REESE LIBRARY 
 
 (IF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Accessions No. 
 
 Shelf No. 
 
V 
 
LECTURES 
 
 THE FIRST TWO VISIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BOOK OF DANIEL. 
 
 BY WILLIAM NEWTON, 
 
 RECTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN, 
 
 No. 606 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 LONDON; JAMES NISBET & CO. 
 
 1859. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, 
 
 >$L>r"3>^ 
 
 BY WILLIAM S. & ALFKED MARTIEN, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and 
 for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
TO 
 
 MY MOTHER: 
 
 TO WHOM, UNDER GOD, 
 
 I OWE 
 ALL THAT I AM HERE AND HOPE TO BE HEREAFTER, 
 
 THESE PAGES 
 ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, 
 
 BY 
 HER SON. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE story of this Book is soon told. A 
 simple desire to set forth what I fully be- 
 lieved to be the truth of God, in reference 
 to this subject, led to the delivery of these 
 Lectures, in the regular course of my pa- 
 rochial ministrations. Their delivery led to 
 their publication. And here is the Book. 
 
 They are published, very much as they 
 were preached. The alterations in them are 
 very slight. No statement in them is altered, 
 or even modified. The reader has them, 
 much as the hearers had. 
 
 It may be right for me, here, to say, 
 1* 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 that the views they set forth, are the result 
 of years of as earnest and diligent study, 
 as I am capable of giving to any subject. 
 I preached them, because I believe them. 
 I publish them for the same reason. I 
 should be recreant to my strongest convic- 
 tions of duty, had I faltered in either case. 
 May God preserve me from that. 
 
 Will it be too much to ask of the reader, 
 a fair and impartial examination] May I 
 say, Read carefully; before you condemn? 
 You may not be convinced, by the argu- 
 ments employed. But the subject is worthy 
 of a thorough investigation. If that is given, 
 there is little more to ask. The great dif- 
 ficulty in the case is, men do not thor- 
 oughly examine it. What Sir Isaac Newton 
 said to Halley, concerning revelation, gene- 
 rally, is true of this subject, in particular: 
 " You do not read on this subject, because 
 you do not understand it. And you do not 
 understand it, because you do not read." 
 
PREFACE. / 
 
 Men may say of this subject just what 
 they will. It still remains true, that there 
 are no weightier questions, than those which 
 are here discussed. On the one side or the 
 other, the truth lies. Every man is con- 
 cerned to know it. He may not confess 
 that he is. But whether he confesses it or 
 not, his interest therein is real and abiding. 
 
 The world is on the eve of great changes. 
 Events of vast importance are rapidly draw- 
 ing near. It is wise to note them closely, 
 and ponder them well. We are beginning 
 to hear the distant thunder of a coming 
 storm. And, whatever conclusion may be 
 formed, as to the correctness of the views 
 here set forth, it may be well to remem- 
 ber, that it is never too late to condemn. 
 And never so safe, as when the subject 
 involved has been carefully examined. 
 
 I commit the whole affair to Him, whose 
 truth, I believe, is here set forth. I have 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 no firmer conviction than that. May His 
 rich blessing attend it: overruling its errors, 
 and sanctifying its truths; for His great 
 name's sake ! 
 
 WM. NEWTON. 
 Rectory, West Chester, May 18, 1859. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Subject stated Babylon, the head of gold Greatness 
 and splendour of Grant of power to Duration of 
 Captivity of the Jews The instruments and manner of 
 Babylon's overthrow Kingdom of the breast and 
 arms of silver Character and mission of The king- 
 dom of the belly and thighs of brass Alexander, con- 
 quests of, etc. Practical lessons 13 28 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 The kingdom of the legs of iron Roman empire Cha- 
 racteristics and divisions of Agreement of with the 
 prophetic word Ten kingdoms formed out of Charac- 
 teristics of this part of its history Attempts to com- 
 bine them into one, failure of Kingdom of the God of 
 heaven Not the Gospel dispensation Reasons why 
 Stone smiting the image Practical lessons 29 46 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Subject of Daniel's first vision stated Meaning of the 
 symbol, sea First beast, the Babylonian lion God's 
 sovereignty in selecting this instrument Description 
 and history of Second beast, the Medo-Persian bear 
 Character and history of Third beast, the Macedonian 
 leopard Description of, etc. Conclusion 47 63 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fourth beast, combines the qualities of the preceding 
 three Rome Characteristics and history of Saint 
 John's description of Ten kingdoms formed out of 
 Little horn, kingdom of Practical lessons 64 77 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Subject stated False application of the symbol requi- 
 sitions of the prophecy Papal supremacy Where and 
 when to arise Why found in the west Ten king- 
 doms Little horn, manner of its rise Diversity of its 
 character, how shown Subjugation of three kings, 
 by Prophetic requisitions concerning them Three 
 kings specified Little horn, arrogancy of Persecution 
 of saints by Despotic power Practical lessons 78 94 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Subject stated Spirit in which to approach it Duration 
 of kingdom of little horn, how pointed out Meaning of 
 the phrase Examples of Proof of Period of Daniel's 
 seventy weeks Time and times and the dividing of 
 time, duration of Repetition of the period Twelve 
 hundred and sixty days, when commence Proof of the 
 period Termination of Mistake to be guarded against 
 Conclusion 95 111 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Subject stated Not the final destruction of the little 
 horn That, reserved for Christ alone Why termed 
 Babylon Points of resemblance Babylon, how cap- 
 tured Corresponding point in the judgment of the 
 little horn Drying up of the great river Euphrates, 
 what ? Progression of judgments, law of Facts in 
 proof of Desolation of the mystic Babylon State of 
 the nations during Facts of the judgment, misinter- 
 preted Men will not believe Conclusion 112 128 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The kingdom which the God of heaven shall set up Ques- 
 tions concerning it What are we to understand by 
 that kingdom? Answer from prophecy No doubt 
 about True principle of interpretation Illustration 
 Spiritual kingdom, what Man's whole being, subject 
 of the redemption by Christy-Illustration Kingdom of 
 God, what? Phrase Used in various ways Two main 
 forms Bible* at unity with itself Advance of truth 
 in Christ's threefold office Literal, in each Practi- 
 cal lessons* 129145 
 
 LECTURE IX 
 
 Subject stated Locality of kingdom Proof from the pro- 
 phecy Other proof ^Banding together of kings and 
 rulers against our Lord Angel of the seventh trum- 
 petSong of the redeemed End of the world Mean- 
 ing of Examples 2 Pet. iii. 10-13 Examination of 
 Not teach destruction of the earth-~Reasons why, con- 
 sidered Perpetuity of the earth Prominent Bible 
 truth Purpose of that conflagration Character of 
 New heavens and new earth, after it Conclusion 146 170 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Subject stated Argument in first chapter of Hebrews 
 Difficulty complained of, in explaining it Cause of 
 difficulty True interpretation of Christ, the second 
 Adam, why ? Work of sin Removal of, by Christ He, 
 the only true type of man Progressive character of His 
 triumph over death True reading of His miracles- 
 Power of this view "The world to come," what? 
 Earth not habitable in the Bible sense Illustrations 
 of Chalmers All evils result of sin Blessedness of 
 Christ's presence, realized ; Reality of the curse 
 Goathe Creation, redeemed Character of Restitu- 
 tion of all things Prominence of in the Bible Con- 
 clusion 171192 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Subject stated " The time of the end" to be distin- 
 guished from " the end" Signs of the times Intel- 
 lectual Moral Religious -= Political Illustrations 
 tinder each Realized in our day Popular mistake 
 concerning them The kingdom to be set up at the per- 
 sonal coming of our Lord Testimony of Scripture to 
 this point Why it should be Spiritual coming How 
 God's truth is to be received Different words used to 
 set forth Christ's personal coming -Number of in- 
 stances Death not its equivalent Real point of ap- 
 peal, what? Proof of Practical lessons 193218 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 Posture of affairs at Christ's second coming Other events 
 Resurrection, silently progressing Proof of "Last 
 trump" ^Meaning of -Subject of lecture stated Three 
 classes of subjects in the kingdom Converted Gentile 
 nations, one^-Proof of-*Earth to endure for ever Va- 
 rious proof Restored and sanctified Israel, another 
 class Proof of True period of the conversion of the 
 world Instrument in, what ? Glorified saints, another 
 class Office, as kings and priests Proof of How 
 discharged Practical lessons 219 250 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 WHILE the Jews were captives in the land of Babylon, 
 Nebuchadnezzar, the king, dreamed a dream. This 
 dream passed from him. His wise men, when sum- 
 moned, were unable to recall it to him ; and, of course, 
 equally unable to interpret it. In his rage, he com- 
 manded them to be slain. Daniel, the Hebrew cap- 
 tive who had not been summoned asked for time; 
 and promised to give the interpretation. 
 
 He went to his house ; communicated the matter to 
 his three companions ; and desired them to unite with 
 him in asking " mercies of the God of Heaven, con- 
 cerning this secret." Their prayer was answered; 
 and the dream and interpretation made known to 
 Daniel. 
 
 The king had seen a great image rise up before 
 him. Its " head was of fine gold, his breast and his 
 arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his 
 legs of iron, his feet part iron and part clay." He 
 further, saw a stone, cut out without hands, smite the 
 image on its feet, and break them to pieces; and the 
 iron and clay and brass and silver and gold were 
 broken together, and became as chaff; and the wind 
 
 2 
 
14 SUBJECT STATED. 
 
 carried them away. While the stone became a great 
 mountain, and filled the whole earth. 
 
 This was the dream. The interpretation was, that 
 these four parts of the image, symbolized four dis- 
 tinct kingdoms, which should arise, one after another, 
 and successively bear rule over the whole earth. The 
 stone, which smote them, symbolized the kingdom 
 which the God of Heaven was to set up, and which 
 should never be removed. On the contrary, it was to 
 break in pieces all other kingdoms, and stand for ever. 
 
 Now, of course, it is of the first importance to know 
 when these symbols began to be fulfilled i. e., at what 
 period the head of gold, the first kingdom, was to 
 arise. And here, we are not left to any uncertainty. 
 This kingdom is definitively pointed out : 
 
 Thou, king, art a king of kings. For the God of Heaven hath 
 given thee a kingdom, power and strength and glory. And, 
 wheresover the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, 
 and the fowls of the heaven, hath he given into thine hand ; and 
 hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of 
 gold. DAN. ii. 37, 38. 
 
 Here, then, is an infallible starting point. And, 
 by the phrase, " Thou art this head of gold" we are 
 to understand, not this individual king, but the king- 
 dom of which he was the head. The "head of gold" 
 was to continue, not merely through his life, but until 
 the "breast and arms of silver," i. e., the next uni- 
 versal empire, arose to power. 
 
 It was about 612, B. C., i. e., when Nebuchadnez- 
 zar destroyed Nineveh that Babylon became chief 
 of the kingdoms. And it was fitly symbolized by the 
 "head of gold," because, in point of fact, it was the 
 
BABYLON THE HEAD OP GOLD. 15 
 
 first nation that rose to universal dominion. It was, 
 therefore, more excellent in power than all other king- 
 doms of its day. 
 
 It was fitly termed so, too, because of its exceeding 
 great riches and splendour. The accounts we have of 
 its wealth seem almost fabulous. " The golden city" 
 " The glory of the kingdoms, and beauty of the Chal- 
 dees* excellency " "Abundant in treasures" are terms 
 by which the prophets characterize it. I suppose 
 that, in these modern times, we can scarcely form an 
 idea of the magnificence that raised this city to be 
 one of the seven wonders of the world. 
 
 It was surrounded by a solid brick wall, three 
 hundred and fifty feet high and sixty miles in circum- 
 ference. Along this wall six two-horse chariots could 
 be driven abreast. It was provided with one hundred 
 gates of solid brass. Its palaces, the banks of the 
 river, its artificial canals and lake for draining the 
 river in its seasons of overflow, are described with 
 great pomp by the historians of the time. The 
 Temple of Bel, or Belus, had a circumference of half 
 a mile. It towered to the enormous height of more 
 than one thousand feet ; while St. Paul's, London, is 
 only little more than one-third of that elevation! 
 Then, there were its hanging gardens. And what 
 were these? 
 
 Imagine an artificial mountain, four hundred feet 
 high bound together by a wall twenty-two feet thick 
 with terraces on all sides, rising on sets of piers, 
 one above another. Imagine, that here are running 
 streams ; a lake ; and hill and valley and plain ; the 
 largest trees, and every variety of shrub and flower. 
 
16 GRANT OF POWER TO. 
 
 Imagine this, and you have some idea of the hanging 
 gardens built by this mighty king, in order to refresh 
 his queen, Amytis, with the mountain air and scenery 
 of her own native Media. 
 
 This, then was the head of the kingdom of Babylon. 
 And the grant of power unto it was in these words : 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel : 
 Thus shall ye say unto your masters: 
 
 " I have made the earth, the man and the beast 
 that are upon the ground, by my great power and by 
 my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it 
 seemed meet unto me. 
 
 " And now have I given all these lands into the 
 hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my 
 servant : and the beasts of the field have I given him 
 also, to serve him. 
 
 " And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and 
 his son's son, until the very time of his land come : 
 and then, many nations and great kings shall serve 
 themselves of him." Jer. xxvii. 5-8. 
 
 This, then, is his grant of power. And even so is 
 the record of history. The king of Babylon moved 
 among the nations of the earth with a power which 
 none could resist. I mean, until his mission was 
 ended; or, in the words of the prophet, "until the 
 very time of his land had come." And then his 
 sceptre was broken, and his power taken from him. 
 Before his time, many of the surrounding nations 
 were independent. The Jews, Egyptians, Edomites, 
 Moabites, Ammonites, Tyrians and Zidonians were so. 
 But in his day they all came under his yoke. 
 
 And, marvellous as the record of its greatness is, 
 
DURATION OF. 
 
 / 
 
 that of the shortness of its duration is evn more so. 
 You might suppose that such a nation so great in its 
 power, its extent, its resources, its wealth would 
 stand for ages. But it was not so to be. Its time 
 was fixed. The outer circle of its greatness was 
 drawn around it. And beyond that it could not go. 
 The words of the prophet were, "And this whole 
 land" i.e., the land of Judea "shall be a desola- 
 tion and an astonishment ; and these nations shall serve 
 the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall 
 come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, 
 that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that 
 nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land 
 of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desola- 
 tions." Jer. xxv. 11, 12. 
 
 God's people, the Jews, were, for their sins, to be 
 punished by him. He was to take them captive. 
 The daughter of Ziori sat down by the rivers of Baby- 
 lon. She was in sorrow and anguish of heart, in the 
 land of the uncircumcised. She hung her harp upon 
 the willows, and wept as she remembered Zion. And 
 as the stranger looked in upon the magnificence of 
 her conquerors, and asked, How long will this con- 
 tinue? the monarch might have replied, "Look on 
 these broad walls ; these mighty towers ; these bound- 
 less resources; this untold wealth; these hosts that 
 never turned their back upon a foe and where shall 
 the end be?" 
 
 So men reason. But could you then have mingled 
 with that captive throng, and asked, Who are these? 
 and what do they here? You would have seen the 
 true cause and meaning of Babylon's power. In their 
 
 2* 
 
18 CAPTIVITY OF THE JEWS. 
 
 stay, you would have drawn the limits of her great- 
 ness. While Israel remains captive, no foe shall 
 prosper against her keeper. In captive Israel, and 
 not in her own marvellous power, is the secret of the 
 duration of her greatness. Babylon shall continue as 
 she is, while the Jew is confined within her walls. 
 When the period assigned to Israel's captivity is 
 ended, the rod of their oppressor shall be broken, and 
 Babylon humbled in the dust. The language of the 
 prophet is, " Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions 
 have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria 
 hath devoured him; and last, this Nebuchadnezzar, 
 king of Babylon, hath broken his bones. Therefore 
 thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, 
 Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon, and his 
 land, as I have punished the king of Assyria." 
 And then, as if the threatened judgment was already 
 accomplished, the prophet exclaims, "How is the 
 hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken ! 
 How is Babylon become a desolation among the 
 nations!" Jer. 1. 17-19, 23. 
 
 And then, as to the accomplishment of this. In 
 his "vision of the burden of Babylon," Isaiah points 
 out the nation that shall come up against it. "Be- 
 hold, I will stir up the Medes against them." Isa. 
 xiii. 17. And again, the summons is, "Go up, 
 Elam: besiege, Media." Isa. xxi. 2. Now, "Elam" 
 was the ancient name of Persia.* Its present name 
 first occurs, I think, in the prophecy of Ezekiel. 
 "The Lord," says Jeremiah, "hath raised up the 
 
 * It was so named from Elam, the second son of Shem, its 
 founder. 
 
BABYLON, OVERTHROW OF. 19 
 
 spirit of the kings of the Medes; for his device is 
 against Babylon, to destroy it, because it is the ven- 
 geance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple." 
 Jer. li. 11. 27. 
 
 And utter desolation was to come upon all its 
 glory. "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the 
 beauty of the Chaldee's excellency, shall be as when 
 God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never 
 be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from genera- 
 tion to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch 
 tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their 
 fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie 
 there, etc." Isa. xiii. 19-21. 
 
 Was ever contrast so great? Was ever judgment 
 more fearful and complete ? 
 
 The leader of the Medes and Persians is next 
 named; near two hundred years before his birth. In 
 Isaiah xliv. 28, and xlv. 1, Cyrus is expressly named, 
 and summoned to the great work which God had 
 given him to do. 
 
 The character of his army is then pointed out. 
 The kingdom of Ararat, Minni, and Aschenaz, were 
 to follow. his banner, i. e. the Armenians, the Phry- 
 gians, and Cappadocians, were to make up his army. 
 
 And then, the mode by which the conquest was to be 
 made, is next described. As it flowed through the 
 city, the Euphrates was two furlongs broad; and 
 deeper than two men, standing one on the shoulders 
 of the other. And yet, it was to be dried up ! How 
 could this be done? The prediction seemed to point 
 to an impossibility. The city was believed to be 
 better fortified by the river and ditch around it, than 
 
ZU MODE OF OVERTHROW. 
 
 by its massive walls. Who, but one guided by the 
 Spirit of God, would have ventured on the utterance 
 of such a prophecy ? And yet, ignorant of that pre- 
 diction as he was, Cyrus adopted the very expedient 
 which it pointed out. For three years he besieged 
 the city. Its massive walls and gates resisted all his 
 power. He could make not the slightest impression 
 upon them. He then adopted another plan, and turn- 
 ing the course of the river , he entered dry-shod! This, 
 of course, might have been prevented. We wonder 
 why the Babylonians did not prevent it. Where was 
 the bravery of their troops? the vigilance of the 
 watch? the patriotism of the people? How came it 
 that they did not prevent the besiegers carrying out 
 their designs? 
 
 They were trusting to the strength of the city 
 walls; to the still greater defence of the canal or ditch 
 around it ; and to their vast resources within it. Why, 
 Herodotus tells us, it contained supplies for man and 
 beast, for a twenty years' siege. They laughed at the 
 thought of danger. What arm was strong enough to 
 break down their mighty walls, or pass the barrier of 
 the ditch and river ? And so the city, from the king 
 to the peasant, was given up to dissipation. 
 
 And behind all this was the prophetic word, "I 
 have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, 0. 
 Babylon, and thou wast not aware. Thou art found 
 and also caught, because thou hast striven against the 
 Lord." Jer. 1. 24. 
 
 And do you ask, What was that snare? Trusting 
 .to their great strength, in the very madness of their 
 hearts, unbridled dissipation ruled the hour. It came 
 
BABYLON, SIEGE OF. 21 
 
 to pass, as the prophet had foretold: "In their heat 
 I will make their feasts, and will make them drunken, 
 that they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep and 
 not waken, saith the Lord." Jer. li. 39. 57. 
 
 Accordingly, the city was taken in the midst of an 
 annual feast, while the inhabitants, the king and his 
 nobles and his army, were alike indulging in revelry 
 and song. 
 
 The siege, with its minutest circumstances, and the 
 consequent overthrow of this great power, is described 
 by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. Herodotus 
 and Zenophon record the facts. Now, Isaiah lived 
 two hundred and fifty years before Herodotus, the 
 Father of History; and three hundred and fifty 
 before Zenophon. And Jeremiah had gone to his 
 grave one hundred and fifty years before the one, and 
 two hundred and fifty before the other. Thus, what 
 the prophet foretold, the historian related, long after 
 those prophets had returned to their native dust ! 
 
 And thus was the "head of gold" broken; and the 
 kingdom of the breast and arms of silver advanced to 
 its place. 
 
 Now, in point of fact, the kingdom which came 
 after the Babylonian, and, like it, attained to univer- 
 sal dominion, was the Medo-Persian. This, as you 
 know, was founded by Cyrus, who united the two 
 kingdoms of Media and Persia the two arms of the 
 Image into one, whose central power, whose point of 
 union and life, was in himself. He thus stood as "the 
 breast and arms of silver," of the image which rose 
 up before the king. 
 
 Media and Persia, under its ancient name, Elam, 
 
22 MEDES AND PERSIANS. 
 
 were the instruments, named by prophecy, for the 
 overthrow of Babylon. Not, you will observe, as two 
 powers. The two were to be united in one central 
 power ; even as the two arms of the body are in the 
 breast from which their life proceeds. And Media 
 and Persia thus became one under Cyrus, their ap- 
 pointed head. And thus, as one, giving and receiving 
 power, and yet obeying his will, they stand forth on 
 the page of history, as the means by which Babylon 
 was overthrown, and the predictions of the Word of 
 God concerning it, accomplished. 
 
 This kingdom was to be "inferior" to the first. It 
 was, therefore, represented by " silver" as the first was 
 symbolized by "gold" Now, if by " inferior" we are to 
 understand a less degree of magnificence ; this was 
 certainly true. Cyrus despised the splendour and 
 effeminacy of the court, and trained his people to a 
 sterner and manlier rule. 
 
 Or, if "inferior" means that he did not carry his 
 arms as far as Nebuchadnezzar had done; this also is 
 true. Or, if again, it means worse, in point of moral 
 character ; it would be difficult to point out men of 
 a lower grade than the Persian kings proverbially 
 were. 
 
 Still, though in many respects " inferior," the king- 
 dom established by Cyrus was of vast extent ; and the 
 second which attained to universal dominion. Of it, 
 Herodotus says : " Wherever Cyrus marched through 
 the earth, it was impossible for nations to escape 
 him." And Zenophon says: " He ruled the Medes, 
 subverted the Syrians, the Assyrians, the Arabians, 
 the Cappadocians, the Phrygians, the Lydians, the 
 
ALEXANDER. 28 
 
 Carians, the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, the Greeks 
 in Asia, the Cyprians, the Egyptians, and struck all 
 with such dread and terror, that none ventured to 
 assail him. He subdued from his throne, east, west, 
 north and south.* 
 
 This empire lasted from Cyrus to Darius Codo- 
 manus, about two hundred years. In its turn, it went 
 down before the arms of the next instrument which 
 God summoned to His work. 
 
 And now, with the volume of history .open before 
 you, I ask you, brethren, can you point out a king- 
 dom, which ruled, with anything like universal sway; 
 after Cyrus, and before Alexander? The requisition 
 of the word of prophecy, is: " After thee, shall arise 
 another kingdom, inferior to thee : and another third 
 kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the 
 earth.' 1 v. 39. Now, what kingdom did this, after 
 Cyrus ? All the world knows, that it was Alexander 
 of Macedon, that subverted the Persian empire, the 
 second prophetic kingdom, and built up one mightier 
 in its stead. It was that of the "belly and thighs 
 of brass." And every one familiar with its history, 
 knows that brass was its favourite symbol. The 
 Greeks were famous for their armour of brass; and 
 the "brazen-coated GrreeJcs," was a term by which 
 they were well and extensively known. 
 
 * And Cyrus himself seems to have understood the source of his 
 power, and the object of his mission. He says: "The Lord God 
 of Heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth. 1 ' Ezra, i. 2. 
 For at this time his dominion extended north to the Euxine ; west 
 to the island of Cyprus and Egypt; east to the Red Sea; and south 
 to Ethiopia. It was a grant of power from God, for the accom- 
 plishment of his designs towards his captive people. 
 
24 KINGDOM OF THE BREAST AND ARMS OF SILVER. 
 
 By the prophetic symbol, as in the case of the 
 " breast and arms of silver/' this kingdom was to 
 consist of two parts; and so, we find the fact con- 
 cerning it. The lower portions of the dominions 
 of Alexander, Egypt and Syria, were divided; and 
 formed, as it were, the two pillars, on which his 
 mighty empire rested. 
 
 About the year 330 B. C., Alexander turned his 
 arms against the kingdom of the " breast and arms of 
 silver" i. e. the Medo-Persian, and overthrew it; as 
 it had that of the "head of gold." Rapidly, thence, 
 he rose to almost unlimited sway. He had dominion 
 in all parts of the known world. Ambassadors came 
 to him from the remotest nations. No distance could 
 escape the rapidity of his movements. No power, 
 stand up against the might of his onset. It is almost 
 like a dream of romance to read the records of his 
 brilliant exploits. But, since they will come up more 
 fully before us, in considering the vision of Daniel, 
 for the present, I pass them by. 
 
 And this was the third prophetic kingdom, which, 
 in its turn, went down before the fourth; of which it 
 is written, " And the fourth kingdom shall be strong 
 as iron." To this, you observe, a much larger space 
 is assigned in the prophecy, because of the wider re- 
 sults that were to flow from it. I reserve it, therefore, 
 as the subject of the next lecture. 
 
 Well, brethren, what lesson may we learn from all 
 this? Is it not God's comment on his own words, 
 "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my plea- 
 sure?" We look on the pageant of the world's his- 
 tory its kings, its princes, and its conquerors. We 
 
PRACTICAL LESSONS. 25 
 
 see the marshalling of armies ; and the building up of 
 thrones ; and the overthrow of dynasties ; and the vast 
 procession with which the nations sweep past before 
 us as scenes in a panoramic view ! And as we ques- 
 tion one after another, Why do you thus? What 
 means all this terrible display? they tell us, "We 
 are accomplishing our own schemes. We are carry- 
 ing out our own plans. We are making for ourselves 
 a name to leave to after times." 
 
 And is this all? Close the Book of God, and you 
 can say no more. It is all. Open it. Let in its light 
 on this question. And you gaze in wonder on the 
 scene. It illumines that which was dark. It leads 
 you behind the curtain. It shows you the great De- 
 signer, with his forecast plans for the government of 
 this fallen world. To carry out those plans, is just 
 the real design of the seemingly confused and tangled 
 schemes of the powers of earth ; however wide of the 
 mark they appear to come. They know it not they 
 mean it not ; but still, 
 
 'There's a Divinity that shapes their ends, 
 
 Kough-hew them how they will." 
 
 Like puppets, they are moved by a power higher than 
 their own. At its touch, they come upon the stage ; 
 and, at its touch, they disappear. Pride, ambition, 
 and thirst of power, may lead them on; and high 
 station may beckon them from afar. Still, there is 
 ever One who uses them as stepping-stones in the 
 progress of his cause. They are the brush in the 
 painter's, the chisel in the sculptor's hand, to mark 
 out and carry forward schemes which they know not 
 
 3 
 
26 IMMUTABILITY OP GOD'S PURPOSE. 
 
 of. They may be foul with corruption ; they may be 
 reeking with blood. In the madness of their hearts 
 they may disown his name, and defy his power. Still, 
 there is One above them whose hook is in their nose, 
 and whose bridle is in their lips. (Isa. xxxvii. 29.) 
 One who leads them about to serve his own good plea- 
 sure, and makes their wildest excesses carry forward 
 his fore-ordained plans ! He sees, with derision, their 
 madness against himself, and calmly constrains their 
 blackest crimes to lead on to fulfilment the predictions 
 of his Word ! For t his, kings reign ; and nations rise ; 
 and thrones are built up and cast down. He has linked 
 the history of his Church with the progress of the 
 nations of the earth; and all the vast successions of 
 changes which mark revolving years, touch some 
 secret spring of influence affecting that Church. 
 Where they touched it; how they affected it; shall be 
 clearly seen when the scheme of this dispensation is 
 fully unrolled. Meanwhile, "The Lord reigneth, let 
 the earth rejoice." And as we gaze on and ponder 
 this wondrous vision of the past, above the din of 
 conflict and the crash of falling thrones, comes forth 
 "a still, small voice;" before which, like Elijah of 
 old, we may well bow down our heads and worship ! 
 
 How well we learn from this subject the immuta- 
 bility of the counsel and purposes of God! How 
 impossible for "one jot or one tittle to pass from the 
 law, until all be fulfilled!" "Heaven and earth shall 
 pass away, but my word shall not pass away!" 
 
 How firm, then, the foundation how absolute the 
 safety of the Christian ! There is nothing on earth 
 abiding, save the counsel and purposes of Jehovah. 
 
SAFETY OF THE CHRISTIAN. 27 
 
 Every hope shall fail, but that which rests on Him ; 
 every foundation be undermined, but that of which He 
 is the corner-stone. No disappointment can overtake 
 the one; no convulsion endanger the other. Amidst 
 all the changes of earth, the believer's hope reposes 
 on Him who is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and 
 for ever!" 
 
 What a matter of rejoicing then we have here, if 
 we are indeed the people of God! The cause of 
 Christ will triumph. God will not let his words fall 
 to the ground. They are full of the power of the 
 Almighty One. "The kingdoms of this world shall 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ." 
 He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the 
 rivers unto the ends of the earth." And his kingdom 
 shall be for ever. No change shall affect it. No 
 storm sweep over it. No enemies be found within its 
 borders. No convulsion endanger its throne. 
 
 And then, what a note of warning it utters for those 
 who are not in Christ. Men and brethren, who will 
 not that He should reign over you know you what 
 you are doing? There is arrayed against you, the 
 power and changeless purpose of Jehovah ! There is 
 no screen, no hiding-place, against the one. There 
 is no appeal against the other. Out of Christ, every 
 attribute of God is pledged for your destruction. His 
 Justice stands by his law broken and dishonoured by 
 you and claims its penalty. And His Holiness cries 
 out against "the wickedness of your sin." And His 
 Mercy and Grace and Love have no plea for him who 
 rejects an offered Saviour. And His Long-suffering 
 interposes no more. And His Omnipotence arrays 
 
28 WARNING. 
 
 the might of the Godhead against you. 0! while 
 there is yet time; while He waits to be gracious; flee 
 to the shelter of His Cross. Stay not outside the 
 rich provisions of His Grace. " Tarry not in all the 
 plain. Escape to the mountains, lest thou be con- 
 sumed." 
 
II. 
 
 AND the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch aa 
 iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things ; and as iron that 
 breaketh all these shall it break in pieces and bruise. 
 
 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay 
 and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided ; but there shall 
 be in it, of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest 
 the iron, mixed with miry clay. 
 
 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so 
 the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. 
 
 And whereas thou sawest the iron, mixed with miry clay, they 
 shall mingle themselves with the seed of men : but they shall 
 not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 
 DAN. ii. 40-43. 
 
 WE have advanced through the consideration of the 
 three kingdoms, of gold, of silver and of brass. And 
 these words bring us to the fourth kingdom, or the 
 two legs of iron, and the feet part iron and part clay. 
 And the inquiry will at once be made, What kingdom 
 is this ? Among the nations of the earth, what people 
 combined within themselves the qualifications here 
 pointed out? It must be a kingdom stronger than 
 all others. 
 
 As iron breaks and subdues all other metals, so this 
 kingdom was to break and subdue all other kingdoms. 
 What kingdom did this ? And, doing this, what 
 
 3* 
 
30 KINGDOM OF THE LEGS OF IRON. 
 
 kingdom rested on its two great divisions, even as the 
 image rested on its two legs of iron ? And, further 
 still. What kingdom, doing all this, was afterwards 
 divided into ten other kingdoms, even as the feet of 
 the image were divided into its ten toes ? 
 
 Now, I suppose there need be no hesitancy about 
 our reply. We are not left to conjecture here ; nor 
 even to strong probability. These requisitions of the 
 vision, fence the matter about so closely, that it seems 
 scarcely possible for us to go wrong concerning it. 
 No kingdom but one can satisfy these demands of the 
 prophet. Look at them. It must subdue the third, 
 or Macedonian empire. Breaking in pieces all other 
 kingdoms, it must set its feet on the dominions of the 
 three preceding empires of the vision. It must reach 
 to universal sway. It must be formed into two vast 
 divisions. And afterwards it must be broken into ten 
 parts which were to continue until the kingdom of the 
 Grod of Heaven broke them to pieces; swept them away 
 as the wind does the chaff of the summer threshing- 
 floor; and itself filled the world ! 
 
 There is but one kingdom, of which, up to this time, 
 all these things are true. You all anticipate me when 
 I say, That is the Roman kingdom ! To it, and to it 
 alone, every item applies with great exactness. This 
 kingdom of iron succeeded, in point of time, to that of 
 brass : i. e., to the Graeco-Macedonian empire. And 
 then, it wielded a power greater than that of any 
 other kingdom before it. And, whether or not, he 
 was conscious of the real import of his words, it is a 
 striking fact, that Gibbon uses this very figure in 
 speaking of the Empire of Rome. He says : 
 
ROME. 31 
 
 " The arms of the republic, sometimes vanquished 
 in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with 
 rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine 
 and the Ocean ; and the images of gold, or silver or 
 brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their 
 kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy 
 of Rome." (Vol. iii., Millman's ed., p. 634.) 
 
 Beyond a doubt, the kingdom of iron was that of 
 Rome. And it needs but a glance, at its possessions, 
 to see, how well it deserved the name of an universal 
 empire. "The empire of the whole earth" was not 
 this its favourite title? It succeeded the Babylonian, 
 the Medo-Persian, and the Macedonian, in the govern- 
 ment of the world. First, Macedon went down before 
 it. Carthage was destroyed by it. Corinth became, 
 in spite of its princely splendour, a heap of ashes in 
 its path. Spain next bowed to its yoke. Egypt 
 became a Roman province. Judea was annexed to its 
 dominions. And the plough-share of the idolater was 
 driven across the streets of the Holy City. And thus, 
 it rose to the power of the first of the nations. It 
 trod upon their necks. It made the world tributary 
 to its greatness. It seemed the realization of its own 
 fabled Briareus. And, looking with its single eye 
 i. e. a lust of unbounded dominion over the nations 
 of the earth : it reached forth the hundred hands of its 
 power to gratify that lust. The neighbouring state and 
 the distant isle, alike became subject to its dominion. 
 Britain passed under its yoke. " These ravagers of 
 the world," said Galgacus, as he addressed the Caledo- 
 nians, "after all the earth has been too narrow for 
 their ambition, have ransacked the sea, also: 1 In 
 
32 UNIVERSALITY OF. 
 
 other words, at the time of the Christian era, the 
 Roman Empire took in the whole south of Europe, 
 France, England, the greatest part of the Netherlands, 
 Switzerland, and the South of Germany, Hungary, 
 Turkey and Greece; not to speak of its possessions 
 in Asia and Africa. Well, therefore, might Gibbon 
 declare, "The Empire of the Romans filled the world. 
 And, when that Empire fell into the hands of a single 
 person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for 
 his enemies. To resist was fatal : and it was impossi- 
 ble to fly." (Vol. 1. p. 99.) 
 
