiles — yet, any facts, whether 
 occurring now or in the past, that have a historical 
 bearing upon the conversion of the Jews in any 
 numbers, would seem to have a bearing also upon 
 their final conversion, or their coming as a nation 
 to Christ. These facts, moreover, which indicate, 
 or might indicate, a national conversion of the 
 Jews as at any time occurring, would, with equal 
 certainty and definiteness, indicate the time of the 
 coming-in of the fulness of the Gentiles. For this 
 time of the Gentile fulness being reached, is the 
 same as that of the conversion of the Israelitish 
 nation to Christ. 
 
 Are there any evidences, then, in facts occurring, 
 or that have occurred, in connection with the Jewish 
 people, which indicate, or would seem with any 
 degree of clearness to indicate, a conversion of the 
 Jews from their abandonment and rejection of 
 Christ to a practical acceptance of him? Only two 
 such facts we will endeavor to point out. One of 
 them is a widespread rationalistic movement that 
 is known to be obtaining at present, and for some 
 time past to have been working, in Jewish theology 
 and in the Jewish religion generally. This move- 
 ment of late has made itself apparent by public con- 
 ferences held, and by very liberalistic declarations 
 adopted by these conferences, which look toward an 
 abandonment of many of the essential features of 
 ancient Judaism; such, for example, as the expec- 
 tation of a Messiah yet to come, an exclusive 
 
TIME OF THE LORDS COMING IOI 
 
 observance of Saturday as a day of rest and worship, 
 and many distinctions between things lawful and 
 unlawful in matters of a sanitary and dietary nature. 
 In other words, the Judaism of to-day, being, as it 
 seems, largely under the control of this rationalistic 
 movement, threatens to do away with most or nearly 
 all the distinctive features of that religion as it has 
 existed in the past, and to be preparing for a general 
 shipwreck ; it being in essence already only a kind of 
 Deism or Unitarianism. Thus the way seems to 
 be opening for this people, by an abandonment of 
 its own faith, to come to a better one, which will be, 
 of course, Christianity — this being the only religion 
 that can satisfy either the mind, the heart, or the 
 conscience, when once these powers have emptied 
 themselves of a false content, and thus have come to 
 appreciate their needs. There is, therefore, still 
 some hope of the conversion of the Jews, even, as 
 it would seem, from the standpoint of facts occur- 
 ring at present on the inside of their faith ; although 
 this argument, drawn from the workings of ration- 
 alism, we do not, of course, esteem a very strong 
 one. 
 
 The other fact which we wish to mention is the 
 frequent agitation that takes place, both on the in- 
 side of Judaism and in various Christian circles, as 
 to a return of the Jews to the holy land. To be 
 sure, these agitations generally amount to very 
 little; they are simply temporary disturbances of 
 human thought and feeling. But the interest taken 
 
102 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 for some reason, so long and often so widely, both 
 by Jews and Gentiles, in the matter we have men- 
 tioned, would seem to indicate that there must be 
 something in it — something perhaps bearing upon 
 the actual return of that people yet to the land of 
 their fathers, and so, of course, bearing upon the 
 subject of their conversion. The conversion of the 
 Jews, however, can take place, for aught there seems 
 to be in the Scriptures against it, just as well out- 
 side of Palestine as in it ; and the mere fact of this 
 people being in the holy land, or of their return- 
 ing to it, would, one would suppose, have but little 
 practical effect in the way of bringing them in re- 
 pentance and faith to Christ. Still, as there is noth- 
 ing decisive in the Scriptures favoring the return 
 under consideration, so there would seem to be also 
 nothing forbidding it. The matter is one regarding 
 which an argument can easily be built up either for 
 or against, according as the Scriptures selected and 
 considered, are either on the one side or the other. 
 But when it comes to all that the pre-millen- 
 nialists affirm regarding a restoration of the old 
 Jewish economy, the reestablishment of that people 
 as a theocratic nation in Palestine ; the rebuilding of 
 Jerusalem and the temple; and a re-institution of 
 the long since abandoned sacrifices and other cere- 
 monial observances belonging to the Jews, then, in 
 the name of a correct or reasonable interpretation 
 of Scripture, we protest against all such notions. 
 " Type and shadow," says an able writer, " have 
 
TIME OF THE LORDS COMING 103 
 
 passed away, never to return. To introduce them 
 again, would be to light a candle at noonday for the 
 purpose of finding by means of it the sun." That 
 would be a " return to the weak and beggarly 
 elements of the earlier worship." If there is any- 
 thing clearly taught in the Scriptures, and especially 
 in the New Testament, it is that God is no respecter 
 of persons, and that the old economy was but a 
 transitory one, to give place on the coming in of 
 the new. 1 (See Heb. 8 : 7-13; 9 : 1-14; Gal, 4 : 9, 
 10; 6 : 15; Col. 2 : 16-23; Acts 10 134, 35; 11 : 
 
 170 
 
 Antichrist, or the Great Apostasy, In our list of 
 the events which have a more determinative bear- 
 ing upon the date of Christ's return we have put 
 down two apostasies; one of them being so clearly 
 revealed or mentioned in the Bible as to be certain, 
 and the other only so mentioned that its occurrence 
 is possible. These two apostasies may perhaps be 
 considered as one, or as a single apostasy appearing 
 under different forms, although the one begins its 
 career much earlier than the other. They both, 
 however, have the same ending in human history, 
 which is at the second coming of Christ. Mention 
 is made of them not only in the New Testament, 
 but also in the Old, as for instance, particularly of 
 the first, in Daniel, seventh chapter (ver. 7, 8, 23- 
 26) ; also in Jesus' great eschatological discourse 
 recorded in all the synoptics; in Paul's second 
 
 1 See Topic G, in Appendix. 
 
104 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 letter to the Thessalonians (2 : 2-10) ; in the first 
 Epistle of John (2 : 18, 22; 4 : 3) ; and in Rev- 
 elation (see especially chap. 13, 17, 18 and 19). 
 Also if the second apostasy is to be regarded as 
 an event distinct and separate from the first, par- 
 ticular mention is made of this in the last part of 
 Revelation twenty (ver. 7-10; see also Dan. 11:21- 
 45; Matt. 24I29). 1 
 
 According to these Scriptures each one of the 
 apostasies under consideration is a great persecut- 
 ing power, partly secular and partly ecclesiastical in 
 nature, opposing and exalting itself defiantly against 
 God, making war upon the church, and attempting 
 especially to usurp the place and influence of Christ 
 in the world — hence called Antichrist; its actuating 
 spirit being hatred of the gospel, or opposition to 
 everything that is truly Christian. 
 
 So, at all events, it is with that evil power, " the 
 man of sin " and " the son of perdition," described 
 so fully by Paul, in Second Thessalonians. There 
 the power or principle of evil, or whatever it is that 
 is referred to, is set before us, first of all, as a 
 great departure from the faith. Secondly, it is 
 represented as a person, " the man of sin " and " son 
 
 1 Some scholars distinguish between the beast coming up out of 
 the bottomless pit, as mentioned in Rev. 17, and the first and 
 second beasts which are described in the thirteenth chapter. The 
 latter, they say, represent the papacy, but the former stands for 
 some historical personage yet to appear. Many modern interpreters, 
 of the preterist school, hold Nero to be the real Antichrist of 
 Revelation. 
 
TIME OF THE LORD'S COMING 105 
 
 of perdition," opposing and exalting himself above 
 all that is called God, or that is worshiped ; " so 
 that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, show- 
 ing himself that he is God." Next, this same power 
 is represented as a " mystery of iniquity " already 
 working; and finally, as "that Wicked," 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 per- 
 ish." Moreover, we are told that this opposing 
 agency shall be destroyed by the brightness of the 
 Lord's coming, and shall be consumed with the 
 breath of his mouth. Now this whole description 
 answers so exactly to the leading characteristics of 
 the papal power, as that institution has been known 
 in history, that most or at least many Protestant 
 scholars have been in the habit of identifying the 
 apostasy or Antichrist of Paul with the papal religion 
 and polity. If the pope is not Antichrist, it is ob- 
 served, what power or principle is there, or has 
 there ever been in the world, that deserves so well 
 Paul's description, or that answers so fully, not only 
 in the general features, but even in its details, this 
 portraiture which Paul depicts for us? The truth 
 is that even papists themselves have discerned in 
 this description of the man of sin and the son of per- 
 dition as given by Paul, so striking a likeness to 
 their own system that some of them in the Middle 
 Ages admitted the resemblance to exist; and later 
 Catholic theologians have exerted themselves not 
 
106 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 a little in attempts at turning away the odium which 
 comes upon their ecclesiasticism because of the 
 fact that so generally in the minds of men this re- 
 ligious, or rather religio-political system has been 
 identified with the Antichrist of Scripture prophecy. 
 Some there are, and modern Romish theologians 
 among the number, who look upon the Antichrist 
 of the Bible not as an institution or corporate power, 
 but as a single individual, one whose doing and ex- 
 istence in the world is yet to appear; and thus it is 
 that the advocates of the papacy's not being Anti- 
 christ, would establish that point — by saying that 
 this antagonistic power is one yet to come. Also 
 some try to make a distinction between mystical 
 Babylon as described in the seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth chapters of Revelation, and Antichrist, which 
 they say is the beast mentioned in the last part of 
 the seventeenth and nineteenth chapters. 
 
 But be this distinction, and many other things 
 that are said about Antichrist, correct or otherwise, 
 certain it is that there are very good reasons for 
 regarding the Church of Rome, especially in its 
 religio-political aspects, as the apostate power de- 
 scribed by Paul in the second chapter of Second 
 Thessalonians ; and certain also that this power is, 
 as to its extinction, immediately connected with the 
 advent of Christ. For we read of " that Wicked " 
 who was to be revealed, that the Lord " shall con- 
 sume him with the spirit of his mouth, and shall 
 destroy him with the brightness of his coming"; 
 
TIME OF THE LORDS COMING 107 
 
 also, that " that day (which is the day of Christ's 
 advent) shall not come, except there come a falling 
 away first, and the man of sin be revealed." The 
 manifestation, therefore, of Christ, from heaven, 
 will be directly connected with the destruction of 
 Antichrist, or, if we have interpreted this matter 
 rightly, of the papal power. 
 
 The only question therefore now remaining which 
 must be answered before we can with reasonable 
 certainty and even with some definiteness, announce 
 the time of the Lord's coming, is the date of the 
 destruction of the papacy, or how much time must 
 yet elapse before Romanism comes to an end. Un- 
 fortunately here for our problem, no one can give 
 us a definite and satisfactory reply. Some who have 
 examined the matter, tell us that the power of Rome 
 was first broken by the Reformation in the six- 
 teenth century; that moreover it received a deadly 
 wound, at least as to its rule over the Latin nations, 
 and so, in a measure over the world, in 1793-1798, 
 when the French cast off the pope's authority, and 
 the pope himself was made a prisoner and carried 
 into captivity by Napoleon's soldiers; also, that in 
 1870, when Victor Emmanuel took possession of 
 Rome and deprived the papacy of its temporal do- 
 minion, then also it received a very serious wound, 
 and ever since has been in a dying condition. All 
 this, of course, would argue that the coming of the 
 Saviour is near; or at least, that the papacy is con- 
 suming away — an experience which, according to 
 
I08 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Daniel (7:26), is the method in which the 
 power we are considering seems likely to expire. At 
 any rate, the commencement of its decline may be 
 in that way, and its complete extinction be brought 
 about more suddenly, by the coming of the Lord, as 
 declared in the prophecy. 
 
 So, also, if we are to accept a second apostasy 
 as yet to occur — a doctrine which would seem to 
 be warranted by the words in Rev. 20 : 7-10 — 
 then too, as may be seen from the scripture im- 
 mediately following, this event and the second com- 
 ing of the Lord have an immediate connection. So 
 in either of the cases, the termination of the apos- 
 tasy gives us a mark for determining something 
 about the time of our Lord's coming. Only in the 
 case of a second apostasy occurring, inasmuch as 
 such an event has not yet commenced in history, 
 of course, we cannot prophesy from appearances 
 anything about its end. To us, therefore, no 
 serviceable time-indication comes from this source. 1 
 
 1 For a fuller discussion of who or what Antichrist is, see 
 Appendix, Topic E. 
 
VII 
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 
 
 NOW, looking back over our entire discussion 
 and the points we have established, we name 
 the following as such points, or general conclusions : 
 
 1. A literal, personal, visible and glorious com- 
 ing of our Lord is clearly prophesied in the Scrip- 
 tures. This event is, therefore, to be expected with 
 positive and unwavering faith. 
 
 2. The objects, or concomitant events, of Christ's 
 appearance are (i) a general resurrection of the 
 dead; (2) the judgment of the world, or of every 
 man, good and bad, according to his works; and 
 (3) the " restitution " or consummation of all things, 
 which includes the final conflagration, the bringing 
 into existence of a new heaven and a new earth, and 
 the perfecting by Christ of his mediatorial kingdom. 
 
 3. As to the time of the advent, we have learned, 
 from a considerably extended examination of what 
 is called the millennium, that this matter of the 
 thousand years, as mentioned in the twentieth chap- 
 ter of Revelation, is not to be regarded as a neces- 
 sary event to occur before the Lord's epiphany ; or in 
 other words, that the millennium is not one of the 
 scriptural data upon which a calculation of the 
 time of the Saviour's coming is to be based. 
 