 Now, the image stood on two legs of iron. In 
 other words, this kingdom was composed of two main 
 divisions the Eastern and Western Empire; into 
 which it was formed about A. D. 364. And this, 
 together with the period of conquest leading up to 
 this, was the period of its strength. You observe 
 that, up to this, the declaration is unqualified. " The 
 fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron." And there, 
 in its fore-ordained character, it stood like a mighty 
 Colossus, bestriding the nations; conquering every- 
 thing that opposed it ; and giving laws to the world. 
 This was the period of its strength. 
 
 But this was not to continue. "And, whereas thou 
 sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay, and 
 part of iron; the kingdom shall be divided." And 
 most exactly are its divisions pointed out. It was 
 not to be broken at random. It was not merely to be 
 divided. It was to be divided into an exact number oj 
 parts. That number was ten ; according to the ten 
 toes of the image. 
 
 Now, in dwelling on the first vision of Daniel, the 
 
TEN KINGDOMS. 33 
 
 consideration of these ten kingdoms will present itself 
 more directly before us, than it does in this place. I 
 therefore merely refer to them now. Read any his- 
 tory of Europe; take any map of Europe, after this 
 division, under Theodosius the Great, and these ten 
 kingdoms will be found to turn up. Revolution after 
 revolution has swept over the nations. But, when the 
 storm has passed, the constitution of the States of 
 Europe, on which the feet of the image stood, has 
 been found true to the prophetic word. Of course, 
 there have been, there are now, more European king- 
 doms than ten. But the prophecy speaks only of 
 those, whose territory was covered l>y the feet and toes 
 of the image. It calls for those that should take the 
 place where the image stood. When, therefore, the 
 matter comes definitely before us, the inquiry will be 
 for those into which the Roman Empire was divided. 
 And these, when the division is completed, must be 
 ten ; or, we shall not have found the fourth kingdom 
 at all. 
 
 Into these different parts, then, the kingdom of 
 iron was to be broken. Into these parts it was 
 broken. It is a plain record on the book of history; 
 and therefore all writers substantially agree concern- 
 ing it. I say substantially, because the enumeration 
 has, at different times, included different nations. 
 But, whether you adopt that of Machiavelli, of Sir 
 Isaac Newton, of Mr. Mede, of Bishop Lloyd, or 
 Bishop Newton, you equally find the ten kingdoms on 
 the territory of the feet of the image. Into this num- 
 ber, then, the kingdom of iron was broken. And, in 
 
34 DIVIDED STATE OF. 
 
 these parts, it was to continue, resisting all attempts 
 to fuse them into one. 
 
 From this, its divided state, the first strength of 
 the empire departed but not as that of the others 
 had done. No other kingdom was to succeed it ; as it 
 had the three which went before it. It was to con- 
 tinue, in this tenfold division, until the kingdom of 
 the stone smote it, upon its feet; broke them in 
 pieces, and scattered them as the wind does "the 
 chaff of the summer threshing-floor!" Yet, through 
 all this time, a portion of its strength was to remain. 
 And so the prophet says, "And as the toes of the 
 feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the king- 
 dom shall be partly strong and partly broken. " 
 (v. 42.) How, in any other way, could you so 
 strikingly represent the facts? For more than four- 
 teen hundred years this tenfold division has existed. 
 Time and again men have dreamed of rearing on 
 these .dominions one mighty kingdom. Charlemagne 
 tried it. Charles V. tried it. Louis XIV. tried it. 
 Napoleon tried it. But neither succeeded. A single 
 verse of prophecy was stronger than all their hosts. 
 Their own power was wasted, frittered away, destroy- 
 ed. But the ten kingdoms did not become one. 
 "Partly strong and partly broken" was the prophetic 
 description. And such, too, has been the historic 
 fact concerning them. With the book of history open 
 before you, I ask you, Is not this an exact represen- 
 tation of the remnants of this once mighty empire? 
 It ruled with unlimited power. It was the throned 
 mistress of the world. Its sceptre was broken; its 
 throne pulled down; its power was taken away. Ten 
 
ATTEMPT TO COMBINE THEM INTO ONE. - 
 
 kingdoms were formed out of it; and " broken'' as 
 then it was, it still continues i. e., "partly broken." 
 For its dimensions still continue as when the kingdom 
 of iron stood upright on its feet. And then, it is 
 " partly strong" i. e., it retains, even in its broken 
 state, enough of its iron strength to resist all attempts 
 to mould its parts together. " This shall not be," 
 says the word of God. " This has not been," replies 
 the book of history. 
 
 But then, men may say, "Another plan remains. 
 If force cannot avail, diplomacy and reasons of State 
 may we will try them." And so the prophecy fore- 
 shadows this when it says, "They shall mingle them- 
 selves with the seed of men" i. e., marriages shall 
 be formed, in hope thus to consolidate their power, 
 and, in the end, to unite these divided kingdoms 
 into one. 
 
 And shall this device succeed? No. The prophet 
 answers: "They shall not cleave one to another, even 
 as iron is not mixed with clay." And the history of 
 Europe is but a running commentary on the exact 
 fulfilment of these words.* From the time of Canute 
 until the present age, it has been the policy of the 
 reigning monarchs, the beaten path which they have 
 
 * Perhaps, of all the European powers, Austria has been most 
 distinguished in her attempts thus to enlarge her dominions. In- 
 deed, these "fortunate marriages" as they have been called, have 
 given rise to the couplet 
 
 " Bella gerant alii: tu, felix Austria, nube; 
 Nam qucB Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus" 
 Blest Austria, wed. To others, wars resign ; 
 Mars gives them kingdoms ; Venus sends thee thine. 
 
36 FAILURE OF. 
 
 trodden, in order to reach a mightier sceptre, and a 
 wider sway. And the most signal instance of it which 
 history has recorded in our own day, is in the case of 
 Napoleon. He ruled in one of the kingdoms; Aus- 
 tria was another. He sought to reach by alliance 
 what he could not gain by force, i. e. to build up one 
 mighty, consolidated empire. And did he succeed? 
 Nay. The very power with which he was allied proved 
 his destruction, in the troops of Blucher on the field of 
 Waterloo ! The iron would not mingle with the clay. 
 The ten kingdoms continue still. 
 
 And yet if, as the result of these alliances, or of 
 other causes, that number is sometimes disturbed, it 
 need not surprise us. It is, indeed, just what the 
 prophecy seems to call for. The iron was "mixed 
 with the clay." For a season, in the image, you 
 might not distinguish between them. But they would 
 not remain so. "They shall not cleave one to an- 
 other.'* The nature of the substances forbids them 
 to do so in the one case ; the word of prophecy in the 
 other. Yet there was to be the attempt to mingle 
 nay, more, there was an approach at mingling in both 
 cases. But it was to be abortive. And how marked 
 the emphasis with which history affirms this declara- 
 tion of the word of God ! 
 
 The next step in the development of the prophetic 
 history is announced in these words: "And in the 
 days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a 
 kingdom which shall never be destroyed." (v. 44.) 
 And the inquiry at once arises, What kingdom is 
 that ? Are we able to point it out ? 
 
 I suppose we need not be in doubt here. There 
 
CHRIST THE STONE. 37 
 
 are landmarks enough, plainly and sharply enough 
 defined, to guide us. 
 
 Doubtless, Christ is the Stone. It is His prophetic 
 title. You all remember the passages ? There is that 
 of Isa. xxviii. 16, " Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, 
 Behold I lay in Zion, for a foundation, a Stone, a tried 
 Stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." 
 
 There is David's declaration: "The Stone which the 
 builders refused, is become the head-stone of the cor- 
 ner." Ps. cxviii. 22. And there is our Lord's express 
 appropriation of this to Himself. "Did ye never 
 read in the Scriptures, The Stone which the builders 
 rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?" 
 Matt. xxi. 42. 
 
 Christ then is the Stone. And its being "cut out, 
 without hands" i. e. without human instrumentality, 
 may, I suppose, fairly enough, in one sense, refer to 
 His miraculous conception by the Holy Ghost. In 
 His two-fold nature He is symbolized by this Stone. 
 What other sense these words convey, will presently 
 appear. 
 
 But then, what can be said of His kingdom ? How 
 shall we define it? Are we at liberty to say that His 
 Gospel Dispensation is intended ? Will it satisfy the 
 demands of the prophecy ? 
 
 I know that many teach so. I know that when 
 Christ came, He preached, saying " The kingdom of 
 Crodis at hand: repent ye and believe the Gospel." 
 I know that the phrase, "Kingdom of Heaven," or 
 "of G-od" is often interpreted by the Grospel Age, or 
 Dispensation. But the question is, What is its mean- 
 ing in this place ? 
 
 4 
 
38 WHAT KINGDOM IS MEANT. 
 
 I suppose that, to ascertain the real and exact 
 meaning of the word of God, is the common desire of 
 us all. We are all interested to know it. We shall 
 all profit by knowing it. We shall all suffer from 
 misconceptions of it. All our interests, here, are alike. 
 Here, every man stands on ground common to all. 
 And, no matter what our views have been, or are 
 now, we shall be profited by the word of God only 
 so far as we have the exact mind of the Spirit concern- 
 ing it. It becomes us, therefore, earnestly to seek 
 for that mind ; and resolutely to adopt it, when found. 
 
 I say then, that in this place, this phrase does not 
 mean the Gospel Dispensation, for the following rea- 
 sons: 
 
 a. The God of Heaven was to set up this kingdom, 
 "in the days of those kings;'' i. e. in the days of the 
 kings that ruled over the ten kingdoms into which the 
 kingdom of iron was to be broken. Now beyond doubt, 
 "the days of those kings" did not commence until 
 near 500 years after Christ. The kingdom of iron 
 was not broken until about that time. The Gospel 
 had won its brightest triumphs. Its followers had 
 sealed their testimony with their blood. False doc- 
 trines were closing darkly around it; before "those 
 kings" arose. If this is true, it follows as an inevita- 
 ble certainty, that that kingdom was not "set up" in 
 their days. But, 
 
 b. It does not mean the Gospel Dispensation; 
 because our Lord teaches us, that His kingdom is not 
 yet set up. Hence, He teaches us to pray, "Thy 
 kingdom come." That kingdom, therefore, is yet 
 future. We do not pray for an accomplished fact. 
 
NOT THE GOSPEL AGE. 39 
 
 He teaches us the same truth, by his reply to his 
 disciples, just before his ascension. When they asked 
 him, " Lord, wilt Thou, at this time, restore the king- 
 dom to Israel?" He did not point out their mistake. 
 He did not tell them that they were harbouring an un- 
 founded idea. He did not say, " No. My kingdom 
 is already set up." He was always prompt to point 
 out their error. And who does not feel that he would 
 have done so here; had they been in error? Instead 
 of this, he replies: "It is not for you to know the 
 times which the Father hath put in His own power." 
 They were right as to the kingdom. They only erred 
 as to the time of its setting up. 
 
 c. It does not mean the Gospel dispensation; because 
 the prophecy calls for an absolute, literal, and visible 
 kingdom. Such a kingdom was that of the "head of 
 gold." Such was that of silver. Such that of brass. 
 Such that of iron. They were four distinct, literal, and 
 visible kingdoms. Each had a supreme head. Each 
 had dominions, in which it was set up. Each had 
 subjects, over whom it reigned; and enemies, whom it 
 conquered and destroyed. Each succeeded to the 
 possession of the other, and built up a mightier king- 
 dom in its stead. Now, in neither of these respects 
 is the Gospel dispensation a kingdom. The rule of 
 the Gospel in the heart is altogether a spiritual rule. 
 It has nothing to do with visible dominions. It sits 
 not down in the high places of power. It sways not 
 the sceptre. It wields not the sword. It marches 
 not at the head of armies. It lays no scheme for the 
 overturning of thrones. It is not, therefore, the king- 
 dom pointed out by the prophet. Of the four king- 
 
40 MISSION OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 doms which have already come, the second displaced 
 the first. The third overturned the second. And 
 the fourth built up its throne on the ruins of the three 
 which had gone before it. So the kingdom of the 
 God of Heaven is to take the place of all other king- 
 doms, and, as a kingdom, fill the whole earth ! It is 
 not, therefore, the Gospel dispensation. 
 
 Finally. It is not that dispensation; became the 
 rule of the Grospel is, " Peace on earth, good will 
 towards men." The kingdom of the Stone, on the 
 contrary, is to " break in pieces and consume all these 
 kingdoms." The figure is, of the stone falling on the 
 feet of the image ; breaking them in pieces ; driving 
 them away as the wind does the chaff of the threshing- 
 floor; and itself becoming a kingdom that filled the 
 whole earth! 
 
 Now, I submit to you, brethren, it is mere toying 
 with words to predicate this of the Gospel. What 
 has it to do with the enginery of destruction? It 
 deals not in " garments rolled in blood." It has 
 nought to do with the onset of armies and the pulling 
 down of thrones. Its mission is, to tell the story of 
 the Crucified. Its plea is, "the love of Christ." Its 
 weapons "are not carnal but spiritual." And all its 
 conquests are those wrought by "the sword of the 
 Spirit, which is the word of God." It is scarcely 
 possible to conceive of a contrast greater than that 
 pointed out between its triumphs and those of the king- 
 dom of which the prophet speaks. What, therefore, 
 is that kingdom? 
 
 You observe, that it is "the Stone" which smote the 
 image on its feet. Now, as Christ is this Stone, this 
 
CHRIST, AS THE STONE, SMITES, ETC. 41 
 
 smiting is clearly to be done by Him. It is not a 
 spiritual smiting by His truth. That never breaks 
 and subdues kingdoms, and scatters them as the chaff 
 before the wind. It is a literal and absolute smiting. 
 Each kingdom smote and destroyed that which came 
 before it. And even so I mean as literally so will 
 the Stone smite and destroy the kingdom of His ene- 
 mies. If Christ is the Stone, is it not illogical does 
 it not contradict the plain statement of the prophecy 
 to refer this smiting to the system of truth taught 
 by Him? Can you put the Gospel in the place of its 
 Author? No one pretends that that is the " Stone, 
 cut out without hands/' And yet it is this, and this 
 alone, which is to smite the image. And the marginal 
 reading of that phrase is quite significant. It is, 
 "which was not in hands;" i. e., which did its work 
 alone. No human instrumentality is used. Christ 
 Himself, in "the brightness of His coming," will be 
 the destruction of his banded foes. And nothing less 
 than this will satisfy the demands of the prophetic 
 word. 
 
 And the Bible is full of this doctrine. You observe, 
 that after this smiting, the stone is to become a great 
 mountain and fill the whole earth ; i. e., the kingdom, 
 established by Christ in person, is to take the place 
 of all other kingdoms. He, in the splendour of His 
 unbounded empire, will fill the earth with glory. At 
 the head of His kingdom, He will "fill all things;" 
 "make all things new;" and be the source and spring 
 of the blessings of the Everlasting Age. Thus will 
 "the Stone' accomplish the part affirmed of it, and 
 become the head of the corner," in all the universe of 
 
 4* 
 
42 PREDICTIONS OF THIS SMITING. 
 
 God. And the double pledge of this we have in the 
 predictions of His word; and the accomplished fact 
 of His resurrection and ascension. 
 
 And such we find the testimony of that Word. 
 Thus, we have the grant of "the heathen," i. e., the 
 nations, "for His inheritance; and the uttermost parts 
 of the earth for His possession." 
 
 And how is that possession to be obtained ? Peace- 
 ably? As the gradual conquest of His truth? Just 
 as far removed from this as possible. "Thou shalt 
 break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them 
 in pieces, like a potter's vessel." Ps. ii. 8, 9. Could 
 there be a more express confirmation of the prophet's 
 words ? In the one, the Stone is to smite the image. 
 In the other, Christ Himself is to break in pieces all 
 the combinations of His enemies, by an absolute and 
 sudden and remediless destruction ! 
 
 Now, we shall shortly see that the time of this 
 destruction is at the second coming of our Lord. And 
 every image of grandeur seems to be employed in 
 describing the fearfulness of this event to His banded 
 enemies. "He bowed the Heavens," says the Psalm- 
 ist, "and came down; and darkness was under His 
 feet. 11 "He rode upon a cherub and did fly; yea, He 
 did fly upon the wings of the wind." And what was 
 the effect of this coming on His enemies? "He sent 
 out His arrows and scattered them; and He shot out 
 lightnings and discomfited them." "Then did I beat 
 them small as the dust before the wind; I did cast 
 them out as the dirt in the streets." Ps. xviii. 9, 10. 
 14. 42. Here, and through the entire Psalm, we have 
 
PREDICTIONS OF, ETC. 43 
 
 the same idea of a grand and terrific outpouring of 
 " the judgment that is written." 
 
 And so, of the same event, we are told, "The Lord 
 at thy right hand shall wound even kings, in the day 
 of His wrath. He shall judge among the heathen ; 
 He shall fill the places with the dead bodies ; He shall 
 wound the heads over many countries." Ps. ex. 5, 6. 
 
 So, in the glorious vision which Isaiah saw. A 
 mighty personage, travelling in the greatness of His 
 strength, passed before him. The prophet asks: 
 "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed 
 garments from Bozrah?" And the answer is, "I that 
 speak in righteousness; mighty to save." 
 
 But the prophet demands : "Wherefore art Thou red 
 in thine apparel; and Thy garments like him that 
 treadeth in the wine-fat." And He replies, "I have 
 trodden the wine-press alone ; and of the people there 
 was none with me; for I will tread them in mine 
 anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood 
 shall be sprinkled upon my garments ; and I will stain 
 all my raiment." Is. Ixiii. 1 3. It is the Stone smiting 
 the image, and visiting it with predicted destruction. 
 
 And so runs the representation all through the 
 word of God. And when this is done; when the 
 Stone has smitten the image, and the kingdoms into 
 which it was divided are overthrown and swept away, 
 "great voices shall be heard in heaven, saying, The 
 kingdoms* of this world are become the kingdoms of our 
 Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever 
 and ever." Rev. xi. 15. The kingdom of the Stone 
 
 * Literally it is, "The kingdom" i. e. the rule, the dominion 
 for the word is in the singular; "The kingdom . . . is become, etc." 
 
44 PRACTICAL LESSONS. 
 
 is set up. Sin is done away. Its blight is effaced. 
 Its curse lifted off. "And He that sat upon the 
 throne, said, Behold, I make all things new" 
 
 There are many lessons which this great theme 
 brings home to us. Let us dwell on one or two. 
 
 a. How clearly mapped out are the events of the 
 world's history before the eye of G-od! God forms 
 His plans in reference to the kingdoms of the earth. 
 And kings and generals and philosophers and states- 
 men rise up at the appointed time, and work out their 
 appointed schemes. They thought they were carrying 
 out their own plans. But God employed them in 
 hewing out the block of His own high purposes. The 
 madness of their rage He constrained to further His 
 own designs. And when their power waxed too 
 haughty against Him, and their wisdom refused His 
 counsel, He cut the sinews of the one, and sent fool- 
 ishness into the other. Around all their designs His 
 hand had traced, " Thus far shalt thou come, but no 
 farther. 11 What His wisdom permitted, they might 
 do. But beyond that they could not go. All their 
 acts, and all the consequences of their acts, are clearly 
 traced out before Him. He sees them all. He per- 
 mits them all. He overrules them all. They are 
 mapped out in His pre-appointed scheme; "written 
 in His Book." Hours and days and months and 
 years and centuries turn its leaves, and reveal to men 
 a portion of what is written. 
 
 "His providence unfolds the book, 
 And makes His counsel shine; 
 Each opening leaf and every stroke, 
 Fulfils some deep design." 
 
PRACTICAL LESSONS. 
 
 Men may plot and counsel and combine, 
 is no wisdom and no power against Him. 
 
 b. How certain the destruction of those who reject 
 His Gospel. As the vast procession of History 
 sweeps by before us, there comes forth a voice, saying 
 " Who ever hardened himself against Him, and pros- 
 pered?" Armies perish. And sceptres are broken. 
 And thrones are overturned or crumbled by slow decay. 
 And nations rise and flourish and pass away. And 
 the proudest monuments of man's power forget to 
 repeat the lesson with which they were charged. 0, 
 there is nothing great, nothing abiding, but that 
 which links into the work of Jesus Christ the Lord ! 
 As the ages roll on, it progresses. The hand of the 
 Great Designer pushes on His work. And everything 
 disappears, or is turned aside to make way for it. It 
 were easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than 
 for one of His promises to fail, or one of His enemies 
 to escape His hand ! 
 
 And is there no refuge ? None, but in the shelter 
 of His cross. There alone you can be safe. In all 
 the universe beside, there is no place where His hand 
 will not find you. There His promise meets you. 
 There His, love awaits you. There " the everlasting 
 arms" are stretched out to receive you. His chal- 
 lenge is, "I said not to the seed of Jacob, seek ye 
 Me in vain." He will not say so to you. No one 
 ever sought Him, through the blood of the Cross, 
 who did not find Him "ready to forgive." He hath 
 bound Himself by His own everlasting covenant, in 
 nowise to cast out those who thus seek Him. And that 
 
46 CONCLUSION. 
 
 covenant cannot fail. His power supports it. His 
 faithfulness watches over it. His love moves through 
 it. It is not possible for it to fail. 0, seek salvation 
 through it; and you shall rejoice in the fulness and 
 the freeness of His pardoning grace ! 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 I SAW in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the 
 
 heaven strove upon the great sea. 
 And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from 
 
 another. 
 The first was like a lion, and had eagles' wings : I beheld till the 
 
 wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, 
 
 and made to stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was 
 
 given to it. 
 These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall 
 
 arise out of the earth. DAN. vii. 2, 3, 4. 17. 
 
 THIS vision of Daniel occurred about forty-eight 
 years after that of Nebuchadnezzar. It embodies 
 substantially the same great truth; carrying it, how- 
 ever, to a much greater extent, and setting it forth 
 with wonderful minuteness of detail and brevity of 
 expression. It embodies volumes of history in a 
 single verse. 
 
 Daniel dreamed, and the angel interpreted his 
 dream. He saw four great beasts arise out of the 
 sea. Each of these symbolized a kingdom; as each 
 one of the four parts of the image had done. We 
 have the same truth in each vision; beginning at 
 the same kingdom; running through the same course; 
 and ending at the same time. In each vision, we 
 
48 THE SYMBOL SEA. 
 
 meet four'distinct and universal kingdoms. In each we 
 are taught that there shall be only four, until the God 
 of Heaven sets up His kingdom. We cannot, there- 
 fore, err in determining what kingdoms are here 
 pointed out. Besides, in the vision of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, the first kingdom is expressly named. No 
 possible difficulty, therefore, can occur in pointing out 
 the others. 
 
 And, in this vision of Daniel the task is about as 
 easy. Here the fourth kingdom is not named, indeed, 
 but so minutely described, that it would be like 
 arguing against the sun, to dispute its application. 
 
 The angel interprets the symbols. These four 
 great beasts are four kings or kingdoms that shall 
 arise. We have, then, one distinguishing feature of 
 their character already pointed out. They were to 
 be "great" in comparison with other beasts; i. e., 
 with the other kingdoms of the earth. 
 
 But they were seen to " arise out of the sea." And, 
 before they rose, the four winds of heaven strove 
 upon the sea. The sea, therefore, is a symbol of 
 nations; or masses of people. And, as winds rush 
 over it, and lash it into fury ; so, masses of people are 
 agitated and tossed about, by what we may, well 
 enough, term the stormy winds of excitement and 
 passion. Out of the sea, the beasts arose; i. e., from 
 the midst of such a state of popular tumult, these 
 four kings, successively, rose to power. And what is 
 history, but a succession of proofs of this? Out of 
 this political sea, over which the tempest of war has 
 been continually sweeping; have not the founders of 
 new dynasties, the builders of new thrones, con- 
 
EXAMPLES OP. 49 
 
 st antly arisen ? The mighty rulers of the earth like 
 the great beasts of the prophet come forth, when the 
 winds of heaven strive upon the great sea of the na- 
 tions ! 
 
 We have, then, the exact meaning of this term, 
 whenever used in its prophetic sense. When, there- 
 fore, our Lord tells us, that just before his second 
 coming, there shall be " distress of nations, with per- 
 plexity; ike sea and the waves roaring ;" we see, pre- 
 cisely, what is meant. It is not the literal, but the 
 prophetic, sea of which He is speaking. There shall 
 then be a fearfully excited and tempestuous state of 
 the nations of the earth. The mass of the nations 
 will be lashed into fury by the stormy winds of popu- 
 lar commotion. Revolution shall pull down thrones, 
 and undermine governments. Passions shall shake 
 them. Fear and dread will take hold upon them. 
 And the sounds of the fearful strife will fill the earth ; 
 even as the thunderings of the ocean, in its wrath, 
 are borne along the neighbouring shores. 
 
 So, too, when of the times of the Messiah, it is an- 
 nounced, that "the first heaven and the first earth 
 were passed away; and there was no more sea;' 1 the 
 meaning is equally plain. It is a prophetic declara- 
 tion. There shall be, no more, a troubled and stormy 
 state of the nations. No more the breaking forth of 
 the winds of passion. Violence and destruction shall 
 be heard no more. All shall be peace, in the perfect 
 reign of the Prince of Peace. 
 
 The first beast like the "head of gold" symbol- 
 ized the Babylonian empire. It was, "a lion, with 
 eagle's wings." And this, according to Mr. Layard, 
 
 5 
 
50 BABYLON, SYMBOL OF. 
 
 was a symbol, by no means rare, among the ruins of 
 the Assyrian empire. " They could find/' he adds, 
 "no better type of intellect and knowledge, than the 
 head of the man of strength, than the body of the 
 lion of rapidity of motion, than the wings of the 
 bird." 
 
 The symbol of the lion is expressly applied to the 
 Babylonian king. " The lion is come up from his 
 thicket ; and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his 
 way." Jer. iv. 7. 
 
 And the double symbol is suggested in verse 13 : 
 "Behold he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots 
 shall be as a whirlwind; his horses are swifter than 
 eagles." 
 
 Ezekiel uses the symbol of the eagle. "Thus, saith 
 the Lord God: A great eagle, with great wings . . . 
 came into Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the 
 cedar." And, to remove all doubt as to the person 
 symbolized, he adds: "Know ye not what these things 
 mean ? Behold, the king of Babylon is come to Jeru- 
 salem, and hath taken the king thereof," etc. Ezek. 
 xvii. 3. 12. 
 
 These two symbols are united in the vision, and 
 indicate a kingdom, powerful among the nations, as 
 the lion is among the beasts of the forest; and swift 
 in its conquest, as the eagle is, after its prey. The 
 lion and eagle are first among the living crea- 
 tures of their class. And Babylon was first among 
 the nations of the earth. 
 
 It was founded about 2233 B. C. It ended with 
 the death of Belshazzar, 538 B. C. What, however, 
 is commonly understood by the Babylonian empire, 
 
BABYLON, EPOCH OF. 51 
 
 began about 606 B. C. : i. e., with the overthrow of 
 Nineveh and Sardanapalus, by Belesis, a Satrap of 
 Babylon ; who made his own city, the seat and centre 
 of power. It is of this epoch, that the prophet speaks. 
 Under Nebuchadnezzar, the kingdom rose to that 
 almost fabulous point of wealth and greatness, of 
 which we have already spoken. Before this time, it 
 had been a lion among the nations. Now, it became 
 "a lion, with eagle's wings. " This monarch was dis- 
 tinguished by the rapidity of his conquests. The 
 Jews, Egyptians, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, 
 Tyrians and Zidonians, were independent nations be- 
 fore his time. One after another, they all came under 
 his yoke. And thus, emphatically, was the grant of 
 power bestowed upon him, as we have already seen ; 
 "And all nations shall serve him" the king of Ba- 
 bylon " and his son, and his son's son, until the very 
 time of his land come." Read Jer. xxvii. 4-9. 
 
 In the sovereignty of His purpose, God chose 
 Nebuchadnezzar as the rod with which to chastise the 
 sinful nations of the earth. He expressly terms him, 
 "My battle-axe and weapons of war; for with thee 
 will I break in pieces the nations; and with thee will 
 I destroy kingdoms." Jer. li. 20. He, indeed, was 
 no more righteous than they. As a simple act of 
 God's pleasure, he was raised up for this purpose. 
 He might have selected any other instrument. The 
 flame would have leaped forth to consume. The earth 
 would have opened her mouth to destroy. The winds 
 would have shaken down his palaces; uprooted his 
 forests; destroyed his harvests, and desolated his 
 lands. Pestilence would have swung her scythe over 
 
52 PROPHETIC FIGURES. 
 
 the guilty nations ; or famine have dug for them dis- 
 honoured graves. But God chose the kingdom of 
 Babylon as the instrument of His righteous purpose. 
 And when that purpose was accomplished, other 
 instruments were prepared against it. The power 
 that had made the nations tremble, was itself, then, 
 broken and destroyed. 
 
 In one of his finest figures, and which, without 
 acknowledgment, Lord Byron used as his own, in his 
 Ode to Napoleon,* Isaiah represents the disembodied 
 spirits in the unseen world as greeting the Babylonian 
 monarch, as he comes into their midst, as follows: 
 "Hell, from beneath, is raised up for thee to meet 
 thee at thy coming : it stirreth up the dead for thee, 
 
 even all the chief ones of the earth They 
 
 that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and con- 
 sider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the 
 earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms : that made 
 the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities 
 thereof?" Is. xiv. 9. 16. 
 
 Fitly, therefore, was it symbolized in the prophet's 
 vision. As the inhabitants of the forest tremble 
 before the lion ; so did the nations before the power of 
 this king. As the eagle discerns the prey from afar, 
 
 * "'Tis done but yesterday, a king, 
 
 And armed, with kings to strive; 
 And now, thou art a nameless thing 
 
 So abject yet alive! 
 Is this the man of thousand thrones, 
 Who strewed the earth with hostile bones: 
 
 And can lie thus survive ? 
 Since he, miscalled the Morning Star, 
 Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far!'* 
 
BABYLON, POWER OF. 53 
 
 and swoops to it on rapid wing; so Tie beheld the 
 nations, and brought them into speedy subjection to 
 his prey. He ruled with a mighty hand. His tyranny 
 at home was absolute, overgrown, unlimited. His 
 power abroad was fierce and bloody and oppressive. 
 With great point, therefore, is he spoken of, as 
 making the earth to tremble; as shaking the king- 
 dom. Fitly is he termed, " the hammer of the whole 
 earth. 1 ' Jer. 1. 23. And this was the period of its 
 strength. 
 
 "I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it 
 was lifted up from the earth" etc. (ver. 4.) The margin 
 renders this, "The wings whereivith it was lifted." 
 I suppose that this gives the better sense. And, 
 perhaps the best comment that can be given on this 
 lifting up from the earth, is the ambitious claim of the 
 monarch to divine power. "For thou hast said in 
 thine heart, I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt 
 my throne above the stars of God." Is. xiv. 13. In 
 the intoxication of absolute sway, a worm of the 
 dust dreamed that he was a god. He was drunk with 
 power. And now commences his humiliation. 
 
 His "wings" were his rapidly acquired dominions. 
 They were beginning to be plucked at the time of this 
 vision. With the death of Nebuchadnezzar its con- 
 quests ceased. Soon after, when the pressure of his 
 heavy arm was removed, the conquered nations began 
 to assert their rights. The integrity of his empire 
 was broken up. One after another, annexed pro- 
 vinces rose up in revolt. The Lydians, the Medes 
 and the Persians did so. And there was not strength 
 enough left to reduce them again to subjection. 
 
 5* 
 
54 HUMBLING OF. 
 
 And here occurs the only point of difficulty in this 
 portion of the vision. "And a mans heart was given 
 to it" (verse 4.) What does this mean? 
 
 Most probably, it is an allusion to the case of 
 Nebuchadnezzar. As a punishment for his excessive 
 pride, he was driven forth to dwell among the beasts 
 of the field. The sentence against him was 2 "Let Ms 
 heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be 
 given unto him" Dan. iv. 16. In the light of this 
 incident, we may read the declaration before us. 
 With Babylon's greatness, Babylon's pride departed. 
 One after another, other princes served themselves of 
 it. And the kingdom that was a lion in strength, 
 and an eagle in the swiftness of its conquests, dis- 
 played a man's heart in the season of its decay. The 
 staff of its lofty pretensions broke, and pierced the 
 side that leaned upon it. Is it not just an illustration 
 of the words, "Put them in fear, Lord, that the 
 nations may know themselves to be but men?" Psal. 
 ix. 20. 
 
 "And behold, another beast, a second, like to a bear, 
 etc." (ver. 5.) This beast represents the same kingdom 
 as "the breast and arms of silver," i. e. the Medes 
 and Persians. And while all these kingdoms are 
 symbolized by wild and ferocious beasts, there are 
 peculiarities in each to call for the use of the particu- 
 lar animal employed in each case. The bear is less 
 noble, but more subtle, and unyielding, and revenge- 
 ful, than the lion. He is sullen, voracious, cruel. 
 And in this respect, the Medes and Persians occupy a 
 position of notoriety rarely, if ever, equalled. The 
 prophet says of them: "Their bows also shall dash 
 
KINGDOM OF THE MEDES, ETC. 55 
 
 the young men to pieces ; and they shall have no pity 
 on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare 
 children." Isa. xiii. 18. Indeed, Persian princes were 
 but another name for bloody and vindictive and op- 
 pressive rulers. " Taking the whole nation together," 
 says Mr. Barnes, "it was fierce and rough and unpo- 
 lished ; little disposed to friendliness with the nations 
 while any around it had peace or prosperity." "No 
 one, acquainted with that nation, can doubt the prp- 
 priety or applicability of the emblem." Notes on 
 Daniel, p. 293. 
 
 "And it raised up itself on one side." Now, this 
 clearly implies a state of rest, before its raising up. 
 The bear, fierce and sullen and blood-thirsty, was in a 
 state of brief repose, before going forth to commence 
 new conquests. And such a state of rest it had when, 
 having overcome the Medes, and triumphed over seve- 
 ral neighbouring powers, it seemed to be meditating 
 the downfall of Babylon. 
 
 Now, if we adopt the reading of the text, and say, 
 " it raised up itself on one side," the interpretation is 
 manifest enough. Its conquests extended almost alto- 
 gether on one side, i. e. to the west of its own proper 
 dominions. Or, if we adopt the reading of the margin, 
 "It raised up one dominion" the interpretation is 
 equally clear. The Medes and Persians joined to 
 form one kingdom. But the Persians soon rose to 
 the ascendency. They thus " raised up one dominion ." 
 And so, in either case, the facts of its history amply 
 sustain the declarations of the prophetic word. 
 
 "And it had three ribs, in the mouth of it, between 
 the teeth of it." The figure here becomes a very 
 
56 
 
 CHARACTER AND ACTS OF. 
 
 striking one. It symbolizes the conquests of the 
 Medo-Persian bear. Awaking, as the literal bear, 
 from its brief repose hungering for new conquests 
 it went forth to the work of destruction. Sir I. New- 
 ton interprets these three ribs as the kingdoms of 
 Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt. They were conquered 
 by the bear. But they did not make component 
 parts of its dominions; even as the three ribs re- 
 mained distinct from the body of the bear. Still, 
 they were "n'6$," i. e. sources of strength to the con- 
 quering power. And they were "in the mouth of it, 
 between the teeth of it," i. e. they were ground and 
 oppressed and destroyed by their sullen conqueror. 
 
 " And they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much 
 flesh." Nothing could be in more striking conformity 
 with the habits of the animal, which is the symbol'. 
 And nothing could more strikingly represent the char- 
 acter and mission of the kingdom symbolized. Sullen 
 and blood-thirsty and voracious, the bear retains the 
 ribs of previous conquests between its teeth; while it 
 slowly rises to go forth to new destruction. And the 
 Medo-Persian bear relaxed not its oppression of its 
 already conquered subjects, when it went forth again 
 to war upon the nations. 
 
 Now, as a providential summons, these words re- 
 ceived a large and exact fulfilment. God used this 
 power, as He had done the Babylonian before it. It 
 became the executor of His will the instrument of 
 His justice on the nations which it subdued. The 
 justice was all His. The wrong, in the execution of 
 it, was all its own. And, for that wrong it received 
 the merited punishment, when its mission was ended. 
 
THIRD KINGDOM. 57 
 
 But that it " devoured much flesh," is emphatically 
 true ; whether w regard the cruelty of its reign, 
 which was excessive, or the large destruction of hu- 
 man life which attended its invasions of other states. 
 Calmet asserts, that the punishments they used " be- 
 get horror in those who read of them." 
 
 Babylon went down before it. A large part of the 
 world received its yoke. And, if you ask for further 
 comment on the " much flesh" which it devoured, 
 you will find it in the millions whom it sacrificed in 
 its attempts to subdue the Thracians, the Macedonians, 
 the Greeks, and other nations of Europe. 
 
 "After this I beheld, and lo, another, like a leopard, 
 which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl;' 1 
 (ver. 6.) This symbolizes like the " belly and thighs 
 of brass" the Macedonian empire, under Alexander. 
 The symbol would indicate a kingdom, less noble than 
 that of the lion ; but much more so than that of the 
 bear. A kingdom, small in its own proper dimen- 
 sions, but rapid in its conquests ; and springing on its 
 victims ere they are aware. In all these respects, it 
 strikingly represents the kingdom of which the "Ma- 
 cedonian madman" was the founder. 
 
 It is the symbol of swiftness. " Their horses are 
 swifter than leopards.' 1 Hab. i. 8. And Alexander, 
 at the head of his legions, moved forward with a 
 speed which excited the wonder of the nations. "He 
 was impetuous, and fierce, in his warlike expeditions, 
 as a panther after his prey ; and came on his enemies 
 with that speed, as if he flew with a double pair of 
 wings." (Prideauxs Connection.) But no one animal 
 could suffice to represent this king ; the number, ex- 
 
58 ALEXANDER CONQUESTS OF. 
 
 tent and rapidity of his conquests. These had never, 
 before, been equalled. And so, we have not the 
 leopard only, but the leopard with four wings, as 
 his representative. At the age of twenty, he com- 
 menced his conquests. At thirty-two, the world had 
 submitted to his yoke. Thrones were his toys. 
 Armies and nations his play-things. But they satisfied 
 not this spoiled child of power. He looked round for 
 some new object of desire. And when his path of 
 conquest seemed closed before him, he gave himself 
 up to the most unbridled dissipation. 
 
 The leopard is a spotted animal. And Macedonians, 
 Syrians, Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, Medes and Per- 
 sians, with their various languages and customs, were 
 incorporated into his dominions. 
 
 And now, when this great empire is thus raised up, 
 to whom shall it be bequeathed? Who shall ascend 
 Alexander's throne? Who wield his sceptre? To 
 whom shall his dominion pass? The question was 
 asked of the hero, on his dying bed. " To the most 
 worthy " was his reply. Leaving no successor, it was 
 not long before his empire was divided between his 
 four generals. Macedon and Greece became the part 
 of Cassander. Syria, of Seleucus. Thrace and Bi- 
 thynia, of Lysimachus ; and Egypt, of Ptolemy. The 
 mighty Colossus was broken into four parts. 
 
 And was this a thing of chance ? Did it just hap- 
 pen to be so ? No. Nothing does. " The beast, als#, 
 had four heads," says the prophet. And the king- 
 dom, that had been so great and terrible under Alex- 
 ander, received its "four heads" shortly after his 
 death. The fact of this division could not have been, 
 
DIVISION OF HIS KINGDOM. 59 
 
 in any other way, so well set forth. The beast was 
 one. And the kingdom was still one; although its 
 power was administered from four points. How won- 
 drously does God reign over the minds of men, even 
 when they are least conscious of his power? 
 
 And the fact of this fourfold division is set forth in 
 other places. " The great horn" of the he-goat 
 Alexander "was broken; and for it came up four 
 notable ones toward the four winds of heaven." Dan. 
 viii. 8. And again; "His kingdom shall be broken, 
 and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; 
 and not to Ms posterity." (xi. 4.) And the fact was 
 even so. Strangers succeeded to the power which he 
 had wielded. And, of "his posterity," none mounted 
 to his throne. To "others, beside those," the pro- 
 phetic word assigned it. And "others beside those" 
 have, from that day, ruled over the fragments of his 
 once mighty empire." 
 
 "And dominion was given to it." (verse 6.) It was 
 not the result of Alexander's greatness, that he built up 
 this kingdom. There was One above him, who gave 
 him all. "He giveth it to whomsoever he will." And 
 kings reign, and conquerors boast of victories which 
 their genius and their power accomplished. And what 
 means it all? They are but tenants at will of Him 
 whose delegated power they wield, whose instruments 
 they are and yet, whose possessions they so often 
 pollute with their fellows' blood. Beneath every 
 throne; lying back of every victory; the strength of 
 every sceptre; is the secret purpose of the Almighty 
 to make all things subserve His will, and carry for- 
 ward His designs. They have what power His will 
 
60 PRACTICAL LESSONS. 
 
 permits. They exercise it as long as His designs 
 allow. And beyond this they cannot go. 
 
 a. How strikingly the history of the world confirms 
 the testimony of the Word of G-od. That Word de- 
 clares, that, until the God of Heaven shall set up 
 his kingdom; there shall be four universal kingdoms 
 upon earth and no more. In these two strongly- 
 marked, prophetic visions, that truth is affirmed and 
 re-affirmed. And, according to human calculation, it 
 would seem to have been, then, a most unlikely truth. 
 The chances, as men speak of such things, appear 
 to have been all against it. The probability would 
 seem to be, that some mighty king, some great con- 
 queror, would arise and defeat it. No man, at that 
 time, could have conceived of such a thing as true. 
 Human wisdom would then have counted on the re- 
 occurrence of what had already been. Four times, in 
 the history of the world, this dream of universal 
 dominion has been realized. Shall it be but four? 
 In all future time, shall not another erect a throne, 
 to be what these, in their day, had been? 
 
 No. "By Me kings reign." And when God re- 
 fuses the grant of power, in vain may earthly poten- 
 tates seek to attain it. The sceptre shall break in 
 their hands. The substance shall become a shadow. 
 No hand can grasp it. Somehow it has come to pass, 
 that, whenever made, the effort has been defeated. 
 There have been but four universal monarchies. 
 
 Time after time the attempt has been made. Time 
 after time have the foundations of mighty empires 
 been laid, and the pillars of powerful thrones set up. 
 But what has been the result? The foundations have 
 
NO GOVERNMENT PERMANENT. 61 
 
 been rent asunder; and the thrones have tumbled 
 down; and the reins of government have been torn 
 from the hands that were stretched out after universal 
 sway ! Up to this time, what is all history but a com- 
 ment on the prophetic words, "I will overturn, over- 
 turn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He 
 come whose right it is. And I will give it him." The 
 history of the kings of the earth, is but a succession of 
 overturnings. And now, the judgment of men of 
 thought regards the establishment of such a kingdom 
 as a thing out of the question. Political reasons ; visi- 
 ble instruments; secondary causes; exist, which are 
 numerous enough, and strong enough, to place it be- 
 yond the bounds of possibility. The shadow returns 
 not again, by natural causes, on the dial-plate of time. 
 The day for such a government has long since passed. 
 You can no more restore the old monarchies than you 
 can build again the monasteries of the olden time ; or 
 renew the institutions of the Middle Ages! And, 
 whatever political reasons men may assign for this; I 
 beg you to observe, that, long before their existence, 
 the fact itself was set forth on the pages of the Word 
 of G-od! 
 
 The great problem of what human governments can 
 do for the elevation of our race, is almost worked out. 
 The result has been everywhere the same. In its last 
 form it is now in progress in our own land. And 
 tare it has been under the surroundings of the most 
 favourable influences. Separated, by geographical 
 position, from the nations of the old world ; in a land 
 of almost unequalled resources ; in the full light of all 
 the teachings of the past ; peopled by the noblest race ; 
 
 6 
 
62 NO GOVERNMENT PERMANENT. 
 
 and blest with the hallowed influences of true religion ; 
 while education, science, and the arts walk side by 
 side through all our borders ; surely, here, and under 
 these circumstances, we may expect to see all of 
 enduring good that human governments can bestow. 
 And what do we see? A great nation, indeed. A 
 nation of mighty power and resources. But who can 
 say, A nation that promises to be an exception to 
 those of the past ? Who can say, A government that 
 bids fair to be permanent? Who will venture to affirm 
 that there are not now, in operation, causes mighty 
 enough to pull down the strong pillars on which its 
 fabric rests ? The time has not yet come. 
 
 The truth is and it must force itself on every 
 thoughtful reader of history that no government 
 will be permanent. Change, overthrow, destruction, 
 awaits them all. And whatever may be the pathway 
 over which they march onward to this end, the Word 
 of God has infallibly pointed it out as the goal to 
 which they all tend. Y f 
 
 b. We also learn from this subject, the scriptural 
 view of Grod's mercy to Ms Church. Did you ever 
 pause, in meditation, on Ps. cxxxvi? I would com- 
 mend it to your careful examination. It is an invo- 
 cation to praise the Lord, "for his mercy endureth for 
 ever." For this He planned the heavens. For this 
 He stretched out the earth. For this He made the 
 sun, and moon, and stars. And therefore we should 
 praise Him. But the Psalmist continues: "0 give 
 thanks unto the Lord to Him which smote great 
 kings for his mercy endureth for ever. And slew 
 famous kings; for his mercy endureth for ever." 
 
GOD ? S ENDURING MERCY. 63 
 
 (verses 17, 18.) How was that a proof of his mercy? 
 How did that become a ground of thanksgiving? 
 Clearly thus: God had a Church to build up. Its 
 safety was the salvation of the world ; the blessing of 
 all orders of sinless intelligences ; and the full display 
 of the character and glory of God. The enemies of 
 that Church sought, in their madness, to overthrow 
 it. Their destruction, therefore, was a work of mercy 
 to all beside. Its overthrow would be the grave of 
 the world's hopes. Its preservation, God's richest 
 blessing to His creatures. In Israel's line, the 
 Saviour was to come. In that Saviour, "the whole 
 family, in heaven and in earth," was to be blessed. 
 God's truth was pledged for this. And His judg- 
 ments upon those who sought to overturn it, were a 
 part of His covenanted mercy. And this shall "en- 
 dure for ever" the endless theme of every creature's 
 song. 
 
 It is a most impressive thought. And in no other 
 way could the importance of an interest in that cove- 
 nant be so well set forth. God watches over it with 
 sleepless care. The procession of earth's greatest 
 events is moved, and guided, and controlled for this. 
 He only, therefore, is wise he only is safe, who has 
 a part in the provisions of that covenant. Of all 
 beside, the end is, "they shall be rooted out at the 
 last." And all the blessings of that covenant peace 
 and pardon here, and endless glory in the world to 
 come God offers them to you to-day. 
 
 "Believe, and take the promised rest. 
 Obey, and be for ever blest." 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 AFTER this, I saw in the night visions and behold a fourth beast, 
 dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly ; and it had great 
 iron teeth : it deTOured and brake in pieces, and stamped the 
 residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts 
 that were before it: and it had ten horns. DAN. yii. 7. 
 
 IT is to be borne in mind, that Daniel saw what he de- 
 scribes. One after another, these beasts arose. Each 
 acted the part assigned it ; and took on the changes 
 here described. It was not, I mean, merely an ideal 
 conception. It was an absolute vision. As figures, in 
 a panoramic view, these three beasts arose. And 
 after them, he saw "a fourth beast, dreadful and ter- 
 rible and strong exceedingly." 
 
 The description of this beast is very striking. 
 And, you observe, that whereas each of the three 
 preceding kingdoms had its own specific symbol; this 
 beast is a nameless one. Its qualities are described. 
 It was, "dreadful and terrible and strong exceed- 
 ingly." 
 
 Its powers of destruction are pointed out. "It had 
 great iron teeth;" and "nails of brass." 
 
 Its actions are foretold. "It devoured and brake 
 in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it." 
 
THE FOURTH KINGDOM. 65 
 
 But no name is given to it. No fitting symbol could 
 be furnished, for this mighty power, from among the 
 wild beasts of the forest. 
 
 Now, the question arises, What kingdom is here 
 symbolized? And, in answering it, we have to meet 
 these requisitions of the prophetic word. " The fourth 
 beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which 
 shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour 
 the whole earth, and shall tread it down and break it 
 in pieces. 
 
 "And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings 
 that shall arise: and another shall arise after them: 
 and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall sub- 
 due three kings :" (ver. 23-4.) In other words, we must 
 find a kingdom which is the fourth kingdom upon 
 earth;" i. e., the fourth universal kingdom. 
 
 A kingdom, w r hich was greater and mightier and 
 more terrible than any which came up before it. 
 Whose powers of destruction were fitly symbolized by 
 a beast with great iron teeth, and nails of brass. A 
 kingdom, that acted a corresponding part among the 
 nations of the earth. Greater than the Babylonian 
 Lion; the Medo-Persian Bear; and the Graeco-Mace- 
 donian Leopard ; inasmuch as it was to break them in 
 pieces, and succeed to their dominion. 
 
 A kingdom, which was "diverse" from all other king- 
 doms. It must also, give rise to ten other kingdoms, 
 which are to exist together; even as the ten horns 
 did on the head of the symbolic beast. It must, fur- 
 thermore, give rise to another kingdom symbolized 
 by the eleventh, or "little horn 1 which must, also, 
 be "diverse" from the first ten kingdoms; and before 
 
 6* 
 
bb DESCRIPTION OF. 
 
 which, three of the ten are to be plucked up by the 
 roots. 
 
 Finally. It must be a kingdom, which in that of 
 the little horn, as well as in the first ten shall con- 
 tinue until the judgment of the Great Day ; when " the 
 beast shall be slain, and his body destroyed and given 
 to the devouring flame." 
 
 Now, of these prophetic marks, all are accom- 
 plished, save the last. In their light, then, we must 
 point out the kingdom symbolized. Of course, you 
 all anticipate its name? It is the Roman Empire. 
 In none other, can it even be pretended that these 
 marks are fulfilled. 
 
 It was "the fourth kingdom upon earth. 19 The 
 mighty empire, founded by Alexander, was swallowed 
 up by it. New territories were added to its dominion ; 
 until the "government of the whole earth" became its 
 favourite title. 
 
 It was " dreadful and terrible and strong exceeding- 
 ly." Was there ever a nation to which these terms so 
 appropriately applied? Hardihood; fortitude; stern- 
 ness ; force were not these the qualities in which the 
 people gloried most? And how "dreadful and terri- 
 ble," in its subsequent dealings, this nation became ; 
 its history, written for centuries in blood, (as was that 
 of no other nation upon earth,) too terribly attests! 
 
 " It devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the 
 residue with the feet of it." And what is Roman his- 
 tory, but a record of bloody and destructive wars upon 
 other States? Of its cruelty and oppressiveness 
 wherever its power was felt? It was not merely that 
 it fought for dominion. Its lust of destruction rioted 
 
DESCRIPTION CONTINUED. 67 
 
 in bloodshed, and it "brake in pieces," even without 
 gain to itself. 
 
 It was " diverse from all the beasts that were before 
 it." It was to be so in many respects. And so it has 
 proved. It is so in the length of time it has continued. 
 It was founded in the year 746 B. C. And it is still a 
 power among the nations of the earth; i. e., it has 
 been so for two thousand six hundred years. What 
 other kingdom, in active intercourse with other na- 
 tions, can compare with it in this respect ? 
 
 It is "diverse," too, in the character it has worn. For 
 nearly eleven hundred years it was Pagan; then, for 
 a season, it was Christian; and now, for more than 
 twelve hundred years, it has been a Papal power. 
 And then, it has been " diverse from all kingdoms," in 
 the nature of its government. It has passed through 
 every form of administration. It was a kingdom a 
 republic an empire. Now, in this connection, it is 
 to be remarked, that St. John saw a vision of this 
 same beast. He says : " And I stood upon the sands of 
 the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having 
 seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns, ten 
 crowns, and upon his heads, the name of blasphemy. 
 
 "And the beast which I saw was like unto a leop- 
 ard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his 
 mouth as the mouth of a lion." Rev. xiii. 1, 2. How 
 very expressive ! Daniel saw three beasts rise before 
 it. Then came the fourth. And this same beast 
 in a new form of development John saw. It took 
 the distinguishing feature of each of the three pre- 
 ceding beasts. The body of the leopard, the feet of the 
 bear, and the mouth of the lion, all conspired to make 
 
68 TEN-HORNED BEAST. 
 
 this beast "dreadful and terrible and strong exceed- 
 ingly." There never has been but one kingdom of 
 which this was true. Of only one can it be averred, 
 that it succeeded to the dominions of the Babylonian 
 Lion, the Medo-Persian Bear, and the Macedonian 
 Leopard, having, besides these, its own peculiar terri- 
 tory in the sovereignty of the ten kingdoms of the 
 West. And then, the Roman Empire " resembled no 
 state of society known among men. It displayed, in 
 its character and proceedings, the vigour and courage 
 of the Babylonians, the various policy and cunning of 
 the Greeks, and the unchanging firmness of the Medes 
 and Persians. "(Paxton.) And then, too, it had seven 
 heads and ten horns. 
 
 Now, in Rev. xvii. we have an ecclesiastical power, 
 represented by a woman riding on this beast. Of this 
 I shall have to speak hereafter. I, therefore, refer to 
 it here only to identify the beast with that which 
 Daniel saw. In Rev. xvii. 18, we are told: "And 
 the woman, which thou sawest, is that great city 
 which reigneth over the kings of the earth." Now, 
 every school-boy knows what great city ruled over the 
 kings of the earth in St. John's time. It is as much 
 a simple question of fact as the other question, What 
 is the capital city of these United States? There 
 was no other city than Rome that did this. Rome, 
 then, is symbolized by the beast of the prophet, as 
 well as by that of the apostle. But we are further 
 told, "The seven heads are seven mountains, on which 
 the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings; five 
 are fallen, and one is, and the other is not, yet come," 
 etc. (vs. 9, 10.) Now, " septi-collis urbs" the seven- 
 
- 
 
 v or THE 
 
 [UUIVEESI 1 : 
 
 THE SEVEN-HEADED BEAi 
 
 hilled city was a favourite term among the Latin 
 poets and other authors,* when speaking of Rome. 
 And we all know how, in our day, it has passed into 
 a proverbial expression. It continually re-appears in 
 references to the great city. Thus Byron says : 
 
 " The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood and fire, 
 Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride." 
 
 But then, if this were all, there would be slight 
 need of the caution in the ninth verse. "And here is 
 the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are," 
 etc. It surely would not require much wisdom to 
 number the seven hills on which the city was built, 
 and where the woman sitteth. They, therefore, have 
 a further meaning. Literally, it is "The seven heads 
 are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. 
 And they are seven kings. 11 In other words, they are 
 symbol-hills i. e., symbols of the seven kinds of rulers 
 who administered the government. The mountains or 
 hills were surrounded by "waters." And these, we 
 are expressly told, "are peoples, and multitudes, and 
 nations, and tongues." The spectacle, therefore, 
 which John saw, symbolized the " ancient rulers of 
 the empire as well as its kings, in its last form;" and 
 also the subjects over which it ruled. And in this, 
 its clear, symbolic sense, the fact is undoubtedly as 
 the apostle states it. When the English law says, 
 
 * Thus Horace: 
 
 " Duo quibus septem placuere colles." 
 Thus Ovid: 
 
 " Sed quse de septem totum circumspicit orbem, 
 
 MontibuSy imperii Romae Deumque locus." 
 
 "I appeal," says Tertullian, "to the citizens of Rome; the 
 populace that dwell on the seven hills." Aj?ol. t 35. 
 
70 THE SEVEN HEADS. 
 
 " The king never dies," it simply means that, while a 
 State lasts, the kingly power never departs from it. 
 Its form may change. But the supreme power always 
 remains. It still exists, whatever hand may wield it. 
 And so, when Charles I. was beheaded, and Cromwell 
 assumed the reins of government; that maxim was 
 still true. The kingly power remained, though no 
 king ruled then in England. 
 
 So it is here. There were to be seven forms of 
 kingly power. Five had then passed. One was ; and 
 the other had not yet come. Now, history* tells us 
 that they were, 1st. Kings; 2d. Consuls; 3d. Dicta- 
 tors; 4th. Decemvirs; and 5th. Military Tribunes. 
 The government was imperial when John lived. And 
 so, the angel said, "one is." And the other was yet 
 to come. This, most probably, was " the false, Chris- 
 tian Imperial, commencing with Constantine, in the 
 year 312, and falling at the subversion of the Western 
 Empire in 476." (Lord, in loc.) And the ten horns, 
 which had not then arisen, were the ten kingdoms 
 which were to appear when the beast arose out of the 
 abyss of waters. They were to exercise their power 
 with the beast. And so they have ever done. And 
 so, in the ten toes of the image ; and the ten horns of 
 the beast of the Apocalypse; we have the same truth 
 that is revealed in this vision of Daniel. 
 
 Returning, then, to the points in which this king- 
 
 * See Livy, lib. vi., c. 1, and Tacitus, Annal., lib. i., cap. 1. 
 Bellarmine, also, a distinguished Roman Catholic writer, thus 
 enumerates these changes: 1. Kings; 2 Consuls; 3. Decemvirs; 
 4. Dictators; 5. Military Tribunes, with Consular power; 6. Empe- 
 rors. (Pool's Synop. in loc.) 
 
POINTS OP DIVERSITY. 71 
 
 dom was to be "diverse from all kingdoms;" we find 
 that it was to be so in the forms of its government. 
 What other nation ever passed through so many? 
 Seven forms of administration of the supreme power ! 
 And the seventh is to re-appear in a new phase; thus 
 making it the eighth. With what emphatic meaning 
 could it be said to " be diverse from all kingdoms?" 
 
 And it was so, too, in the greatness and extent of 
 its dominion. Take an ancient map of Europe. Ex- 
 amine its territories. Recount the nations that owned 
 its sway ; and confess it was well termed the govern- 
 ment of the whole earth. 
 
 ' And then it was to give rise to ten other kingdoms. 
 We had this division referred to in the toes of the 
 image. And in both visions they are called for, as 
 arising out of the same power. They were to be 
 separate kingdoms ; but only separate as are the toes 
 of a man's feet, or the horns of the beast's head; 
 i. e., growing out of one and the same body. I press 
 this remark upon you as a certain guard against the 
 false interpretations which are sought to be given to 
 this passage. You will find many more than ten king- 
 doms in Europe. But that matters not. We are only 
 concerned to find ten, which were formed out of, which 
 grew up on, the territories of Daniel's fourth beast; 
 i. e., of the Roman empire. Now, of these kingdoms I 
 shall have to speak, when the kingdom of the " little 
 horn" claims our attention. I therefore only refer 
 to them now, to ask, Of what other kingdom could 
 this ten-fold division be affirmed ? You know, we all 
 know, that in this respect the Roman empire was 
 "diverse from all other kingdoms." But, it was 
 
72 ROME. 
 
 diverse, also, in giving rise to the kingdom of the little 
 horn. Among the ten horns of the beast, "another 
 little horn" arose. The kingdom which it symbolized 
 was to be diverse from all the others; and before it, 
 three of the first ten were to be plucked up by the 
 roots. All this will shortly come before us ; and there- 
 fore I press it not now. 
 
 Now, brethren, these are the points of diversity. 
 Some of them you may find in many other nations. 
 But all of them you will find nowhere but in one. 
 And when you have found them, there cannot be a 
 shadow of a doubt that you have the kingdom symbo- 
 lized in this vision. The meeting of all these charac- 
 teristics in one kingdom, becomes an infallible proof 
 that that is the one pointed out. History lays down 
 her testimony at its feet. And a feeling of awe 
 comes over us as we gaze. We behold a power whose 
 distinctive traits are strongly drawn; whose acts are 
 vividly portrayed; and for whom a fearful end is 
 reserved. We behold it, century after century, uncon- 
 sciously taking to itself every item of the proof by 
 which it was to be known ; and calling upon the world 
 to witness its identity! Look at it in the light of 
 these collected characteristics; and say if it is not 
 impossible to find a kingdom which combines them 
 all, outside of that of Home? 
 
 Rome, then, is the kingdom of the fourth beast; 
 "dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly." Its 
 power circled the earth. There was no escape from 
 its grasp. "Remember" said Cicero, to the exiled 
 Marcellus, "wherever you are, you are equally within 
 the power of the conqueror." It was the fourth uni- 
 
THE FOURTH BEAST 73 
 
 versal kingdom. It succeeded to the dominions of 
 the three that had gone before it. It supplied in his- 
 tory the terrible combination of powers and characte- 
 ristics which the prophet enumerated. It gave rise to 
 ten separate kingdoms, which still exist. And in the 
 midst of these another little kingdom arose, diverse 
 from the other ten; and before which, three of the 
 ten were plucked up by the roots; i. e., never to be 
 restored. I suppose we must all agree that all this 
 occurred in the history of Rome. And that that, and no 
 other kingdom, is the one pointed out by the prophet. 
 I desire, brethren, to have this truth clearly before 
 you. You may not rest in the conclusion that it is 
 probably so. There is no such neutral ground for you 
 to take. No middle course for you to adopt. This 
 proposition is absolutely true, or wholly false. Of 
 some one kingdom all these statements are true. The 
 angel meant but one. He described but one. And 
 history records their fulfilment in but one. There 
 cannot be two fourth universal empires. And that 
 which fulfilled this condition must also be of greater 
 power than the three which went before it; must be 
 diverse from all other kingdoms ; must be broken into 
 ten separate kingdoms ; and out of these another little 
 kingdom, an ecclesiastical kingdom, cruel and perse- 
 cuting, and "drunk with the blood of saints," was to 
 arise. I submit to you, brethren, it is difficult to find 
 a conclusion to which you can more safely come in 
 reference to any subject; and about which you may 
 rest with more absolute confidence than this: i. e., 
 Rome is the kingdom symbolized by Daniel's fourth 
 beast. 
 
 1 
 
74 PRACTICAL LESSONS. 
 
 The great results, to which this will lead us, remain 
 for future examination. 
 
 We learn from all this, God's ceaseless regard for 
 His Church. It is not kings and conquerors; the 
 marshalling of armies, and the building up and the 
 pulling down of thrones; that are great things in 
 His sight. When His eye foresaw, and His Spirit 
 announced, the rise and fall of empires ; the contests 
 of monarchs and leaders, and the great results that 
 were to flow therefrom ; it was not these things that 
 attracted His regard. As one by one the nations of 
 the earth appeared, acted their part and passed away, 
 there was nothing in this ; though like a grand pano- 
 ramic view, it was all clearly displayed before Him ; 
 there was nothing in all this to commend it to His 
 care. Not for themselves would the splendour of the 
 Babylonian; nor the sterner courage of the Medo- 
 Persian; nor the wondrous achievements of the Mace- 
 donian ; nor the wider renown of the Roman monarchy 
 ever have had a place on the pages of His Word, 
 or existence in point of fact. The History of His 
 Church, in its various manifestations, was to be con- 
 nected with them. And therefore, they are pointed 
 out. With each one of them the history of that 
 Church is interlinked. And in all the changes that 
 came over them, its connection was made distinctly to 
 appear. Sometimes they were the shield of power 
 which God held over it. Sometimes, the rod with 
 which He chastened it ; always the instrument with 
 which its progress was to be connected. And, in some 
 of its most momentous and striking forms, that con- 
 nection will yet be made to appear. Take the volume 
 
GOD'S CARE OP HIS CHURCH. 75 
 
 of History, and say what is permanent therein save 
 that which this connection has made so ? And that 
 which of all nations has set the impress of its influence 
 in deepest lines on the mind of our race; and survived 
 the greatest convulsions ; and lasted for the longest 
 time, but for which a future overthrow is distinctly 
 reserved; that is the one which of all others has had 
 the longest and most intimate connection with that 
 Church. Nothing is great apart from this. Nothing 
 is little which its preservation requires. Of it, God 
 says: "/, the Lord, do keep it. I will water it every 
 moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and 
 day." Isa. xxvii. 3. And no man has read History 
 aright until he reads it in the light of this promise. 
 
 "Behold," says the prophet, "I have created the 
 waster to destroy." Why, then, how absolutely they 
 are subject unto Him! And so the declaration con- 
 tinues: "No weapon that is formed against thee shall 
 prosper." Isa. liv. 16, 17. How necessarily this con- 
 clusion follows. God creates "the waster" for his 
 work. Will He permit him to use his power against 
 His own designs? Shall the instrument which He 
 has formed be permitted to turn its edge against His 
 own ransomed Church? "JV0, it shall not!" says the 
 book of God. "JVb, it has not!" responds the book 
 of History. 
 
 I know of course, that those words were spoken of 
 God's literal Israel. And in them their complete ful- 
 filment will yet be attained. But then, as a portion 
 of the Gentile Church; which is only a graft on "the 
 good olive tree;" we, too, may claim this promise for 
 ourselves. And so claiming them, I ask you, breth- 
 
76 GOD'S CAEE OP HIS CHURCH. 
 
 ren, can you point out the weapon which has been 
 formed against His Church and prospered? Unnum- 
 bered times have weapons been formed against it. 
 Unnumbered times have they been raised against it. 
 But, when have they prospered? The battle-axe of 
 earth's mightiest powers has been wielded against it. 
 But the stroke has been turned aside ; or power given 
 to resist ; or the sinews of the arm that dealt it have 
 been palsied in the moment of the blow. Never have 
 they prospered! History, like a battle-field after 
 some great contest, is strown all over with the 
 broken relics of designs formed, and weapons fash- 
 ioned against the Church of Christ. There they lie. 
 Broken, dishonoured, cast out ! Only preserved in the 
 memory of man as eloquent witnesses for the truth of 
 the word of God. 
 
 Do the interests of His Church require it? God 
 will sway the heart of Pharaoh's daughter to His will 
 by the mute eloquence of the tear-drop on the cheek 
 of the infant Moses. Do they require it? Con- 
 querors shall be turned aside from their purpose of 
 vengeance ; by an impulse they can neither resist nor 
 explain. Let one instance suffice. Alexander had 
 just completed his victory over Tyre. He burned 
 the city to the ground. He destroyed the inhabitants 
 in cold blood, and then marched against Jerusalem. 
 His purpose was, to mete out to it a like destruction. 
 The report of his crucified two thousand Tyrian prison- 
 ers went before him. The people trembled. They felt 
 exposed to his power. They fasted. They prayed. 
 And as the maddened conqueror approached, the High 
 Priest, in his gorgeous robes, followed by a long train 
 
CONCLUSION. 77 
 
 of priests and people in white, went forth to meet him. 
 It seemed as if they were marching on to certain 
 destruction. Alexander draws near. But now what 
 means he? He bows down before the High Priest 
 and reverently salutes him, adding, that he did so 
 because of the God whose Priest he was. He then 
 enters the city ; gives them toleration in their religion, 
 and sets them free from tribute every seventh year. 
 His assigned work was not yet done. And, until then, 
 he must protect the people of God with the power 
 which the God of the people gave into his hands. 
 Verily, He "maketh the wrath of man to praise Him ; 
 and the remainder thereof He will restrain! " 
 
 Well, brethren, this Church of the Living God 
 founded in the councils of eternity kept by His 
 power ransomed by His blood oh ! have you a part 
 therein ? 
 
 You may have all else. But, if you have not this, 
 you are miserably poor. You read over the conquests 
 of the great ones of earth ; and as you tell the 
 story of Cyrus and Alexander, and the world's mighti- 
 est heroes, a still small voice is sounding in your ears, 
 " What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world, 
 and lose his own soul ? Or what shall a man give in 
 exchange for his soul?" 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 I CONSIDEBED the horns, and, behold, there came up among them 
 another little horn, before whom there were three of the first 
 horns plucked up by the roots : and , behold, in this horn were 
 eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things." 
 DAN. vii. 8. - 
 
 IN considering the kingdom of the little horn, it is 
 important to remember the manner of its appearance. 
 The prophet was contemplating the fourth beast. Its 
 ten horns especially struck his attention. He was pon- 
 dering their meaning. "I considered," or, "I was 
 considering" "the horns; and behold there came up 
 among them," etc. And in explaining this portion of 
 the vision, the angel said: "And the ten horns out of 
 this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and 
 another shall arise after them ; and he shall be diverse 
 from the first, and he shall subdue three kings." 
 (Verse 24.) 
 
 Now, you will mark the point, and note the historic 
 fact which it requires "Shall arise after them." 
 The ten horns arise first. Then it appears. And the 
 historical reading of the symbol is, that the ten king- 
 doms appear first. Subsequently; in their midst ; the 
 kingdom of the little horn arises. And to pursue any 
 other order than this, will be to neglect one of the 
 
FALSE INTERPRETATIONS. 79 
 
 plainest and most important requisitions of the pro- 
 phecy. 
 
 You may, perhaps, deem this a point of small im- 
 portance. You quite mistake it, if you do. And I 
 press it upon you because it furnishes a ready and 
 resistless answer to the many false interpretations of 
 this part of the vision. Volumes have been written to 
 show, for example, that this symbol points out Antio- 
 chus Epiphanes, a cruel persecutor of the Jews; and 
 that, consequently, this vision was long since fulfilled. 
 Well, brethren, on what does this statement rest ? What 
 are the facts of the case ? Simply this ; that Antiochus 
 died 164 B.C.: i. e., upwards of six hundred years be- 
 fore the ten kingdoms were formed! And yet we are 
 gravely asked to believe that he was the power pointed 
 out by the little horn. And long treatises are written 
 to prove that he was so; directly in the face of the 
 declaration that it arose after the ten kingdoms had 
 appeared ! What is the use of commenting on pro- 
 phecy at all, if we are thus to over-ride its plainest 
 statements ? 
 
 And now, say you, What then is the kingdom here 
 pointed out ? The answer is, The requisitions of the 
 prophecy must guide us. It is to be : 
 
 A kingdom which shall arise among and after the 
 ten kingdoms ; which shall be diverse from all the ten ; 
 which shall subdue three kings; which shall speak 
 great swelling words against the Most High ; which 
 which shall wear out the saints of the Most High; 
 shall think to change times and laws; into whose 
 hands, the saints shall "be given for a time, times and 
 the dividing of time;" and which shall continue until 
 
80 KINGDOM POINTED OUT. 
 
 "the Son of Man shall come in the clouds of heaven" 
 to set up his kingdom. 
 
 Now, these are the requisitions. With the volume 
 of History open before us, we must find a kingdom 
 which combines them in itself; a kingdom into whose 
 history they enter as plain and acknowledged facts. 
 Can we do this ? 
 