 109 
 
HO THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 4. On the other hand we learned respecting the 
 millennium, that it is not necessary to abandon be- 
 lief in it altogether, in order to hold the view of 
 its being not a prerequisite to the Lord's coming. 
 For that, it is only necessary to give such an inter- 
 pretation of the thousand years as that at least a 
 part of the period can be considered as having 
 already elapsed. It is, therefore, the post-millen- 
 nial notion of the millennium, or of a very long 
 period of such exceeding triumph and glory to the 
 gospel as that it cannot properly be considered as 
 having yet commenced, that is to be given up, not 
 necessarily the millennium itself. 
 
 5. The position, then, taken in these pages, re- 
 garding the millennium, is: first, that it is a mys- 
 tery, or a matter that seems to be too indefinitely 
 revealed to form a definite article of faith, especially 
 when opposed as it is by other and plainer Scrip- 
 ture teachings; secondly, that whatever of the 
 " thousand years " it is necessary to retain, in order 
 to give some interpretation to the passage in Rev. 
 20 : 1-6, the period must be so interpreted as that 
 at least a large part of it can be considered as be- 
 longing to the past; and thirdly, that some of the 
 glories, especially those mentioned in the Old Tes- 
 tament, which are usually included in the millen- 
 nium, would best be referred to the eternal estate 
 of Messiah's kingdom, or to his glorious rule in 
 heaven, rather than to any condition of things on 
 this side of the advent. Furthermore touching the 
 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS III 
 
 millennial reign it may be said that, inasmuch as 
 other data than it are the ones customarily taken in 
 Scripture for estimating or visioning the time of 
 the Lord's coming (see Matt., chap. 24, and 2 
 Thess. 2 : 1-10), we may best follow this customary 
 example, and so leave the " thousand years," at least 
 very largely out of the account. 
 
 6. Doing thus, or attempting to estimate the 
 date of our Lord's appearance from other time- 
 indications than the chiliad mentioned in Revelation, 
 twentieth chapter, we get from these data, that 
 is, from the evident progression in the fulfilment 
 of prophecy ; from certain prophetic numbers ; from 
 certain beasts and other object symbols given to us 
 in the Bible; also, and especially from various 
 events which are clearly prophesied to take place 
 before the advent — from all these sources we ob- 
 tain, we think, sufficient information regarding the 
 point we are considering to say that, as matters 
 look, the coming of our Lord cannot now be so 
 exceedingly distant from us, but rather is some- 
 what nigh. At all events, this is the better way to 
 regard it. 
 
 7. Just how near though, that event may be, 
 there are no means furnished us for deciding. 
 Luther thought, away back in his day, that in about 
 three hundred years from then the Lord would 
 come. Perhaps that period, or a shorter one, would 
 be a good limit for us still to put before the mind. 
 However that may be, sure it is that the advent is 
 
I I 2 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 nigher now than it has been in any day past, and 
 nearly nineteen centuries nearer than when Jesus 
 ascended from Mount Olivet to heaven. 
 
 As to the practical improvement of our subject, 
 we need only to observe that the second coming of 
 Christ to the wicked ought to be a source of alarm 
 and an instigation to immediate repentance; to be- 
 lievers, on the other hand, it is an event for which 
 they should be constantly and fervently looking with 
 all holy conversation and godliness, trying to pre- 
 pare both themselves and others for it. " What I 
 say unto you, I say unto all " — said the Saviour — 
 " Watch." " Watch, therefore ; for ye know not 
 what hour your Lord doth come." 
 
 Watch, ye saints, with eyelids waking, 
 Lo ! the powers of heaven are shaking, 
 Keep your lamps all trimmed and burning, 
 Ready for your Lord's returning. 
 
 Nations wane, though proud and stately, 
 Christ his kingdom hasteneth greatly, 
 Earth her latest pangs is summing, 
 Shout, ye saints, your Lord is coming! 
 
 Watch, for the time is short; 
 
 Watch, while 't is called to-day ; 
 Watch, lest temptations overcome; 
 
 Watch, Christian, watch and pray! 
 Watch, for the flesh is weak; 
 
 Watch, for the foe is strong; 
 Watch, lest the Bridegroom knock in vain; 
 
 Watch, though he tarry long. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 TREATING OF VARIOUS KINDRED TOPICS 
 
 EXPLANATORY NOTE 
 
 In the foregoing pages has been presented what 
 is believed to be the regular scriptural, or common 
 orthodox view of our Lord's parousia. It is that 
 his return will be literal, personal, visible, and glo- 
 rious in form; and that it will be accompanied by 
 various most extraordinary events, such as a dis- 
 solution of nature, a resurrection of the dead, a 
 general judgment, and the ushering in of Christ's 
 everlasting kingdom. Now in connection with 
 this general doctrine, there have appeared various 
 questions and topics, which, because of their being 
 intimately associated with the general subject, may 
 be termed side issues or kindred matters ; and it 
 is the especial purpose of this appendix to treat 
 of these. 
 
 As the case now stands, it is, at least with certain 
 classes of scholars, not so much a question whether, 
 according to the teachings of Scripture, pre-mil- 
 lennialism or post-millennialism is correct, but it is 
 rather whether there is to be expected any real re- 
 turn of our Lord from heaven. In other words, 
 it is whether, with the evidences now obtainable and 
 that may be used, the old orthodox view of our 
 h 113 
 
114 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Lord's second coming can be any longer retained, 
 or whether it should be abandoned, in favor of some 
 other, preterist, non-personal, or figurative view, 
 that really does away with the whole orthodox doc- 
 trine. Is there then, or is there not, yet to be such 
 an event in human history as orthodox Christians 
 have always believed would be the final and real 
 coming of Christ? or is this great hope and expec- 
 tation of God's people to be abandoned as a dream or 
 an error; while some other view, now stigmatized, 
 perhaps, as heretical, shall take the place of it? 
 
 This is one of the considerations prompting to 
 the discussion of these side matters, in an appendix ; 
 and another reason is, that a proper understanding 
 of these kindred topics will help to a proper or a 
 better understanding of the general subject itself. 
 What these kindred topics are, will appear to the 
 reader as he goes forward; and we need only to 
 say of them additionally, that they might have 
 formed a second or more constituent part of the 
 treatise ; but owing to their miscellaneous character 
 we have preferred to put them in an appendix. 
 
 TOPIC A 
 
 " NEW-THEOLOGY " AND RATIONALISTIC VIEWS 
 OF THE ADVENT 
 
 Among the various non-personal or merely 
 figurative views that have been taken of Christ's 
 
APPENDIX 115 
 
 parousia there are especially two, or rather two 
 classes of views which, because of their wide- 
 reaching and destructive import, and also because 
 of their having been put forward with no little show 
 of learning and confidence, deserve to be examined 
 with some care. The question regarding them is, 
 whether they are in accordance with Scripture, and 
 are therefore true — or are they to be rejected as 
 unscriptural and false? 
 
 One of these peculiar views, or classes of views, 
 is a conception of Christ's return which has been 
 called the spiritual view, but under the words 
 "spiritual view," as used here, there are embraced 
 really two different doctrines. 
 
 I. The Older Spiritual or Unitarian View. One 
 of these doctrines is that by the second coming of 
 Christ we are to understand only a kind of dispen- 
 sation of the truth. Jesus promised his disciples, 
 we are told, that " if he went away, he would come 
 again unto them " ; but he only meant that he would 
 come in a fuller propagation and influence of his 
 gospel in the world than had been accomplished 
 during his life. In other words, he identified him- 
 self with the truths which he had proclaimed, and 
 he believed that after his death these truths would 
 become " the criteria of Divine judgment, according 
 to which all the righteous would be distinguished 
 as his subjects, and all the iniquitous should be 
 separated from his kingdom. Then it would be 
 seen that he was the Messiah, and through the 
 
Il6 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 eternal principles of truth which he had taught he 
 would sit upon a throne — not literally, in person, 
 as some of his hearers supposed, blessing the Jews 
 and cursing the Gentiles, but spiritually in the 
 truth, dispensing joy to good men and woe to bad 
 men, according to their deserts. ,, 
 
 This is essentially the theory as advocated by 
 Mr. W. R. Alger, in his " Critical History of the 
 Doctrine of a Future Life " ; and we may say of it, 
 that it is a notion which has often been taken by 
 Unitarians and others of so-called liberalistic be- 
 lief. But that this view is wholly contrary to the 
 general teachings of Scripture with regard to our 
 Lord's second coming, does not perhaps need any 
 proof. 
 
 We will only quote against it some of the posi- 
 tive, clear, and decisive utterances of Christ. For 
 example, in those words already referred to, about 
 Jesus' promising his disciples that if he went away, 
 he would come again unto them, it should be 
 noticed that it is the same / who was to go away 
 that would return ; so that if Christ died in person, 
 and in person ascended to heaven, it was also in 
 person that he would return to his disciples. So 
 also in Jesus' promise, given to his disciples (John 
 14:2, 3), that he was going away to prepare a 
 place for them in the heavenly " mansions," and 
 that if he prepared such a place he would come 
 again and receive them unto himself, that where he 
 was, there they should be also; from these words 
 
APPENDIX 1 1 7 
 
 it certainly is evident that our Lord's entire con- 
 ception of his future return was that of a great 
 objective, external fact, and not merely of some 
 internal subjective experience, in the hearts and 
 lives of his disciples. Not to give any further 
 proofs, therefore, this doctrine of the older Unita- 
 rians and other " liberalists " is, surely, to be rejected 
 as wholly opposed to Scripture and consequently 
 untrue. 
 
 II. The Later and More Common Spiritual 
 View. But another form of this same spiritual 
 conception is one that, in recent years, has been 
 taken by some " new theology " men, and also by 
 some of the " higher critics." Its original pro- 
 pounder, or at least the man who first, in English, 
 put the theory into elaborate shape, was Dr. I. P. 
 Warren, a New England divine. In one of his 
 books, entitled " The Parousia " and published more 
 than a quarter of a century ago, he put forward a 
 theory of our Lord's advent which in some respects 
 resembles, and in others differs from, the notion 
 we have just considered. According to Doctor War- 
 ren the coming of our Saviour must be understood, 
 surely, as a spiritual coming, but spiritual in a 
 different sense from that taken by the older or Uni- 
 tarian doctrine. What this more recent theory 
 would have us to understand by the word spiritual 
 is that Christ promised to return to his disciples, 
 not merely in a dispensation of the truth, but rather 
 in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, by 
 
1 18 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 which means his gospel should be made operative 
 in the world. Moreover, the Holy Spirit, being 
 with the disciples, would act toward them as a 
 Comforter and Helper. This gift of the Holy 
 Spirit, which was promised to the disciples, began 
 to be bestowed on the day of Pentecost, but it has 
 since been given more fully not only to those ear- 
 lier followers of Christ, but to all true disciples in 
 every Christian age. Consequently this gift is to be 
 understood as a continuous or abiding one ; and be- 
 cause of that gift, Christ himself may be conceived 
 of as always abiding with his disciples. 
 
 As an additional feature of the theory, it might 
 be mentioned that Doctor Warren connects the fall 
 of Jerusalem, as a providential coming of Christ, 
 with his more spiritual coming at Pentecost ; and in 
 that way he enlarges, and, as he thinks, perfects his 
 doctrine. * 
 
 But as was shown in our examination of the old 
 Unitarian view, so we can also here very easily 
 demonstrate the opposition of this newer theory to 
 the general teachings of Scripture. For instance, 
 in those words of our Lord in which he tells his 
 disciples that if he went away, he would send the 
 
 1 This view, in both of its peculiar features, is held also by 
 Dr. William Newton Clarke, who says of it, in his " Outline of 
 Christian Theology " (p. 442), " The destruction of Jerusalem 
 may be called his (Christ's) advent on the negative side." But 
 Christ " came positively in the Holy Spirit of power." Also various 
 other American teachers of theology seem to have adopted this view, 
 e. g., Drs. William Adams Brown, C. A. Beckwith, and J. W. 
 Buckham, author of " Christ and the Eternal Order." 
 
APPENDIX 119 
 
 Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who would lead them 
 into all truth, etc. — by these words, surely, Christ 
 makes a clear distinction between his own place of 
 abode and the scene of the Spirit's activity. The 
 Spirit was, according to the representation given, 
 to do his work on earth, in the experiences of the 
 disciples; but Christ's abode, according to other 
 words of his, was to be in his Father's house, or 
 in heaven. This being the relation of Christ to the 
 Holy Spirit, of course it must be seen that the two 
 great personalities are very clearly distinguished 
 one from the other. The Spirit abides with the dis- 
 ciples here in our world, but Christ, who sends the 
 Spirit, has his home up in heaven. Besides, it 
 could easily be shown, from many other passages, 
 that our Lord's advent is to be looked upon as ex- 
 ternal, objective, and not merely as an internal 
 presence with his disciples. 
 
 Then too, it could be demonstrated that the 
 parousia, when properly understood, is not an 
 often repeated act or a process, as is taught 
 by the theory under consideration; but it is 
 one single event, which will take place at 
 the end of time, and in connection with various 
 other events, such as have been already indicated. 1 
 Moreover, it might still be added, that our Lord's 
 second coming, as represented in Scripture, is not 
 to be a quiet, unobserved internal reception of the 
 Spirit, or even such a reception as was granted on 
 
 1 Review of the process theory at close of this Topic. 
 
120 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 the day of Pentecost, but an open, widely observed, 
 and even a universally beheld event; when he shall 
 descend from heaven, as the description is, with a 
 shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet 
 of God; or as the lightning which, appearing in 
 the east, shines even unto the utmost part of heaven. 
 "All eyes shall see him," it is said, and even " they 
 which pierced him shall look upon him." Then 
 moreover shall " all the tribes of the earth mourn, 
 and they shall see the Son of man coming in the 
 clouds of heaven with power and great glory." 
 Surely, this description, given in the Bible, of our 
 Lord's second coming has never yet been realized 
 in human history, and is not likely to be realized 
 before the end of time. 
 