 Beyond doubt, I suppose we can. Never did the 
 sunbeam trace on the Daguerrean plate, a likeness 
 more lifelike and exact, than that which the Spirit 
 draws here, of that persecuting power which, assum- 
 ing the name of the Church of Christ, was to wear 
 out the saints of the Most High. And that power is 
 the Papal Supremacy ! 
 
 All of these requisitions, you observe, are fulfilled, 
 save two. Besides these, they are all historic facts. 
 These two, which are prophetic facts, are : 
 
 a. The full time of its continuance; and 
 
 b. The last great persecution, with the blood of 
 which it shall be drunk. It is, therefore, a power 
 which, thus guided, we may find to-day on the stage 
 of action; and of which we may with absolute cer- 
 tainty say, " This is the kingdom pointed out!" 
 
 1. It was to arise among and after the ten kingdoms. 
 It will be remembered that the fourth kingdom, seen 
 in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, was symbolized by 
 the two legs of iron, standing on feet, part of iron 
 and part of clay. This, of course, represents its two 
 divisions the Eastern and Western empires into 
 which it was formed. And the figure is a striking 
 one. As the image stood up on its two legs; so this 
 kingdom stood up on its two great divisions. The 
 
THE TEN KINGDOMS. 81 
 
 Western empire, answering to the head and horns of 
 Daniel's fourth beast, came to an end about A. D. 
 476; and was divided into ten kingdoms. And if you 
 ask, why these kingdoms are to be sought for in the 
 Western empire alone? The answer is easily given. 
 The Eastern empire, of which Constantinople was the 
 metropolis, was built up on the ruins of the Graeco- 
 Macedonian empire. In other words, it was part of 
 the body of Daniel's third beast. And when it came 
 under the sway of the Romans, and the empire of the 
 West had fallen ; it still remained the sixth, or impe- 
 rial head of the beast. Now, it is impossible for it to 
 be one of the heads, and at the same time, one of the 
 horns, of the same beast. Clearly, therefore, we are 
 compelled to look for the ten kingdoms as the rem 
 nants of the empire of the West. These kingdoms, 
 then I adopt the list given by Machiavelli; because, 
 as a Roman Catholic historian, there can be here no 
 exceptions taken to his authority are as follows : The 
 Ostrogoths in Mcesia, now Bulgaria and Servia; the 
 Visigoths in Pannonia, now part of Hungary; the 
 Sueves and Alans in Grasgoine and Spain; the Van- 
 dals in Africa; the Franks in France; the Burgun- 
 dians in Burgundy r , now Switzerland and Alsace; the 
 Heruli and Turingi in Italy ; the Saxons and Angles 
 in Britain; the Huns in Hungary ; and the Lombards, 
 at first on the Danube, and afterwards in Italy. 
 
 Now, among these, the kingdom of the little horn 
 was to arise. And among these it did appear. It 
 was "little" at first; i. e., " little" in comparison with 
 surrounding kingdoms. But you observe, it is the 
 visible development of which the prophet speaks. It 
 
82 THE FOURTH KINGDOM. 
 
 grew from imperceptible beginnings ; until it became 
 a recognized power, on the head of the beast. At 
 first it was a spiritual power. It exercised spirit- 
 ual jurisdiction. This, according to Sir I. Newton, 
 commenced about A. D., 379, when the right of appeal 
 in all doubtful cases, concerning Western bishoprics, 
 was given to the Church of Rome. From this, it still 
 continued to grow; until, though still little in visible 
 power, it became a great spiritual sovereignty towards 
 the beginning of the seventh century. Thus, the 
 little horn arose among, and after the ten kingdoms, 
 into which the empire of the West was divided. 
 
 2. It was to be diverse from the other kingdoms. 
 The kingdom of the fourth beast was to be diverse 
 from the three preceding kingdoms. And this was to 
 be so from it as well as from all the others. And it was 
 clearly so, 
 
 a. In the manner of its rise. The first ten king- 
 doms, as well as those of the four beasts, all arose in 
 times of tumult and war. Tempests and commotions 
 ushered them into being. They were rocked in the 
 cradle of storms. They were early baptized in blood. 
 But not so with this. It arose gradually out of the 
 midst of the other kingdoms. No tempest heaved it 
 into being. No sword opened its way among hostile 
 nations. Its origin was eminently peaceful. For a 
 time, indeed, the prophet did not observe it. The 
 other horns filled his vision and engaged his thoughts. 
 At length it attained size and form enough to arrest 
 his attention. But all this, you observe, points to a 
 gradual and peaceable origin. 
 
 And so the two-horned beast which John saw (Rev. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF. 83 
 
 xiii. 11,) and which clearly symbolizes the same king- 
 dom : i.e., the Papal supremacy, or the hierarchy of the 
 Romish Church, within the Papal dominions, arose 
 " out of the earth" In other words, it sprang up, 
 peaceably, out of its own native population; and not 
 tumultuously, out of foreign nations, as the ten king- 
 doms had done. Its two horns i. e., its twofold 
 forms of chief power or rule were like a lamb's, 
 seemingly for ornament and defence ; not like those of 
 a wild beast, for conquest and destruction. But "it 
 spake as a dragon: 1 ' i. e., its exercise of power was 
 relentlesss, cruel, insatiable. It was diverse, too, 
 
 b. In its character. The ten kingdoms were tem- 
 poral sovereignties. It was a spiritual one. And 
 when the three horns fell before it, the diversity only 
 increased. There was then seen, for the first time 
 among human governments, a power that was temporal 
 as well as spiritual: ecclesiastical as well as civil. 
 
 Its ecclesiastical character is clearly pointed out. 
 It had "eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth 
 speaking very great things." (Verse 20.) Of this, 
 Sir Isaac Newton says : " By its eyes, it was a seer ; 
 and by its mouth, speaking great things, and changing 
 times and laws, it was a prophet. A seer episcopos 
 is a bishop, in the literal sense of the word. And 
 this church claims the universal bishopric." And 
 then, too, how clearly its " eyes, like the eyes of a 
 man," point out that never-sleeping, far-reaching 
 sagacity of the Church of Rome, which omitted no 
 opportunity to serve its own interests, and crush or 
 deceive its foes. There was nothing like this in the 
 
84 DESCRIPTION CONTINUED. 
 
 symbols of the other kingdoms. And therefore there 
 was nothing like it in their history. 
 
 And then, too, it was diverse from the others in this 
 respect. No other government ever persecuted its own 
 people worshipping the same gods for minor differ- 
 ences of religious belief. Who ever heard of a wor- 
 shipper of Jupiter, or Mars, or Bacchus, or any other 
 heathen deity persecuting, with the dungeon, the fire, 
 and the sword, those who bowed to the same idols 
 with themselves ? But here is a government, calling 
 itself Christian, persecuting with implacable vengeance 
 all others who bear the Christian name, and yet reject 
 the dogmas of the Church of Rome ! And so it was 
 diverse from the others in all its characteristics. 
 
 3. It was to subdue three Icings. You will bear in 
 mind that it did not become a horn by doing so. It 
 was the little horn before it subdued three kings. In 
 other words, that horn symbolizes a spiritual and eccle- 
 siastical kingdom, which, by this subjugation of three 
 kings, became, as well, a temporal power. The kingdom 
 of the little horn did not begin with temporal domi- 
 nion. Nor will it come to an end, though that domi- 
 nion is taken away. It is essentially, from beginning 
 to end, a spiritual power. 
 
 The subduing of these three kings is very strikingly 
 put. At first the prophet did not notice the little 
 horn. The ten wholly occupied his attention. It was 
 not observed among them. Afterwards he saw it. And 
 then " three of the first horns were plucked up before 
 it." Mark the point in the angel's interpretation: 
 "Before whom there were three of the first horns 
 plucked up by the roots." (Ver. 8.) They had ob- 
 
THE THREE KINGDOMS. 85 
 
 structed the prophet's view of it. They stood before 
 it. And, in point of fact, they hindered its growth. 
 They stood in its way. They were, therefore, up- 
 rooted before its expanding power. 
 
 Geographically, then, these three kingdoms must 
 be so located as to hide that of the little horn from 
 view ; and prevent its temporal growth. 
 
 They must, also, be of the first ten. The language 
 is express. " Before whom there were three of the 
 first horns plucked up by the roots." We must, there- 
 fore, look for them among the first ten kingdoms of 
 the Western empire. 
 
 We have, then, you observe, two requisitions, which 
 will, very effectually, close the door against a mis- 
 taken selection: 
 
 a. The kingdoms pointed out must be three of the 
 first ten; and 
 
 b. They must also be so geographically located as to 
 stand before the kingdom of the little horn. 
 
 Now, what kingdoms fulfilled these requisitions? 
 All must be rejected, save those which make answer 
 to these demands. 
 
 It was about A. D. 476 that Odoacer, king of the 
 Heruli, was proclaimed king of Italy. By this act, 
 he manifestly stood before the little horn. It, as a 
 mere ecclesiastical power, would be like the little 
 horn, behind the larger one, on the head of the beast 
 lost to the view. A king; a foreign king; wielding 
 his sceptre over the entire State, would clearly inter- 
 fere with the growth of Papal supremacy in a province 
 of the State. He must, therefore, be rooted up. 
 And how was this done ? The words of Gibbon sup- 
 
 8 
 
86 THEODORIC, THE OSTROGOTH, ETC. 
 
 ply an answer: "After a reign of fourteen years, Odoa- 
 cer was oppressed by the superior genius of Theodoric, 
 king of the Ostrogoths." "From the Alps to the 
 extremity of Calabria, Theodoric reigned by right 
 of conquest, .... and he was accepted as the 
 deliverer of Rome, by the Senate and people/' 
 (Vol. iii. 519, and iv. 11.) Thus the first horn; the 
 kingdom of the Heruli, or of Odoacer; was plucked 
 up. And the second immediately took its place. It 
 was, therefore, to the Roman Pontiff, only a change 
 of masters. First, it was Odoacer. Next, Theodoric. 
 The kingdom of the one was plucked up by the other. 
 But this other stood in the way of the little horn, as 
 really as the first had done. He, too, therefore, must 
 be removed. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths was 
 attacked by Belisarius, who gained possession of the 
 city. And, "after sixty years' servitude, it was 
 delivered from the yoke of the barbarians." The 
 conquest, however, was not entire. It was afterwards 
 completed by Narses; who, with his auxiliaries, the 
 Lombards, finished the overthrow of the kingdom of 
 the Ostrogoths. And thus, the second horn was 
 plucked up. 
 
 Alboin, king of the Lombards, next conceived the 
 design of conquering Italy, for himself; as the Eunuch, 
 Narses, had done for Justinian, the Emperor of the 
 East. In the language of Gibbon: "Terror preceded 
 his march. He found, everywhere, or he left a dreary 
 
 solitude but, from the Trentine hills to the 
 
 gates of Ravenna and Rome ; the inland regions of 
 Italy became, without a battle or a siege, the lasting 
 patrimony of the Lombards." (Vol. iv. 395-6.) This 
 
PATRIMONY OF ST. PETER. 87 
 
 was the third horn. Like the two preceding it, this 
 also stood up before and obstructed the growth of the 
 little horn. And this also was plucked up. But this 
 was not done, until Charlemagne ; following the exam- 
 ple of his father, Pepin, and at the request of the 
 Pope; undertook his cause. He led a large army 
 into Italy. He then completely destroyed the king- 
 dom of the Lombards, and gave a considerable part of 
 their domains to the Roman Pontiff. This took place 
 A. D. 774. And thus, his temporal power was firmly 
 established. 
 
 The three horns were thus plucked up before him, 
 and room given for his rapid subsequent growth. The 
 patrimony of St. Peter, as his temporal domain is 
 called, was thus established. And to this day, the 
 Pontiff wears his tiara, or three-pointed cap ; as if in 
 commemoration of the three-fold overthrow, out of 
 which his temporal dominions were formed. 
 
 Let us confess, brethren, that there is something 
 wonderfully striking in this minute and marked carry- 
 ing out of the prophetic declarations of the word of 
 God. In each case, the plucking up was done by the 
 direct aid and counsel of the Bishop of Rome. He it 
 was, who "shut the gates of the imperial city against 
 the defeated Odoacer; rejoiced in his fall; and wel- 
 comed the Goths, as deliverers. It was the same 
 bishop who invited and encouraged Belisarius to 
 subvert the Gothic kingdom. And finally, it was the 
 bishop of Rome who used all the arts of subtle policy, 
 and brought forth all the devices of profane invention, 
 to effect the downfall of the Lombards." (Rev. J. T. 
 Birks.) And the result of the whole was to make him 
 
88 GREAT WORDS AGAINST THE MOST HIGH. 
 
 a temporal, as well as a spiritual and ecclesiastical 
 sovereign. 
 
 4. He was to speak great words against the Most 
 High. Now, it would be but a mere transcribing of 
 the records of history, to show how this was fulfilled. 
 But, the names, "His Holiness; 1 ' "Our Lord God, 
 the Pope; 91 "Another Grod on Earth;' 9 "King of 
 Kings and Lord of Lords;" " The Lion of the tribe 
 of Judah, the promised Saviour;" clearly indicate 
 what great words he spoke against the Most High. 
 And these, and other titles equally blasphemous, have 
 all been, from time to time, conferred upon him and 
 worn by him. And their right use, in this application, 
 is covered and defended by the claim to infallibility 
 in judgment. 
 
 "Moreover," said Pope Boniface VIII., " we declare, 
 assert, define and pronounce, that to be subject to the 
 Roman Pontiff, is, to every human creature, altogether 
 necessary to salvation" (Extravag. 1. viii. 1.) "All 
 power in heaven and in earth" said Lord Anthony 
 Pucci, in the Fifth Lateran Council, "is given unto 
 thee ; in you is fulfilled the prophetic saying, All kings 
 of the earth shall worship him and all nations serve 
 him." 
 
 There is no claim too lofty for him to assert for 
 himself. His words challenge, for themselves, the 
 reverence due to those of God. He is exalted over 
 all. He is in the place of God. No laws, therefore, 
 may bind him. On the contrary, all laws derive their 
 authority from his will. Blind, unquestioning obedi- 
 ence to him is the only way of salvation. And then, 
 too, this kingdom of the little horn has anathematized, 
 
FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS. 89 
 
 with the bitterest curses, all who have opposed its 
 claims. It has made the pardon of sins, a matter of 
 bargain and sale. For a price, it has offered, in 
 advance, absolution from the most enormous crimes. 
 It has laid kingdoms under its interdict. It has 
 trodden on the neck of prostrate kings. It has 
 absolved subjects from their allegiance to their right- 
 ful rulers. It has been marked, everywhere, with "a 
 look more stout than his fellows; 1 ' claiming the domin- 
 ion of the whole earth, and dividing its empire at his 
 will. And then, 
 
 5. It was to wear out the saints of the Most High. 
 You will not expect me to enter into details on this 
 point. The heart sickens at the records of the perse- 
 cutions of the saints by Pagan Rome. History enu- 
 merates ten persecutions of them in the first three 
 centuries. Not less than three millions of Christians 
 suffered death during their progress. But, dyed as 
 she is, with the best blood of the Christian Church, 
 Pagan Rome whitens into purity, compared with the 
 enormities of Papal Rome. " Every hill of the papal 
 world has streamed with innocent Christian blood. 
 Every valley drunk up the crimson tide. Every city, 
 town or village strewn with the expectants of the 
 better resurrection. Every mountain, glen and cave, 
 has witnessed the disciples' slaughter." (Oswald.) 
 Fitly, indeed, does St. John represent her, as " drunk 
 with the blood of saints !" While, all through the his- 
 tory of the little horn, it is described, as " making 
 war with the saints, and prevailing against them:" 
 (verse 21.) 
 
 6. It was to think to change times and laws, etc. 
 
 8* 
 
90 CHANGING TIMES AND LAWS. 
 
 And very striking is the comment which history offers 
 on this trait of its character. What law of God or 
 man has been held sacred by it ; when the enforcement 
 of that law interfered with its designs? The plain 
 and undisguised declaration of the decretals is, that 
 " The sacred authority and royal power of the Pontiffs 
 govern the rulers of this world." 
 
 "Emperors ought to obey, not to rule over, the Pon- 
 tiffs. (Gregory VII., xcvi. c. 10, 11.) 
 
 " It is evidently shown that the Pontiff can neither 
 be bound nor loosed by the secular power ; of whom, 
 it is certain, as we said long before, that by the pious 
 prince Constantine, lie was styled G-od. And it is 
 manifest, that G-od cannot be judged by man." (Nicho- 
 las, the Pope, to the Emperor, xl. 7.) 
 
 God has ordained, that "marriage is honourable in 
 all." But the language of Papacy is: "We entirely 
 interdict priests, deacons, sub-deacons and monks from 
 contracting marriages ; we decide, also, that according 
 to the sacred canons, the marriages contracted by per- 
 sons of this kind be dissolved, and the persons brought 
 to do penance." (Calixtus II., xxxvii. 8.) It has 
 annulled the second commandment, by keeping it 
 from the people ; and refusing it a place in the cate- 
 chisms of general instruction. It shuts up the book 
 of God from the people. It forbids its laity to rea- 
 son on the doctrines of the Gospel. It takes the cup 
 from them; though our Lord expressly commanded, 
 " Drink ye all of it" It sanctions the invocation of 
 saints and angels; against the clearest and most 
 express words of Scripture. And, back of all its 
 enactments, there lies the haughty claim: "It is 
 
FURTHER INSTANCES. 91 
 
 not permitted, either to think or to speak differently 
 from the Roman Church" (Damasus the Pope, xxiv. 
 1. 15.) 
 
 " If any one shall presume to dispute the dogmas, 
 commands, interdicts, sanctions or decrees, whole- 
 somely published by the head of the Apostolic See, 
 let him be accursed." (Nicholas, the Pope, in the 
 Roman Council, xxiv. 2. 28.) 
 
 Thus, the "laws" are changed. And the "times" 
 of the word of God are the subjects of attempts 
 equally high-handed and blasphemous. The richest 
 promises of the glory of the times when Messiah's 
 kingdom shall be fully set up, are claimed as predic- 
 tions of the power and splendour of the Papacy. The 
 brightest jewels in the Redeemer's crown are sought 
 to be placed in its diadem. And the times, when "all 
 nations shall serve Him," are transferred to the pe- 
 riod of its reign. 
 
 The two remaining characteristics, i. e., 7 and 8, are 
 fit subjects for future reference. They run forward 
 until the end: and are, now, only in part fulfilled. 
 I, therefore, pass them by. 
 
 And now, brethren, this subject teaches us : 
 
 How wonderfully the teachings of the word of Gf-od 
 commend themselves to our attention. How infallible 
 its utterances are. 
 
 To serve its end, prophecy must be so announced 
 as to yield its sense to a diligent seeker after truth; 
 and yet, wholly to hide it from the careless and super- 
 ficial observer. Greater clearness would furnish an 
 argument against it, in one of two ways. It would 
 either enable the persons pointed out, to defeat its 
 
92 PRACTICAL LESSONS, 
 
 announcements : or allow us to say, " The prophecy 
 supplies the fact. And willing instruments avail 
 themselves of it." 
 
 Each one must be left to work out his own purpose ; 
 display his own character; and perform his own plea- 
 sure. If as the result of this, we have a full and perfect 
 and minute fulfilment of the prophecy; it teaches us, 
 
 a. How infallibly certain are the purposes of Q-od; 
 and 
 
 b. How entire is man's responsibility for all Tie does. 
 There is no escape from these conclusions. The 
 
 actors on whom we have looked, had no thought 
 further from their minds, than that of fulfilling the 
 prophetic word. To do their pleasure; to work out 
 their own plans ; was all they meant. But in doing 
 this, God used them for carrying out the recorded 
 declarations of His word. They stand before us in 
 their own true light. While, through them, we see how 
 infallible is every utterance of His truth. History, 
 with its thousand tongues proclaims the faithfulness of 
 His word. We read it in the rise of kings ; the con- 
 sultations of cabinets ; the shock of armies. It speaks 
 to us from the grave of buried nations. And, as the 
 spectres of the past sweep by, they tell us, " Verily, 
 He is a Crod that judgeth in the earth." He has let 
 none of "His words fall to the ground!" 
 
 Nor will He. To the slightest utterance of that 
 word, He has linked all His power. It were easier for 
 the pillared firmament to fail ; than for one syllable 
 to come to nought. How absolute, then, is the safety 
 of the believer in Jesus. The shield of Omnipotence 
 is before him. "The everlasting arms" are around 
 
CONTINUED. 93 
 
 him. In sickness and in health, in life and in death, 
 in time and in eternity, God, his own covenant God, 
 is with him. And "he shall never perish." "I know 
 that it shall be well with them that fear God!" 
 
 And then, how startling is the thought to those who 
 are out of Christ. In the kingdoms on which we have 
 been gazing, you may learn how inevitable is the 
 destruction of every power, that exalts itself against 
 Him. How certain the overthrow of those who reject 
 His grace! One after another, they appeared and 
 passed away. Each continued its appointed time. 
 Each did its appointed work; and came to its ap- 
 pointed end. And from the same word there comes 
 forth the declaration, "The end of the ungodly is, to 
 be rooted out at the last!" But then, 
 
 b. Sow entire is^aris responsibility for all he does. 
 The kings and the priests and the conquerors, on whom 
 we have been gazing, found in themselves the impulses 
 which moved them. They thought of nothing but 
 their own ends. They sought to serve nothing but 
 their own ambition. The blood which they shed; the 
 crimes which they committed they alone are answer- 
 able for. You may not plead an iron decree, compel- 
 ling them to these acts. It was not to fulfil prophecy 
 that Odoacer proclaimed himself king of Italy; or 
 that Theodoric overthrew Odoacer; or Alboin over- 
 turned the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. What knew 
 they about the kingdom of the little horn? It was to 
 secure, each one, his own ambitious ends. This, with 
 them, was the beginning and the end of the power 
 which moved them. If their actions went beyond this 
 and served other purposes, which they knew not of; 
 
94 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the moral character of their acts still belongs to them. 
 They alone are reponsible. They were free to act in 
 a given line. And, therefore, they were free to refuse 
 to act. They did act. And the character of the act 
 is their own. It was for no desire to maintain the 
 truth of prophecy, that the Roman pontiff circled his 
 brow with the sublimest names of Deity. It was no 
 resistless decree of the Almighty that drove him on 
 to ply the rack, and the dungeon, and the sword, and 
 the stake, against "the people of the saints of the 
 Most High." He was free in all this. He chose all 
 this, as the means of strengthening his own power. 
 He alone, therefore, is responsible. And so it is with 
 us all, in all we do. 
 
 It is a solemn thought. Our own distinguished fel- 
 low-countryman, Daniel Webster, was asked, "What 
 is your most important thought?" And what, think 
 you, was his reply? Was it some great principle of 
 international, or constitutional law? Was it some 
 great truth that lay at the foundation of his country's 
 prosperity? It was nothing of the kind. "My most 
 important thought," he gravely answered, "is that of 
 my responsibility to Grod!" 
 
 And well might he so term it. What other thought 
 can compare with it ? Responsibility to God ! How, 
 like an atmosphere, it surrounds us ! We cannot get 
 from beneath it. It attaches to us from thought and 
 word and deed. It walks with us through life. It 
 lies down with us in the grave. It will rise with us in 
 the morning of the resurrection. It will abide with 
 us through eternity. Men and brethren! Are we 
 living in view of it ? 
 
V 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 AND they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and 
 the dividing of time. DAN. vii. 25, (last clause.) 
 
 WE have considered all the marks, by which the king- 
 dom of the little horn was to be known. And now, 
 we come to the question of its duration. We have 
 seen how it is to be identified. And now, we have to 
 see how long it is to exist. 
 
 And this, you will observe, is not a question as to its 
 temporal power. It was not that, you will remember, 
 which made it the kingdom of the little horn. It was 
 so, before that temporal power was received. And it 
 will continue so, though that power were, all, taken 
 away. The question of its duration, refers to it as a 
 spiritual kingdom alone. 
 
 And I feel, brethren, that we are approaching a 
 a great theme. What has been revealed, it is our 
 duty and our privilege to know. Of what has been con- 
 cealed, we must be content to remain in ignorance ; 
 until that day, when, we " shall know even as we are 
 known." We must not strive to draw back the 
 curtain. We shall do so, only to our confusion and 
 wrong. 
 
 But the neglect of what is written, on the one hand ; 
 
96 TIME, TIMES AND A HALF. 
 
 and assuming to know more than what is written, on the 
 other ; is, equally, to be avoided. In this spirit, then, 
 i. e., simply desiring to know what God has thought 
 best to reveal; to stand on this solid rock of His truth; 
 let us approach the subject before us. In reference to 
 this, and every other portion of revealed truth, I could 
 desire for you, brethren, no more blessed lot, than for 
 each of you, to adopt the Psalmist's language : 
 
 "Humble as a little child, 
 
 Weaned from its mother's breast; 
 By no subtleties beguiled, 
 On thy faithful word I rest." 
 
 The duration of this kingdom was to be "for a time, 
 times, and the dividing of time." What, now are we 
 to understand by this ? Can we, from data, so appar- 
 ently obscure, deduce any satisfactory result? 
 
 We have this same phrase in three places. It first 
 occurs in our text. Next, in Dan. xii. 7 ; where it 
 is rendered "a time, times, and a half. 1 ' And last, in 
 Rev. xii. 14, where the words are, "a time, times, and 
 half a time." And in each of these cases, it is used 
 in direct connection, with the end of the present order 
 of things, and the setting up of the kingdom of Heaven. 
 It is, therefore, a phrase of great importance. Let 
 us strive, then, exactly to ascertain its meaning. 
 
 We have the same word, in Dan. xi. 13, where it 
 is rendered, " after certain years;" or, as the margin 
 has it, "at the end of times, even years." A time, 
 then is a year. "A time and times and the dividing 
 or half of time," is three years and a half. But, 
 what are we to understand by this ? 
 
DAY PUT FOR A YEAR. 
 
 97 
 
 In prophetic style, a day is put for a year. For 
 this, there is the most express and positive proof. 
 
 You remember the case of the spies, sent out by 
 Moses, to search the promised land? God said of 
 them: "After the number of the days, in which ye 
 searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, 
 ye shall bear your iniquities, even forty years." 
 Numb. xiv. 34. And the fact was even so. For forty 
 years they wandered up and down in the wilderness; 
 until they were consumed. 
 
 So, in the case of Ezekiel. To prefigure the time 
 through which Israel was to pass, from her first defec- 
 tion from the worship of the true God, to the subver- 
 sion of the kingdom, by the Assyrians ; the prophet 
 was commanded to lie on his left side for three hun- 
 dred and ninety days. The language is, "For I have 
 laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to 
 the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days, 
 so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 
 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again 
 on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of 
 the house of Judah forty days. I have appointed 
 thee each day for a year." Ezek. iv. 5, 6. Now, this 
 would give three hundred and ninety years for Israel 
 and forty years for Judah. If, then, you count back 
 from the subversion of the kingdom by Nebuzaradan, 
 B. C. 584, to the establishment of idolatry by Jero- 
 boam, 1 Kings xii. 33, B. C. 974, you have exactly 
 three hundred and ninety years. And so, if you count 
 back, from the same final catastrophe, to the reforma- 
 tion of Josiah, B. C. 624, the number of years is 
 forty. A day is put for a year. And very fitly is 
 
 9 
 
98 PROPRIETY OF. 
 
 this done. A day, which is the period of the earth's 
 revolution on its axis, is, with great propriety, taken 
 as the representative of the larger period of a year ; 
 or the revolution of the earth round the sun. On a 
 principle akin to this, geographers construct our maps ; 
 making an inch, or part of an inch, represent miles, 
 or hundreds of miles. And so, this mode of speech 
 grew to be common among the Jews. Did one say to 
 another, In three weeks will be the Jubilee ? he would 
 be understood as saying, that that feast was twenty- 
 one years distant. And from them it spread to other 
 people. Thus, a certain Greek wrote to his friend, 
 "On this day, I am just eleven weeks old." Now, 
 this was simply saying, in other words, that, on that 
 day, he completed his seventy-seventh year. No con- 
 fusion followed this mode of speech. No difficulty 
 occurred in understanding it. But, it is in the pro- 
 phetic books of Scripture it finds its fitting place. 
 
 Can we still further verify this point? Can it be 
 fortified by still stronger proof? Can it be made 
 unassailable by candid argument? Beyond doubt, 
 I think it can. You remember Daniel's prophecy 
 of seventy weeks? The language is, "Seventy weeks 
 are determined, upon thy people and upon thy holy 
 city, to finish the transgression, and to make an" 
 end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, 
 and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal 
 up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most 
 Holy." Dan. ix. 24. Seventy weeks; i. e., prophetic 
 weeks ; are four hundred and ninety years. But four 
 hundred and ninety years from what time? When 
 must we begin to count them? From what point 
 
l 
 
 or TBS 
 
 SEVENTY WEEKS. > 
 
 do they commence running? The answe 
 "Know, therefore, and understand, that from the 
 going forth of the commandment to restore and to 
 build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, etc." 
 (verse 25.) The point is definitely fixed. It is "the 
 going forth of the commandment;" i. e., the issuing 
 of the decree to restore and to build Jerusalem. From 
 that time until "Messiah should be cut off, but not for 
 Himself," there should be four hundred and ninety 
 years. It is, therefore, a mere question of chronology. 
 
 After a minute and extended astronomical calcu- 
 lation, William Cunninghame, in his work entitled, 
 "The Certain Truth, the Science and the Authority of 
 Scripture Chronology," in his own expressive phrase, 
 "pins it down*" i. e., the issuing of the decree; to 
 the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus. This 
 was B. C. 458, or, more minutely, "Friday, the 7th 
 of April, 0. S., or 1st of April, N. S.," of that year. 
 "Now," he says; computing four hundred and ninety 
 years reduced to weeks and days and hours from this 
 date; "it comes out upon Friday the 1st of April, 
 N. S., or 3d, 0. S., of the year 33, at thirty-two min- 
 utes past eight in the morning ; the very hour when our 
 Lord was affixed to the cross. If, moreover, we carry 
 the computation to the end of the week of days, or 
 seven hours twenty minutes further, it terminates at 4 
 o'clock in the afternoon; the very hour when the dead 
 body of our Lord was, probably, committed to the 
 tomb of Joseph of Arimathea." P. 117, 118. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of a demonstration more 
 perfect than that. The prophetic cycles move for- 
 ward with the same minute exactness that character- 
 izes the motions of the heavenly bodies. Nay, they 
 
100 PROOF OF THE PERIOD. 
 
 are determined and measured by them. "He hath 
 appointed the moon for seasons." Its changes, in the 
 heavens, are fixed ; that they may testify to the abso- 
 lute certainty of the epochs of the book of God. The 
 calculations of eclipses ; the re-appearance of comets ; 
 and the revolutions of worlds; are no more certain 
 than the periods of the prophetic word. And so, in 
 the sublime language of the Psalmist, we may say: 
 "For ever, Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven. 
 Thy faithfulness is unto all generations : Thou hast 
 established the earth, and it abideth. They continue 
 this day, according to Thy word; for all are Thy ser- 
 vants." Ps. cxix. 89-91. 
 
 I submit, then, brethren, that the proof is exact, as 
 proof can well be. We have first, the illustration of 
 the principle. Then, the express assertion of it, in 
 reference to the periods of prophecy. And, last, we 
 have the proof of a great fact, foretold and accom- 
 plished in precise accordance with it. 
 
 A time, then, stands for a year. "A time, and 
 times, and the dividing of time," is three years and 
 a half. And this is the limit which the prophetic word 
 draws around the existence of the kingdom of the 
 little horn. Through this period it will continue. Up 
 to the end of it, it will last. Beyond that, it cannot 
 go. The hand that has drawn a limit to the ocean 
 wave, and said, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no 
 farther;" has traced its boundary on the shores of 
 time, and said, "Here shall the end be !" When that 
 boundary is reached, " The judgment shall sit ; and 
 they shall take away his dominion, to consume and 
 destroy it to the end." (Verse 26.) The ten king- 
 doms, in the midst of which it arose, shall turn their 
 
DURATION. 101 
 
 power against it. "They shall make her desolate 
 and naked," etc. Rev. xvii. 16, 17. Hitherto they 
 have given their power to uphold and fortify that of 
 the little horn. At this moment it is thus upheld. 
 French bayonets are the props of the Papal throne. 
 Austrian power is the right arm on which it leans. 
 And so it will be, " until the words of Gf-od shall be 
 fulfilled." And, then, that power will be taken away ; 
 and the kingdom come to its appointed end. And the 
 indications of the approach of this season are growing 
 more and more distinct. Who would be surprised, at 
 any moment, to hear of the withdrawal of the French 
 troops; and the abandonment of the Papacy to the 
 wrath of the masses, whom it has so long oppressed? 
 Already, " they hate the whore." Already, the 
 work of making her desolate and naked, and eating 
 her flesh, and burning her with fire i. e., of despoil- 
 ing the Papacy of its wealth, and power, and splen- 
 dour; of confiscating its property, the wealth of its 
 ecclesiastics, its monasteries, and its churches; and 
 stripping it of all, that once made it a great power 
 among the nations already this work is in progress; 
 and the consummation of it is rapidly drawing near. 
 
 What, now, is the exact period of its duration ? 
 
 The Jewish year consisted of twelve months of thirty 
 days each. Three and a half prophetic years, then, 
 would be twelve hundred and sixty days ; i. e., twelve 
 hundred and sixty years. This is to be the duration 
 of the little horn. 
 
 Now, this period occurs several times. In St. 
 John's vision of the seven-headed beast which is the 
 fourth beast of Daniel "power was given unto him 
 
 9* 
 
102 VARIOUS STATEMENTS OF. 
 
 to continue forty and two months." Rev. xiii. 5. But 
 forty-two months are precisely three years and a half. 
 
 Again. The same apostle describes the Church 
 under the figure of the woman giving birth to the 
 Man-Child, which the dragon sought to destroy. Of 
 her he says, that she should be in the wilderness, "a 
 thousand, two hundred and three-score days." Rev. 
 xii. 6. But this is, exactly, the same period as forty- 
 two months, or three years and a half. And, in the 
 fourteenth verse, we have the expression changed to 
 "a time, and times, and half a time;" precisely the 
 formula of our text. 
 
 Under the symbol of two witnesses, the same apostle 
 states the period, through which the Church shall be 
 called upon to testify against the corruptions of the 
 Papal power. His language is: "And I will give 
 power to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a 
 thousand two hundred and three-score days." In the 
 preceding verse, " forty and two months" are assigned 
 as the same period. Rev. xi. 2, 3. 
 
 Now, there is something very impressive in this 
 repetition of the same truth, in this three-fold variety 
 of expression. Something which challenges our atten- 
 tion, in this locking and interlocking of proof. Some- 
 thing which testifies that there must be great point 
 and significancy attached to this period. 
 
 But all this avails not, unless we are able to assign 
 the date at which this period was to begin. If we 
 fail to point out the time when, to use a legal phrase, 
 it commenced running ; we shall be in no degree wiser 
 than if these two visions formed no part of the scheme 
 of revelation. But, the argument from probability is, 
 
POINT OF BEGINNING. 
 
 103 
 
 that, so much having been revealed, quite enough has 
 been made known, to lead us to a very high degree of 
 certainty in our conclusions concerning it. 
 
 In the seventy weeks of Daniel the starting point 
 is expressly stated. We have, then, but to count 
 forward from that time, four hundred and ninety years. 
 If Messiah is not then cut off; the prophecy concern- 
 ing Him fails. But exactly at the day and hour 
 appointed, He hangs on the cross ; and the external 
 proof is complete. 
 
 Now, if the starting point in the prophecy before 
 us, were named; of course there would be no trouble 
 whatever in the mater. It would be a mere calcula- 
 tion from a given date. But this is not done. The 
 time, at which the statute begins to run, is not given. 
 Are we, then, left wholly in the dark? No. The 
 period of the beginning is not named. But the dura- 
 tion of the kingdom pointed out, is given. Its end is 
 clearly announced. And, the act by which its character 
 is to be fully known, is described. From this point it 
 was to continue "a time, and times, and the dividing of 
 time;" or forty-two months; or twelve hundred and 
 sixty days. Will not this give us a great degree of 
 certainty? Can we, then, name this act? Can we 
 turn back the pages of the book of history to a cer- 
 tain time; and say, " H ere is the point ;, from which our 
 computation is to be made?" 
 
 I think we can. I suppose that every step of this 
 great argument can be so accurately determined, as 
 to leave small room for an intelligent doubt. 
 
 The kingdom of the little horn is the Papacy. 
 What then, is the period in which this power set itself 
 
104 PROBABLE TIME. 
 
 up? I mean, not when it began to do so; but when 
 its distinctive character was beyond doubt, attained. 
 When was it fully developed as a spiritual and eccle- 
 siastical sovereignty? Or, in other words, By what 
 act were the saints given into its hands? For, from 
 that, it is to continue " a time, and times, and the 
 dividing of time/' 
 
 Of course history must guide us here. From it 
 alone can our answer be taken. Thus far we have 
 often been called on to admire the wonderful accuracy 
 with which it has supplied its comments on the word 
 of God. Recurring to it again, we find, that the most 
 decided act ; and about which a great unanimity of 
 sentiment seems to exist; took place about A. D. 606. 
 It was, at this time, that Pope Boniface III. was de- 
 clared Universal Bishop supreme head of the Church 
 universal by the emperor Phocas.* I beg you to ob- 
 serve, that it is not the temporal power of the Papacy ; 
 after which we are inquiring. It is the full develop- 
 ment of his ecclesiastical dominion. This was attained 
 about the time and by the act aforesaid. The Papacy % 
 
 * In his recent work on "The Coming and Reign of Christ" Mr. 
 Lord rejects this event; as one which does not offer the true point 
 of the beginning of the twelve hundred and sixty days. Exactly 
 to point it out is, I suppose, more than any one can do. And yet 
 the difference is very slight. He himself believes it to be some- 
 where between A. D. 597 and 626. But "its most probable date," 
 he adds, "was A. D. 602." 
 
 Undoubtedly the real epoch lies near that time. And while I am 
 unable to surrender my belief in the period assigned above ; I re- 
 gret that even this slight difference should exist. And my regret 
 is all the more sincere ; because, in truth, Mr. Lord possesses the 
 elements of an able, clear, and discriminating writer on prophecy, 
 in a very remarkable degree. 
 
REASONS FOR. 105 
 
 stood forth, then, in the distinctly defined outlines of 
 its real character. 
 
 By this act the saints were given into his hand. In 
 other words, the Power was then pointed out by 
 name, which from that time was to exercise dominion 
 over them. It is not required, by the text, that he 
 should then begin to exercise that dominion. His 
 possession of it, is all that is needed. Surely the 
 exercise of power is something quite distinct from its 
 possession. And when the text speaks of the saints, 
 as given into the hands of the kingdom of the little 
 horn; we satisfy all its requirements by showing the 
 time from which this surrender took ploce. A man is 
 the owner of an estate, not from the time he enters 
 on its possession ; but from the time he receives the 
 title-deeds. And so we may appropriate this phrase, 
 and say, that the title-deeds of this power over the 
 saints, were visibly conferred in the act named. And 
 the point of fact is, that from that time the claim of 
 the Sovereign Pontiff over the churches has never 
 once been lowered or abandoned. That supreme and 
 absolute authority over them, of right belongs to him ; 
 is not this the claim alike of popes and cardinals, 
 and bishops and priests and people ? How this has 
 been enforced, when his temporal power sufficed; all 
 the world knows. The history is written everywhere 
 in blood. And to-day the Papal claim over the 
 churches, is no whit less arrogant his power to decree, 
 in matters of conscience, no less haughty and impera- 
 tive than it was when he could enforce his decrees, 
 with the fire and the rack and the sword. The exer- 
 cise or enforcing of the power, is one thing. The 
 
106 CONFIRMATION OF. 
 
 possession of it, is another, and quite a different one. 
 And it is the possession of it which the text requires. 
 It began with a definite act. It will continue a pre- 
 scribed time. It will end at a given period. 
 
 Other dates have been named ; but this seems to 
 come nearest to the demands of the text. It is forti- 
 fied, too, by a very noticeable incident. In 1701, in a 
 Discourse on the Rise and Fall of Anti-Christ; the 
 Rev. R. Fleming declared, that, .assuming A. D. 606 
 as the time of the rise of the Papacy, the fifth vial 
 would be poured out upon it in A. D. 1848. "But 
 yet," he adds, "we are not to imagine that this vial 
 will totally destroy the Papacy; though it will 
 exceedingly weaken it." 
 
 Now, all the world knows what took place at that 
 time. What tumultuous risings of the masses ! What 
 pulling down of thrones; foul with the corruptions of 
 ages! What storms what convulsions in the poli- 
 tical, world! And how the reigning Pope, Pius IX., 
 was compelled to flee, in the disguise of the livery of 
 his Bavarian Minister! All this is history. And 
 does it not offer a strong proof of the correctness of 
 the period named; as the beginning of the twelve 
 hundred and sixty days ? Admit that that discourse 
 abounds in errors. It would be strange if it did not. 
 I have no defence to make, of them. But this assump- 
 tion of the year 606 What shall we say of it ? Is it 
 merely a coincidence ? Suppose the events of 1848 
 had occurred earlier, or later ; or had not occurred at 
 all? How would you, then, have regarded Mr. Flem- 
 ing's announcement ? As an unqualified mistake 
 would you not? And, is it fair; is it reasonable in 
 
END OP THE 1260 YEARS. 107 
 
 the absence of any principle leading to that conclu- 
 sion to treat it as merely a coincidence a thing of 
 chance now ? To me it seems much more than that. 
 And, for one, I see not how to reply to the declara- 
 tion, that A. D. 606 may be fairly selected as the be- 
 ginning of the twelve hundred and sixty days. 
 
 Well, brethren, starting from this point : "the time 
 and times and dividing of time ;" the forty- two months ; 
 or the twelve hundred and sixty days : will come to an 
 end in A. D. 1866. 
 
 I beg that I may be distinctly understood. I do 
 not mean that, at the end of that period i. e., in 
 1866 the second advent of our Lord will take place. 
 It will not. Another period, made up of the thirty 
 and forty-five years of Dan. xii. 11, 12, is then to 
 intervene. In this, the complete restoration of the 
 Jews ; the judgment of the living ; and the conversion 
 of the nations ; will most probably take place. But 
 what I do mean is, that if the period named is the- true 
 one, the twelve hundred and sixty days will come to 
 an end in the year aforesaid. The kingdom of the 
 little horn will have reached its assigned limit. " The 
 judgment shall sit" upon it ; to "consume and destroy 
 it to the end." In a modified form, it will still subsist. 
 Christ has reserved its final overthrow for Himself. 
 But, from the end of the twelve hundred and sixty days, 
 until the scroll of prophecy shall be completely unrolled, 
 there will be a season of trials and tumults ; of wars and 
 persecutions ; unheard of in all the former periods of 
 this world's blood-stained history ! This will be the 
 hour of final darkness; before the glorious rising of 
 the Sun of Righteousness, in His unclouded splendour! 
 
108 TIMES OF FIERY TRIAL. 
 
 We are now in the lull of the elements, before the 
 bursting forth of the storm. 0! mistake it not for 
 the dawn of that peaceful state, which, some suppose, 
 is to go on, widening and brightening, into the Millen- 
 nial day ! Never was a greater mistake. Just ahead 
 of us are times, not of peace, but of fiery trial, and 
 abounding iniquity. Far into those times, the terms 
 of our natural lives may lead many of us. And 
 blessed is he who abideth faithful to the end ! 
 
 Three times, is the circle of the history of the 
 Church and of the world traced in the book of God. 
 By three different paths, it leads us on to the same 
 end. "Seals are opened; trumpets are sounded; 
 vials of wrath are poured out. War, famine, pesti- 
 lence, persecutions of the saints; earthquakes; judg- 
 ments upon natural objects; judgments upon com- 
 merce; and judgments on all the sources of moral 
 influence by which men are affected." These are 
 some of its statements as to the character of the times, 
 preceding the coming forth of the King of kings and 
 Lord of lords. And of Him it is written, that, "out 
 of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it, He 
 should smite the nations. And He shall rule them 
 with a rod of iron : and He treadeth the wine-press of 
 the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." Rev. 
 xix. 15. Thus, up to the very time of his coming, the 
 record calls for trials, and tribulations, and distress; 
 instead of that season of peace and prosperity and 
 love, which some imagine is about to be inaugurated 
 on the earth. 
 
 And thus, this portion of our theme is disposed of. 
 How powerfully does it bring home the words, " The 
 
PRACTICAL LESSONS. 109 
 
 time is short!" "Short" not only in comparison with 
 the eternity to which it leads us. It is always so. 
 But "short" in itself; absolutely short. The things, 
 that are written, are hastening to an end. The sands 
 of "the times of the Gentiles" are well nigh run out. 
 On the chart of prophecy, we may see all its lines, 
 tending directly to one point; i. e., the nearness of 
 the close of this dispensation. 
 
 Some of you may say, I do not like to hear this 
 question discussed. Suppose you do not ? Does that 
 affect its truth? Does that steal away its power? 
 Does that change the relation in which you stand to 
 it ? Does that arrest the progress of the times, which 
 herald the second coming of Christ ? 
 
 You do not like the subject? And must it there- 
 fore be suppressed. Must the minister of Christ 
 speak only those truths which the people like to hear ? 
 Must he shut his lips and stand mute at his post; 
 until popular sentiment gives him leave to speak? 
 Never ! 
 
 There is a previous question for him to answer. Is 
 it a truth, plainly and clearly taught in the word of 
 G-od ? If so, he must, on his allegiance, proclaim it. 
 It is at his peril to withhold it. If any man relish it 
 not; to him I say, Go, tell your complaints to Him 
 who revealed it. It is a question between God and 
 your own soul. You must answer it to Him. 
 
 Meanwhile, brethren, there is no truth, whose prac- 
 tical bearings are so various and direct, as those which 
 flow from this. In the earliest records of the word of 
 God it meets us. Was "Enoch, the seventh from 
 Adam," to be prepared for his translation ? God 
 
 10 
 
110 SHORTNESS OP THE TIME. 
 
 revealed to him the glorious truth, " Behold, the Lord 
 cometh, with ten thousands of His saints; to execute 
 judgment upon all," etc. Jude, 14. We might have 
 thought, it was a truth of small importance for him 
 to know. But, when God would fit His servant to he 
 "translated, that he should not see death;" it was hy 
 filling his soul with the elevating and purifying hopes 
 that cluster round the "glorious appearing of our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ." This single fact, I suhmit to 
 you, speaks volumes in hehalf of the influence of this 
 truth. And, in every age of the Church, it has heen a 
 motive of mighty power in developing the strength 
 and efficiency of Christian character. It meets us at 
 every turn. It enforces every duty. It gives urgency 
 to every appeal. It sustains under every trial. It 
 blesses every lot. 
 
 " The time is short! 1 ' Why, then, how holy we 
 should be ! Every day and every hour we are setting 
 on ourselves an impress for eterity. ! let that 
 impress be one which shall fit us for a higher place in 
 the everlasting kingdom. 
 
 "The time is short!" How active we should be! 
 Every passing moment pleads with winning eloquence, 
 "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy 
 might." 
 
 " The time is short!" How cheerful we should be ! 
 The period of our wanderings will soon be over. We 
 shall soon gain our Father's house: soon enter, to go 
 out no more. In the light of this truth, what trouble 
 can greatly distress ? What burden greatly weary? 
 
 "The time is short!" Why, then, how our light 
 should shine ! How clearly should men trace in us 
 
CONCLUSION. Ill 
 
 the proofs of what the grace of God can accomplish ! 
 It is a mighty work we have to do. Everlasting issues 
 hang upon it. There are lofty heights to which we may 
 attain in the kingdom of Heaven. There is a crown of 
 fadeless glory which we may wear. Let others tread 
 those heights with us. Let that crown be bright with 
 the jewelry of souls, whom we have been the means of 
 turning to righteousness. 
 
 Not at our Saviour's feet would we lay down. 
 Talents that yield us no stars for our crown. 
 He gave His life ; that we, sinners, might live: 
 What can life yield us that we would not give ? 
 Take us, dear Saviour ; we are not our own; 
 Help us to live for Thy glory alone. 
 Thine we are now ; and for ever would be ; 
 Help us, help us, to labour for Thee ! 
 
 " The time is short! 19 How like a trumpet-call this 
 truth speaks to us to-day ! Are we ready ? Our 
 lamps are they trimmed and burning ? Some our 
 Lord himself forewarns us will be found to have 
 gone out. Let us be very sure that ours are not of 
 that number. Many will deride. The unbelieving 
 cry will be heard, " Where is the promise of His com- 
 ing?" Men will put away this truth from them. 
 They will say, " Peace and safety" forgetting that 
 it is written: " Then, sudden destruction shall come 
 upon them, as travail upon a woman with child : and 
 they shall not escape!" 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 BUT the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, 
 to consume and to destroy it unto the end." DAN. vii. 26. 
 
 THE theme, which these words bring before us, is the 
 judgment of the little horn. And that we may have 
 the subject distinctly before us, it is important for us 
 to remember that it was to continue, as a persecuting 
 power, twelve hundred and sixty years; i. e. for that 
 period the saints were to be given into its hands. At 
 the end of these twelve hundred and sixty years, the 
 judgment is to sit upon it, "to consume and destroy it 
 unto the end." 
 
 But this judgment is not its final destruction. We 
 must, distinctly, remember this. It is a period of 
 wasting away, before its final overthrow. After this 
 wasting, and before this overthrow, it is to arise again, 
 in a form worse than any it has yet assumed. It is to 
 arise "out of the bottomless pit:" i. e., it shall come 
 forth, after its temporary overthrow, armed with all 
 the power and malice which Satan can devise and 
 bestow. It shall again breathe forth slaughter against 
 the saints of the Most High; more terrible than any 
 it has yet occasioned. And men shall wonder at it ; 
 i. e., those " whose names were not written in the book 
 
LAST FORM OF THE BEAST. 113 
 
 of life." Rev. xvii. 8. It will be to them a marvel. 
 They had not received the testimony of the word of 
 God concerning it. They had witnessed its wasting 
 and its overthrow. They had supposed that this was 
 perfect and entire. They were not, therefore, prepared 
 to see it come forth again ; with increased powers of 
 destruction. And so, they "shall wonder" when they 
 behold it. And well they might. They have no prin- 
 ciples on which to account for it. The progress of 
 liberal ideas, they had thought, broke its sceptre ; and 
 pulled down its throne ; and dug its grave. They had 
 not counted the part which the word of Grod assigned 
 it. And so, when it re-appears, in its eighth form, 
 under the sway of a single king or imperial chief: 
 "full of names of blasphemy" i. e., preeminently 
 wicked in its claims and acts ; "scarlet-coloured" i. e., 
 steeped and dyed in blood : men shall wonder at it 
 with great wonder. In the midst of the persecution 
 and bloodshed, which it will then occasion, its destruc- 
 tion will be complete. The Stone out of the moun- 
 tain will smite the image; in connection with which 
 it willbe working. Christ will appear. For His own 
 hand the stroke of judgment is reserved. The power 
 that had assumed to sit in His place; and worn His 
 loftiest titles ; and blasphemed His name ; and perse- 
 cuted His saints ; is fitly reserved for the destruction 
 which He, alone, can visit upon it. 
 
 Of this, the proof is plain. Of this power this 
 Man of Sin it is expressly written: "Whom the 
 Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth; 
 and shall destroy with, the brightness of His coming ;" 
 i. e., with the epiphany, or manifestation of His pre- 
 10* 
 
114 NAME, BABYLON, 
 
 sence. 2 Thess. ii. 8. And so, in Rev. xix., we read, 
 that, when He whose name is the "Word of God," 
 "King of kings and Lord of lords," and in whose 
 train all the armies which are in Heaven sweep by ; 
 when He goeth forth, it is for the destruction of "the 
 the beast and the kings of the earth, and their armies, 
 gathered together to make war, against Him." (Verse 
 19.) And so, in the vision, now before us. The beast 
 will not be slain and its body given to the devouring 
 flame; until the Ancient of Days shall come; and 
 execute the predicted judgment upon it. Dan. vii. 
 9-11. 
 
 What, then, are we to understand by the judgment 
 spoken of in the text ? 
 
 Did you ever reflect on the name, given by St. 
 John, to the Papal supremacy? It is: "Mystery; 
 Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abo- 
 minations of the Earth." Rev. xvii. 5. Why, now, 
 was this name given? Why it was to be termed 
 "Mystery" is plain enough. But, why Babylon? 
 Clearly, because of the analogies, or strong points 
 of resemblance between them. Babylon was an idola- 
 trous nation. And so is this. Was there ever de- 
 vised a system of idolatry, so subtle and so cunning? 
 From the first, when the Pantheon, the temple of 
 all the gods of Pagan Rome, was converted into a 
 Christian church; and the statues of Jupiter and 
 Venus baptized as Peter and the Virgin Mary; from 
 this point all through its history, it 'has been, and is, 
 to-day, a system of idolatrous worship.* 
 
 * It may not, perhaps, be generally known, how strong are the 
 points of resemblance between the ceremonials of the Romish 
 
WHY GIVEN. 
 
 Babylon was distinguished for its wea 
 and splendour. And beyond all other governments, 
 the Papacy has been " abundant in treasure." 
 
 Babylon was a persecuting power. And the spirit- 
 ual Babylon has been " drunk with the blood of the 
 saints." "By the rivers of Babylon" the captive 
 people of God "sat down and wept." And, for long 
 ages the Church of God has been a captive to the 
 power of her spiritual ante-type. 
 
 A definite period was assigned to ancient Babylon; 
 and the precise time and mode of its overthrow pointed 
 out. And so, through a fore-appointed period, the 
 spiritual Babylon is to exist ; and to come to its end 
 in its fore-appointed way. 
 
 Because of the blood, which it delighted to shed, 
 Babylon of old was to be visited with wasting and 
 destruction. And so of spiritual Babylon, it is writ- 
 ten, that she "came in remembrance before God, to 
 give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of 
 His wrath." Rev. xvi. 19. Retribution shall over- 
 Church and those of the Buddhist forms of worship. A traveller 
 in Japan writes home as follows: "Two well-built Buddhist tem- 
 ples were prominent in the town. Some of our party, visiting 
 these, came back saying they seemed to have been in a Roman 
 Catholic church ; the dress of the priests, the images, the altar and 
 the services, were so much alike! They thought the priest in- 
 tended to pray for them, and bestow his blessing. The resem- 
 blance has often struck me; and it seems inevitable, that one ritual 
 was copied from the other. The Roman Catholics themselves, 
 when they were here, saw and confessed the resemblance. They 
 escaped the unpleasant imputation of having borrowed their cere- 
 monial from the Pagans; or, at least, attempted to do it, by 
 charging the devil with having stolen the Roman Catholic ritual, 
 and translated it into Japanese." Calendar. 
 
116 REASONS OF THE NAME. 
 
 take her. According as she hath done; it shall be 
 done unto her. 
 
 To denote how utter and irretrievable was to be the 
 ruin that should overtake Babylon, the prophet was 
 commanded as follows: "And it shall come to pass, 
 when thou hast made an end of reading this book, 
 that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the 
 midst of Euphrates : and thou shalt say, Thus shall 
 Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I 
 will bring upon her/' Jer. li. 63-4. And the fore- 
 shadowed doom of mystical Babylon is: "And a 
 mighty angel took up a great mill-stone, and cast it 
 into the sea, saying, Thus, with violence, shall that 
 great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be 
 found no more at all. 11 Rev. xviii. 21. And thus, we 
 might run out the parallel; and find, in doing so, an 
 an answer to the question concerning the judgment 
 spoken of in the text. 
 
 When the prescribed period of Babylon's suprem- 
 acy was filled; it did not at once come to an end. It 
 was captured by Cyrus ; as foretold. But, as a tribu- 
 tary power, it still existed. Change after change 
 swept over it. The sinews of its strength were cut. 
 Wasting and desolation brooded over it; until the 
 wild beast of the forest howled in its pleasant places, 
 and the consuming curse destroyed it from the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 When Cyrus took the city, it was not by force of 
 arms. He did not batter down its mighty walls; nor 
 break through its gates of brass. He tried this. But 
 for three years he was powerless before it. He could ' 
 make no impression upon it. They laughed him to 
 
MODE OF ITS CAPTURE. 117 
 
 scorn. The man and the object of his power were 
 face to face. God in His providence had brought 
 them together. But he was seeking, in a way not 
 appointed, to conquer it. The "sure word of pro- 
 phecy " withstood him. In the path pointed out he 
 must tread. He knew nothing of it. But when force 
 availed not; another plan was suggested. The river 
 Euphrates ran through the city. If he could turn 
 the stream into another channel; he might enter 
 through its bed. He did so. And, doing so, the city 
 became an easy prey. It fell, without a struggle, into 
 his hands. And so, when history tells the tale ; the 
 fact comes out, that a heathen conqueror, ignorant of 
 the prediction, took the city in the precise way that 
 the prophet had pointed out; i. e., by turning aside 
 and drying the Euphrates ! 
 
 We may look, then, for something of a similar kind 
 in the judgment on the spiritual Babylon. And, so 
 the mission of the angel of the sixth vial, is, to pour 
 it out "on the great river Euphrates: and the water 
 thereof was dried up." Rev. xvi. 12. 
 
 But what does this mean ? How are we to interpret 
 this symbol? Beyond doubt, the allusion is to the 
 facts attending the taking of the literal Babylon. 
 Something, which corresponds to those facts, shall 
 take place in the judgment of the symbolic Babylon. 
 As Babylon of old represents the kingdom of the 
 little horn, or the Papal Supremacy; so there must 
 be something which sustains to it the same relation 
 which the literal river did to the literal city. And 
 this is to be dried up, as was that river; during the 
 judgment of the sixth vial. What, then, is this? 
 
118 GENERAL LAW 
 
 And now, in order to answer this question, I must 
 ask you to accompany me in what, perhaps, you may 
 deem a digression; but what is, indeed, only to pre- 
 pare the way for the answer desired. 
 
 We are to bear in mind that we are living under 
 the seventh vial. Rev. xvi. 17. Of this, I suppose, 
 the proof is very exact and full. But, notwithstand- 
 ing this, the sixth is still being poured out. And this 
 is no strange thing. 
 
 The mode of God's procedure in the natural world, 
 is strikingly similar to that in the spiritual. When 
 the seasons follow each other; how do they do it? 
 Not suddenly, and in all their power. They send 
 their influence into each other. One approaches, as 
 the other departs gradually. So summer follows 
 spring ; and autumn succeeds to summer ; and winter, 
 hand in hand with autumn, comes on the stage. 
 
 So it is in the spiritual world. One dispensation is 
 always introduced before the preceding one disap- 
 pears. Judaism did not cease when Christ came; nor 
 yet when he was crucified; nor yet when the Spirit 
 was poured out. For a time, the old and new dispen- 
 sation Judaism and Christianity existed together. 
 And so with the series of judgments, symbolized by 
 the seven seals, and seven trumpets, and seven vials. 
 They have been, and they will be, fulfilled; even as 
 latitudes are distributed on the earth's surface. On 
 the map, we represent where one degree ends and 
 another begins. But, on the earth's surface, we find 
 no corresponding lines. North and south are not so 
 divided, as that, when you pass from the one to the 
 other, you at once feel the difference. They mingle. 
 
OP GOD J S KINGDOM. 119 
 
 The influence of the one enters into and pervades the 
 other. Each receives each imparts, something. You 
 pass not from the one to the other at a bound. It is 
 a thing of progress and degrees. At its beginning, 
 each is affected by that which went before it; and 
 sends its influence into that which follows it. And so, 
 though we are living under the seventh vial, we are, 
 also, receiving the influence of the sixth; even as the 
 kingdom of the little horn will exist for a space, after 
 the twelve hundred and sixty years are ended. 
 
 The sixth vial, then, was to be poured out on "the 
 great river Euphrates" which was to be dried up. 
 Now, what does this mean? The literal Babylon was 
 taken, by the turning aside i. e., the drying up of 
 the literal river. But what does this symbolize, con- 
 cerning the spiritual Babylon? What means "the 
 great river Euphrates," when it is spoken of? There 
 must be no doubt, as to the answer. We cannot take 
 a single step in this argument, without the express 
 warrant of the book of God. And that warrant is 
 just at hand. 
 
 "And the waters which thou sawest, where the 
 whore sitteth, are peoples and multitudes and nations 
 and tongues." Rev. xvii. 15. Now, nothing could be 
 more express than this. And, as the river Euphrates 
 was the source of the wealth and power of the literal 
 Babylon; so is the symbolic river i. e., multitudes 
 of people to the mystical Babylon. As the one bore 
 upon its bosom, in many forms, the wealth of the 
 nations to the great Mistress of the World; so has 
 the other poured the treasures of the nations into the 
 lap of the " Mother of harlots." And, as the turning 
 
120 THE MYSTIC EUPHRATES; 
 
 aside or drying up, of this stream, was the means by 
 which Babylon was taken; so the drying up of the 
 symbolic river i. e., the turning aside of peoples and 
 nations from their allegiance to the Church of Rome 
 shall be a part of the judgment of which the text 
 speaks. The one made the literal, and the other will 
 make the spiritual, Babylon ; a captive and tributary 
 power. 
 
 What facts, now, correspond with this ? Of course, 
 the broad and well-established one, of the turning 
 aside of vast masses of people, in different nations, 
 from their allegiance to the Church of Rome. This is 
 the beginning of the drying up of the mystic Eu- 
 phrates. You may see it on the Continent, wherever 
 you turn. In Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, in Austria, 
 in Sardinia, in France, in Ireland, in Germany; in 
 short, in any country of the ten kingdoms, you meet 
 with abundant evidences of it. Clearly and unmis- 
 takably, you may look on the turning aside, from the 
 spiritual Babylon, of the waters of the great river, 
 from which her wealth and power were derived ! Why, 
 in the last twenty years, there have been more than 
 forty thousand conversions from that church in West 
 Ireland, alone. I am speaking of open separations 
 from it. And an authority, which is indisputable, 
 states, that here, that number of people have sepa- 
 rated themselves from the communion of that church. 
 Out of thirty-six millions of souls in France, not 
 more than two millions attend confession. Within 
 the last fifty years, Paris has doubled its popula- 
 tion. It had then, five thousand priests. Now, 
 with twice that number of inhabitants, it has only 
 
DRYING UP OP. 121 
 
 eight hundred!* It is true, of course, that large 
 numbers, both of priests and people, are trans- 
 ferred to our own land. But then, it is also true, 
 that their places are not filled at home. The de- 
 crease is still, as these figures show. While of 
 those who come to our own land, nearly all in the 
 second generation, become Protestants. The convents 
 and nunneries in Spain are now suppressed; while, 
 within the same period, they numbered fifty-three 
 thousand nuns. In Tuscany, ten years ago, there 
 were eight thousand nuns. Now, there is not more 
 than one-fourth of that number. In short, go to any 
 nation or capital, among the ten kingdoms, and you 
 will find evidences of the same process, plainly before 
 you. The renunciation may not, always, be open. 
 But the churches are deserted. Their services are 
 derided. The confessional is, comparatively, empty; 
 and the influence of the priests is rapidly dwindling 
 away.f And this will continue, until this vial is fully 
 poured out, and the symbolic Euphrates dried up; 
 i. e., until the people of the Church of Rome are 
 turned from her, and the sources of her wealth and 
 her power taken away. 
 
 But this is not all. The nations i. e., the ten 
 
 * These statements are made on the authority of Rev. Mr. Allies, 
 a pervert to Rome, from the Church of England. 
 
 f What this is, in Rome, the following incident may show. 
 " We are glad to see you here, General," said one of the Cardinals, 
 to an officer in command of the French troops. "For, if you were 
 to go to-day, we must be off to-morrow." 
 
 " Pardon me," said the Frenchman. " But, if you will take my 
 advice, you will take care to go the day before us." "News of the 
 Churches," Jan. 1859. 
 
 11 
 
122 DESOLATION OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 kingdoms shall turn against the power they have so 
 long sustained. St. John represents it as a woman 
 i. e., an ecclesiastical power riding on the ten-horned 
 beast. In other words, ruling, and governing, and 
 directing the kingdoms. But they "shall hate her, and 
 make her desolate;" i. e., strip her of her appliances 
 of wealth and power. They shall "eat her flesh;" i. e., 
 consume her substance. Her convents shall be sup- 
 pressed. Her monasteries destroyed. Her goods, 
 confiscated. Her possessions torn from her. Her 
 churches shall be made bare ; and all the sources of 
 her wealth, consumed. They shall "burn her with 
 fire;" i. e., destroy every mark of her power; and 
 every token of her existence. The Papacy will perish 
 by some great convulsion in the political world; at the 
 end of the twelve hundred and sixty years. But that 
 let me repeat will not be its final destruction. It 
 will come forth from the abyss, in a modified form of 
 life. Ten subordinate chiefs probably elective 
 will take their place. These will give their strength 
 to one kingly or imperial head ; by whom the power 
 of the beast is to be wielded. This is the eighth form 
 under which its kingly authority will have been exer- 
 cised. And in this form, " these" i. e., this one chief, 
 and his ten subordinates "shall make war with the 
 Lamb; and the Lamb shall overcome them." 
 
 This is spoken of the kingdoms and nations in the 
 territory of the ten-horned beast. There is not one 
 of them, that shall not be overthrown. Not one, 
 that does not stand sealed and certified to destruction : 
 i. e., to destruction as a nation. We must, therefore, 
 look for great commotions while this judgment is going 
 
JUDGMENTS. 123 
 
 on. And so it will be. The entire frame-work of 
 society shall be shaken to pieces. And that you may 
 realize the tremendous sweep of these disasters ; read 
 Jeremiah, xxv. 15-34. In order to prefigure the judg- 
 ments that were to come upon the earth, the prophet was 
 commanded to take a wine-cup, and make the nations 
 drink. They were all to drink. And, after naming 
 them, he sums them all up in these words : " And all 
 the kings of the earth, far and near, one with another, 
 and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the 
 face of the earth ; and the king of Sheshach shall 
 drink after them. 
 
 "Therefore, thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith 
 the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Drink ye and 
 be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, 
 because of the sword which I will send among you. 
 
 "And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at 
 thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, 
 Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: Ye shall certainly 
 drink. ..... For I will call for a sword upon 
 
 all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of 
 Hosts." 
 
 Now, this state of things, in which the nations shall 
 experience desolating judgments, is to go on, deepen- 
 ing until the end. "Nation shall rise against nation." 
 There shall be on the earth i. e., on all the earth 
 "distress of nations; with perplexity." Wars, and 
 rumours of wars, shall prevail. "Every sceptre shall 
 break, in the hand of him who holds it. Every crown 
 shall tumble from the brow of him who wears it. The 
 mightiest armies shall be utterly routed; and the 
 greatest navies brought to nought. Worlds shall not 
 
124 JUDGMENTS, PROGRESS OF. 
 
 rush on each other, and be no more; but thrones and 
 magistracies will. Matter will not wreck and vanish ; 
 but all political combinations will. The great orbs of 
 immensity shall not be annihilated. But all whom 
 those orbs symbolize, will; for God will "break in 
 pieces, and consume all these kingdoms." (The Last 
 Times, p. 170.) 
 
 And what is this, but the fulfilment of the declara- 
 tion, "I will overturn, overturn, overturn"? And this 
 overturning will not only affect governments. It will 
 reach out to, and destroy all combinations. Every 
 institution on earth, will totter. Every organization, 
 which man has made, will fall. Impatience of re- 
 straint will brook no controul. Principles, the most 
 worthy, will be scouted. Restraints, the most salu- 
 tary, will be cast off. A maddened desire for reform, 
 will reign everywhere. And, amidst the crash of 
 falling thrones; and the outbreaks of political com- 
 motions ; and the overturning of kingdoms ; and the 
 sundering of every tie, that should hold all bodies of 
 men, in their proper orbit ; the judgment of the king- 
 dom of the little horn, will go on to the end. 
 
 And while all this is progressing, men will not yet 
 understand. They will not read these things aright. 
 The most careless will be arrested by them. Men of 
 thought will tremble at the convulsions going on 
 around them. The political, and moral, and religious 
 world, will be shaken by the powers, that are at work 
 within them; as the ground is by the earthquake. 
 u Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the 
 heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry 
 land." Hag. ii. 6. That is to say, all ecclesiastical 
 
FALSELY EXPLAINED. 125 
 
 organizations; all civil governments; and all nations 
 or masses of people, shall share in the convulsions of 
 the latter times. Combinations, of the most gigantic 
 form, will be made, to carry out the schemes of the 
 ambitious and unprincipled men in power. But the 
 mass of men will not understand. They will call it, 
 the progress of liberal ideas; the uprising of the down- 
 trodden masses; the heralds of glorious reform. And 
 the Church must be reformed. And the State must 
 be reformed. And everything must be reformed, to 
 suit the enlarged ideas of an age, set free from the 
 childish restraints of superstition and priestly bondage. 
 Thus men will reason. A thousand causes will be 
 assigned. But they will not hit the true one. A 
 thousand sources of information will be explored. But 
 the book of God will be passed by, in silent contempt. 
 Men will not dream of finding in it, the true causes of 
 " those things that are coming on the earth." And 
 men will reason about them. And philosophers explain 
 them. And legislators tell us, that the world has been 
 governed too much. And none, but a faithful few, 
 will be awake to the real state of the case. And their 
 brethren in the Church will deride them ; and pity 
 them for their strange infatuation. "As a snare, shall 
 it come on all them, that dwell on the face of the 
 whole earth." As the bird is moving confidently and 
 carelessly around ; it thinks not of the snare spread 
 for its feet. It sees it, indeed. But it takes it not 
 for what it is; until, suddenly, it closes on the cap- 
 tive. So it will be, in the end. Men will live on, in 
 the midst of these things. But they will mistake their 
 real character. Every mark will be misunderstood. 
 
 11* 
 
126 WARNINGS AND SIGNS, NEGLECTED. 
 
 Every warning, neglected. Every sign, misinter- 
 preted. They will deceive themselves through it all. 
 The judgment will go on. The last great combination 
 will be made, under the false Prophet and the Beast 
 out of the bottomless pit ; i. e., in its revived state, or 
 eighth head, after the wasting of which we have been 
 speaking. And the terrific scenes so plainly described 
 in the word of God, will be acted out. And still, men 
 will not believe. And business and pleasure, and vice 
 and folly, and crime, will lure their followers on ; till 
 the shadow falls on the appointed hour, on the dial- 
 plate of time; and "sudden destruction come upon 
 them, as travail on a woman with child ; and they shall 
 not escape!" 
 