 We might say yet, before concluding this part of 
 our discussion, that in one sense we believe, with 
 the holders of this spiritual theory, that Christ has 
 already, by his Spirit, come into human life, and will 
 do so more fully even unto the end of time; but 
 while the Scriptures clearly seem to teach this doc- 
 trine, they also teach, just as clearly and far more 
 abundantly, that the real, full, or final coming of our 
 Lord will not take place until the end of the world. 
 
 III. The Past-Historical or Preterist View, But 
 the most destructive of all these partial, or rather, 
 unscriptural views of the second coming of Christ, 
 is one yet to be noticed. It is a theory that was 
 elaborated quite a number of years ago, in an Eng- 
 lish publication, styled again " The Parousia," and 
 

 APPENDIX 121 
 
 of which the author was Mr. J. Stuart Russell. In 
 that book the position is taken — and the same view, 
 at least in part, has been advocated by others, as, 
 e. g., Dr. Milton S. Terry in his " Biblical Apoc- 
 alyptics " * — that all the prophecies appertaining 
 to our Lord's parousia had their complete fulfil- 
 ment in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman 
 army under Titus, in the year 70. That one single 
 historical event, we are told, realized all the pecu- 
 liarities and various incidents which, according to 
 a proper interpretation of Scripture, constitute the 
 second coming of Christ, incomparably great and 
 grand as this latter event would seem to be. But 
 the significance of the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 this theory teaches, was so very great, as bearing 
 both upon general history and especially the history 
 and even essence of Christianity, that all the vast 
 import of our Lord's parousia was really accom- 
 plished by that event. According to this theory, 
 therefore, the second coming of Christ has already 
 taken place; it is now a past event, having become 
 a fact considerably more than eighteen centuries 
 ago. But surely, such a conception, so wide-reach- 
 ing in its scope and so destructive both of old or- 
 thodox notions and of orthodox expectations, ought 
 
 1 Doctor Terry teaches what he calls the " preterist and historical " 
 view, which is that Christ's parousia really began with the fall 
 of Jerusalem; and since then it has continued as a process, and 
 will doubtless thus continue until the end of time. See his " Bib. 
 Apocalyptics," pp. 218, 223, 251, 478, 480, 481, et. al. Also Ezra P. 
 Gould, in the " International Commentary on Mark " (pp. 240-255), 
 holds the preterist view. 
 
122 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 to be well established by Scripture, if it is to be 
 received as true. 
 
 But what is the evidence to support this theory? 
 Are there many passages in the Bible, or any 
 passages, that really and truly, and without dif- 
 ference of opinion among interpreters, support this 
 view ? The truth is that in all our Christian Scrip- 
 tures not one single passage can be found that 
 clearly and unmistakably gives support to this 
 theory. Whatever indorsement it has, comes only 
 in the way of inference, or by a strained, forced, and 
 unnatural interpretation of just a few Scripture 
 passages scattered throughout the synoptic Gospels, 
 or found, more particularly, in Jesus' great eschato- 
 logical discourse as recorded by Matthew, and less 
 fully in the other synoptics. 
 
 In the thirty-fourth verse of the twenty-fourth 
 chapter of Matthew's Gospel we have these words : 
 " This generation," says the Saviour, " shall not 
 pass away until all these things are fulfilled." By 
 this utterance the preterists would have us under- 
 stand that our Lord, in his view of his own second 
 coming, so fully identified that coming with the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem that to him the two occur- 
 rences meant the same thing, and therefore they 
 are to be regarded as occurring at the same time. 
 According to this view, therefore, the words "all 
 these things," as used in this passage, include all the 
 matters of which Christ had been speaking to his 
 disciples — not merely " these things " as in the form 
 
APPENDIX 123 
 
 of the disciples' question and as found in verse 3, 
 but each and every other matter also contained in 
 the previous part of Christ's discourse. But a com- 
 mon orthodox interpretation of this same passage 
 is rather to make the words " all these things " 
 refer back to the question of the disciples, when they 
 inquired of Jesus, just after his prophecy relative to 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, "when shall these 
 things be? " — evidently alluding to the event just 
 mentioned. This, we say, is a common interpreta- 
 tion given to that difficult passage by orthodox 
 scholars ; but what the passage really and unmistak- 
 ably means, no mortal has ever yet been able fully 
 and decisively to explain. Perhaps the best way to 
 treat this passage is to regard it — taken with its con- 
 text — as a kind of mystery, or as one of those pecu- 
 liar utterances found in the Bible, which, with our 
 present knowledge of Scripture matters, is incapa- 
 ble of full and exact exposition, and therefore can 
 best be handled, perhaps, by leaving them alone. 1 
 
 1 Perhaps the best interpretation of this difficult passage, and of 
 others like it (see foot-note, p. 126), is to say that the destruction of 
 Jerusalem was the beginning of the end of the world, or of that 
 long series of judgments which finally would overwhelm the entire 
 world in destruction. With such a view, therefore, it would be 
 proper enough to regard Jerusalem's downfall as both a type and a 
 prophecy of the great world catastrophe which is yet to happen; 
 also it would not be improper to say that Jesus did actually come, 
 in a judicial way, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman 
 army. But this is far from admitting that in the conception of 
 Jesus his final coming, regarded as an event, was the same thing 
 as the downfall of the holy city of the Jews, and therefore that those 
 two events should occur simultaneously. For, in the first place, 
 Jesus in various ways distinguished very clearly between the 
 
124 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Suppose, then, that we act upon this suggestion; 
 and now omitting from our consideration not only 
 this one difficult passage found in Matthew, but also 
 all other passages that can be adduced by preterists 
 to establish their view 1 — then the question arises 
 whether there are any other passages of Scripture 
 that, in clear, unmistakable language, set forth the 
 doctrine of our Lord's second coming. Most cer- 
 tainly there are. The Bible is full of such pas- 
 sages, and one peculiarity belonging to them all is, 
 that they know absolutely nothing about any con- 
 nection existing between the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem and our Lord's parousia. Indeed, these other 
 
 catastrophe which should befall not only Jerusalem but also the 
 Jews, and his own final coming. Then also, by two expressions 
 which he used, viz., " the times of the Gentiles " and a prediction 
 that his gospel would be preached for a witness among all nations, 
 before the end came (see Matt. 24 : 14, and comp. Luke 21 : 24 
 with ver. 27 in same chapter) — by these two expressions Jesus seemed 
 to put off his second coming to a distant time, while he seems also to 
 have always looked upon the threatened destruction of Jerusalem as 
 being near. 
 
 Now, putting these two ideas together, Jesus' postponement of his 
 parousia to a distant day, and his distinguishing clearly, as he did, 
 between the fall of the Jewish capital and his own second coming, 
 the conclusion would seem to be inevitable that the destruction of 
 Jerusalem could not possibly have been regarded by Jesus as in 
 any sense fulfilling really the prophecy of his final coming, or the 
 parousia. It may be conceded that Jesus came judicially to our 
 world when Jerusalem perished in consequence of a divine judgment, 
 but to say that in that catastrophe Jesus also came in the fulness 
 of his personality, and accompanied by all the events that are 
 prophesied to take place in connection with his parousia, is going 
 away beyond the bounds of any warrant from Scripture, and also 
 beyond all reasonable interpretation either of Matt. 24 : 34 or of 
 any other like passage of Scripture. 
 
 1 Note especially parallel passages to Matt. 24 : 34 in Mark and 
 Luke; also Matt. 16 : 28; 10 : 23; Mark 9:1; Matt. 26 : 64. 
 
APPENDIX 125 
 
 passages very rarely so much as even mention Jeru- 
 salem ; much less, then, do they connect the down- 
 fall of that city with that great final event in the 
 history of our world which is known as Christ's 
 second coming, or the parousia. 
 
 Now all these things being true, or at least capa- 
 ble of proof, it follows as a corollary, that the vast 
 preponderance of Scripture testimony lies not on the 
 side of the preterists, but rather supports the old or- 
 thodox view of our Lord's return. Moreover, if this 
 is so, then it also follows that no reasonable or even 
 sane believer in Scripture, should be long in decid- 
 ing with which of the two eschatological views just 
 mentioned the great probability of truth lies. 
 
 Or to state the case in somewhat different terms, 
 we might say that the various Scripture argu- 
 ments which can be adduced against the preterist 
 notion of our Lord's second coming, are about as 
 follows : 
 
 1. This notion contradicts all that is said in the 
 Bible about the personal, bodily, visible, and glo- 
 rious form of the Saviour's advent. 
 
 2. It forgets the fact that, according to the teach- 
 ings of Scripture, our Lord's parousia is to be ac- 
 companied by certain most extraordinary events, 
 such as a resurrection of the dead, a general judg- 
 ment, the dissolution of nature, a new heaven and 
 a new earth appearing, and finally the surrender of 
 Christ's mediatorial rule to the Father, so that God 
 may be all in all. 
 
126 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 3. This theory forgets also that quite a number 
 of occurrences — such as the conversion of the Jews 
 as a nation to the Christian faith, the full revelation 
 of Antichrist, the preaching of the gospel for a wit- 
 ness among all nations, and some others — must come 
 in yet before Christ makes his appearance. 
 
 4. Still another item that can be used against the 
 preterist notion, is that, if Christ really did return 
 to our earth in the destruction of Jerusalem, an 
 event which occurred now nearly nineteen centuries 
 ago, then it has been impossible for the great multi- 
 tude of Christ's disciples to celebrate, with its full 
 meaning, the ordinance known as the Lord's Sup- 
 per. For in instituting that observance Jesus 
 said, " This do until I come." But now, if Christ 
 came so long ago, then none but the disciples 
 living in or near Christ's own time, could possibly 
 celebrate the ordinance with the fulness of signifi- 
 cance originally connected with it, or which Christ 
 commanded. 
 
 5. Once more, the fact that according to nearly all 
 the older authorities, and to the general trend of the 
 latest scholarship (e. g., Harnack, Bousset, Frank C. 
 Porter), the Revelation of John was published after 
 the fall of Jerusalem, or about the year 95, and also 
 that probably Luke's Gospel, and certainly John's 
 Gospel and his First Epistle, were written after 
 the year 70 — in all of which writings Christ's 
 parousia was looked to as a coming event — this fact 
 would seem to prove that, in the disciples' view at 
 
APPENDIX 127 
 
 least, the fall of Jerusalem was by no means a 
 fulfilling of the prophecy respecting our Lord's 
 second coming. 
 
 6. And now, going back to the vast predomi- 
 nance of Scripture testimony which, we saw, lies not 
 on the side of the preterist view, but against it ; and 
 then connecting that testimony with the result of the 
 various lines of argument just followed, we have, 
 as our final conclusion, which is sure and strong, 
 simply to say, that this entire preterist theory is 
 utterly contrary to Scripture, and is therefore both 
 heretical and false. 
 
 Speaking only of Paul's description of the ad- 
 vent, as given in First and Second Thessalonians, 
 Dean Alford remarks: "All these preterist inter- 
 pretations [which he had just described] have 
 against them one fatal objection — that it is impossi- 
 ble to conceive of the destruction of Jerusalem as in 
 any sense corresponding to the parousia in St. Paul's 
 sense of the term." (Greek Test., Vol. III., Proleg. 
 on 2 Thess., Chap. VI., sec. v., par. 24.) And 
 again : " The destruction of Jerusalem is inade- 
 quate as an interpretation of the coming of the 
 Lord here [2 Thess. 2 : 1-12]. He has not yet come 
 in any sense adequate to such interpretation; there- 
 fore the prophecy has yet to be fulfilled." (Ibid., 
 par. 28). And if such is the case with Paul's de- 
 scription, the same and even more can be said with 
 regard to the New Testament representation in 
 general. 
 
128 
 
 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 SPECIAL REVIEW OF THEORY THAT THE PAROUSIA IS 
 A PROCESS OR DISPENSATION 
 
 A modification of the last or preterist view, which 
 we have just discussed, and also an element con- 
 tained in each of the two other or more spiritual 
 views, is a doctrine respecting our Lord's parousia 
 which may be called the continuous-historical view. 
 It represents the coming of Christ to be not a single 
 event, but rather a long series of events — a process 
 or dispensation. 
 
 This view seems just now to be especially popular 
 with some of the so-called " advanced " theologians, 
 higher-critic interpreters of the Bible, and others 
 who are rationalistically inclined. The doctrine ap- 
 pears to have originated either in the German ration- 
 alism itself or in some branch of that kind of 
 thought. In our own country it is represented by 
 such men as Dr. William Newton Clarke, Dr. Wil- 
 liam Adams Brown, Dr. Clarence A. Beckwith, pro- 
 fessor in the Chicago Theological Seminary (Con- 
 gregationalist) ; Dr. John Wright Buckham, pro- 
 fessor in the Pacific Theological Seminary, and 
 others, whose writings show that their authors either 
 openly teach this theory or are favorably inclined 
 toward it. Indeed, this doctrine seems in these times 
 to be growingly popular with the classes of persons 
 mentioned, particularly in the United States and 
 Great Britain. On that account especially we desire 
 here to give it some special notice. 
 