 We learn from this subject: 
 
 a. How strong is the delusion, which unbelief brings 
 upon the souls of men. It has an excuse for every 
 act of wrong. A reason, against every command. A 
 plea of evasion, for every duty. So it has always 
 been. So it was in the time of the flood. For one 
 hundred and twenty years, men were warned of its 
 coming. But they would not believe. They could 
 give the most plausible reasons against such an event. 
 And Noah built the ark ; and told them of the coming 
 storm. But they would not believe. It was unreason- 
 able. Was there ever such a ridiculous tale invented, 
 as that of a general flood? Weak women might be 
 alarmed by it. It might do, to frighten children with. 
 But men, intelligent men, know better than to credit 
 it. And the ark was finished. And the animals 
 mysteriously drawn from the forest and dell and plain 
 enter it in peace. And will they not yet believe ? 
 
PRACTICAL LESSONS. 127 
 
 No. They scoff at this sign, too. Again, they look, 
 and see Noah and his family enter ; and the door is 
 closed upon them. But not even now, will they 
 believe. And through the seven days more, which a 
 long suffering God granted them, they hold on to their 
 unbelief. They see nothing, in all this, which moves 
 them to consider. Unbelief can resist, or laugh at, or 
 explain it all. " %Jiey knew not until the flood came, 
 and took them all away. So shall also, the coming of 
 the Son of Man, be." 
 
 So it was in the time of our Lord. When He fore- 
 told the fearful array of judgments, that were about 
 to enclose them; it was, because they knew "not the 
 time of their visitation. 1 ' They might have known it. 
 The marks and signs of the prophetic word, were plain 
 enough. The answering "signs of the times," were 
 plain enough. Either the Messiah must then appear ; 
 or their Scriptures were hopelessly false. Everything 
 proclaimed that as the time, in which Shiloh should 
 come. And prophecy laid its scroll at the feet of 
 Jesus of Nazareth. But still they would not believe. 
 And warnings came about them. And invitations of 
 mercy were addressed to them. And judgment 
 knocked at their door. But they would not believe. 
 And for eighteen hundred years, they have been 
 homeless wanderers on the face of the earth living 
 monuments of the truth of that Word, they so wantonly 
 despised. 
 
 So it will be in the end. Every event of the pro- 
 phetic word will be accomplished. Steadily, all will 
 advance. One after another, the predicted signs will 
 appear. In mute procession they will take their place 
 
128 CONCLUSION. 
 
 on the stage of action : and work out their appointed 
 ends. But men will not believe. They will misinter- 
 pret all. And, in the very midst of the events that 
 the word of God predicts, they will deny the conclu- 
 sion to which they lead ! 
 
 b. Sow impressively this subject speaks to us our 
 Lord's warning Watch and pray : for ye know not 
 when the time is ! " Watch" lest it come upon you 
 as a thief: and find you unprepared. " Watch" 
 because the lamps of many will be gone out. Yours 
 may be of the number. " Watch," that it be not. 
 And, while you watch, "pray;" lest a spirit of world- 
 liness come upon you ; and the midnight cry find you 
 sleeping at your post. In "a little while," all these 
 things will have come to pass. The time draweth 
 nigh. 0! be you sure that, when it comes, you 
 may 
 
 " Beneath His cross, behold the day, 
 When heaven and earth shall pass away; 
 And thus prepare to meet Him!" 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 AND the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the king- 
 dom, under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the 
 saints of the Most High ; whose kingdom is an everlasting king- 
 dom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him. DAN. vii. 27. 
 
 THE subject which these words bring before us is, of 
 course, the Kingdom which the Grod of Heaven is to 
 set up. And, that we may attain to clear and com- 
 prehensive views concerning it, I propose to treat it 
 under the following heads : 
 
 I. What are we to understand by this kingdom ? 
 
 II. The locality of it ? 
 
 III. The state of the earth, as the seat of this king- 
 dom? 
 
 IV. The time and manner of its setting up : and 
 
 V. The subjects and officers of it: including its 
 greatness and duration. 
 
 And in the progress of this examination, I shall 
 ask you, brethren, to hear me patiently; to scan, 
 narrowly, the proofs submitted to you; and then, 
 form your conclusions in the light of the word of God. 
 I have nothing more to ask. My duty is done, when 
 I have fully made known to you all the counsel of 
 God concerning it. You are responsible for your 
 
130 REQUIREMENTS OF PROPHECY 
 
 reception of it. Each one of you must answer for 
 yourself. What others hold, or teach or deny, will be 
 no plea for you. God's truth, as you receive it or 
 reject it, is to tell on your own spiritual growth; and 
 be the measure of your eternal state. If it is not the 
 truth of God which I proclaim ; mine will be a fearful 
 account. And if it is, and you reject it; no less fear- 
 ful will be yours. Let us come, then, to this great 
 theme, in an humble and prayerful spirit. Let us, 
 simply, desire to know, what the truth concerning it 
 is; and then, with whole-hearted earnestness, follow 
 wherever it leads us. 
 
 1. What are we to understand by this kingdom? 
 Now, I submit to you, that it would be quite impos- 
 sible for any man to entertain a moment's doubt con- 
 cerning this question; were he to be guided simply by 
 the course of the prophetic narrative. He would see, 
 that the prophet foretold the rise and fall of four, 
 distinct and literal, kingdoms, of universal dominion. 
 He would see, I mean, that they were real kings; 
 holding sway over real people; dwelling in real and 
 literal lands. He would see, that the first was to be 
 subverted by the second; that the second would be 
 overturned by the third ; and that the third was to go 
 down before the power of the fourth. He would see, 
 moreover, that this was to be broken into ten separate 
 kingdoms: in the midst of which another diverse 
 from all the rest was to arise; and before which, 
 three of the first ten, were to be plucked up by the 
 roots. He would then, find, that these kingdoms, so 
 broken, were to exist even until the time of the end. 
 
 All these requirements of the prophecy, he would 
 
AS TO THIS KINGDOM. 131 
 
 find minutely and fully carried out in the book of 
 history. Not one is wanting. In the simple literality 
 of absolute facts, all received an absolute fulfilment. 
 When, therefore, he read, in the same prophecy, that, 
 at an appointed time, the God of heaven was to set 
 up a kingdom, which was to break in pieces all other 
 kingdoms; fill the whole earth, and last for ever; 
 could he doubt as to what was meant by that king- 
 dom? Could he fail to understand, I mean, that it 
 was to be an absolute and literal kingdom. The first 
 four were so. One after another they rose; literal 
 kingdoms on the earth's surface. Each despoiled the 
 one going before it, of its power; and gained a 
 mightier dominion. Can the fifth be aught else than 
 an absolute and literal kingdom too? No. He could 
 not come to any other conclusion. From the pro- 
 phetic narrative, no other conclusion could be formed. 
 If language requires anything, and justifies anything, 
 as a deduction from it, the language of this prophecy 
 requires and justifies this. Guided by it, this conclu- 
 sion is inevitable. It is plain reasoning ; from which, 
 as it seems to me, no man can get away. 
 
 But then, it is quite certain, that other conclusions 
 have been formed. How is this? What account 
 shall we give of it ? Simply this. Other passages 
 have been appealed to, in support of the idea, that 
 the kingdom of God, is simply a spiritual kingdom. 
 
 Is, then, the Bible a book whose teachings in one 
 part, can be arrayed against those in another? No. 
 Nothing can possibly be further from the truth. 
 The Bible is one. Its teachings are one. It is one, 
 in the great scheme which it unfolds. And I desire 
 
132 GOD'S BOOK is ONE. 
 
 here, brethren, to affirm this principle, That no inter- 
 pretation can be accepted as the true one, which does 
 not build upon, and unite, all the passages which bear 
 upon a given theme. To this test, let every doctrine 
 be brought. Nothing but the truth can sustain it. 
 And nothing, which sustains it, can fail to be truth. 
 A key may pass through many wards of a lock. Yet, 
 if there is but one which it cannot pass, you say, at 
 once, It is not the key for that lock. You gain no- 
 thing by the wards which it passes. It does not reach 
 the bolt. You open not the door by means of it. So, 
 a principle of interpretation may pass through the 
 wards of many passages. But the single one, which 
 opposes it, shows its true character. It is not the 
 key to the truth. The true doctrine of the word, 
 like the bolt of the lock, moves not before it. The 
 door of the truth opens not. The treasures within, 
 are shut up from you. You do not reach them. They 
 are, to you, as though they were not. It may be an 
 interpretation supported by great names. This single 
 test is decisive against it. Come whence it may sup- 
 port it who will it is false. God's book is one. No 
 one part contradicts, or fails to harmonize with, all 
 other parts. They all agree. It is one, as the light 
 of day is one. When you decompose a sunbeam, 
 some men might say, " These colours are very beauti- 
 ful. But you can never unite them in one." You 
 would smile at the man's ignorance, as, with a lens, 
 you collected all the several rays together, and said; 
 " See how these different colours unite, to reproduce 
 the light!" 
 
 Now, just what the lens does, to the different 
 
SPIRITUAL KINGDOM, WHAT? 
 
 coloured rays, which make up the sun's light; a true 
 principle of interpretation does, to the different parts 
 of the word of God. It unites them all, in the sun- 
 light of God's truth. 
 
 But it will be asked, Are there not passages which 
 speak of the kingdom of God, as a spiritual kingdom ? 
 Of course, there are. It would be a sad and dreary 
 thing, for the believer, were it not so. 
 
 By a spiritual kingdom, we understand the entire 
 subjection of man's spirit to the will of God. It is a 
 reign in the hearts of His people. And who can 
 doubt, that the Bible teaches this ? But, then, this is 
 not all. Man's spirit is not man. And, ruling in the 
 hearts of His people, is not the full idea of the king- 
 dom of God. The redemption, wrought out by Jesus 
 Christ, takes in the whole man. Body and soul alike, 
 are to share it. It is to be a perfected redemption ; 
 i. e., a redemption, taking in the entire being of those 
 who share it. No part of their nature is to be shut 
 out from it. Who, without the deepest pain, could 
 contemplate the thought, that the body, the com- 
 panion of the spirit, through all life's pilgrimage, 
 should be severed from it at death ; to be re-united no 
 more? The body, thus " fearfully and wonderfully 
 made," and bearing at first, the impress of the image 
 of God; is not destined to destruction. I read the 
 pledge of its entire and glorious renovation, in the 
 humanity of Him, who was, "God, manifest in the 
 flesh." It is a wondrous display of God's wisdom 
 and power and skill. Sin has invaded it. It has 
 marred its fair proportions. And blunted its powers; 
 and spread through all its wondrous mechanism, the 
 
 12 
 
134 MAN'S ENTIRE NATURE 
 
 witnesses of its fall. Sickness attacks it. Death 
 seizes upon it. But shall it be left, in its dark 
 domain? Nay. If like the leprous house, it must he 
 taken down: it is only, that it may be reared again; 
 in glory surpassing its first estate. It lies in the 
 tomb. But it is not to abide there for ever. The eye 
 of the All-Seeing One watches over it. The power 
 of the Almighty One is around it. It shall rise 
 again. At the appointed time, it shall awake from 
 its slumbers; and come forth, in the loveliness of a 
 new creation. Hence, the shout of joy, which shall 
 go up, when the spirits of God's ransomed ones are 
 re-united to the body. A body, whose outward glory, 
 shall be a fitting accompaniment, to the powers of the 
 spirit within. Hence, the apostle prays, that, "your 
 whole spirit and soul and body, be preserved blame- 
 less, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 Hence, too, in our Communion Office, the prayer of 
 the officiating minister is, "The body of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, which was given for you, preserve your 
 body and soul unto everlasting life." Aye, brethren, 
 it is a glorious truth, that our entire nature is to share 
 the redemption wrought out by Jesus Christ. It is 
 all the purchase of His blood. And, hence, a re- 
 deemed soul, in a redeemed and glorified body, forms 
 the full idea of a subject of the kingdom of God! 
 Everything short of this, is fragmentary,- imperfect, 
 unscriptural. 
 
 When, therefore, I read that, u God hath delivered 
 us from the power of darkness, and translated us 
 into the kingdom of His dear Son," (Col. i. 13,) I 
 bless Him, for that glorious truth. I thank and 
 
TO BE REDEEMED. 135 
 
 praise Him, for every evidence, that men may become 
 subjects of His spiritual kingdom. But, then, that is 
 not all the truth, I read again: "Then shall the 
 righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of 
 their Father." Matt. xiii. 43. And that, also, is 
 true. Neither passage, by itself, gives the entire 
 truth. Both together do. And is there any clashing 
 between them? Just as much as there is, between 
 the blossoms of spring, and the fruits of autumn. 
 The one is the preparation for the other. 
 
 It is a beautiful sight, to see the trees of the orchard 
 covered over with the blossoms of spring. But it is 
 something more beautiful still, to see those same trees 
 laden with the ripe and glowing fruits of the closing 
 year. So, it is a beautiful sight, to see the budding 
 tokens of God's grace in the spiritual affections and 
 holy lives of his people. But, ! it is to be count- 
 ed more beautiful and glorious, far, to witness the 
 gathering in of the fruits of redeeming love ; in the 
 visible setting up of the kingdom of our Lord, and of 
 His Christ! 
 
 So, the Church of Christ, on earth, or if you like 
 the title better His spiritual reign in the hearts of his 
 people is, just, a preparation for entrance to his king- 
 dom. It is not that kingdom. You may not put it in 
 the place of that kingdom. Can you put the blossom in 
 the place of the ripened fruit ? Can you make the one a 
 substitute for the other? Never ! It is only a prepara- 
 tion. You cannot make it more. You dare not make it 
 less. There is no such thing as reaching the glory of 
 the kingdom of God, save by membership in the Church 
 of God; i. e., by a saving reception, in the heart, of 
 
136 KINGDOM OP HEAVEN, 
 
 "the truth as it is Jesus." You might, as well, hope 
 to pluck the fruits of autumn from a tree that had not 
 borne the blossoms of spring. Hence ; the Gospel is 
 called, " The Gospel of the Kingdom" Matt, iv .23 ; 
 ix. 35 ; xxiv. 14. It is not that kingdom. It is sent 
 to open the way into it : to prepare us for it. And, 
 therefore, it is The Grospel or the good news of that 
 kingdom. And so, the people of God are called, "heirs 
 of the kingdom/' They have not yet attained to it. 
 It is still future. The title to it is theirs. But they 
 have not entered on its possession. 
 
 The kingdom of God, then, is just the complement 
 the fulness of all that God designs to do for His 
 people. His spiritual reign, in their hearts, is the 
 beginning of it. His kingdom, set up, in " the new 
 heavens and new earth," is the conclusion of it ; when 
 the ransomed souls of His people, united to ransomed 
 and glorified bodies, shall be the willing subjects of 
 His reign; in a universe from which sin is banished, 
 for ever ! I submit to you, brethren, you can make 
 nothing else out of it. Claim what you will for its 
 spiritual aspect: there is a sense in which that does 
 not express the fulness of its meaning. There are 
 passages and many of them which lead you out, 
 into a wider, and more exalted, and more glorious 
 range of truth, than it can possibly express. 
 
 Of course, it must be granted, that the phrase, " The 
 kingdom of heaven" is used in a variety of connec- 
 tions. I suppose, however, they may all be reduced 
 to two; i. e., 
 
 I. The kingdom, which is yet to be set up on the 
 earth: and 
 
MEANING OF. 137 
 
 II. Some state or instrument of preparation for it. 
 I think you will find no other. And, bearing this dis- 
 tinction in mind, we shall encounter no great difficulty 
 in determining the sense of the phrase, wherever it 
 occurs. In one or two passages, its meaning may be 
 doubtful.* But, then, were it so in many, that could 
 not outweigh a single instance in which its meaning is 
 strongly and clearly defined. 
 
 * One of these is: " Behold, the kingdom of God is within you" 
 Luke xvii. 21. Now, if by this, our Lord meant, in their hearts, 
 it would be a very clear example of its spiritual signification. But, 
 does it mean that ? The proof seems very clear, that it does not. 
 Who were they to whom these words were spoken ? Pharisees ; 
 of whom He affirmed, that they were "hypocrites;" whose hearts, 
 like dead mens' graves, were full of all uncleanness. They were 
 children of hell; they were serpents; a generation of vipers, of whom 
 He asked, "How can ye escape the damnation of hell?" 
 
 Now, can we suppose that our Lord meant to affirm of such men 
 as these, that the kingdom of God was in their hearts ? We must 
 all feel that the supposition would be an outrage. But, if we adopt 
 the marginal reading; and say, the kingdom of God is "among 
 you :" we have a very different meaning. Most probably, that is 
 the true sense. 
 
 The other passage is, " There be some standing here, who shall 
 not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in His king- 
 dom" Matt. xvi. 28. To what event does this refer? Clearly, not 
 to the destruction of Jerusalem. It is difficult to understand how 
 that interpretation ever gained currency in the Church. What was 
 there in a heathen army to symbolize the coming of the Son of 
 God ? And then, it is absolutely destitute of Scripture foundation. 
 But, admit the transfiguration to be a type, or setting forth of the 
 glory of His second coining ; and a clear and radiant light invests 
 the passage. And St. Peter manifestly takes this view. 2 Pet. i. 
 16-20. He uses the one event to set forth the other. The sure 
 word of prophecy attests that coming. And the transfiguration 
 was a setting forth of its character. Christ in glory, and His risen 
 saints with Him ; what is this, but His coming and His kingdom ? 
 
 12* 
 
138 THE BIBLE, ONE: 
 
 Let me repeat. The Bible is one. Its scheme is 
 "at unity with himself." It has one, great, central 
 thought. And this, it follows out, in every part. 
 That thought is, The restoration of man from the con- 
 sequences of his fall. Of this, it never loses sight. 
 The scene may change; but this is still the central 
 figure. It may not always be equally visible. But 
 it is always the great design; directing alike its 
 silence and its speech. It informs every part. And 
 breathes in every page. And leads us on, through 
 changing scenes and times and laws ; and the rise and 
 fall of empires ; until it bids us rest in the full "attain- 
 ment of its glorious end! It sets man before us, 
 made in the image of God. Through all the sad his- 
 tory of his fall it follows him; till it sets him before 
 us again, with that image fully reproduced within 
 him. From Genesis to Revelation, the march of 
 truth returns, like a circle, upon itself. It brings us 
 back to the point of beginning. At first, man is sin- 
 less by creation. At last he is so, as the result of a 
 perfected redemption. In Genesis, he stands by the 
 tree of life ; from which, alas, he is speedily driven 
 out. In Revelation, he stands there again ; but then, 
 it is to go out no more. 
 
 And yet, there is advance in this unity of plan. 
 The paradise of the beginning, is the paradise also of 
 the end; while yet, there are added to it the statelier 
 proportions of the city and kingdom of our God ! 
 Man is merely sinless, in the one. He is incapable of 
 sinning, in the other. And that, not by the power of 
 compulsion; but as the result of a finished redemp- 
 tion. When the precious metal is once wholly puri- 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 fied, the dross gathers not in it, or around it, again. 
 It is pure gold for ever. So, when redemption by the 
 blood of Jesus has run its course; the soul, that 
 shares it, shall contract the defilement of sin no more. 
 The Bible opens with man exercising dominion over 
 all the works of God. It closes with the same beau- 
 teous fact. But, it adds thereto, that "the kingdom 
 and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, 
 under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people 
 of the saints of the Most High; whose kingdom is an 
 everlasting kingdom; and all dominions shall serve 
 and obey Him." 
 
 And so, I submit, that this interpretation combines 
 all the passages. It shows a harmony of meaning in 
 them all. It passes through the wards of the different 
 texts; and opens the door of the truth of God con- 
 cerning them. 
 
 And then, see how imperative this view of the 
 kingdom becomes, in the light of the prophetic word. 
 "And in the days of those kings, shall the God of 
 heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be de- 
 stroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other 
 people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all 
 these kingdoms; and it shall stand for ever." Dan. 
 ii. 44. Can anything, but a literal and visible 
 kingdom do this? "These kings" ruled over lite- 
 ral kingdoms did they not? Just as literal, will 
 that of the God of heaven be. Not else could it be 
 the fifth kingdom on earth. Not else, could it break 
 in pieces those other kingdoms. Not else, could it 
 take their place; and occupy their room. 
 
 So again. When, one like the Son of Man came 
 
140 CHRIST'S THREEFOLD OFFICE. 
 
 near before the Ancient of Days, " there was given 
 unto Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that 
 all people, nations and languages should serve Him." 
 Dan. vii. 14. Here is, clearly, a kingdom on earth; 
 a kingdom, to which "all people, nations and lan- 
 guages" shall be subject. Could language be more 
 pointed in description than this? What words could 
 be employed to express this idea, if these words fail 
 to convey it? 
 
 So, again; in the words of our text. What is a 
 "kingdom under the whole heavens ;" but a kingdom 
 on the whole earth? If words mean anything; these 
 words teach, that the kingdom, which the God of 
 heaven shall set up, is to be an absolute, and lite- 
 ral, and visible kingdom. That its sceptre shall be 
 swayed, over willing and obedient subjects, in the 
 flesh. That opposition to His sway, shall be, no- 
 where, found. And that the earth, with all the 
 wicked rooted out, shall flourish, in the smile, and 
 be blessed in the presence of its God, for ever ! 
 
 We may reach the same conclusion by another line 
 of argument. 
 
 Christ is revealed to us, in three offices; i. e., 
 Prophet, Priest and King. As far as He has en- 
 tered on these, it has been in an absolute and literal 
 way. If there ever was a veritable prophet on earth, 
 He was such. Did He not discharge all its duties? 
 Did He not teach? Did He not unfold doctrine; 
 and prescribe law? Did He not reveal future events? 
 
 Was He not, absolutely, a Priest? Was it not a 
 real sacrifice, which He offered up ? Both these offices 
 were fulfilled by Him, in their plain, absolute, and 
 
EACH LITERAL. 141 
 
 literal sense. What reason, then, can you give, why 
 the other office, will not be so fulfilled, too ? We are, 
 nowhere, told that it will not. Nowhere is such a 
 thing even hinted at. Why, then, should any one 
 suppose it ? Why, dare assert, that, He will not be, 
 absolutely, King? He was a literal Prophet. He 
 was a literal Priest. Why will He not, also, be a 
 literal King? The teaching of His word, is just as 
 plain; just as positive; concerning the last, as it is 
 concerning the first. Why, then, draw a distinction, 
 not authorized in the word of God? It would, in- 
 deed, seem to be an easier thing, to believe the one 
 statement, than the other. The doctrine of His exal- 
 tation as King, seems to be more natural; more in 
 the line of what we might expect ; than that of His 
 humiliation on the cross. By itself, just as a revealed 
 truth, it strikes the mind, with a deqper awe, to be 
 told that He should be mocked, and scourged, and 
 crucified; than that, as a consequence of this, He 
 shall, in the body that suffered, be exalted to univer- 
 sal and endless dominion! 0! when I look back 
 upon the Saviour on the cross; it is an easy and a 
 grateful thing, to look forward, to the splendour of 
 His crown! You can tell me nothing, that chal- 
 lenges such implicit faith; as that He, who is "God 
 over all, blessed for ever," should consent, in the ful- 
 ness of His love, to die for our redemption. 
 
 If you say, He is and will be, King ; but only in a 
 spiritual sense. I reply: Be it so. If this is the 
 Bible doctrine ; it must rest on Bible proof. Where 
 is that proof? You cannot produce it. No one can. 
 
142 FURTHER REASONS FOR! 
 
 It does not exist. The Bible does not contain it. If 
 it does; where is it to be found? 
 
 And, there is, here, a fearful dilemma; which may 
 well scare back the honest inquirer after truth, from 
 receiving such a doctrine. If, after all the Scrip- 
 tures teach about Christ, as a literal and visible 
 King, it should turn out, in point of fact, that He 
 is, only, spiritually so; suppose, that interpretation 
 should be extended to the other side? Suppose, that 
 He be held, to be only spiritualty, a Priest? There 
 is as much authority for the one, as for the other. 
 There are no terms, more express, concerning His 
 priesthood; than concerning his kingdom. Why, 
 adopt a principle of interpretation, in the one case; 
 which is to be abandoned in the other ? The Bible is 
 consistent, throughout. And, if you rest, with an 
 assurance, which nothing can shake; on the strict 
 reality of the one office; why may you not on the 
 other ? 
 
 You may. You must. You dare not stand upon a 
 line of distinction, which God has not drawn. Christ 
 Jesus was a literal Prophet. He was, He is, He will 
 be, a literal Priest. He will yet be a literal King. 
 He is not yet. Not yet has He mounted His throne. 
 He sits, now, on His Father s throne; i. e., His king- 
 dom is not yet set up. When He ascended on high, 
 the Almighty Father said to Him: "Sit Thou on my 
 right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." 
 And He himself says: "I am set down with my 
 Father, on His throne." And there, He will remain, 
 until He comes again. "Then," not before; but 
 
CERTAINTY OF. 143 
 
 " Then, shall He sit upon the throne of His glory." 
 Then, "thousand thousands shall minister unto Him; 
 and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before 
 Him." Then, shall His elect Church be presented 
 unto the Father; "a glorious Church, without spot, 
 or wrinkle or any such thing." And then, shall be 
 "given unto Him, dominion and glory and a king- 
 dom, that all people, nations and languages, should 
 serve Him." All shall be, literally, accomplished; 
 even as it is written. You may say what you will, of 
 human theories. The "sure word of prophecy" calls 
 for this. And this will, assuredly, be gained. The 
 power of the Omnipotent stands behind and sustains 
 that word. And, it cannot fall to the ground. There 
 will come a day, in which all these things shall be 
 gloriously fulfilled! As surely as the Saviour's brow 
 supported the crown of thorns; it will yet glow, with 
 the splendour of universal dominion. As certainly, 
 as the reed spoke of a mock royalty; so certainly 
 will He sway the sceptre over all the universe of 
 God? The earth, which looked on Him, bending 
 beneath the burden of His cross; shall yet behold 
 Him, radiant with the sheen of His "many crowns." 
 And where the counsel of His murderers prevailed 
 against Him; there shall yet go up a ceaseless song 
 of praise, from the world which He purchased with 
 His blood. 
 
 We learn from this subject, 
 
 The importance of securing an interest in the king- 
 dom of Grod. That kingdom consists of two stages ; 
 i. e., of grace here, and glory hereafter. They are 
 related as the cause is to its effect ; or as the blossom 
 
144 PRACTICAL LESSONS; 
 
 is to the fruit. You cannot have the fruit without the 
 blossom ; the effect without the cause ; the glory here- 
 after without the grace here. Life is the spring-time 
 of our being. The harvest of eternity will be just 
 what the seed we now sow makes it. 
 
 As there lie folded up in the bud, all the parts of 
 the future flower ; so the glory which awaits the Chris- 
 tian in the kingdom of heaven, is simply an expan- 
 sion, an unfolding, of the grace that is given him 
 here. To reach the one; he must have the other. 
 Whatever there may be of brightness or blessedness 
 in his future lot, is his only as that grace is received 
 into his soul. The glory which it hath not entered 
 into the heart of man to conceive ; and the duration of 
 that glory ; extending through eternal ages ; are ours 
 only as we are in Christ. 
 
 In what relation, then, do we stand to Him ? It is 
 the one great question. All others are trifling in com- 
 parison with it. Other interests are for time. This 
 is for eternity. Beyond and above all other ques- 
 tions, there rises up this one ; What is my relation to 
 this kingdom? What shall I be after death? What 
 will be my eternal state. Where shall I be ? And 
 what? And how? 
 
 Our relation to this kingdom answers these ques- 
 tions. You and I, brethren, are subjects of it ; or we 
 are not. The Bible speaks of those who are "heirs 
 of the kingdom;'* having, i. e., a clear title to it. 
 Only waiting to be called to its possession. Does that 
 describe our state? I look over this congregation, 
 and ask; Does that apply to you? Are you heirs? 
 Are you ? You may be among the rich, or wise, or 
 
CONTINUED. 145 
 
 great of earth. It matters little. What does it mat- 
 ter to the dead, that once they were noted on the 
 earth ? As shadows, all these things pass away. But 
 heirship in the kingdom of God, is an absolute, fixed, 
 glorious and abiding reality. Are you, then, an heir ? 
 Is the title to that kingdom yours? Is that title 
 clear? Have you examined it well? Has it no flaw? 
 There is none which conveys an interest in that king- 
 dom, save that which stands in Jesus 1 blood! He 
 alone is the line of descent. You must be found in 
 Him ; or you have no interest in His kingdom. You 
 may call yourself a Christian. Many do. That will 
 not make you an heir. You may have a prominent 
 place in the Church. Many have ; who will fail of 
 the kingdom at last. All the ordinances of the 
 Church may be yours. But the title stands not in 
 them. " You must be born again. 11 Your sins must 
 be washed away in the Saviour's blood. Faith in 
 Jesus must connect you with His atoning work. It 
 must open to you the door of the kingdom. You 
 must be living members of the Church of God's elect. 
 Fitness for the kingdom must be gained on earth. 
 Grace here must prepare you for glory hereafter. 
 
 Men and brethren, in my Master's name, I press 
 this theme home upon you to-day. Take hence with 
 you the question, Am I an heir of the kingdom ? For- 
 get what else you will. forget not that. Neglect 
 what else you choose ; but make that your first con- 
 cern. Turn aside from what else you may ; but be 
 you very sure that you have secured an interest in 
 the everlasting kingdom. 
 
 13 
 

 LECTURE IX. 
 
 AND the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom 
 under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints 
 of the Most High; whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, 
 and all dominions shall serve and obey Him. DAN. vii. 27. 
 
 WE have seen, that the kingdom which the God of 
 Heaven is to set up, is to be a literal and visible king- 
 dom. And now, the question before us is, the second 
 of the five which grow out of these words; i. e., The 
 locality of this kingdom ? 
 
 And the answer, from the prophecy, is as clear and 
 exact as it can well be. Represented under the figure 
 of the " Stone cut out of the mountain, without hands ;" 
 this kingdom after breaking in pieces the other king- 
 doms was itself to "fill the whole earth." It was, 
 then, to stand for ever. Now, beyond doubt, it could 
 not "break in pieces" the other kingdoms; it could 
 not take their place, and stand therein for ever ; with- 
 out being set up in the territory which they once occu- 
 pied; i. e., on this literal, habitable earth. It is idle 
 to argue this point. 
 
 The text, also, just as positively asserts the same 
 truth. What is the kingdom "under the whole hea- 
 ven;" but a kingdom on the whole earth? What are 
 the "people, and nations, and languages," that shall 
 serve our Lord in his kingdom ; but people living and 
 
LOCALITY OP THE KINGDOM. 147 
 
 and multiplying on the earth ? Do you not see that 
 this kingdom is to be set up as the fifth kingdom in 
 the history of this world ? Assign to it any other loca- 
 tion; give to it a place in any other planet. And 
 how is it then, the fifth kingdom on this earth f I sup- 
 pose that this consideration is decisive of the question. 
 
 But, do other Scriptures affirm this truth ? If they 
 do not ; it would be hard to see how their silence could 
 overrule these plain and positive declarations. One 
 clear and precise statement in God's book, is a foun- 
 dation broad enough and strong enough for any doc- 
 trine to rest on. But, in this case, the difficulty lies 
 in a very different direction. It is not the possession, 
 so much as the selection, of proof, that embarrasses. 
 In almost every form we meet this truth. It comes 
 to us in the plainest statements of the prophetic word. 
 It is announced as the great end of revealed truth. 
 It clothes itself in the utterances of its sublimest po- 
 etry. Again, it meets us as a gracious promise. Now, 
 it is set forth in the short, pithy sentences of proverbs. 
 Again, it comes in the easy converse of friend with 
 friend. While the references to it the instances in 
 which it is built upon, as a foundation truth, without 
 being, in so many words, set forth meet us at every 
 feurn. 
 
 In direct connection with the kingship of Christ, the 
 declaration is; "I will give Thee, the heathen i. e., 
 the nations for thine inheritance ; and the uttermost 
 parts of the earth for thy possession." And you 
 shall find that this will not be fulfilled ; until His foes 
 banded together in their last, mad enterprise against 
 Him shall be broken with a rod of iron, and dashed in 
 
148 PSALM II. YET UNFULFILLED. 
 
 pieces like a potter's vessel. Examine the psalm ; and 
 see if this is not so. It is "the heathen" i. e., the 
 nations who "rage." It is "the peoples" i. e., 
 different masses or bodies of men; for the word is 
 plural who are to "imagine a vain thing." It is 
 " the kings of the earth" who are to " set themselves." 
 It is "the rulers" who are to "take council together 
 against the Lord, and against His anointed." Ps. ii. 
 And the object of their raging; the "vain things" 
 which they imagine ; the purpose of their counsel ; the 
 end of their combination ; is to do battle against the 
 cause of Christ. To turn back the course of events 
 that are to precede the setting up of His kingdom. 
 
 Now, I say, brethren and the volume of history 
 lies open to affirm or contradict the statement I say, 
 that no such combination of the Icings and rulers, and 
 nations of the earth has yet taken place. No such 
 banding together has yet occurred. The psalm, 
 therefore, is yet unfulfilled. Not yet has this gather- 
 ing taken place. Not yet have the confederate rulers 
 been "dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel." Not 
 yet have the nations been broken "with a rod of iron." 
 Not yet, therefore, has Christ taken to Himself his 
 kingly power. These are the very events that shall 
 mark and attend it. Not yet, therefore, is His king- 
 dom set up. These are the events that shall precede 
 it. And this breaking in pieces of these confederate 
 nations ; what is it, but the Stone out of the mountain, 
 smiting the image ; destroying the kingdoms which 
 form it ; and itself becoming a great mountain and 
 filling the whole earth? Then, when "the uttermost 
 parts of the earth" have become his possession, it shall 
 
THE KINGDOM, THE LORD'S. 149 
 
 be that " He shall have dominion from sea to sea ; and 
 from the river unto the ends of the earth. . . . They 
 that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him ; 
 and His enemies shall lick the dust. Yea, all kings 
 shall fall down before Him ; all nations shall serve 
 Him. Ps. Ixxii. 8, 9. 11. 
 
 The same promise is repeated in Zech. ix. 10. 
 "And His dominion shall be from sea to sea; and 
 from the river unto the ends of the earth." Can you 
 doubt as to the locality of this kingdom, in the light 
 of such passages as these. 
 
 So, when the seventh angel shall sound his trumpet, 
 what is to be his proclamation ? " The kingdoms of 
 this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
 of His Christ ; and He shall reign for ever and ever." 
 Rev. xi. 15. How precise the location. It is not a 
 kingdom to be set up in some far-off region of immen- 
 sity. It is not an abstraction. It is not an ideal 
 something, of which we can have no tangible experi- 
 ence. It is to be a real and visible kingdom on earth. 
 Here in this world where He bore His cross He 
 is to wield His sceptre and wear His crown. 
 