APPENDIX 1 29 
 
 As already indicated, this doctrine teaches that 
 our Lord's parousia must not be regarded as a single 
 event, nor even as a few events, but rather as a 
 long-continued process, beginning, as some teach, 
 with the resurrection of Christ, and continuing on, 
 as is the common notion, down through the pente- 
 costal gift of the Holy Spirit, the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, and many other like events, even to the 
 end of time. Nay, the German Professor Beyschlag 
 teaches that, as a fellowship with the disciples, this 
 parousia of our Lord continues even in eternity. 
 
 Objections to the Doctrine. 1. Now looking upon 
 this peculiar theory from the standpoint of the 
 Scriptures and of our orthodox faith, we may say 
 of it, in the first place, that it contains some truth, 
 but a vastly greater amount of error. The truth 
 contained in this view is especially one which we 
 have already acknowledged, in our examination of 
 the second of the two spiritual theories. It is that 
 there is such a thing as a real spiritual coming of 
 Christ. This spiritual coming began, as we under- 
 stand it, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on 
 the day of Pentecost; and since then it has been 
 enlarged in its manifestations, and perhaps also in 
 its intensity, and has spread over all the earth, so 
 that it is to-day the one great Effective Force for 
 building up and extending Christ's kingdom in our 
 world. This spiritual force is not only now at work, 
 but will continue its operations until the end of time. 
 It is, as we have said, a real second coming — or 
 1 
 
130 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 perhaps it may be called a kind of parousia — of our 
 Lord. 
 
 But now, while we thus readily concede this much 
 of truth to be embraced in the doctrine under 
 consideration, or that our Lord's second coming 
 may be regarded as a process, we by no means are 
 willing to admit that such a doctrine contains the 
 whole truth respecting the parousia. On the con- 
 trary, we affirm that the most important, the most 
 specific, the most scriptural truth connected with 
 any correct theory of our Lord's return from heaven 
 is that when he comes it will be in literal, personal, 
 and visible form. He will not return in merely a 
 dispensation of the truth, nor in the power and dem- 
 onstration of the Spirit, nor by such judicial events 
 as was the overthrow of ancient Jerusalem; but it 
 will be in his own personality. The same Jesus 
 who ascended to heaven will return, and in the same 
 manner as he ascended — that is, with his full glori- 
 fied personal being. This is the doctrine taught 
 everywhere in Scripture — to some extent even in 
 the Old Testament, but much more fully in the New. 
 We have already given the Scripture proofs of this 
 doctrine (see especially pp. 34, 35 in main part 
 of book), consequently they need not be repeated 
 here. We will only say that in the original 
 Greek the word Trapouala, translated usually, in 
 our English Scriptures, " coming " or " presence," 
 means, when applied to a person, that he is now 
 present in contradistinction to his having been 
 
APPENDIX 1 3 I 
 
 absent ; and as used in the New Testament, Prof. J. 
 H. Thayer says, in his Greek-English Lexicon, that 
 it means " the future visible return from heaven of 
 Jesus the Messiah." It is, indeed, a kind of techni- 
 cal term that seems to have been coined very early 
 by the disciples for the express purpose of setting 
 forth their conception of what our Lord's return 
 would be. It would be a parousia — that is, a " pres- 
 ence " in our world of the Saviour who had before 
 been absent. 
 
 This is our understanding of what is the Scrip- 
 ture idea of Christ's second coming; and if we are 
 correct, then of course, the other doctrine which 
 teaches that Christ's coming is only a spiritual 
 process or a succession of Messianic judgments upon 
 the world, must be rejected as incorrect, or false. 
 
 2. This is, then, our first objection to the doctrine 
 under consideration. A second objection is that, in 
 the Scriptures everywhere Christ's parousia is rep- 
 resented to be, not a process, but a single event. 
 In proof of this we call attention to all those Scrip- 
 ture passages which give us to understand that the 
 second coming of Christ will occur but once. Only 
 once do we read will the Lord descend from heaven, 
 with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, etc.; 
 only once will he sit upon the throne of his glory, 
 and all the nations be gathered before him; and 
 only once will he distribute his rewards and penalties 
 to every man, according as his works have been. 
 Furthermore, we may say, the Scriptures set definite 
 
132 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 bounds both before and after our Lord's parousia. 
 Before that event there will take place a universal 
 preaching of the gospel among the nations, a tread- 
 ing down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles until the 
 time of the Gentiles is fulfilled, and still other 
 occurrences; and after the parousia, or immedi- 
 ately in connection with it, there will take place 
 the resurrection of the dead, the general judg- 
 ment, and other extraordinary matters. Christ's 
 parousia is, therefore, in Scripture prophecy, 
 bounded by events coming both before and after it ; 
 and it is thus definitely fixed as an event in time. 
 And still more definitely in time is the parousia 
 fixed by those Scripture teachings which represent 
 the final coming of our Lord as taking place, not 
 in a long period, but in a " day," an " hour," or 
 suddenly, like the lightning, which, shining in the 
 east, is immediately seen in the uttermost part of 
 heaven; or the coming of Christ is compared to a 
 thief stealing upon a person unexpectedly in the 
 night; or it is like travail coming upon a woman 
 with child. In these various illustrations the idea 
 is very evident, that our Lord's second coming will 
 be an event more or less instantaneous in its char- 
 acter, and therefore that it is impossible to conceive 
 of it as a process, or an event protracted through 
 an indefinitely long period. 
 
 3. Still another argument that can be easily made 
 against this continuous-historical view is that in 
 various passages of Scripture Christ's abode is 
 
APPENDIX 133 
 
 represented to be now in heaven ; whereas if the spir- 
 itual-process theory is correct, that abode should be 
 now on the earth — at least as literally as it is in 
 heaven. " Whom the heaven must receive," says 
 Peter, " until the times of the restitution of all 
 things " ; and since that restitution has not yet oc- 
 curred, to be sure, Christ must be regarded as still 
 in heaven — in heaven both in a bodily and spiritual 
 sense. Certainly he cannot be at the same time and 
 in a bodily sense both on earth and in heaven. 
 
 4. But perhaps our most conclusive argument 
 against this theory of Christ's parousia being a long 
 process is that in various passages of Scripture the 
 second coming is represented to be an event that 
 will not occur until the end of time. In John 
 6 : 44 Jesus says : " No man can come to me, except 
 the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will 
 raise him up at the last day." And again in John 
 12 : 48 he says : " He that rejecteth me . . . hath 
 one that judgeth him ; the word that I have spoken, 
 the same shall judge him in the last day." From 
 these two passages of Scripture it is very evident 
 that both the general judgment and the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead shall occur at the last day; and in 
 other Scriptures which we have already in other 
 places quoted (see e. g., pp. 38, 39, in main part of 
 book) it is clearly taught that these two events, the 
 resurrection and the general judgment, shall take 
 place coincidentally with our Lord's second coming. 
 Consequently the inference is inevitable that Christ's 
 
134 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 parousia also shall occur, as do the resurrection 
 and the general judgment, " at the last day"; and 
 therefore, as said, this parousia will not take place 
 before the end of the world. If that is so, then 
 the continuous-historical theory, which represents 
 the parousia to have commenced away back in the 
 past, and to be now going forward as a process, 
 must certainly be wrong. 
 
 Moreover, in this connection we desire yet to 
 examine an affirmation often made, that the phrase 
 " end of the world," or " last day/' does not mean 
 a real termination of all things earthly, or the end- 
 ing of time, but only the end of the age, or more 
 particularly, the end of the Jewish age, as the mat- 
 ter is often worded. By referring to I Peter 4 : 7 
 the reader will notice that the Apostle Peter uses 
 this expression, " The end of all things is at hand " ; 
 and then, by turning over to 2 Peter, last chapter, he 
 will see what the apostle means by that expression. 
 For in this chapter Peter describes a real termina- 
 tion of all things earthly, in the form of a great 
 conflagration, which shall melt and dissolve even 
 " the elements " themselves ; and then out of this 
 conflagration, Peter affirms, there will emerge 
 " new heavens and a new earth." So also Paul, in 
 1 Cor. 15 : 23-28, teaches that the great final con- 
 summation of all things is what should be under- 
 stood as being the end of the world. For in ver. 
 23 of this same chapter it reads : " Christ the first- 
 fruits (of the resurrection), afterward they that are 
 
APPENDIX 135 
 
 Christ's at his coming." And in the next verse it 
 reads, " Then comet h the end, when he (that is, 
 Christ) shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even 
 the Father," after having put down all rule and 
 all authority, and even having, at the resurrec- 
 tion, destroyed death itself. Very evidently, then, 
 both with Paul and Peter the phrase " end of the 
 world," or what is the same thing, " the end of all 
 things," or simply " the end," does not mean, as 
 some of the interpreters say, only the ending of an 
 age, or more particularly, of the Jewish or Old 
 Testament dispensation; but it surely means some- 
 thing far different. As Paul and Peter use this 
 phrase, it can signify nothing else than the great 
 consummation of all things, the final dissolution of 
 nature and the appearing of a new heaven and a 
 new earth; and if that is so, then of course the in- 
 terpretation which makes the phrase mean only the 
 ending of a certain age, or period in the world's 
 history, must be incorrect. 
 
 As a practical conclusion we will yet remark that 
 there is not much hope for man in any of these 
 merely rationalistic doctrines respecting our Lord's 
 second coming. For it is not consistent with the 
 teachings of any of those doctrines to furnish con- 
 ditions such as must necessarily banish sin and sor- 
 row completely from our world. On the contrary, 
 according to the teachings of these rationalistic 
 views, sin and sorrow, death and many other evils, 
 as connected with a material universe, still remain, 
 
I36 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 despite all the triumphs and future achievements 
 which may be expected of the gospel of Christ. 
 With such a prospect put before man, therefore, he 
 surely cannot entertain, with respect to the future, 
 a very inviting hope. At the most, he can only 
 anticipate a world growing, for an indefinite period, 
 somewhat better than it is now. But the material 
 and sinful conditions of this life, which produce all 
 our misery, are never fully abolished, according to 
 the teachings of rationalistic theories. On the other 
 hand, with our old orthodox or fully scriptural 
 view of Christ's second coming, these evil conditions 
 of sin and of a material universe are all banished; 
 and instead of a material world with sin and sorrow 
 in it, the orthodox view gives us, as our future 
 abode, a new spiritual world, in which sin and sor- 
 row and all other evils are utterly unknown; but 
 where God shall wipe away all tears from human 
 eyes, and where there shall be " no more death, 
 neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain," be- 
 cause all the evil conditions of human life have for- 
 ever passed away. Then, moreover, Christ with all 
 his saints in heaven and his saints on earth, will 
 form a reunion, in the perfected kingdom of God, 
 that shall last eternally. 
 
 Such is the picture which the old orthodox or 
 truly scriptural theory of our Lord's second com- 
 ing puts before the entire human race; and it does 
 not need any special comparison of this view with 
 others to establish the conviction that of all theories 
 
APPENDIX 13; 
 
 known to man respecting the end of the world, or 
 Christ's second coming, this one is incomparably 
 the most attractive, the most inviting, and the fullest 
 of hope. Let us, therefore, hold fast to this theory, 
 lest by being deprived of it we lose also, really, the 
 chiefest pearl among our expectations as to the 
 future. For the hope of the second coming of 
 Christ is, as Paul affirms, " blessed " in its nature, 
 as his real personal appearing is also " glorious " in 
 its form. 
 
 TOPIC B 
 
 WERE THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS MISTAKEN? 
 
 Whether in their expectation of an early return 
 of the Saviour from heaven the apostles and evan- 
 gelists were mistaken, is a question that can, per- 
 haps, be answered either Yes or No. If only the 
 earlier beliefs of those disciples are taken into con- 
 sideration ; and if, moreover, attention is given only 
 to individual expressions of this or that writer in 
 the New Testament, it will not be difficult to con- 
 clude that these followers of Christ expected him to 
 return very soon, perhaps within their own life- 
 time; and therefore, since he did not come during 
 that period, they certainly were mistaken. But if, 
 on the other hand, a more general examination is 
 made of those early testimonies respecting our 
 Lord's parousia, taking into account not only the 
 first, but also later expressions of the disciples, it 
 
I38 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 will be found, the writer thinks, that, after all, these 
 disciples cannot so surely be accused of committing 
 mistake. 
 
 One thing is certain, which is that the early church 
 in general most confidently believed in a literal re- 
 turn of Christ. They had no idea of any figurative, 
 providential, or judicial coming, such as has been ad- 
 vocated by some modern interpreters. To them the 
 coming again of their Lord to the earth, was as real 
 and positive an event as was his going to heaven. 
 He would come, they believed, " in like manner 
 even as he was taken up." There existed therefore 
 no uncertainty in the belief of the evangelists and 
 apostles, so far as the real, personal, literal, and 
 future coming of their Lord was concerned. 
 
 But now, when we go further and undertake to 
 decide what the general expectation of those early 
 disciples was relative to the time of Christ's com- 
 ing — whether it should be earlier or later — a diffi- 
 culty here immediately presents itself. It is the fact 
 that the documents at hand do not seem to be, in 
 their notices, sufficient to relieve the matter of all 
 uncertainty. The most that can be said, we think, 
 is that representative men among the early disciples, 
 such as Paul and Peter, did not always entertain 
 precisely the same view relative to the time of our 
 Lord's parousia. For instance, Paul, in writing to 
 the Thessalonians and Corinthians, seemed to have 
 held the idea that he himself would live to see the 
 Lord descending from the skies ; for he says in his 
 
APPENDIX 139 
 
 first Thessalonian letter, " then we which are alive 
 shall be caught up," etc. (chap. 4 : 17) — evidently 
 expecting to be himself among the living at that 
 time. So also in his first letter to the Corinthians 
 (15 : 51) he expresses the notion that he, with 
 the Corinthian brethren in general, would be still 
 alive when Christ came ; for he says " we shall not 
 all sleep, but we shall all be changed," etc. But 
 then, later in the experiences of this apostle, he 
 seems to have considerably changed his view as to 
 an early coming of Christ. For already in his sec- 
 ond letter to the Thessalonians he positively affirms 
 that the day of Christ's return would not come, 
 "except there come a falling away first" (2 : 3) ; 
 and then he proceeds to describe a great and 
 wide-reaching apostasy which, he declares, must 
 take place before the parousia of Christ. Paul's 
 notion, therefore, at this time, seems to have altered 
 considerably; or at least, he then thought that 
 Christ's return was a matter not to be expected until 
 after the expiration of what would seem to be even 
 a long period of time. Then again, if we turn 
 to Paul's second letter to Timothy (4 : 6-8), 
 where the apostle describes his expectation as 
 to the future, we can easily see that he no longer 
 hopes to live until the return of his Master; for he 
 writes : " I am now ready to be offered, and the 
 time of my departure is at hand. Henceforth "— 
 says he ; not yet, but henceforth — " there is laid up 
 for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord 
 
140 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 will give me at that day " — his outlook now being 
 evidently toward a somewhat distant future for 
 Christ's coming. Our conclusion, then, is that the 
 great apostle to the Gentiles went to his death, or 
 execution, without the comforting hope, which he 
 had previously indulged, of living to see his Lord 
 returning in power and glory from heaven. 
 
 So, also, if we now turn to the writings of the 
 Apostle Peter, and consult them as to this same mat- 
 ter of the expectation of Christ's early return, we 
 shall find — whatever may have been his earlier 
 views on the topic ; and he seems in his first letter to 
 have expected that " the end of all things was at 
 hand" — yet in his maturer beliefs (2 Pet. 3:8) it 
 appeared to him that " one day with the Lord is as 
 a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day " ; 
 which expression would seem to signify that, in 
 Peters' view, the coming of the Lord was an event 
 that might be deferred for some considerable time. 
 
 Gathering up, therefore, all the evidence we have 
 been able to examine relative to the topic under con- 
 sideration, we come to what we think to be two 
 legitimate conclusions. (1) The first one is that 
 the apostles and evangelists did not have any defi- 
 nitely fixed and unchanging opinion with regard to 
 the exact time of Christ's parousia. Sometimes, and 
 especially during the period of their earlier experi- 
 ences, they indulged the hope, common to the 
 church of that day, that Christ would come very 
 soon, perhaps within their own lifetime. But this 
 
APPENDIX 141 
 
 hope was not strong nor enduring; it vacillated be- 
 tween the expectation of an earlier and a later com- 
 ing. Accordingly we may say, that such being the 
 uncertain state of their belief, they were not really 
 mistaken in their expectation. 
 
 (2) But now, on the other hand, if we notice 
 only some of the individual expressions of those 
 apostles and evangelists, and especially if we con- 
 fine attention to the seemingly firm belief existing 
 in all the early Christian church as to a speedy re- 
 turn of Christ, we cannot well avoid the conclusion 
 that both the church and the apostles with the evan- 
 gelists were mistaken in expecting the Lord's return 
 so soon. Perhaps, though, even the apostles and 
 evangelists were not fully inspired as to every 
 matter of faith. (See 1 Cor. 7 : 10-12. ) x 
 
 TOPIC C 
 
 THE TWO RESURRECTIONS 
 
 Besides what has been said in the body of this 
 work and in the foot-notes, respecting the two 
 
 1 A common view taken in these times by many interpreters is that 
 the apostles and evangelists, with the early church, were all mistaken 
 in their confident expectation of a speedy return of Christ. The 
 disciples, it is affirmed, misunderstood or misreported the words of 
 Jesus on eschatological matters; and so, while the correctness of the 
 Saviour's foreknowledge is preserved to him, the wisdom as well as 
 the moral character of his disciples is not left so wholly unaffected. 
 But a difficulty with this notion is that Christ, knowing all about 
 the shortcomings of his disciples, should not at least have undertaken 
 to correct their views, especially on so important a topic as his 
 parousia. 
 
142 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 resurrections, we desire here only to add a few 
 quotations from representative authors : 
 
 First, On the Pre-millennial Side. Dean Henry 
 Alford (" Com. on Greek Test.," Vol. IV., p. 732) : 
 " It will have been long ago anticipated by the read- 
 ers of this Commentary, that I cannot consent to dis- 
 tort words from their plain sense and chronological 
 place in the prophecy [Rev. 20:4], on account of 
 any considerations of difficulty, or any risk of abuses 
 which the doctrine of the millennium may bring with 
 it. Those who lived next to the apostles, and the 
 whole church for three hundred years understood 
 them in the plain, literal sense; and it is a strange 
 sight in these days to see expositors who are 
 amongst the first in reverence of antiquity, com- 
 placently casting aside the most cogent instance of 
 consensus which primitive antiquity presents. As 
 regards the text itself, no legitimate treatment of it 
 will extort what is known as the spiritual inter- 
 pretation now in fashion. If in a passage where 
 two resurrections are mentioned, where certain 
 <po%al i^rjoav ["souls lived"] at the first, and the 
 rest of the vexpol i^yoav ["dead lived"] only at 
 the end of a special period after the first — if in 
 such a passage the first resurrection may be under- 
 stood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the 
 second means literal rising from the grave, then 
 there is an end to all significance in language, and 
 Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to 
 anything. If the first resurrection is spiritual, 
 
APPENDIX 143 
 
 then so is the second, which I suppose none will 
 be hardy enough to maintain; but if the second 
 is literal, then so is the first, which in common with 
 the whole primitive church and many of the best 
 modern expositors, I do maintain, and receive as an 
 article of faith and hope." 
 
 Secondly, On the Post-millennial Side. Rev. 
 David Brown ("The Second Advent, Will It Be 
 Pre-millennial ? " pp. 218-259. Mr. Brown's argu- 
 ment is so extensive, we can give here only a con- 
 densed summary of its leading points) : 
 
 Nine Internal Evidences that the Millennial Res- 
 urrection is Not Literal, but Figurative. 1. If the 
 first resurrection mean rising from the grave in 
 immortal and glorified bodies, the assurance that 
 on such the second death hath no power (v. 6), or, 
 in other words, that the raised ones shall not perish 
 everlastingly, would seem to be superfluous. 
 
 2. There are but two alternatives in the prophecy 
 — either to " have part in the first resurrection," or 
 to be " under the power of the second death." Into 
 which of these two classes are we to put the myriads 
 of men who are to people the earth, in flesh and 
 blood, during the millennium? 
 
 3. The expression of how long this life and reign 
 with Christ will last, viz., a thousand years, if meant 
 to inform us what a long period of earthly prosperity 
 the church is yet destined to enjoy, is intelligible 
 and cheering. But to say that the risen and glori- 
 fied church is to live and reign with Christ for a 
 
144 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 period of one thousand years, is totally unlike the 
 language of Scripture in every other place. 
 
 4. By making the party that shall live and reign 
 with Christ a thousand years to be the entire church 
 of God risen from their graves, we encounter two 
 exegetical difficulties — first, there is no time given 
 in this passage for a second resurrection, inasmuch 
 as directly after the millennium Satan is represented 
 to be during " a little season," which may last for a 
 century or so, engaged in deceiving the nations and 
 making his assault upon " the beloved city." And 
 second, none but the wicked would remain to be 
 judged in the last judgment, which is inconsistent 
 with the implication of the opening of the book of 
 life (v. 12). 
 
 5. (Given by Mr. Brown in the words of Gipps.) 
 The opening of the book of life must be under- 
 stood to signify the manifestation of those who are 
 written in it. But according to Rom. 8 : 19-23, 
 this manifestation of the " sons of God " takes 
 place when they rise from the grave. Consequently 
 the resurrection of the saints must occur at the time 
 of the judgment, after the millennium, and not be- 
 fore it as is represented by the literal theory. 
 
 6. (Also given in Mr. Gipps* language.) The 
 omission of any declaration as to the sea, death, and 
 the grave (or hades) giving up the dead at the first 
 resurrection, and the making of such a declaration 
 respecting the " dead " in ver. 13, convinces me that 
 the first resurrection is not of the saints, and also 
 
APPENDIX 145 
 
 that the " dead " in ver. 12 include all mankind, 
 both the saints and the ungodly. For this is most 
 in accordance with the general Scripture method, 
 which always gives more definite and full informa- 
 tion respecting the resurrection of the righteous 
 than of the wicked. 
 
 7. The clause, " This is the first resurrection " 
 (ver. 5), which is thought to prove it literal, seems 
 to me to prove the reverse. For in Rev. 2:11 fidel- 
 ity to Christ even unto death is represented as the 
 ground of exemption (of course, not the meritorious 
 ground) from "the second death," and since in the 
 passage before us (ver. 6) the first resurrection is 
 represented as being in like manner such ground of 
 exemption, therefore it would seem reasonable to 
 understand these two expressions as equivalent, and 
 hence that a certain line of conduct, or character in 
 the present life, is what is meant to be the exempting 
 cause connected with the first resurrection. This 
 resurrection must, therefore, be figurative in its 
 nature, not literal. 
 
 8. It is a fatal objection to the literal sense of 
 this prophecy, as announcing the bodily resurrec- 
 tion of all the dead, and the changing of all living 
 saints, that it is exclusively a martyr scene — the 
 prophet beholding simply a resurrection of the 
 slain; whereas this very circumstance favors the 
 figurative sense. The literal sense is utterly inade- 
 quate to express the resurrection of the whole 
 church of God bodily from the grave. 
 
 K 
 
I46 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 9. The literal sense offers no consistent explana- 
 tion of the judgment that was given unto the slain 
 martyrs. If such judgment is to be given unto 
 them personally at the millennium, and they are to 
 rise from the grave for that purpose, then their per- 
 secutors, upon whom the judgment is to be ren- 
 dered, must also be raised at the same time. 
 
 Thirdly, On the Side of a Belief in Two Resur- 
 rections, but with a Limitation of the First to a 
 Certain Class of the Saints. Moses Stuart (" Com. 
 on the Apocalypse," Vol. II., pp. 475, 476) : " The 
 point of antithesis which seems to decide the whole 
 case is, as is remarked in the Commentary, the dis- 
 tinction between the first resurrection and the sec- 
 ond. It appears to be a distinction of order of suc- 
 cession, but not of kind. There is indeed one other 
 particular of difference or contrast, viz., the second 
 resurrection will be general, universal, comprehend- 
 ing both the righteous and the wicked, while the first 
 will comprehend, as the writer's language seems to 
 intimate, only saints and martyrs, who have been 
 specially faithful unto death. This distinction the 
 writer has made prominent. He expressly assures 
 us that the other dead would not be raised when the 
 one thousand years should commence, but only at 
 the end of the world when all will be raised. The 
 express contrast here made between the particular 
 and the general resurrection, and the manner in 
 which this contrast is presented, show that the de- 
 sign is not to compare a spiritual with a physical 
 
APPENDIX 147 
 
 resurrection, but to contrast the partial extent of the 
 latter at the beginning of the millennium, with the 
 general or universal extent at the end of the world." 
 As is known among students of eschatology, Pro- 
 fessor Stuart locates the scene of the saints reigning 
 with Christ, not on earth, but in heaven; and his 
 argument is that heaven is everywhere represented 
 in the Scriptures as the abiding-place of " souls " or 
 departed saints, and this is also Christ's place of 
 abode. Consequently, the location of this thousand 
 years' reign must be in heaven. 
 
 TOPIC D 
 
 MILLENNIAL THEORIES AND DIFFICULTIES 
 
 I. Theories. 1. The oldest theory of the mil- 
 lennium is one that seems to have come into Chris- 
 tian acceptance from old Jewish apocalypses, some 
 of which are known to have existed even before the 
 Christian era. The idea was intimately connected 
 with that of the Jewish Sabbath, regarded as an 
 institution intended to celebrate the resting of God 
 after the six days of creative work. Accordingly 
 the reasoning was that as God was six days in crea- 
 ting the world, and as he rested on the seventh day, 
 and moreover, since one day with the Lord is as a 
 thousand years, therefore by a kind of analogy it 
 follows that, after six thousand years of human 
 labor and toil, there will be another thousand years 
 
14^ 
 
 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 of Sabbath rest. This idea, at least in part, John 
 seems to have appropriated in his Revelation; but 
 whether he so did or not, it very early made its ap- 
 pearance in Christian history. Moreover, whether 
 owing to Christian or Jewish influences, the spiritual 
 character of this idea degenerated quite early into 
 what is usually termed chiliasm, or a gross material- 
 istic and carnal notion of the thousand years. Pa- 
 pias, e. g., and some other of the ancient Christian 
 Fathers conceived of the period as characterized by 
 great fertility of nature ; also as a time of eating and 
 drinking, of continued marriage festivity, and of un- 
 told riches. Hence the entire notion ran easily into 
 excesses, and finally, after a couple of hundred years, 
 it came into great disrepute, and was replaced by 
 another view, of quite different character. 
 