 And so, when God's ransomed ones sing the new 
 song before Him, what is its burden ? " Thou wast 
 slain; and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, 
 out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and 
 nation: And hast made us unto our God, kings and 
 priests; and we shall reign on the earth" Rev. 
 v. 9, 10. Now, one part of this song, is just as true 
 as the other. The redemption of which they sing, is 
 no more a real and absolute thing, than is the glory 
 in which they rejoice. It is just as true, that they 
 13* 
 
150 CERTAINTY OP ITS LOCATION. 
 
 are kings and priests unto God, as it is that they are 
 redeemed unto Him. If their redemption is literal; 
 so is their reigning. You can no more spiritualize 
 the one, than the other. If you can explain away the 
 last; who can depend upon the first? 
 
 The subject, then, is brought down to this single 
 issue. Either this literal earth is to be the locality 
 of the future kingdom of God; or the plainest and 
 most positive declarations of His word are contra- 
 dicted by fact. The song, moreover, which His ran- 
 somed ones sing before Him, asserts that as true, 
 which is not. I see not how any conclusion can be 
 more inevitable. Do you? The kingdom of this 
 world, must become the kingdom of our Lord and of 
 His Christ; i. e., it must become His, as visibly as 
 now it is that of the powers which rule over it; or 
 the prophecy fails. 
 
 The ransomed of God, must reign over the earth ; 
 i. e., they must exercise a visible part of its dominion, 
 or wield a kingly power, while they sustain the 
 priestly office ; or the song which they sing, agrees not 
 with the facts! 
 
 Here, then, the question might be left. The con- 
 clusion might be pronounced entirely safe, That this 
 earth is to be the locality of the kingdom spoken of in 
 the text. I suppose we may rest upon it as a proven 
 and incontrovertible truth. 
 
 But, now the question arises, Does not the Bible 
 speak of " the end of the world" ? Does it not tell us 
 of a time, when "the earth, and the works that are 
 therein, shall be burned up"? How, then, shall we 
 reconcile these, apparently, opposing declarations ? 
 
END OP THE WORLD WHAT. 151 
 
 Beyond doubt, it does speak of these things. Still, 
 there is nothing but entire harmony between all its 
 statements. 
 
 There are two words, which are rendered "world" 
 in our translation. One is kosmos ; and denotes the 
 order and visible arrangements of the literal earth. 
 The other is aion; an age, era, or dispensation. 
 There is a striking illustration of their use in Heb. 
 ix. 26. "For then must He often have suffered, 
 since the foundation of the world" kosmou, the 
 literal, visible earth. "But now, once in the end of 
 the world" aion, age or dispensation "hath He ap- 
 peared, to put away sin, by the sacrifice of Himself. " 
 Here, we have both words. And we cannot, truth- 
 fully, put the one for the other. Christ did not ap- 
 pear in the end of the literal world; for that still 
 continues, as when He came. But he did appear, in 
 the end of the age or dispensation, that was to pre- 
 cede His coming. 
 
 So: "The field is the world" kosmos, the literal, 
 visible earth. "But the harvest is the end of the 
 world" not kosmos; but aion, the age or dispensa- 
 tion. Matt. xiii. 38, 39. 
 
 Again. "Now, all these things happened unto 
 them for ensamples; but they are written for our 
 admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are 
 come." 1 Cor. x. 11. Now, the end of the literal 
 world had not come on the Corinthian Christians. 
 But the ends of the ages or dispensations, had. And 
 therefore the word is not kosmos, but aion. And so 
 it is, in every place in which the phrase "the end of 
 the world," is used. There are, I think, but seven of 
 
152 DAY OF THE LORD, 
 
 them.* And aim, is the word employed in each. 
 The meaning is, the end of the ages before Christ's 
 first or second coming. There is no Scripture in 
 which the end of the material world is spoken of. 
 But there are many, in which its everlasting exist- 
 ence is, very positively, affirmed. 
 
 And now, I suppose, the question will occur, Does 
 not St. Peter teach the destruction of the world, J>y 
 fire? Is not the passage, 2 Pet. iii. 10-13, express 
 and clear on that point? 
 
 Whatever may be the mission, which that element 
 is to work; no one, I believe, doubts that it is to be 
 put forth at the second coming of our Lord? When- 
 ever that takes place; this instrumentality is to do its 
 predicted work. The Apostle expressly assigns it, 
 to "the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly 
 men." In so many words, he calls it "the day of the 
 Lord." This then is a settled point. 
 
 Now, I think, we shall find very clear proof, that, 
 whatever may be its work, it is not the destruction of 
 the world. There are several reasons for this: 
 
 a. Of the day of the Lord, it is written: "Let the 
 sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they 
 that dwell therein. 
 
 "Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills be 
 joyful together, 
 
 "Before the Lord; for He cometh to judge the 
 earth." Ps. xcviii. 7-9. In Ps. xcvi. 11, 12, we meet 
 with, almost precisely, the same words. 
 
 * They are, Matt. xiii. 39, 40. 49: xxiv. 3; xxviii. 20; Heb. 
 ix. 26; and 1 Cor. x. 11. I do not remember any other. 
 
REASONS FOR REJOICING IN. 153 
 
 Now, there is something noticeable in this. Why 
 must they thus rejoice? The reason is, "For he 
 cometh to judge the earth; with righteousness, shall 
 He judge the world, and the people with His truth." 
 The time, therefore, of the conflagration of St. Peter ; 
 and the outburst of joy, of which the Psalmist speaks; 
 is one and the same. It is the season of Christ's 
 return to judgment. Clearly, then, this fire cannot 
 work the destruction of the world. How could the 
 Psalmist call on the trees of the field to rejoice, 
 before the Lord; if His coming involved their de- 
 struction? Wherefore, should the floods clap their 
 hands; why should the hills be joyful together; and 
 ocean lift up the grander music of his voice ; if they 
 were all to be destroyed at His coming? It would 
 be a most extraordinary cause of joy. 
 
 But you will say: "It is only a figure of speech. 
 It is the license of poetry. " Of course, it is a figure 
 of speech. But does that affect its truth? Is there 
 no meaning in these words; because a figure is 
 used? Nay. The figure extends not beyond the 
 words. The thought conveyed, the fact expressed, is 
 always true; always real; i. e., when the figure is 
 truthfully used. The figure, is the drapery. The 
 thought or the fact, is the form underneath it; and is 
 the same, whatever garb may be employed. And so, 
 the truth here expressed; the fact asserted; is, that 
 Christ's second coming, will be a cause of gladness 
 and rejoicing, to all the universe of God. It will 
 confer the greatest blessings on all the creatures of 
 His hands. And, therefore, they are called on to 
 rejoice. The figure is the clapping of hands; the 
 
154 CREATION DELIVERED. 
 
 shout; and the song of joy. The truth or the fact, 
 is the bestowment of blessings, that are worthy of 
 a heartfelt and joyous acknowledgment. 
 
 And so St. Paul tells us, that "the creature" i. e., 
 the whole creation; for such is the meaning of the 
 word; " shall be delivered from the bondage of cor- 
 ruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of 
 God." Rom. viii. 21. But this deliverance, of the 
 one apostle; and this conflagration, of the other; 
 occur at the same time. They take place at the 
 second coming of our Lord. That conflagration, 
 therefore, cannot work the destruction of the world. 
 It is a positive blessing; into which creation, i. e., the 
 whole creation, shall then come. It shall be delivered 
 "into the glorious liberty of the sons of Grod."* It 
 shall feel the blight and the evils of sin, no more. 
 The yoke of bondage, under which it now groans, 
 shall be broken, and cast aside. The curse shall be 
 lifted off. It shall no longer be subject to vanity. It 
 shall serve, only and effectually, the real ends, for 
 which it was created. It does not do so, now. It is 
 in bondage; dark, and heavy, and bitter. It "groan- 
 eth and travaileth, in pain together, until now. 
 
 * In a note on this passage, Messrs. Conybeare and Howson, in 
 their admirable work, " The Life and Epistles of St. Paul" say: 
 
 "Literally; the freedom which belongs to the glorification of the sons 
 of God. St. Paul here suggests an argument, as original, as it is 
 profound. The very struggles, which all animated beings make 
 against pain and death, show (he says), that pa;n and death are 
 not a part of the proper laws of their nature ; but rather, a bon- 
 dage imposed upon them, from without. Thus, every groan and 
 tear, is, an unconscious prophecy of liberation from the power of 
 evil." Vol. ii. p. 179. 
 
GOD'S WORKS, FOR EVER. 155 
 
 Then, the hour of its deliverance shall come. It has 
 groaned with man, beneath the curse. With him, it 
 shall rejoice, in deliverance, from its power. It has 
 shared the ruins of the fall. It shall exult in the 
 greater blessings of redemption. And, because it 
 shall share the glory of this restoration, when Christ 
 comes ; it is called upon to shout for joy, in the hour 
 of His appearing. That conflagration, therefore, will 
 not work the destruction of the world. 
 
 b. Again. Of all God's purposes, it is true, that, 
 "whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever.'' Eccles. 
 iii. 4. Why, that is planning like a God ! I know, 
 we are, often, told that this world is like a scaffold- 
 ing; set up to aid in the erection of God's spiritual 
 temple; and, when this end is gained, it is, like the 
 scaffolding, to be taken down. It has served its pur- 
 pose. It will be needed no more. 
 
 Well, brethren, this may do very well, for a figure, 
 a license of speech. Some may even call it fine 
 poetry. Perhaps, you may have heard it so called. 
 My answer is, It is not so written. It contradicts the 
 word of God. It is, therefore, false. God, Himself, 
 says : " Thus saith the Lord, that created the heavens ; 
 God, Himself, that formed the earth and made it ; He 
 hath established it; He created it not in vain. He 
 formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and there 
 is none else. Isa. xlv. 18. 
 
 He who makes an article, knows why he made it. 
 Here is the declaration of the Almighty Maker of 
 heaven and earth. He tells us why He made it. He 
 makes known the purpose, which He had in view, in 
 its formation. He hath " established it." It cannot, 
 
156 PERPETUITY OP THE EARTH. 
 
 therefore, be moved. He made it "to be inhabited," 
 not destroyed. And that purpose shall be gained. It 
 shall be carried triumphantly through. He under- 
 writes for it, in the words, "I am the Lord." Who 
 can stay His hand? His own Omnipotence is the 
 pledge, that His sovereign will, shall be accomplished. 
 
 And, so we read: "The earth abideth for ever." 
 Eccles. i. 4. Aye : there is the purpose of Him who 
 changeth not. Generations come and go. They 
 shall do so, for ever. I mean, not, that in the coming 
 age, death shall destroy them. No. He, himself, 
 shall be destroyed. He shall have no part, or place, 
 in the "new heavens and the new earth. " But, as 
 men in the flesh, are prepared for their glorified 
 bodies ; they shall be removed hence, as Adam would 
 have been, had he never sinned. As Enoch was; 
 when "he was not, for God took him." As Elijah 
 was; when "the chariots of fire, and the horses of 
 fire," bore him to the presence of his God. Or, as 
 our Lord was; when "a cloud received Him out of 
 their sight." There are instruments enough, and 
 modes enough, with God. And, thus, "for ever" shall 
 generations come and go. Thus, "for ever" shall the 
 earth abide. Thus, "forever" shall Christ "be a 
 Priest upon His throne;" and thus, "for ever," shall 
 "men be blessed in Him!" 
 
 And, so again, we read of, "the earth, which He 
 hath established for ever" Ps. Ixxviii. 69. And, again, 
 we are told: "The world is established, that it cannot 
 be moved." Ps. ciii. 1. And, to the same import, we 
 are assured, that He "laid the foundations of the 
 earth, that it should not be removed for ever." Ps. 
 
CHRIST INHERITS THE NATIONS. 157 
 
 civ. 5. And again: "Thou hast established the 
 earth, and it abideth. 11 Ps. cxix. 90. And so, the 
 covenant with Noah, for the preservation of the earth, 
 was "for perpetual generations. 11 
 
 In all these passages, there is nothing like destruc- 
 tion. Their teaching is, clearly and incontrovertibly, 
 as far removed from it as possible. And so, we read : 
 "Arise, God, and judge the earth: for Thou shalt 
 inherit all nations. 11 Ps. Ixxxii. 8. What does that 
 mean? How, inherit? Is not the world His, by 
 creation? Has He not, therefore, a sovereign right 
 to it? Assuredly, He has. How, then, can he in- 
 herit it? 
 
 In consequence of redemption. The earth was 
 doomed to destruction, because of sin. It was a for- 
 feit world. Destruction was its lawful doom. But 
 Christ came. He undertook to restore the authority of 
 0-od upon it; without loss to the honour of His govern- 
 ment. For this He died. Henceforth, the earth, on 
 which He suffered, became a part of His "purchased 
 possession. 11 It is His, by the terms of the everlast- 
 ing covenant. On it, His throne is to be for ever set 
 up. It is His now, by inheritance; i. e., it comes to 
 Him, as a part of that which He redeemed. Hence, 
 when He comes to gather together His people, He 
 also comes to "inherit all nations;" i. e., to set up 
 His kingdom, and rule over them for ever. 
 
 No, brethren, no! It is not for the earth, on 
 which the Redeemer trod, to be blotted out of being. 
 It is consecrated for evermore. It witnessed His 
 humiliation. It shall look on His infinite exaltation. 
 It saw His name cast out as evil. It shall hail it, as 
 
 14 
 
158 EARTH ABIDETH FOR EVER. 
 
 the "name, that is above every name." It sustained 
 His cross. It shall yet be bright with the glory of 
 His crown. Bethlehem and Nazareth and Galilee 
 and Calvary, shall yet be spots of loftiest renown. 
 When the consequences of man's sin are stayed; 
 when the scroll of prophecy is fully unrolled; dwellers 
 in other worlds shall flock to this, to "look into" the 
 wondrous story of redemption through the blood of 
 Jesus! The manger, the cross, and the tomb, shall 
 be the central marvels of the universe; through all 
 the periods of the everlasting age. Here they shall 
 say he was laid in the manger. Here, He sat 
 wearied on Jacob's well. Here, He was tempted of 
 the devil. Here, He was transfigured on the Mount. 
 Here, He hung on the cross ; and here He lay down 
 in the tomb ! 
 
 And thus " the earth abideth for ever, " as a part 
 of the purchased inheritance" of His people. Its 
 redemption price is the blood of Jesus. And so, His 
 promise is, that "they shall inherit the earth.' 1 They 
 do not do so, now. Often, they are "the poor of 
 this world." But the day is fast coming, when they 
 shall enter on their inheritance. They shall put on 
 their robes of glorious royalty. And, when the kings 
 and conquerors of earth are rooted out and forgot- 
 ten; they shall be held in everlasting remembrance. 
 "Their inheritance shall be for ever." The Bible, 
 therefore, abounds with statements of this truth. 
 Thus, in one single psalm the thirty-seventh we 
 meet with no less than seven distinct declarations of it. 
 They are such as; "The righteous shall inherit the 
 land, and dwell therein for ever." Now, what does 
 
SAME TRUTH REPEATED. 159 
 
 this continued repetition of this truth, mean? Where- 
 fore, is it so repeatedly, affirmed? Does it not teach 
 us, that, however we may be disposed to regard it ; 
 in the mind of God, it is a great, a fixed and a glo- 
 rious theme worthy of being advanced to a front 
 place in our regard. It is in vain to strive to deny 
 it. There it is; clear, and plain, and unmistakable 
 in its outlines. If you turn from it, in one part ; it 
 meets you, in another. It is in vain to strive to 
 evade it. Its sense, is transparency, itself. Not 
 now, do the people of God, "dwell in the land, for 
 ever." Often, they have in it, no temporary home. 
 Not now is their inheritance, in it, for ever. Death 
 cuts them off; even as others. But they shall yet 
 possess it, for their everlasting home. And observe: 
 they "inherit it." They are, "heirs of the world." 
 It comes to them, through the line of another. Its 
 descent to them, is through the work of Jesus. 
 They are "joint heirs' with Him. "The kingdom 
 and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom, 
 under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people 
 of the saints of the Most High." And this is another 
 reason, why the conflagration spoken of, cannot work 
 the destruction of the world. 
 
 c. It will not do so, because the terms, under which 
 it is described, forbid it. The time of this conflagra- 
 tion, is called "the harvest of the earth." " The har- 
 vest is the end of the world. 19 Now, nothing could be 
 further from the idea of harvest, than destruction. 
 The one is the very antipodes of the other. They 
 are opposed, throughout. The harvest is, for the 
 ingathering of the fruits; not for the destruction, 
 
160 DESIGN OF THE HARVEST, 
 
 either of them, or the field, on which they grew. If 
 destruction attends it, at all, it is merely that of the 
 weeds and noxious plants; in order to prepare the 
 field for the crop of the following year. And very 
 strikingly do our Lord's words carry out this idea, 
 when He says ; " In the time of harvest, I will say to 
 the reapers, Gather together first, the tares and burn 
 them; but gather the wheat into my barn/' Matt, 
 xiii. 30. And so, He continues; "As, therefore, the 
 tares are gathered, and burned, in the fire ; 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 them which 
 do iniquity: and shall cast them into a furnace of 
 fire." (vs. 40, 41.) Their destruction is, just, a pre- 
 paration of the field of the world, for that which is to 
 follow. It is one of the circumstances of the harvest ; 
 not the harvest itself. And " His kingdom" out of 
 which, "all that offend, and they that do iniquity" 
 shall be gathered; is, clearly, the field in which the 
 wheat and the tares were sown; i. e., the world. And 
 the glorious consummation of it all, is: "Then shall 
 the righteous shine forth, as the sun, in the kingdom of 
 their Father." All through this passage, brethren, 
 the kingdom is one and the same. It is the field 
 the world in which the good seed and the tares were 
 sown; out of which, "all that offend" shall be 
 gathered; and in which, "the righteous shall shine 
 forth, as the sun," for ever. "Search and look;" if 
 these things are not so. Our Lord is speaking of the 
 same event, which St. Peter describes. Both call for 
 the same element; i. e., a purifying conflagration. 
 
NOT DESTRUCTION. 161 
 
 And the " new heavens, and the new earth, in which 
 dwelleth righteousness," of which the Apostle speaks; 
 what is this, but the field of the world; or the king- 
 dom, "out of which all that offend," shall be gather- 
 ed? The event is the same, in both. The means 
 employed, are the same; and the end attained, is the 
 same. They are one, throughout. 
 
 And, precisely, in the same line of thought, St. 
 Peter avers, that the purpose of this conflagration, is, 
 "the perdition of ungodly men." And after this is 
 accomplished, the earth is to put on a new phase of 
 beauty; in which, no one discordant element shall 
 again appear. This destruction was accomplished, 
 once, by a flood. It will be again, by fire. In the 
 flood, the Apostle says, "the earth perished." Moses 
 says, it was "destroyed." How did it perish? How 
 was it destroyed ? Simply, in reference to its state, 
 for a time, as an habitable globe. No other destruc- 
 tion was wrought by the flood. None other will be, 
 by the fire. 
 
 Nor, indeed, will the second destruction, be so 
 great as the first. "I will not again curse the ground 
 any more for man's sake. . . . Neither will I again, 
 smite any more, every living thing as I have done." 
 Gen. viii. 21. Whatever, therefore, this destruction 
 may be; it will neither be so fearful, nor so extensive 
 as the first. There shall be nothing in it, to interrupt 
 the return of "seed-time and harvest, and cold and 
 heat, and summer and winter." These are to endure 
 as long as the earth lasts. And that is to be, "for 
 ever." And so, this conflagration will not work the 
 destruction of the world. 
 
 14* 
 
162 THE DESIGN OP 
 
 Again, therefore, the question returns: What does 
 this passage mean? What is the truth, which it sets 
 forth? What is the end, to be gained, by this con- 
 flagration ? 
 
 You are to observe and it is of the first importance 
 that you do so that the destruction of which it speaks, 
 is that of the living wicked. It is "the perdition of 
 ungodly men;" i. e., of the eminently ungodly. The 
 word, very clearly, calls for this rendering. This is 
 the object, for which, all this machinery of judgment 
 is to be set in motion. And you will find, I think, 
 that there is nothing in the words of St. Peter, to 
 extend their meaning, beyond this. While there is 
 much, both in his words, and in other passages, thus 
 to limit them. He expressly asserts, that it is for 
 this purpose. And other passages confirm this view. 
 
 "Upon the wicked. He shall rain snares, fire and 
 brimstone, and an horrible tempest/' Ps. xi. 6. Now, 
 these fiery judgments are, manifestly, reserved for 
 one class. They shall come down on the head of 
 "the wicked;" i. e., the living wicked; while others 
 shall be as free from them as the Israelites were in 
 Goshen; when the judgments of God overtook the 
 Egyptians. 
 
 So, again we read: "The day of the Lord of hosts 
 shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty , and 
 upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be 
 brought low." Isa. ii. 12. Now, this "day of the 
 Lord," will be "when He ariseth to shake terribly the 
 earth" (ver. 21) i. e., the very time of which St. Peter 
 speaks. There shall be a mighty combination of the 
 powers of the earth, in the latter days. They shall 
 
THE CONFLAGRATION. 163 
 
 be "proud and lifted up," in the madness of their 
 rage against the Most High. They consult to over- 
 throw His cause. They band themselves together to 
 fight against it. It will be such a gathering, as earth 
 had never, before, seen. Its rulers are, clearly, 
 pointed out. But of them, in the flush of their 
 power, God says: "I will rain upon him, with pesti- 
 lence, and with blood; and I will rain upon him and 
 his bands, and upon the many people that are with 
 him, an overflowing rain, and hailstones, fire and 
 brimstone." Ezek. xxxviii. 22. Now, what is this, 
 but the same catastrophe ? The Psalmist and Prophet 
 and Apostle, speak of it. And if you ask, When will 
 it take place? The prophet tells us, when he says: 
 "When I have brought them," i. e., the whole house 
 of Israel, "from the people, and gathered them out of 
 their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them, in 
 the sight of many nations ; . . . and have left none 
 of them any more there . . . and have poured out my 
 Spirit upon the whole house of Israel, saith the Lord 
 God." xxxix. 27-9. And this, beyond all contro- 
 versy, will not be done, until "the day of the Lord" 
 i. e., the very time of which St. Peter speaks. But, 
 after these judgments, we read: "And I will set my 
 glory among the heathen, and all the heathen" i. e., 
 the nations "shall see my judgment that I have exe- 
 cuted: and my hand that I have laid upon them." 
 (ver. 21.) What nations, brethren, if all are then 
 swept away? How can Jehovah be sanctified; ex- 
 cept in the eyes of those who see His judgments, and 
 are saved from their power ? And this is but one, 
 
164 ANIMAL KINGDOM, RESTORED. 
 
 of many passages, which lead us to the same con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Very fearful, indeed, is the scene which St. Peter 
 brings before us. But then, I beg you to examine 
 and see it is not a universal destruction, of which he 
 speaks. Its purpose is "the perdition of the un- 
 godly;" the sweeping away of the banded enemies of 
 God: the uprooting of all His foes; the breaking in 
 pieces of all combinations against Him. The animal 
 kingdom reappears on the stage. They will be to the 
 world, in the millennial age which this conflagration 
 introduces just what they were to man in Eden. 
 There will be no new creation of them. They will be 
 restored to their first type; i. e., as it was, before the 
 grant of animal food was permitted.* The earth is 
 to be purified from the presence of the banded ene- 
 mies of our "Lord and His Christ." Its imprisoned 
 fires shall be let loose. Earthquakes shall rend it. 
 Volcanic eruptions shall change it. "The heavens' 
 i. e., the atmosphere "shall pass away with a great 
 
 * It is quite needless for us to inquire, Now the change from 
 their first estate, was effected? We are not told. So it is just as 
 useless to ask, How will they be restored to their first estate? We 
 do not know. We are not told We are told, that, before man's 
 sin, "every green herb" was given for meat, "to every beast of the 
 earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth 
 upon the earth." Gen. i. 30. That is the record, plain and exact, 
 and positive, as language can make it. This Eden-picture of the 
 animals in peace, is brought back again, in the kingdom of the 
 Messiah. The millennial age restores it. In what the change will 
 consist; how it will be brought about; precisely how much is re- 
 quired to produce it; I do not claim to know. Do you? The 
 positive statement is made ; and no more. 
 
HEAVENS PASSING AWAY. 165 
 
 noise.' 9 Very descriptive is this phrase. It is, "pass 
 by, with a rushing sound, as of a tornado."* It is a 
 fearful commotion. But it does not, at all, convey 
 the idea of universal destruction. The description of 
 the Apostle, very strikingly reminds one, of the ter- 
 rors attending the eruptions of the great volcanoes* 
 "One cannot," says Bishop Berkley, "form a juster 
 idea of the noise emitted by the mountain, (Vesuvius,) 
 than by imagining a mixed sound, made up of the 
 raging of a tempest, the murmur of a troubled sea, 
 and the roaring of thunder and artillery, confused 
 altogether. Though we heard this at the distance of 
 twelve miles; yet it was very terrible." In 1744, the 
 flames of Cotopaxi rose three thousand feet above the 
 brink of the crater; and its roarings were heard at 
 the distance of six hundred miles. (Dick.) 
 
 Of an eruption from Kilauea Hawaii, we have the 
 following account: "The lavas rolled on, sometimes 
 sluggishly and sometimes violently It swept 
 
 * It is very interesting to note how the earlier versions rendered 
 this: 
 
 Wiclif 1380 has it: "For the day of the Lord schal come as a 
 theef: in whiche heuenes, with greet hire" i. e., confusion 
 "schuln passe; and the elementis schuln be dissolved bi heete; 
 and the erthe, and alle the werkis that ben in it; schulen be 
 brente." 
 
 Tyndale 1534 "The hevens shall perisshe with terrible noyes, 
 etc." 
 
 Cranmer 1539 "The heauens shall passe away, in maner of a 
 tempest" 
 
 Rheims 1582 "In the which, the heauens shal passe with 
 great violence, but the elementes shal be resolued with heate, and 
 the earth, and the vvorkes which are in it, shal be burnt.'* 
 
166 THE EARTH, PREPARED 
 
 away forests in its course; at times parting and en- 
 closing islets of earth and shrubbery; and, at other 
 times, undermining and bearing away masses of rock 
 and vegetation on its surface. Finally, it plunged 
 into the sea, with loud detonations. The burning lava, 
 on meeting the waters, was shivered, like melted glass, 
 into millions of particles, which were thrown up in 
 clouds, that darkened the sky, and fell like a storm of 
 hail over the surrounding country. Vast columns of 
 steam and vapours rolled off before the wind; whirl- 
 ing in ceaseless agitation, and the reflected glare of 
 the lavas formed a fiery firmament overhead. For 
 three weeks, this terrific river disgorged itself into the 
 sea, without abatement." (Dana's Geology, U. S. Ex- 
 ploring Expedition, p. 190.) 
 
 "The intense heat of the fountain and stream of 
 lava, caused an influx of cool air, from every quarter. 
 This created terrific whirlwinds, which, constantly 
 stalking about, like so many sentinels, bade defiance 
 to the daring visitor." (American Journal of Science, 
 Sept. 1852, p. 258.) 
 
 Now, you have but to enlarge this scene. You 
 have but to suppose the imprisoned fires, that glow 
 beneath the surface of the earth, to be let loose ; in 
 order to realize the terrific grandeur of the event 
 sketched by St. Peter. And, so perfect is the prepa- 
 ration for this, that Mr. Lyell says : " When we con- 
 sider the combustible nature of the elements of the 
 earth, so far as they are known to us; the facility 
 with which their compounds may be decomposed, and 
 enter into new combinations; the quantity of heat 
 
FOR THIS CONFLAGRATION. 167 
 
 which they evolve during these processes; when we 
 recollect, that water itself is composed of two gases, 
 
 which, by their union, produce intense heat; 
 
 we may be allowed to share the astonishment of Pliny, 
 that a single day should pass, without a general confla- 
 gration." (Principles of Geology, Vol. ii. p. 451.) 
 
 As yet, the hand that formed these elements, re- 
 strains them. He will do so, until His designs are 
 accomplished. They are powerless against Him. 
 When the appointed time has come; those restraints 
 will be lifted off. He, who kindled those fires; will 
 summon them to their work. He will let loose the 
 imprisoned elements. The instrumentalities that have 
 slumbered so long; will come forth to their mission.* 
 His hand will prescribe their course; direct their pro- 
 gress; assign their limits; and, by them, overwhelm 
 the banded enemies of His cause, with swift and 
 remediless destruction ! 
 
 When this is done, the "new heavens and the new 
 earth" appear; and a new order of things is set up. 
 And, so St. Paul teaches, when he says: "And 
 Thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation 
 of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy 
 hand. They shall perish; but Thou remainesfr." But 
 how perish? The next verse answers, "And as a 
 
 * I suppose, the doctrine of the Bible is, that, by a special act of 
 His power, God will set in operation, the instruments that shall 
 accomplish this. The preservation therefore of the animal king- 
 dom ; and of the nations not banded together with the Beast, and 
 False Prophet ; is altogether consistent with the idea of this con- 
 flagration, inasmuch as it will be limited to certain regions ; and 
 occupy, probably, considerable time in its progress. 
 
168 HEAVENS AND EARTH CHANGED. 
 
 vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be 
 changed. 1 ' Heb. i. 10-12. 
 
 Aye: that is it. " Changed!" The curse shall be 
 lifted off. The blight of sin shall rest upon the works 
 of God no more. Now, all creation is subject to 
 unholy uses. The sun shines on the evil; as well as 
 on the good. The moon and the stars look down on 
 wrong, and oppression, and crime. The sighing of 
 the prisoner, the down-trodden, and the oppressed, 
 goes forth on every breeze. The earth nourishes 
 those, who defy its Maker and theirs. The rains fall 
 on the lands of those, who are rebels against God; 
 and tyrants over man. All the courses of nature 
 minister to those, who harden themselves in oppo- 
 sition to His will. And the very air, that bears life 
 and blessings upon its wings, is returned in curses to 
 Him who bade it blow ! The earth was made, teem- 
 ing with wondrous beauty. Now thorns, and thistles, 
 and noxious weeds, infest it. Tempests sweep across 
 it. Earthquakes rend its bosom. Pestilence and 
 disease go forth, through every land; and decay and 
 death reign everywhere, with resistless sway. But 
 in all these respects, "it shall be changed.'* From 
 all these evils it shall be cleansed. It shall be re- 
 stored to beauty, equal to that which first adorned it. 
 Again, it shall lie in the light of its Creator's smile. 
 But that Creator shall then assume the dearer name 
 and wear the brighter crown, of its Redeemer. No 
 cloud of sin shall darken it again. A beauty, a glory 
 and a blessedness, worthy of its Redeemer's work, 
 shall be its everlasting portion. And God's will shall 
 then, "be done on earthy as it is in heaven." Then 
 
BLESSEDNESS OF THE THEME. 169 
 
 the scene, which the poet has sketched, from "the 
 volume of the Book," shall be realized; and 
 
 "One song employ all nations; and all cry 
 Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain for us. 
 Worthy the Lamb, the hills and plains reply. 
 The dwellers, in the vales, and on the rocks, 
 Shout to each other; and the mountain tops, 
 From different mountains, catch the flying joy; 
 Till, nation after nation, taught the strain, 
 Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round!" 
 
 I know not, brethren, how this theme may affect 
 you. But, for myself, I confess, I cannot dwell upon 
 it, without a quickening pulse, at the thought of the 
 final and glorious triumph which it sets before us! 
 I bless God, for the bright glimpses of the splendours 
 which shall mark the Redeemer's reign. It is a 
 wondrous privilege to be permitted to look forward 
 and contemplate the period of His glorious return to 
 earth. It is a blessed thing, to turn the eye of faith 
 upon the brightness of His "many crowns!" And, 
 as we dwell thereon, that which places a hope firmer 
 than an adamantine rock, beneath our feet is that the 
 pathway to those crowns, leads up from the foot of the 
 cross ! The cross of Christ ! 0, it shall yet be the 
 central figure of all creation 's history ! From it shall 
 go forth the mighty attraction, that shall hold the 
 universe together. And as worlds revolve around 
 their central sun; so, shall the universe move in its 
 mighty orbit, round the central fact of "Christ, and 
 Him crucified." 
 
 On that cross, the Saviour won His crown. His 
 "agony and bloody sweat; His cross and passion;" 
 
 15 
 
170 CONCLUSION. 
 
 invest it with all its glories. The brightness of the 
 one would have had no existence, but for the shame 
 and humiliation of the other. 
 
 And His example, here, points out a great truth to 
 us. If we would attain to the glory of His kingdom ; 
 we must seek and find, an interest in His cross. 
 Faith in Jesus Christ, must unite us with His death ; 
 or we shall have no share in all the blessings which 
 that death secured. The cross must lead us to the 
 crown. Only, in its shadow, are we safe. Only, in 
 the death, which it sets forth, can we attain to life. 
 Only, through the shame, which it records, can we 
 receive a title to the glory and blessedness of the 
 everlasting kingdom. Men and brethren, what is that 
 cross to you ? 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 FOE unto the angels hath He not pat in subjection the world to 
 
 come, whereof we speak. HEB. ii. 5. 
 And the kingdom and Dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, 
 
 under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints 
 
 of the Most High, etc. DAN. vii. 27. 
 
 THE subject which these words bring before us, is The 
 state of the earth, as the seat of the kingdom of Grod. 
 
 The argument on this subject, in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, is a very striking one. In chapter first, the 
 apostle declares the superiority of Christ over the 
 angels :* 
 
 a. In His name, or nature. 
 
 b. In His honours; or the position He fills; and 
 
 c. In His offices. 
 
 In office, He is to be king. He is set apart to this 
 by solemn covenant. Then follows an exhortation to 
 obedience; based on the foregoing considerations. 
 Then resuming the course of the argument the 
 apostle declares, that to Christ, and not to the angels, 
 hath God " put in subjection the world to come, whereof 
 we speak;" i. e., which is to be the seat of His king- 
 dom. His argument further is, that dominion over all 
 
172 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT 
 
 His works was first given by God to man ; that it was 
 lost ; but that Jesus in assuming our nature re- 
 served to Himself, and His people through Him, the 
 exercise of the grant of dominion thus given; thus 
 lost; and thus regained. In Him the purposes of 
 God will be completely and gloriously fulfilled. 
 
 You will find, I think, that this is an exact state- 
 ment of the argument. The apostle quotes the eighth 
 psalm, as the foundation on which it rests. I com- 
 mend it to your very careful examination. Taking it 
 up at the words, " Thou hast put all things under His 
 feet;" he declares, that "we see not yet all things put 
 under Him." The dominion given was, in point of 
 fact, not yet attained. The steps leading to it were 
 taken. But the dominion itself was not gained. The 
 first part of the process, which was to result in its 
 complete attainment was set up. Jesus had taken 
 our nature. As "the second man," He had come to 
 win back that which "the first" had lost. He was 
 our surety our representative acting in our stead. 
 He had humbled Himself to death ; that He* might 
 win us back from the consequences of our fall. The 
 right of dominion, therefore, is thus in Him. But the 
 dominion itself is not yet attained. " The second 
 Adam" connects man, at Calvary, with the gracious 
 designs of God; just where "the first Adam," in 
 Eden, broke them off. 
 
 Now, of this argument, Mr. Barnes says: "Much 
 difficulty has been felt by commentators, in regard to 
 this passage, and to the principle on which it the 
 eighth psalm is quoted." (In loc. p. 58.) Of course, 
 they have "felt much difficulty." Proceeding on the 
 
IN HEBREWS I. AND II. 173 
 
 supposition that the kingship of Jesus is only spiritual; 
 how else could it be? What else than difficulty 
 insurmountable difficulty could be experienced or 
 expected? If it is true, that His reign is simply in 
 the hearts and consciences of His people ; if this 
 earth, at His coming, is absolutely to be destroyed ; 
 the difficulty of applying this quotation and verifying 
 the argument, is such as no human mind can over- 
 come. 
 