 2. This succeeding view has usually been 
 termed the Augustinian theory of the millennium; 
 and it teaches that Christ's reign of a thousand years 
 is simply his church, or the kingdom of God in our 
 world, and that it began its history with the birth 
 of our Saviour, or the setting up of Christ's king- 
 dom in human hearts and lives. With some few 
 modifications, this was the reigning view all through 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 3. But another theory, quite similar to this, 
 made its appearance in the eighteenth century, and 
 was advocated especially by Grotius and Hammond. 
 Its peculiarity is that it represents the millennium 
 more as an organization or polity, beginning its 
 
APPENDIX 149 
 
 history with the reign of Constantine the Great, and 
 ending with the assault made upon Christendom, in 
 the fourteenth century, by the Ottoman Turks. 
 
 4. But all through the Middle Ages, as said, 
 the prevalent view was the one propounded by Au- 
 gustine. Then after this middle period there seems 
 to have existed much opposition against the idea 
 of any millennium, most of the reformers assum- 
 ing toward such notion an antagonistic attitude. 
 But, as before in the early Christian times, so now 
 again a quite new or novel idea of the thousand 
 years presented itself. It was that the reign of the 
 saints with Christ signifies only some new church 
 organization; which idea, we might observe, was, 
 during Reformation times, exploited most fanati- 
 cally and discreditably by some of the Anabaptists 
 at Minister ; and since then it has, in various forms, 
 appeared among the Swedenborgians, the Irvingites, 
 the Mormons, and various other religious sects. 
 
 5. Some sixty years ago there was put forward 
 by Moses Stuart, professor of theology at Andover, 
 a singular theory of the millennium, which took 
 the view that the saints reigning with the Saviour 
 during the thousand years were only certain mar- 
 tyrs and faithful believers whose bodies were raised 
 by special privilege, and that the scene of this reign 
 was not on earth, but in heaven. This is, to say the 
 least, a singular view. 
 
 6 and 7. But the two most prominent theories of 
 the millennium which are of interest to us in these 
 
150 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 times are those we have already discussed in the 
 main body of this work — namely, pre-millennial- 
 ism and post-millennialism — and therefore they 
 need not be, again, here described. 
 
 II. Difficulties. Whatever views, though, are taken 
 respecting the reign of Christ with his saints for a 
 thousand years, there are unavoidable difficulties 
 connected with the general subject. This arises 
 from two causes. First, the description given us, in 
 the twentieth chapter of Revelation, of Christ's mil- 
 lennial reign, is not altogether clear. And then, 
 second, in all the rest of the Bible, except that one 
 passage, there is no mention made of any millennial 
 reign of the Saviour; but in all these other Scrip- 
 tures the usual view taken is that Christ's kingdom 
 will be perpetual or last forever. Besides, accord- 
 ing to the pre-millennial interpretation of Rev. 20: 
 4-6, Christ's reign, being on the earth or in 
 connection with this material world, is certainly 
 more materialistic in nature than is the usual repre- 
 sentation given elsewhere in the Bible. Conse- 
 quently it would seem that the difficulties under con- 
 sideration are really inherent in the general subject 
 of the millennium, and therefore it is not very won- 
 derful that different interpreters, such as pre-millen- 
 nialists and post-millennialists, have taken views so 
 widely different. 
 
 In our interpretation of the matter, therefore, we, 
 first of all, acknowledge these difficulties as actually 
 existing — difficulties connected, we may say, not 
 
APPENDIX 151 
 
 only with the different interpretations of the millen- 
 nium, but seemingly inherent in the very subject 
 itself; and then, having done this, we have really 
 prepared the way for a solution of the trouble. It 
 is merely to regard the thousand years' reign as 
 something mysterious and inscrutable, or as a mat- 
 ter that, with our present knowledge of it, cannot 
 be fully and satisfactorily explained. Hence, our 
 method is to leave the millennium, at least in great 
 part, out of the general discussion. Doing that, we 
 have no great difficulty in treating either the thou- 
 sand years' reign or the whole subject of Christ's 
 second coming. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF OUR METHOD 
 
 The advantages of this peculiar way of disposing 
 of the millennium are varied, and may be indicated 
 as follows: 
 
 1. This method enables one to construct, from 
 other Scripture passages than Rev. 20 : 4-6, 1 a 
 full, definite, and consistent doctrine of our Lord's 
 second coming, a doctrine that neither conflicts with 
 general Scripture testimony nor with any clear and 
 undisputed passage of revelation. Besides, it is a 
 doctrine that both encourages hope and is free from 
 all tendency to fanaticism. 
 
 2. This method, with its exegetical results, is 
 
 1 The entire millennial passage may be regarded as including 
 ver. 1-8. 
 
152 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 amply supported by Scripture; the entire Bible be- 
 ing on its side, and the only Scripture that can be 
 quoted against it being those few verses in Rev. 20, 
 But even this one diminutive passage is not wholly 
 set aside or in any way ignored by our method ; it is 
 only, as said, treated as a mystery, for the full and 
 satisfactory interpretation of which we have at pres- 
 ent no sufficient means. Besides, should any one, ac- 
 cepting our general view, desire also to hold fast to 
 some notion of a millennium, he can do even this, 
 provided he first modifies somewhat the extraordi- 
 nary glories usually connected with the post-millen- 
 nial conception of Christ's millennial reign. 
 
 3. All the peculiar duties connected with a true or 
 really Scriptural doctrine of our Lord's final com- 
 ing are provided for by this method. For leaving 
 out of consideration the whole difficult matter of the 
 millennium, the believer can now very easily be al- 
 ways on the watch for his Master's coming ; while at 
 the same time this general view both encourages 
 hope and stimulates missionary undertaking, both 
 at home and abroad, if so be that thus the world may 
 be got ready for our Lord's return. 
 
 TOPIC E 
 
 WHO, OR WHAT, IS ANTICHRIST? 
 
 The " Edinburgh Encyclopedia " gives fourteen 
 different theories as to who or what the antichristian 
 
APPENDIX 153 
 
 power mentioned or referred to quite a number of 
 times in the Bible, and known as Antichrist, is to be 
 understood as being, or as having been, or as still 
 to be in the future. One theory, which is very old — 
 dating back before the coming of Christ — is that the 
 " king of fierce countenance " mentioned in Daniel, 
 or Antiochus Epiphanes, was, because of his pecu- 
 liar character and his persecutions especially of the 
 Jews, the real Antichrist of the ancient times. 
 Other views, which locate the opposing power more 
 in later days or still in the future, are that by Anti- 
 christ we are to understand the tyrant Nero, or 
 Domitian, or Julian, or the pagan priests, or some 
 of the rebel leaders of the Jews, or the Jewish peo- 
 ple themselves ; or Mohammed ; or Romanism, some 
 of the individual popes ; Napoleon I., or III. ; Oliver 
 Cromwell; some person or principle, perhaps, not 
 yet fully revealed ; or as Catholic authorities would 
 have us believe, even Martin Luther or John Calvin ! 
 
 The prevailing notion among most scholars who 
 have given attention to the matter is that this power 
 of opposition to the gospel of Christ, is either an 
 institution or a person; and if an institution, then 
 it must be, in character, either civil or ecclesiastical, 
 or perhaps both. 
 
 Another view, however, which has been taken 
 mostly in later times, is that this opposing power is 
 neither an institution nor a person, but only a prin- 
 ciple, a spirit working through the ages, or perhaps 
 manifesting itself at different times — a tendency of 
 
154 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 things, which, because of its inimical attitude toward 
 Christ and his gospel, is properly denominated the 
 Antichrist. This theory would seem to be in har- 
 mony with what Paul says of that " mystery of in- 
 iquity " which was in his day already working ; also 
 it accords with what John tells us about the spirit 
 of Antichrist. " This is the spirit of antichrist," 
 he says, " of which ye have heard." " There are 
 many antichrists." " He is antichrist which de- 
 nieth the Father and the Son." ( i John 4 : 3 ; 2 : 18, 
 22.) 
 
 But still another theory is that the Antichrist has 
 not yet made his appearance, but his manifestation 
 belongs to the future. When he comes — and the 
 usual notion taken by adherents of this view is that 
 Antichrist is to be a person — he will concentrate in 
 himself all the powers of hate and opposition to the 
 gospel of Christ, and become the leader in that final 
 assault upon Christianity which is described in ver. 
 7-10 of Rev. 20. 
 
 Now, with so many views obtaining at different 
 times among expositors, or people in general, and 
 with the utter impossibility, as it would seem, of 
 reconciling these different notions as to the histori- 
 cal identity or peculiar character of the Antichrist 
 pictured in the Bible, of course it is not within the 
 competency or purpose of this treatise to decide, 
 dogmatically or otherwise, which of those theories is 
 correct or most in accordance with biblical indica- 
 tions. We can only say that in selecting the Romish 
 
APPENDIX 155 
 
 Church, or more especially the papacy in its civil and 
 ecclesiastical aspects, as the fullest expression of the 
 antichristian principle that our world has probably 
 ever seen, or will see, we have only followed com- 
 mon Protestant opinion. To be sure in later times 
 Protestant scholars have been inclined to take a 
 more lenient view of the matter, and to consider the 
 papacy as not so unchristian an institution after all. 
 Still even among these more liberalistic scholars very 
 few, we apprehend, can be found who are unwilling 
 to admit that at least the papal idea is involved to 
 some extent in the descriptions given by the Bible, 
 of that great apostatized and persecuting power 
 which should at some time make its appearance dur- 
 ing the history of Christianity. 
 
 Even Gregory the Great, the first pope, said that 
 any man who should arrogate to himself the title of 
 " universal bishop " would be " the precursor of 
 Antichrist." And Dr. Charles Hodge, after calling 
 attention to the monstrous and unparalleled claims 
 made by the popes — to being Christ's vicar on earth, 
 and therefore as having authority over all human- 
 kind both in matters of faith and even in civil gov- 
 ernment; also as having power to forgive sin, re- 
 lease souls from purgatory, or condemn men to eter- 
 nal perdition — remarks that " if such pretensions 
 do not constitute the power which make them Anti- 
 christ, then nothing remains. Any future Anti- 
 christ that may arise must be a small affair com- 
 pared to the papacy." 
 
I56 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Any number of quotations could be made from 
 Protestant authorities, and not a few from Roman- 
 ists, showing that such views are not uncommon, 
 but that all the way down from early in the Middle 
 Ages there have been some, and during Protestant 
 times many, who have taken the view that the pope, 
 or the papal system, is Antichrist. The view pre- 
 sented in this book is, therefore, we think, supported 
 by a wider consensus of opinion than has been any 
 other. 1 
 
 TOPIC F 
 
 GOG AND MAGOG, OR THE LAST GREAT BATTLE 
 
 Running through a large part of the Apocalypse, 
 or at least found in three particular places, there 
 seems to be intimation of coming political trouble, 
 to take place in the East. For instance, in the ninth 
 chapter, from ver. 13 to 21, there is given us, in con- 
 nection with the sounding of the sixth trumpet, the 
 prophecy of a great invasion to be made, seemingly 
 into Western countries, by different nations whose 
 " angels," or leaders, are bound " at the great river 
 Euphrates." Just what nations these are, it is, of 
 course, difficult to tell, but they have been often 
 supposed to represent the Mohammedan or Turkish 
 
 1 Even so considerate a writer as Dr. A. J. Gordon says (in his 
 " Ecce Venit," p. 127) : " We may as certainly hold the papacy 
 to be the fulfilment of Paul's prediction of the Antichrist as we 
 hold the fact of a coin to be the fulfilment of the die in which 
 it was struck." 
 
APPENDIX 157 
 
 power. Then again, in chapter 16, from ver. 12 
 to 16, where there is given an account of the 
 pouring-out of the sixth vial, and of its results, it is 
 said that the great river Euphrates again was par- 
 ticularly affected ; and one special result of that out- 
 pouring was that the river was " dried up/' so 
 as to prepare a way for " the kings of the East " ; 
 and it is further stated that there occurred, in this 
 connection, an extraordinary battle in a " place 
 called Armageddon." Once more, in the last part 
 of the twentieth chapter of this same book of Reve- 
 lation, there is given a prophecy, to which the head- 
 ing of this article especially alludes, of another great 
 battle called the war with Gog and Magog, or a 
 prolonged struggle with certain strange barbarian 
 nations living away off somewhere in the East, to 
 which these names are prophetically applied. Now 
 again, just what nations are intended to be specified 
 by these peculiar names it is perhaps impossible for 
 any one in this day to tell. But the terms Gog and 
 Magog seem to be used in the Bible a number of 
 times (Ezek. chap. 38, 39; also Gen. 10: 2) to repre- 
 sent strange, more or less unknown barbarous peo- 
 ples, whose habitation was somewhere off to the 
 northeast of the Caucasus mountains. In ancient 
 secular history they are sometimes associated with 
 the Scythians; or at least, Herodotus affirms that 
 the Scythians were descended from Magog. Vari- 
 ous modern authors are of the opinion that those old 
 terms represent really the ancestors of the present 
 
I5B THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 Muscovite or Russian people ; and if that is so, then 
 this fact adds peculiar interest to the prophecy 
 under consideration. 
 
 For this battle of Gog and Magog, or rather with 
 those peoples, of which we have a picture given us 
 in the last part of Rev. 20, is undoubtedly not 
 merely an imaginary affair, but some occurrence, 
 which is yet to take place in the history of our 
 world, just before the final coming of Christ. 1 
 However, whether this occurrence is to be a politi- 
 cal one, or rather one in which spiritual forces shall 
 be especially exercised, the prophetic indications 
 given are not sufficient to determine. Probably, 
 though, as is always the case in great religious con- 
 tests, political affairs will be more or less involved. 
 Accepting that as a probable feature of the coming 
 great conflict, then the question arises, what politico- 
 religious contest is this which is prophesied to take 
 place near the end of the world? What nations 
 will be engaged in it ? And what will be the special 
 issues which will at that time divide what may be 
 called the forces of good and evil, in so earnest a 
 struggle ? 
 
 This question is asked by us not because we sup- 
 pose that any satisfactory answer can be given to it, 
 
 1 There is an interpretation of this battle, or war, which makes all 
 the terms locating it, such as " Gog and Magog," " Armageddon " 
 and " Euphrates River," to be merely symbolical, or indicative rather 
 of spiritual facts than of locality or real place. But such a notion 
 really destroys all the material frame-work of the war, and makes 
 this last great battle something too intangible and uncertain to 
 correspond with the positive indications given in Scripture. 
 
APPENDIX 159 
 
 but because there seems to be some real prophetic 
 interest connected with the matter, and because also 
 not a few attempts have been made to answer the 
 question. For instance, a number of years ago 
 Lieutenant Totten, then connected with Yale Uni- 
 versity as professor of military science, published 
 a number of articles in a widely read journal, in 
 which he undertook to prove from Scripture proph- 
 ecy, as well as from natural reasonings, that a great 
 politico-religious commotion among the nations was 
 then imminent. All the nations of Europe, he said, 
 as well as of the old world in general, would be more 
 or less involved in that contest. The leaders of the 
 struggle would be, on different sides, Russia and 
 England. And especially Russia, fortified and pre- 
 pared for aggressive war in the Caucasian moun- 
 tains, and with also a great desire for the possession 
 of the Holy Land, was represented by Mr. Totten as 
 being at that time almost ready to break forth in 
 aggressive military operations against whatever 
 power might oppose her, and thus undertake to 
 carry out Scripture prophecy by bringing on a great 
 war in the East. The issue of that war, he further- 
 more said, would be the second coming of Christ 
 and an overthrow of all the hostile nations, with 
 the final outcome of a setting up of Christ's kingdom 
 in our world. Lieutenant Totten, being a pre-mil- 
 lennialist, understands this kingdom to be only one 
 that would last a thousand years, and he names 
 that great final battle the " war of Armageddon " ; 
 
l6o THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 whereas in our way of considering that battle, 
 it comes after and not before the millennium, 
 and hence may be called the war with Gog and 
 Magog. 
 
 But what about the battle itself? Is there any 
 special reason for apprehending a great commotion 
 of nations in the Eastern world, such as has been 
 predicted not only by Lieutenant Totten, but by 
 others — a commotion to take place, they tell us, in 
 connection with the still unsettled " Eastern ques- 
 tion " ? Probably no one can answer such a query 
 at present. Time alone will tell. We are ready to 
 commit ourself only to the assertion that such a 
 coming event is not impossible, and that upon the 
 horizon depicted for us in Scripture prophecy there 
 does seem to be brewing some Eastern trouble ; but 
 exactly what that trouble is to be, or when it will 
 eventuate — on such points we have no opinion. 
 
 TOPIC G 
 
 THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT AND ITS BEARING UPON 
 THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS 
 
 The notion of re-peopling the Holy Land with 
 descendants from its ancient inhabitants is a very 
 old one. Ever since the great " dispersion " which 
 took place upon the destruction of Jerusalem, there 
 has been a feeling, and we may say a kind of ex- 
 pectation, existing among the Jews, that at some 
 
APPENDIX l6l 
 
 time their people would return and occupy the locali- 
 ties once occupied by their fathers. Accordingly at 
 different times during the Christian era there have 
 occurred special awakenings in the interest of that 
 idea, and occasionally real movements have been 
 organized with a view to establishing Jewish col- 
 onies in Palestine, or a settling of that country in 
 some way by Israelites. Even now there are in the 
 Holy Land, we are told, some thirty Jewish colonies, 
 a large proportion of them having been set on foot, 
 or at least encouraged in their undertaking, by 
 Baron Hirsch and other charitably disposed Jews. 
 Besides, there are in Palestine other Jews not be- 
 longing to the colonies; so that the entire Jewish 
 population of that country to-day is, as has been 
 estimated, about eighty-five thousand, probably one- 
 half of these living in and around Jerusalem. 
 
 One great cause of a movement on the part of 
 the Jews toward the Holy Land is the oppression 
 and persecution which this people is known to have 
 suffered even for ages in different countries of the 
 world, and in modern times, especially in Russia, 
 Silicia, Germany, and other European lands. The 
 consequence has been that the Jews, as a people, 
 have longed for a home of their own, or for some 
 locality in which they might dwell undisturbed by 
 other peoples, and where also political rights and 
 privileges would be secured to them; and it is this 
 idea that lies at the foundation of the whole Zionist 
 movement. 
 
1 62 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 In the year 1896 Dr. Theodor Herzl, a resident of 
 Vienna, Austria, published a book entitled " Juden- 
 staat" in which he advocated the notion of the 
 Jews having, in Palestine, what has often been 
 termed since " a legally secured and publically recog- 
 nised home" This was the beginning of the Zion- 
 ist movement. Since then the movement has spread 
 literally throughout the whole civilized world, mani- 
 festing itself not only in the way of organizing 
 multitudes of " Associations " in its interest, but 
 also in holding " annual congresses " — these taking 
 place, with one exception (when the congress was 
 in London), at Basel, Switzerland; also making 
 itself known in various other ways, such as in at- 
 tempts at securing from the sultan of Turkey a char- 
 ter for the possession of the Holy Land, in issuing 
 a large number of pamphlets and other publications 
 to advocate its cause, in establishing a " Jewish 
 Colonial Trust " in London, with branches pros- 
 pected or already founded elsewhere, and in still 
 other procedures. Thus far, however, the move- 
 ment does not seem to have accomplished much in 
 the way of actually settling the Holy Land with 
 Jews, or in planting colonies in Palestine, or even 
 in obtaining from the sultan the charter sought. 
 Still, the movement has certainly become a very ex- 
 tensive one ; it is yet in progress, and no one can tell 
 what its final outcome may be. 
 
 But now, whether this agitation for a resettling of 
 the Holy Land with Israelites signifies much or little 
 
APPENDIX I63 
 
 as bearing upon the conversion of that people to 
 Christianity, is a question that can be easily enough 
 propounded, but not so easily answered. Inter- 
 preters of prophecy who believe that the Jews as a 
 people will surely return to Palestine, commonly be- 
 lieve also in the conversion of that people to the 
 Christian faith, as a matter very intimately asso- 
 ciated with their going back to the land of their 
 fathers. Consequently to such interpreters this 
 Zionist movement signifies much; they even see in 
 it a fulfilment of prophecy, and Mr. H. Grattan 
 Guinness has been able, he thinks, to figure out, 
 from astronomical calculations and some data given 
 in the Bible, the exact time when the Zionist move- 
 ment was to commence. (See his "History Un- 
 veiling Prophecy," p. 368.) But to interpreters 
 who do not fully believe in any return of the Jews 
 as a people to Palestine the matter looks quite dif- 
 ferent. To them it would seem that the Jews might 
 be converted to Christianity outside of the Holy 
 Land quite as well as in it; and indeed the circum- 
 stances working toward such conversion would ap- 
 pear to be more favorable in other lands than in 
 Palestine. At all events, the Zionists themselves, or 
 the leaders as well as the rank and file in that move- 
 ment, have never had any idea of its being a move- 
 ment in any way associated with religion, or of its 
 being connected with a fulfilment of Scripture 
 prophecy. But to them the movement has been, 
 pure and simple, one of a nationalistic character ; its 
 
I64 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 purpose being, first of all, to unite the Jews, scat- 
 tered throughout the world, in a common national 
 sentiment, and then, secondly, by securing a home 
 for these people in Palestine, or perhaps elsewhere, 
 to build up eventually an independent Jewish State 
 or commonwealth. Such being its declared pur- 
 pose, it surely is not easy to see how a movement 
 so purely nationalistic in its character is going to 
 work toward the conversion of persons engaged in 
 it to the Christian religion. On the contrary, the 
 results so far made apparent would seem to be more 
 in the way of confirming the Jewish people in their 
 own religion, rather than toward inducing them to 
 adopt some other faith. 
 
 Besides, the testimony of persons living in the 
 Holy Land — where there are, as has been said, quite 
 a number of Jewish colonies — is to the effect that 
 a gathering together of the Jews in Palestine only 
 makes them the more determinedly and inconsider- 
 ately opposed to all other religions, except their 
 own, and especially opposed to Christianity. Mr. 
 Edwin S. Wallace, who for some years recently was 
 American consul in Jerusalem, says there is no place 
 on earth where the wall of separation between Jew 
 and Gentile is so high and strong as in that city. 
 Nevertheless, even he firmly believes that " the fu- 
 ture inhabitants of Palestine will be Jews " ; and 
 he seems also to believe that the great body of the 
 Jewish people will eventually be converted to the 
 Christian faith. 
 
APPENDIX 165 
 
 One thing would appear to be sure, as resulting 
 already from this Zionist movement. It is that by 
 it public attention has been called afresh to the 
 whole subject of the Jews, and of the relation of 
 that people to the Holy Land. 
 
 TOPIC H 
 
 PREDICTIVE PROPHECY AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 
 
 The usual attitude of the higher criticism toward 
 what is known as predictive prophecy, is either to 
 reject this element entirely from the Bible or to re- 
 duce it to the narrowest possible limits ; the old ra- 
 tionalistic attitude being to oppose it on the ground 
 of its being miraculous. 
 
 But surely even a miracle is possible enough on 
 the supposition that God — the God of the Bible, 
 possessing infinite power and wisdom — really exists. 
 The matter of predictive prophecy is, therefore, so 
 far as its possibility is concerned, merely a matter 
 of theological demonstration — whether God exists 
 or not. If he does exist, and is in any true sense the 
 author of the Bible, then a divine inspiration of that 
 book, such as is able to give us even a small amount 
 of predictive prophecy, is equally competent to fur- 
 nish also a large amount. Therefore the matter of 
 the quantity of such prophecy as found in our Chris- 
 tian Scriptures, and also the matter of a prophecy's 
 looking distantly into the future or being confined 
 
1 66 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 to a nearer view, is really not to be considered in a 
 discussion of whether or not the Bible contains pre- 
 dictive prophecy. That is as said, first of all, a mat- 
 ter of theological speculation or proof, and secondly, 
 and more to a decision, it is simply a matter of fact. 
 Does the Bible then contain, or does it not contain, 
 prophecy of a predictive nature? By predictive 
 prophecy we mean any assertion made some time 
 beforehand — it may be only a short while or it may 
 be centuries — that afterward comes to pass as a mat- 
 ter of fact. Does the Bible then contain such proph- 
 ecy? We think it does, and in very large amount. 
 For instance, in the Old Testament there are many 
 statements made respecting the birth of our Saviour, 
 — the place where that event was to occur, the time 
 when (indicated by the seventy weeks of Daniel), 
 the fact that his mother was to be a virgin, and that 
 he was to descend from David, and belong to the 
 tribe of Judah, as well as to the family of Abraham 
 and the line of Shem, and that he was also to be 
 the " seed of the woman," all these and many other 
 items connected with not only the birth, but the 
 whole life, and even the death, burial, resurrection, 
 and ascension of our Saviour, are most clearly 
 prophesied in the Old Testament, and then after- 
 ward fulfilled, as we have the record, in the New. 
 So also respecting the history of the Jews and other 
 ancient nations, and also respecting the experiences 
 of various cities belonging to Old Testament times, 
 and of individuals who then lived, we have in the 
 
 
APPENDIX 167 
 
 Bible many prophecies, uttered long before the ex- 
 periences or the history came to pass, and yet every 
 one of those prophecies have either been already 
 fiulfilled or are to-day in process of fulfilment. 
 
 Besides, as already said, the evidence of the ful- 
 filling of at least Old Testament prophecy is not 
 simply the testimony of men, but of inspired author- 
 ity. The New Testament itself, inspired as we be- 
 lieve it to be of God, positively attests, in many 
 places, the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. 
 For example, in Matthew's Gospel one often reads 
 that some particular event came to pass " in order 
 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the 
 prophet," and then the Old Testament prophecy 
 which the evangelist thinks was fulfilled in the event 
 specified is usually quoted. Thus does not only 
 Matthew, but all the evangelists, and we may say 
 the entire New Testament, attest the actual fulfil- 
 ment, in real fact, of many of the Old Testament 
 prophecies. Those prophecies were certainly of a 
 predictive nature. They actually came to pass, not- 
 withstanding that they were uttered, some of them 
 at least, hundreds, or even many hundreds of years 
 before the time of their fulfilment. So far, there- 
 fore, as Old Testament prophecy is concerned, the 
 matter stands sure; it certainly was, or is, predic- 
 tive in its nature. Moreover, the same thing can be 
 proven true of the New Testament ; it also contains, 
 as might easily be demonstrated, much predictive 
 prophecy. 
 
1 68 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 The entire Bible, therefore, being, simply as a 
 matter of fact, characterized by the possession of 
 even a large amount of predictive prophecy, it is 
 entirely to no purpose that either the higher criti- 
 cism or any other method of Scripture interpreta- 
 tion undertakes to prove the contrary. Prophecy 
 of a predictive nature is just as certainly found in 
 our Christian Scriptures as is, we may affirm, any 
 other element. 
 
 TOPIC I— ADDENDUM 
 
 RECENT VIEWS AND LITERATURE CONCERNING THE 
 ADVENT 
 
 The most recent views taken of our Lord's sec- 
 ond coming, especially in Germany and Great Brit- 
 ain, have been largely colored by special study of 
 what are known as Jewish apocalypses. Those old 
 and long almost forgotten writings, treating of sub- 
 jects connected with the Messiah and the end of the 
 world, have been hunted up, and their peculiar terms 
 of expression and extraordinary symbolism have 
 been used to tone down or modify the natural sig- 
 nificance of the New Testament representation of 
 Christ's parousia; so that this significance is made 
 to be quite different from what it would otherwise 
 be. In this way it is made possible to take what 
 are known as preterist or figurative views of the 
 advent, and thus make our Lord's second coming 
 
APPENDIX 169 
 
 to be either a past event or something having little 
 or no significance connected with it. Of course, 
 such views have been repelled by orthodox scholars ; 
 still it must be said that thus far the rationalistic 
 or destructive critical method has much too largely 
 prevailed. 
 
 However, this is not the only kind of literature 
 recently produced that treats of the advent. The 
 pre-millennialists have also been at work, and prob- 
 ably their late literature has, in quantity, been quite 
 equal to that of any other eschatological school. 
 
 Some of the more recent publications treating of 
 the advent in one way or another, which have come 
 under our notice, are as follows : 
 
 " Unfolding of the Ages," by Ford C. Ottman (published 
 1905). This book professes to be written from a 
 pre-millennial point of view; and it has been widely 
 announced as a particularly able, exhaustive, and praise- 
 worthy treatise on the whole subject of our Lord's second 
 coming. We have found it to be written rather, or at 
 least largely, from the standpoint of the futurists, and in 
 substance it is an exposition of the book of Revelation, 
 with frequent references to the prophecies of Daniel, 
 which last prophecies dominate very much the special 
 views taken in the book. The writer shows a wide and 
 earnest study of his subject, but his notions are often 
 of the wildest character. See especially what he says 
 about the reviving of the Roman empire (Introd., p. xix., 
 also the whole of chap. 13), the rebuilding of ancient 
 Babylon (pp. 207, 237), and the pre-adamites as being 
 now among the evil spirits against which, according to 
 Paul, all true Christians have to wrestle (pp. 217-219). 
 
 "History Unfolding Prophecy," by H. Grattan Guinness 
 
I/O THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 (published 1906). This is also, and very decidedly, a 
 pre-millennial publication. It is the last of Mr. Guinness' 
 quite numerous works on eschatological topics, and, like 
 all his other publications, it is well written and interesting. 
 One of its peculiarities is, that it deals largely with pro- 
 phetic numbers, astronomical calculations, and other such 
 matters, not usually thought to be very reliable, but rather 
 mystic in their nature. 
 
 "The Last Things," by J. Alger Beet (published 1906). 
 Doctor Beet is professor of theology in the Wesleyan Col- 
 lege at Richmond, England. His views on the final estate of 
 the wicked, which are given largely in this book, are not 
 considered strictly sound or orthodox; but his notions 
 respecting the second coming of Christ, as presented also 
 in this book, are well put, and reveal much study of the 
 New Testament oracles — with which, on this topic, he 
 seems to be in strict accord. See also his " Manual of 
 Theology" (1906). 
 
 " The Eschatology of Jesus," by Rev. Lewis A. Muirhead, 
 B. D. (published 1904). This work consists of four lec- 
 tures delivered in connection with the Bruce Lectureship, 
 in the United Free Church College, Glasgow, Scotland. 
 Its point of view seems to be thoroughly orthodox, and 
 it attempts, by quite a thorough consideration of the old 
 Jewish apocalyptic literature as connected with the New 
 Testament representations of our Lord's second coming, 
 to solve the particular problem of the influence of that 
 literature upon these representations, and also deduce 
 what the author conceives to be a correct theory of Christ's 
 parousia. While the work is interesting and reveals much 
 thoughtful reflection as well as study in connection with 
 its special topic, it after all fails to be very satisfactory, 
 because its conclusions are too vague and indefinite. 
 
 "The Apocalypse, the Antichrist, and the End," by 
 J. J. Elar (published in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1906). This 
 book is written from the Romanist point of view, and 
 
APPENDIX 171 
 
 follows largely Bossuet and other Catholic authors. One 
 peculiarity, however, of it is, that it makes the apocalyptic 
 history begin, not, as Bossuet taught, with Domitian, 
 but with Nero, whom it makes to be the original Anti- 
 christ. But another Antichrist conceived by the author 
 as best representing in these times the old antichristian 
 spirit, is, strange to say, the Masonic Order! And then, 
 of course, the " beloved city " which in Rev. 20 is 
 assaulted by Antichrist, in the last great battle, is none 
 other than the " Mother Church " at Rome ! Any theory can 
 make what it pleases of apocalyptic matters, provided it 
 puts into its general conception, beforehand, the very things 
 it wants. 
 
 " The Christian Doctrine of Immortality," by S. D. F. 
 Salmond, D. D. (published in Edinburgh, 26. ed. 1897). 
 This is a truly valuable work, discussing not only the 
 immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, future 
 punishment, etc., but it also treats, in a very thorough- 
 going and learned manner, the whole doctrine of Christ's 
 second coming. The book is a good illustration of the 
 possibility of holding fast to the old or so-called "tradi- 
 tional" views, and at the same time showing a proper 
 regard for all the real achievements of modern scholarship. 
 
 "St. Paul's Conception of the Last Things," by Rev. 
 H. A. A. Kennedy (published, 2d ed., 1905). Mr. Kennedy 
 delivered the substance of this book in a series of 
 lectures under the auspices of the Cunningham Lecture- 
 ship, connected with the Free Church College in Edin- 
 burgh. His point of view is thoroughly orthodox, and 
 his treatment of the subject shows a wide range of care- 
 ful study, with considerable exercise of judicious criticism. 
 
 Beyschlag's "New Testament Theology" (published 
 first German ed. 1891, English translation, 1895). Pro- 
 fessor Beyschlag takes the view that Christ's parousia is a 
 process, begun at the Saviour's resurrection, and continu- 
 ing in various forms of gospel triumph until the end of 
 
1^2 THAT BLESSED HOPE 
 
 time, nay, as a fellowship with the disciples, lasting even 
 in eternity. The author is a true German scholar and 
 speculative thinker, and his views sometimes take a wide 
 range, but they often come wide of the mark so far as 
 orthodoxy is concerned. Dr. Bernard Weiss' " Religion 
 of the New Testament," also German (Eng. Trans., 1905), 
 is a more conservative work. 
 
 Dr. Milton S. Terry's "Biblical Apocalyptics " (pub- 
 lished 1898). We have already mentioned this book under 
 Topic A in this appendix, and will say of it here only 
 that with respect to the subject of Christ's advent, the 
 author's views agree with the higher-critic or rationalistic 
 notions in general. See references already made to the 
 book, page 123. 
 
 Besides the above, less extended mention might be made 
 of Dr. Geo. B. Stevens' " Theology of the New Testament," 
 Dr. Edw. D. Morris' "Theology of the Westminster 
 Symbols," Dr. Wm. Newton Clarke's " Outline of Chris- 
 tian Theology," H. H. Wendt's " Teaching of Jesus," and 
 other like publications, in which the general subject of 
 Christ's parousia is treated. Also we might call attention to 
 quite a number of lately written articles and comments on 
 eschatological topics, which can be found in " Hastings' 
 Dictionary of the Bible," the " Encyclopedia Biblica," some 
 of the general encyclopedias, the " Bible Commentary," the 
 " International Critical Commentary," the " Cambridge 
 Bible," the " Expositor's Bible," and in some of the 
 magazines, e. g., " Bibliotheca Sacra," January, 1907 ; 
 " Bible Student and Teacher," April, 1906. 
 
INDEX TO APPENDIX 
 
 TREATING OF VARIOUS RELATED TOPICS 
 Explanatory Note 113 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TOPIC A 
 
 NEW-THEOLOGY AND RATIONALISTIC VIEWS OF THE ADVENT 
 
 I. The Older Spiritual or Unitarian View. 
 
 1. Contrary to Scripture Representation 
 
 (a) Because the advent is to be literal and 115 
 
 personal 
 
 (b) Because it is to be external, objective; not 
 
 merely an internal experience 116 
 
 II. The Later and More Common Spiritual View. 
 
 1. By whom Advocated 117 
 
 2. Its Unscriptural Character Shown 
 
 (a) From distinction made between Christ's 
 
 place of abode and scene of the Spirit's 
 activity 118 
 
 (b) From fact that Christ' s parousia is a single 
 
 event, not a repeated one or process . .119 
 
 (c) From accompanying events, such as a resur- 
 
 rection of the dead, general judgment, etc. 1 19 
 
 (d) From fact that the parousia is to be an 
 open, widely conspicuous event, to be 
 seen of all nations ; not merely an inter- 
 nal or subjective experience 120 
 
 173 
 
174 INDEX TO APPENDIX 
 
 III. The Past- historical or Preterist View. PAG e 
 
 Shown to be thoroughly unscriptural 
 i. From its General Lack of Scripture Support . .122 
 2. From its being Opposed by Scripture Arguments 
 
 (1) Doctrine contrary to personal and visible 
 
 form of the advent 125 
 
 (2) Forgets to notice accompanying events. . 125 
 
 (3) Forgets also intervening events 126 
 
 (4) Makes it impossible to celebrate Lord's 
 
 Supper with full meaning 126 
 
 (5) In several writings, produced after the fall 
 
 of Jerusalem, Christ's parousia is still 
 anticipated as a future event 126 
 
 (6) Opposed by vast predominance of Scrip- 
 
 ture testimony and by special Scripture 
 arguments 127 
 
 Dean Alford's view 127 
 
 SPECIAL REVIEW OF THE THEORY THAT THE PAROUSIA 
 
 IS A PROCESS OR DISPENSATION 128 
 
 Some truth in theory, but vastly more error. 
 
 Objections to the Theory : 
 
 (i) Opposed to Scripture representation that 
 
 Christ' s return will be visible and personal . 1 30 
 
 (2) The parousia is, in Bible teaching, a single 
 
 event ; nowhere represented as a process . .131 
 
 (3) Christ' s abode is now in heaven ; consequently 
 
 he cannot be, in any bodily or literal sense, 
 also on earth 132 
 
 (4) The parousia will take place not before the 
 
 end of time, or ' ' the last day " 133 
 
 But little hope for man in any of these rational- 
 istic theories. 
 
INDEX TO APPENDIX 175 
 
 TOPIC B 
 WERE THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS MISTAKEN ? 
 
 Yes; if we confine attention only to individual ex- 
 pressions, with no change of belief 137 
 
 No; if we consider expressions more in general, 
 
 and as lacking fixed or enduring character . .137 
 
 TOPIC C 
 
 THE TWO RESURRECTIONS 
 
 1. Quotation on Pre-millennial Side 142 
 
 2. Quotation on Post-millennial Side 143 
 
 3. Quotation on side of belief in two resurrections, 
 
 but with limited character of first 146 
 
 Moses Stuart' s view of scene of millennium . . .147 
 TOPIC D 
 
 MILLENNIAL THEORIES AND DIFFICULTIES 
 
 I. Theories. 
 
 The Augustinian, the Grotian, theory of new church 
 organization, Moses Stuart' s view, pre-millen- 
 nialism and post-millennialism 147 
 
 // Difficulties. 
 
 (a) From obscurity of language in Rev. 20:4-6 . 150 
 
 (b) From fact that nowhere else in Scripture is 
 
 millennium clearly taught ...150 
 
 Advantages of Method Used in this Book, of Treating the 
 Millennium. 
 
 (1) Gives from other Scriptures than Rev. 20: 4-6, 
 a full, definite and consistent doctrine of 
 Christ' s parousia 151 
 
I76 INDEX TO APPENDIX 
 
 PAGB 
 
 (2) Is amply supported by Scripture. Even the 
 
 passage in Rev. 20 is not wholly set aside, but 
 treated as a mystery 151 
 
 (3) All duties connected with Scripture doctrine of 
 parousia are provided for 152 
 
 TOPIC E 
 
 WHO, OR WHAT IS ANTICHRIST? 
 
 Great variety of views held, and justification of 
 
 position taken by this book 152 
 
 TOPIC F 
 
 GOG AND MAGOG, ok THE LAST GREAT BATTLE 
 
 Scripture indications, and opinions advanced by 
 
 Lieutenant Totten and others 156 
 
 TOPIC G 
 
 THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT AND ITS BEARING UPON 
 THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS 
 
 General description of the movement and explana- 
 tion of its real and probable significance . .160 
 
 TOPIC II 
 PREDICTIVE PROPHECY AND THE HIGHEB CRITICISM 
 
 Real or predictive prophecy shown to be both pos- 
 sible and attested by fact. As integral an 
 element of Scripture as any other 16$ 
 
 TOPIC I 
 ADDENDUM 
 
 Recent views and literature concerning the advent 168 
 
 H 
 
 82 I 
 

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