 And this is the form which it assumes : Jesus Christ 
 is ordained Icing. The Scriptures most positively 
 assert this. But how king? This psalm asserts, that 
 to man the visible rule and headship over all the works 
 of God was given. The reins were placed in his 
 hands. The dominion was his. But he lost it. The 
 reins fell from his hands. We see not yet, all things 
 put under him. But we see Jesus, clothed in our 
 nature; that by His death, He might remove all the 
 consequences of our fall. 
 
 This is the argument. And I ask you, brethren, 
 who can. feel its force; or see the meaning of the 
 quotation ; except we read it, in the light of His literal 
 and absolute kingship f Failing to do this ; what won- 
 der, that "much difficulty has been felt," in regard 
 to it? What has a reign, that is simply spiritual, to 
 do with the dominion, first given to man, over all the 
 works of God. He does so reign, in the hearts of His 
 people, now. It is a truth, never to be lost sight of. 
 But then, it is not the truth here taught. How is such 
 a reign, a carrying out of the sovereignty, with 
 which man was crowned ; over the beasts of the field, 
 15* 
 
174 FANCIFUL INTERPRETATION. 
 
 and the fowls of the air, and over all the works of His 
 hands?* 
 
 Very justly, as it seems to me, Mr. Barnes says : 
 " The argument of Paul seems to be this. Originally, 
 this control was given to man. It was absolute and 
 entire. All things were subject to him; and all 
 obeyed. Man was made a little lower than the an- 
 gels ; and was the undisputed lord of this lower world. 
 He was in a state of innocence. But he rebelled ; 
 and his dominion has been in some measure lost. It 
 is found complete, only in the second man, the Lord 
 from Heaven." (Notes on Heb.) 
 
 I take this to be a fair statement of the Apostle's 
 argument. But what does it avail; if this dominion 
 is not, by Him, won back for His people ? Where is 
 the point of the argument; if that dominion, is not 
 yet to be theirs, through Him ? The chain is broken. 
 The circle is incomplete. There is a wide gap, be- 
 
 * It is indeed, somewhat difficult to repress a smile at the 
 lengths, to which this mode of interpretation has driven its advo- 
 cates. Thus, the learned and pious Bishop Home, speaks of this 
 psalm : 
 
 " The souls of the faithful, lowly and harmless, are the sheep of 
 His pasture; those, who like oxen are strong to labour in the 
 Church, and who, by expounding the word of life, tread out the 
 corn for the nourishment of the people, own Him for their kind and 
 beneficent Master. Nay, tempers fierce and untractable as the 
 wild beasts of the desert, are yet subject to His will. Spirits of the 
 angelic kind, that, like the birds of the air, traverse, freely, the su- 
 perior region, move at his command ; and those evil ones, whose 
 habitation is in the deep abyss, even to the great leviathan himself; 
 all, all put under the feet of the King Messiah." (Home, in loc.) 
 And yet, on the principle of interpretation, which the good Bishop 
 adopted; what other disposition could be made of it? 
 
DOMINION TO BE RESTORED. 175 
 
 tween God's first plan, and the results of the work of 
 Christ. If there is not to be a day, when man will be 
 re-invested, through the work of the second Adam, with 
 all the powers, originally conferred, by his Maker; 
 what is the meaning of the Apostle s argument ? 
 
 But, when this dominion was lost ; when Jesus, as 
 the second man, took the nature of the first, who lost 
 it; when this fact, is made the corner-stone of an 
 argument, concerning this kingdom ; the reason why 
 this quotation is made, seems to be clear as a sun- 
 beam. Hold over this passage, the light of this truth ; 
 and all difficulties, concerning it, vanish. The do- 
 minion, lost in Adam, shall be restored in Jesus. The 
 nature, crowned as monarch, in creation; shall re- 
 ceive a brighter crown in redemption. Man redeemed 
 man will rise to a glorious headship over all the 
 works of God. He shall walk forth, as king, over a 
 redeemed and regenerated earth. The visible creation 
 shall be in peace and perfection, around him. All 
 things shall own him, lord. The invisible creation 
 the special domain of the higher philosophy shall 
 lay bare its secrets before him. And the slow attain- 
 ments, which centuries of accumulated labour, now 
 enable him to make ; shall yield themselves up to his 
 will. I read the pledge of all this, in the sinless hu- 
 manity of Jesus. Hence, He is called "the second 
 Man." Adam was the first, of mortal form, in the 
 image of God. But sin came; and destroyed that 
 image. Its glorious lines were blotted out and de- 
 stroyed. It cast the crown from his brow. It en- 
 feebled his powers. It blinded his spiritual vision. 
 It perverted his nature. It destroyed the harmony 
 
176 PERFECTION OF THE 
 
 of the works of God. It turned the universe against 
 him. But Christ was the second Adam. And in 
 Him was no sin. He kept His humanity, pure. The 
 strongest and subtlest temptations came about Him. 
 But He repelled them all. He repelled them, I mean, 
 as Man. As a man, He retained the perfect purity, 
 with which He came into the world. The humanity 
 He bore, was sullied by no breath of sin. On its 
 spotless surface, lay bright and perfect and glorious 
 the image of Grod. Men might look and see it 
 there. Deep in his inner nature, that image was 
 formed. His human soul was moulded in it. It 
 shone out in all He did and said. It was there, as the 
 perfect flower is in the bud. But there was no worm 
 at the root, to mar it; no blight to injure it; no 
 winter's breath, to destroy it. Day by day, it came 
 out, in all the loveliness of its perfect nature. Each 
 position in which He was placed, drew forth some new 
 display of the beauty that adorned Him. And for 
 the first time, the incarnate image of God, lived and 
 moved and had a being, among men. Hence, He is 
 the second Man. The millions between the two, are 
 not reckoned. They are unworthy of the name. 
 They do not come up to the standard mark. They 
 have fallen far, far below it ; and wandered from it, in 
 all its requirements. Hence, we read, that man was 
 made in the image of God. He fell. Then we read, 
 that he " begat a son in his own image." And that 
 image i. e. of frail, perishing man, as the word im- 
 ports was perpetuated from that hour. The image 
 of God, is seen in man, no more. But Christ came. 
 And so, in Him, we are to read the proof of all that 
 
LIB* 
 
 O y TBE 
 
 HUMANITY OF JESUS. 
 
 was designed to be. And as we follow Him, 
 through His course; we see glorious traces of that 
 power, which shall, in Him, bring man back again, to 
 the type of His first creation. The dominion, then 
 conferred ; shall be his again. But it shall be his, in 
 Jesus. Sickness was not till Adam sinned. It fled 
 away at the word of the second Adam. The dead 
 the blind the lame the palsied the dying and the 
 dead 0! these were not, till sin came! And so, 
 they come, and lay their tribute at the feet of the 
 Deliverer from sin ! Death was unknown, till Adam 
 fell. It reigned, unrebuked, till He came, whose 
 work it was, to destroy death ; and win back the world 
 from its dominion. And so, in His ministry, "the 
 blind see and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised." 
 And note, too, how progressive are the tokens of 
 His power over it.* The daughter of Jairus, just 
 dead, obeys his word ; and comes back to life again. 
 The son of the widow of Nain carried out to burial 
 
 hears His voice, and rises from the bier. Lazarus 
 
 on whom corruption had begun its work walks 
 forth from his four days' sleep, in death. And now 
 Jesus himself dies. Is then, His mission, a failure? 
 Are these glorious foreshadows of His future work, to 
 come to nought? 
 
 Nay, brethren, nay. There is no such thing. He 
 rises from the dead. And after He rises, the graves 
 of His saints open. And they, whose dust had 
 
 * This thought is presented, very forcibly, in a sermon, by the 
 Rev. Archer Butler, on the power of the resurrection. St. Augustine 
 in his Homily "On the three dead persons, raised by Christ," re- 
 fers to it, in a different way. 
 
178 CONSEQUENCES OP SIN 
 
 mingled with the elements; took form and life again. 
 And men gazed on these inhabitants of the tomb 
 these citizens of distant ages walking forth, as living 
 tokens of His finished work. And thus, He carries 
 His work, through every stage of its progress. And 
 Death, even in the deepest hiding-places of its power, 
 is subject to His control. 
 
 We may change the scene. It is sunset in Judea. 
 The evening twilight is just beginning to gather on its 
 plains. Capernaum has been listening to the words 
 of Him, who spake, as never man spake. And now 
 look on the scene which the evangelist sketches: 
 "They brought unto Him, all that were diseased, and 
 them that were possessed with devils. And all the 
 city was gathered together at the door." Mark i. 
 33-4. They came to prove His power. And before 
 Him, they lay out, in ghastly array, the sick, the 
 lame, the palsied, the possessed. There was the 
 fevered man, in his delirium the fierce demoniac 
 the palsied, in the utter helplessness of his state 
 the lame the blind the deaf the dumb all were 
 there. It was Humanity, in its deepest degra- 
 dation; uttering its wordless, but eloquent moan, in 
 the ear of Him, who came to win it back, to the glo- 
 rious estate from which it had fallen. 
 
 And how did he receive the application? You 
 seem almost to look upon the radiance that sat upon 
 His brow to hear the deep-toned tenderness of His 
 voice and to catch the beamings of that eye that 
 wept over the ruins of our nature as you read the 
 simple record: "He healed them all." 
 
 And so, in reference to everything, that told of 
 
DONE AWAY BY CHRIST. 179 
 
 the reign of evil. The tempest rages in its fury. 
 The billows swell; and threaten to overwhelm the 
 ship in which He sat. It is but for Him to rise, and 
 speak, " Peace; be still!" And the winds die away. 
 And the waves crouch at His feet ; rebuked for their 
 unnatural raging. Spirits of darkness confess His 
 might. And the fish of the sea own His invisible 
 power ; and bring a willing tribute to his need. 
 
 And have these things no voice ? Rather, do they 
 not speak to us in tones of persuasive power? Do 
 they not come to us, as pledges, that the domi- 
 nion, once lost, shall be restored to us again? Do 
 they not tell us, that in His reign when His king- 
 dom is set up these things shall have no place? 
 Do they not assure us, that, through Him, the world 
 shall be freed from their dominion? Do they not, 
 point us to a time, when these instances of His power 
 shall be the type of the universal order of things ? Are 
 they not an earnest of this ? Do they not assure us, 
 that man shall be reinvested with the dominion which 
 sin plucked from his hands; inasmuch as that domi- 
 nion is wielded by the humanity of Him, who is the 
 restorer of our race ? 
 
 I confess, brethren, I can draw no other conclusion 
 from them. The life of the Saviour, and the argu- 
 ment of the Apostle, explain each other. They are 
 in direct connection. You understand neither, fully, 
 without the other. The facts of the Saviour's life, 
 take on a breadth and massiveness of proportion ; and 
 the argument of the Apostle, a grandeur and firmness 
 of structure, that nothing else can reveal. And be- 
 sides all this ; the passage before us, instead of being 
 
180 THE WORLD TO COME, WHAT? 
 
 hard to understand, takes on a simplicity of meaning 
 and a fitness of application, that a child can appre- 
 hend. While, at the same time, it extends its pro- 
 portions to a degree that no human mind can fully 
 measure ! 
 
 This, then, is the argument of St. Paul. And these 
 are its results. It is the assertion of the dominion of 
 man over "the world to come;" as a result of the 
 work of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 And what is that world? I quote again from Mr. 
 Barnes : " The word, here rendered world oikou- 
 mene means properly the inhabited or inhabitable, 
 world. The proper meaning is the world or earth, 
 considered as inhabitable." 
 
 No doubt, he is entirely correct. It is this earth 
 this habitable earth of which the Apostle speaks. 
 Will you think that I am going quite too far, if I say, 
 It is not habitable, now, in the Bible sense of the 
 word ? Large portions of it are unfit for the abode 
 of man. The extremity of heat and cold burning 
 sands, and eternal snows the blast of the tempest 
 the convulsions of the earthquake pestilence and 
 disease exclude man altogether from a large part of 
 its surface. Moreover, in its most favoured regions, 
 it can scarcely be said to be habitable. Man is 
 everywhere "of few days, and full of evil." His life 
 on earth, is u a shadow." It is "a vapour." It is of 
 a hand's-breadth, in continuance. Man is a pilgrim, 
 passing on in his journey; a sojourner, as for a night; 
 rather than an abiding inhabitant of the earth. Half 
 our race die in infancy. And of those who are spared 
 to maturity ; a generation attains to less than half his 
 
MAN, NOT AS GOD MADE HIM. 181 
 
 three-score years and ten. And, if from these, you 
 turn to the mature old man; how the picture deepens 
 in its colouring! The bowed and tottering frame; 
 the shrivelled muscle; the strength departed; the 
 natural powers decayed; his senses scarcely connect- 
 ing him with the surrounding world ; what a comment 
 is this, on the progress of decay ! Is this the state of 
 man, as God pronounced him "very good?" Is the 
 sceptre of dominion, over His works, to come into 
 hands palsied by age weakened by disease and 
 powerless in death? Never. " The world to come, 
 whereof we speak," will know no such sight as this. 
 When sin is done away, it will be, as truly, a "habit- 
 able earth," as if Adam had never sinned. Sickness 
 shall invade it no more. Every element shall be 
 shorn of its power to hurt. And man no longer 
 preyed on by disease no more subject to death 
 shall live upon it, in the full enjoyment of all his 
 powers ; until his glorious change shall come. 
 
 What disturbing elements were introduced into the 
 constitution of man, by the fall, we do not know. Of 
 what they consist, we know not. We know they are 
 very great. And, though this body is, still, a won- 
 drous monument of creative power and skill, it is an 
 equally eloquent witness of the presence of some dis- 
 turbing powers ; whose constant tendency is, to decay 
 and pain and death. The foundations of our being, 
 are laid in this tendency. And, though an enlight- 
 ened education may modify it; the tendency still 
 exists. Man cannot pluck it out. For a brief period, 
 he may seem to hold it, beneath his sway. But it is 
 still there ; surely, though insensibly, carrying on its 
 
 16 
 
182 DR. CHALMERS. 
 
 work. The undermining is still going on. And, in a 
 little while, the fabric tumbles down. The highest 
 attainments of the healing art, are built upon its pre- 
 sence, as their foundation. 
 
 Corresponding tendencies seem to have pervaded 
 the material world. After the flood, we meet not the 
 patriarchal age. It is simply impossible, that we 
 should. But, when these disturbing forces are re- 
 moved; earth and man will be in harmony, again. 
 " The world to come," will be a "habitable earth;" 
 and man, its abiding lord. 
 
 I know, very well, that this is utterly at war with 
 the commonly received idea, at the present day. 
 "The common imagination" says Dr. Chalmers, in 
 his sermon on the New Heavens and the New Earth 
 " that we have of paradise on the other side of death, 
 is that of a lofty, aerial region, where the inmates 
 float in ether, or are mysteriously suspended upon 
 nothing where all the warm and sensible accompani- 
 ments, which give such an expression of strength and 
 life and colouring, to our present habitation, are 
 attenuated into a sort of spiritual element, that is 
 meagre and imperceptible, and utterly uninviting, to 
 the eye of mortals here below where every vestige of 
 materialism is done aivay ; and nothing left, but cer- 
 tain unearthly scenes, that have no power of allure- 
 ment; and certain unearthly ecstacies, with which it 
 is felt impossible to sympathize." (Sermons, vol. ii., 
 p. 302.) 
 
 It was, I believe, since the time of Whitby, who 
 died A. D. 1726, that this view has grown up to be 
 the current belief of the day. It was not so before. 
 
ALL EVIL FLOWS FROM SIN. 183 
 
 It was not the doctrine of the early church. It was 
 not the doctrine of the Reformers. In a word, it is 
 not the doctrine of the Bible. 
 
 All the evils in the world, and in man, are simply, 
 the results of sin. Do away these results, by banish- 
 ing sin ; bring back the earth, to the type of its first 
 creation ; and how glorious a world it will be ! Sur- 
 vey it as then it was. Imagine it before you, as it 
 issued from its Creator's hands; and dwellers in far 
 off worlds " shouted for joy," over its fair propor- 
 tions. Look on it as God surveyed it, and pronounced 
 it "very good. 11 Could there be, think you, a heaven, 
 a place of blessedness, more perfect than it was ? 
 
 I know, alas, that all our visions are darkened by 
 the clouds, and marred by the desolations, which sin 
 has introduced! But conceive that sin was banished. 
 Picture all its blights and disasters and countless ills, 
 done away. And add to this, in the then new heavens, 
 and on the new earth ; the unveiled presence of Grod 
 in Jesus Christ, as the portion of His people. Imagine 
 this : and you have a scene of beauty, of glory and of 
 rapturous blessedness, which words have no power to 
 express ! 
 
 Why, brethren, here in this body surrounded by 
 evils; exposed to temptations from within and from 
 without ; give to a man the sense of pardoned sin ; let 
 him realize that Jesus, in the fulness of His grace, is 
 in his heart; and language is too weak to express his 
 joy! With good old John Newton he will sing: 
 
 "His name yields the richest perfume, 
 And sweeter than music His voice ; 
 His presence disperses my gloom, 
 And makes all within me rejoice. 
 
184 GOD'S PRESENCE REALIZED. 
 
 While blest with a sense of His love, 
 
 A palace a toy would appear ; 
 And prisons would palaces prove, 
 
 If Jesus would dwell with me there! 19 
 
 Paul and Silas found it so. At midnight; in chains; 
 on the cold floor of a dungeon; scourged and bleeding; 
 they sang hymns of praise to the Saviour's name. 
 And thousands upon thousands, have, since that day, 
 added their testimony to it. From the dungeon, on 
 the rack, and at the stake, the song of rejoicing has 
 gone up, to a present Saviour. 
 
 But in "the world to come," this body will be laid 
 aside. It shall be exchanged, for a glorified and 
 spiritual body: whose integrity sin shall never mar. 
 The spirit shall be purified from all the effects of the 
 fall. The curse shall be removed. "The tabernacle 
 of God shall be with men; and He will dwell with 
 them." They shall look in His face. They shall be 
 made like unto Him. They shall doubt His word; 
 and distrust His love ; and grieve His spirit ; no more. 
 They shall be at home, in this mansion of their 
 Father's house. 
 
 Have you, then, a conception of the perfect bliss; 
 the rapturous joy; that shall be theirs? Can you 
 express a fit idea of the gladness, that shall well up 
 in every bosom; and pervade every nature; and 
 beam in every eye ; and speak through every tongue ? 
 Alas! we have none. Strains of sadness steal into 
 our most joyous songs. But in the harp of humanity, 
 in "the world to come," every string shall be in per- 
 fect tune. And the presence of Jehovah-Jesus, shall 
 wake all its tones, into one rapturous song of love, 
 
THE CURSE, REALITY OF. 185 
 
 that knows no fear; and joy that bursts from hearts 
 of unclouded blessedness ! 
 
 Here and now, the curse rests on all the works of 
 God. There is a philosophy, born of ignorance and 
 pride and unbelief, which denies this. But then, it is 
 most positively taught in the word of God. Who can 
 doubt it; if he believes that word? "Cursed is the 
 ground, for thy sake;" was the first utterance of it. 
 Then, the fairest beauty of earth, departed. Its 
 treasures were locked up, in its bosom. And man 
 must draw them, slowly forth, by the constant labour 
 of his hands. 
 
 And, all through, the Bible re-asserts this truth. 
 " He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the water- 
 springs into dry ground. A fruitful land into barren- 
 ness; for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. 11 
 Ps. cvii. 33, 34. Is not that positive enough? 
 
 "The earth mourneth and fadeth away; the world 
 languisheth and fadeth away ; the haughty people of 
 the earth do languish. The earth, also, is defiled 
 under the inhabitants thereof; because they have trans- 
 gressed the laws" etc. Isa. xxiv. 4, 5. The complete 
 realization of this passage is still future. It stretches 
 out to the close of the latter days. It will, then, 
 be fulfilled in all its breadth of meaning. But at 
 present, it may, well enough be quoted, to sustain 
 the very express declarations of other parts of Scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 "How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of 
 
 the field wither : for the wickedness of them that dwell 
 
 thereinl" Jer. xii. 4. Now, there could not be a 
 
 more clear and precise statement of a truth; than 
 
 16* 
 
186 CREATION'S BONDAGE, 
 
 these passages make of this. And there are many 
 others, that go out to an equal length. 
 
 The beauty of earth; is it not, ever, beauty tend- 
 ing to decay ? Its loveliness ; has it not, always, an 
 undertone of approaching change ? The curse ; where 
 is it not?" 
 
 St. Paul calls it "the bondage of corruption.' 1 How 
 expressive the phrase ! And how universal its appli- 
 cation. How speedily does corruption steal over 
 earth's fairest scenes ! How quickly does all that is 
 beautiful attest its power ! And the fairest and most 
 beautiful, ever the first. I press not now, this truth, 
 in reference to our race. Alas ! who needs an argu- 
 ment here? From the countless voices of the past; 
 from the living and the dead, alike ; there comes forth 
 the same attestation of it. I refer to its lower forms 
 of exhibition. The fruits that regale our taste; the 
 flowers that delight the eye; the grains on which we 
 feed; all bear witness to this truth. Does not every 
 one know, their constant tendency to degenerate? 
 Are they not kept up to what they are, by the con- 
 stant labours of the husbandman? Will not the 
 lusciousness of the one ; and the fragrance and beauty 
 of the other ; and the excellence of all ; decrease and 
 die out, if left without constant and skilful care ? Is 
 not man's triumph, everywhere, wrought out by man's 
 toil ? Earth tends to barrenness ; does it not ? Nox- 
 ious weeds spring up ; if labour keeps them not down. 
 We need a shelter from the sunbeam by day, and 
 from the moon by night; from summer's heat and 
 winter's cold. Everywhere, are proofs of antagonism. 
 And the trees, that autumn strips of their leaves, and 
 
BROKEN. 187 
 
 exposes to the wintry blast ; and the verdure and the 
 beauty, with which spring robes the year; what is all 
 this, but God's ever recurring parable of the winter's 
 reign of sin; and the spring-time gladness of "the 
 new heavens and the new earth ? 
 
 "When I stand," says Goethe, "all alone at night, 
 in open nature, I feel as though it were a spirit, and 
 begged redemption at my hands. Often have I had 
 the sensation, as if nature, in wailing sadness, en- 
 treated something of me; so that, not to understand 
 what she longed for, cut me through the heart." 
 
 And was this a poetic fancy, merely? Nay. It 
 is the doctrine of the Book of God, meeting us on 
 the page of the great poet of Germany. He saw 
 "the bondage of corruption," oppressing creation. 
 He heard, as it were, the clanking of the chains, 
 which bound it. But not of him, did it ask redemp- 
 tion. That was already achieved. It was waiting 
 for its purchased deliverance. It was silently, long- 
 ing for the coming of the hour, when its bondage 
 shall be broken ; its chains of corruption fall off; and 
 itself, rise up into the fulness of a new creation. 
 
 And that hour is drawing near. The creature, 
 who shared the blight of sin ; shall also feel the bless- 
 ings of redemption. And so, in "the world to come," 
 it is written, " There shall be no more curse" The 
 former things shall have passed away. It shall be 
 brought back to its first estate. Its glorious beauty 
 shall be, no more, a fading flower. It shall smile in 
 undying bloom. " Then shall the earth bring forth 
 her increase." Its early fertility shall be restored. 
 "The ploughman shall overtake the reaper; and the 
 
188 THE CURSE, REMOVED; 
 
 treader of grapes, him that soweth seed." Amos, 
 ix. 13. Noxious weeds, and thorns, and briers, shall 
 deface it, no more. Its Eden-beauty shall be re- 
 stored. The animals shall live in peace; as at the 
 first. Tempests shall no longer deform it. Earth- 
 quakes, no more, heave and rend its bosom. " Vio- 
 lence shall, no more, be heard in thy land; wasting 
 nor destruction, within thy borders. " Isa. Ix. 18. The 
 winds shall cease their raging; for " There shall be a 
 new heavens;" i. e., a new arrangement of the atmos- 
 phere; by which the outbursts of the tempest, shall 
 be needed no more. Every element of harm and 
 opposition shall be removed. Every token of blight 
 banished. " Joy and gladness shall be found therein; 
 thanksgiving and the voice of melody." " Instead of 
 the thorn, shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of 
 the brier, shall come up the myrtle-tree." Isa. Iv. 13. 
 "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened; and the 
 ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the 
 lame man leap as an heart; and the tongue of the 
 dumb sing." Isa. xxxv. 5, 6. The foreshadowed 
 work of Christ, shall be gloriously realized; and all 
 the evils, that followed in the path of sin, shall be 
 banished for ever. Then: "Behold, I make all things 
 new." "New" in beauty and harmony. "New" in 
 perfect adaptation, each to the other. And "new" 
 especially in this, that sin will be banished; and 
 righteousness dwell in the world for ever ! 
 
 And this is the glorious sight, ever rising up and 
 filling the vision of the Book of God. It was figured 
 in the Jewish Sabbatic year. There was peace in all 
 their borders. All men rested from their labours. 
 
TYPE, AND PROMISE OF. 189 
 
 The cattle rested. The land rested. Throughout the 
 year, there was, neither sowing of seed, nor reaping 
 of grain. God had sent abundance through all their 
 borders ; and every man sat, in quiet, beneath his own 
 vine and fig-tree. Everything told of peace and 
 prosperity. Everything spoke of a nation fearing 
 God; and blessed in His service. This was its design. 
 And what was this Sabbatic year what is our weekly 
 Sabbath; but a type of that rest i. e., Sabbath-keep- 
 ing; "which remains for the people of God?" 
 
 St. Peter calls it "the restitution of all things, 
 which God hath spoken, by the mouth of all His holy 
 prophets, since the world began. J> Acts iii. 21. I 
 pray you, examine that text. What is restitution? 
 Just bringing things bacJc to their first estate. It is 
 nothing else. Whatever was the state of "all things," 
 at first ; will be their state again. If it is not, there 
 is no restitution. It must reach to man; and he will 
 be restored. It must reach the earth ; and it will be 
 restored. It must reach the inhabitants of the earth ; 
 and they will be restored. If all this is not done ; 
 there is no restitution. Holiness alone, will not repair 
 the ruins of the fall. Were every man a saint ; that 
 would not pluck the venom from the serpent's fang ; 
 nor restrain the tempest in its wrath; nor bid the 
 earthquake cease ; nor put back the hand of sickness ; 
 nor turn aside the power of death. The constitution 
 of the material universe must be altered. It must 
 be brought back to its first estate. And that is 
 restitution. 
 
 And that is God's promise. It is not left to infer- 
 ence. It has been the burden of every prophet He 
 
190 THE BLESSED HOPE 
 
 has sent into the world. He has spoken it, "by all 
 the prophets, which have been, since the world began." 
 It is linked in with Christ's second coming. It is the 
 glorious result of that coming. As such, the Scrip- 
 tures call it, "the blessed hope." As such, it has ever 
 been, the pole-star to the Church. And, towards it, 
 the eye of the believer has turned; with a trembling 
 intensity of interest, that nothing could arrest or sub- 
 due. "Enoch, the seventh from Adam," beheld it. 
 He caught its earliest beams, as it rose, bright and 
 clear, above the storm-tossed ocean, on which that 
 Church was called to go forth. Jacob saw it, on his 
 dying bed; as he told of Him, unto whom, the gather- 
 ing of His people should be. Moses saw it; and the 
 prophets. The man of Uz beheld it, beaming with 
 resplendent light. His faith realized the view. "In 
 his flesh," he saw his God, as He stood, in the latter 
 day, on the earth. David touched his harp, with 
 rapturous exultation; as visions of His coming glory 
 rose up before him. Isaiah calls up every image 
 of grandeur; and pours forth his most entrancing 
 strains, as he portrays the splendour of His reign. 
 Jeremiah tells of His everlasting covenant. Ezekiel 
 saw Him tread the earth again. Daniel tells of the 
 majesty of His throne; and beheld all nations serving 
 and obeying Him. Zechariah saw Him come with all 
 His saints. While Malachi exclaims: "Behold, He 
 shall suddenly come to His temple!" Every prophet 
 strikes his harp to the strain of this "blessed hope;" 
 and adds his tribute to the glories of that, day, that 
 shall usher in "the restitution of all things!" 
 
 And well may it be termed "the blessed hope!" 
 
OP THE CHURCH. 191 
 
 It is so in itself. It is so, in its influences. It is so 
 in all its results, to the people of God ; and to all the 
 works of His hands. It is fearful, only to the enemies 
 of our Lord. It is distasteful, only, to those who 
 have no clear realization of a saving interest in its 
 blessings. 
 
 And the Christian needs its strong support. Doubts 
 are springing up within him. And trials and diffi- 
 culties of unnumbered forms, await him. And earth 
 offers him no abiding home ; no enduring bliss. He is 
 called, moreover, to a ceaseless warfare with the sinful 
 nature which he bears about ; and with the enemies 
 that surround him. And from this warfare, " there 
 is no discharge," while life endures. But, amidst it 
 all, he has the Saviour's legacy of His promised re- 
 turn, to cheer him. " I will come to you," falls upon 
 his soul, refreshingly, as the evening dew, upon the 
 drooping flower. His graces revive beneath its in- 
 fluence. Amidst the warfare of earth, it is his privi- 
 lege to take his stand beneath the outspread banner 
 of the truth of God. And, as its folds wave out 
 before his eye ; he delights to look up, and find it rich 
 with the promises of His coming radiant with the 
 light that beams upon it from above ; and bearing all 
 over its ample surface, "the blessed hope and glorious 
 appearing of the great Crod and our Saviour Jesus 
 Christ!"* 
 
 * How beautifully with what calm and quiet assurance Watts 
 speaks of this in one of his hymns : 
 
 " The gospel bears our spirits up, 
 While we expect that glorious hope, 
 The bright appearing of our Lord 
 And faith stands leaning on His word. 19 
 
192 CONCLUSION. 
 
 "Well, brethren, is it a blessed hope to you? To 
 make it so, you must have a clear and scriptural 
 assurance, that Jesus is your Saviour. It will not do, 
 to trust to a vague, and misty and undefined idea 
 about it. The issues at stake here, are everlasting 
 issues. It behoves you to be very clear and very 
 sure about them; to see to it, that they rest upon a 
 foundation strong enough to sustain eternal interests. 
 Neglect here ; a mistake here ; endangers everything ; 
 destroys everything. See to it that your hope will 
 stand the test. Be sure. Have it very clearly de- 
 fined before you. Every hope is operative, in propor- 
 tion as it is so. There will be some, who will shrink 
 away from His coming. It is, of all others, the event 
 which they most dread. There will be others, who, as 
 He appears in glory, will look up and say, " Lo y this 
 is our G-od. We have waited for Him. He will come 
 and save us!" 
 
 Men and brethren, to which class do you and I 
 belong? 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 AND I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of 
 Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of 
 days, and they brought Him near before Him. 
 
 And there was given unto Him dominion and glory, and a kingdom, 
 that all people, nations and languages should serve Him; His 
 dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, 
 and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. DAN. vii. 
 13-14. 
 
 THE subject, which these words call us to consider, is 
 the time and manner of setting up the kingdom of the 
 Crod of heaven. 
 
 And you perceive, that the text very clearly points 
 out the time. It is, at the coming of the Son of Man. 
 It is, when He shall come near to the Ancient of 
 days, that there shall be "given unto Him dominion 
 and glory and a kingdom, that all people and nations 
 and languages should serve Him." In other words, it 
 is when His elect church shall be gathered and glori- 
 fied, and presented "faultless, before the presence of 
 His glory, with exceeding joy;' ' that this declaration 
 shall be fulfilled; and the "nations given unto Him for 
 an inheritance ; and the uttermost parts of the earth 
 for His possession." It is then, that all His banded 
 enemies shall be destroyed ; and Satan bound ; and all 
 things that offend, be gathered out of His kingdom. 
 
 IT 
 
194 TIME OF THE END. 
 
 This is the general statement of the time. There 
 are however, "signs of the times," which are to indi- 
 cate its approach; and by means of which, we may 
 "know that it is nigh; even at the doors." 
 
 You will remember, that the twelve hundred and 
 sixty days of the dominion of the little horn, or Papal 
 Apostacy, come to an end i. e., assuming our calcu- 
 lation, as to the time of starting, to be correct in 
 A. D. 1866.* 
 
 But this, you will observe, is only "the time of the 
 end;" not "the end 19 itself. It is in overlooking this 
 distinction in confounding these two separate pe- 
 riods that many and grave mistakes have been 
 made. Stretching forward from " the time of the 
 end" until the end, is a period of seventy-five days 
 made up of two other periods of thirty and forty-five 
 days at the close of which the end shall be. Dan. 
 xii. 13. That is to say if our starting point is 
 exact the child is now born, that may look on the 
 closing up of the last scenes of preparation ; and the 
 glorious setting up of the kingdom of the God of 
 heaven. 
 
 Now, we may speak of "the signs of the times," 
 
 * This also is the end of the greater period of twenty-three 
 hundred days or more properly, of the twenty-two hundred, 
 cited by Jerome, as the true reading mentioned in the vision of 
 the ram and he-goat. Dan. viii. 14. Now, counting back from 
 A. D. 1866, the twenty-two hundred days of that vision, will bring 
 us precisely to the year B. C. 334 i. e., the very year in which the 
 Persian monarchy was dissolved by the death of Darius. Or, to adopt 
 the symbols of the prophet, the very year in which the he-goat ran 
 upon the ram, "in the fury of his power." (Ver. 6.) Both periods 
 terminate together; i. e., "at the time of the end." (Ver. 17.) 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 195 
 
 that mark the drawing near of this period, as Intel- 
 lectual^ and Moral, and Religious, and Political. 
 
 a. Intellectual. Whatever pertains to the elevation 
 and improvement of man's intellectual nature, will, at 
 that time, receive an impulse never felt before. It 
 will be as though his spirit was anticipating the day, 
 when the curse shall be lifted off; and itself set free 
 from the debasing influences of sin. Science and phi- 
 losophy, even where like Aaron's rod they were 
 dry and lifeless before, shall, like it, bud and blossom 
 as in a night. Men shall wonder at the greatness 
 and rapidity of its disclosures. Intellect shall put 
 forth its loftiest powers, and win its brightest renown. 
 The secrets of nature shall lie open to the searcher 
 after them. And questions, which the science of ages 
 had vainly striven to solve, will be answered. The 
 seal of the prophetic word shall be broken off. Pro- 
 phecies, now dark, shall flash and blaze with light. 
 Like mountain peaks, they will catch the first rays of 
 the rising Sun of Righteousness. And the dawnings 
 of this light, we are now beginning to see. Thank 
 God, its noonday brightness will soon be on us! 
 " The words are closed up and sealed till the time of 
 the end." If therefore, men have erred in their ex- 
 position of them, we should not wonder. It is just 
 what we have a right to expect; just what the prophet 
 foretold us would be. "Till the time of the end," 
 the book was to be sealed. Who, then, could expound 
 it? But then the seals will be broken. Light will 
 steal into it. As the diamond, opened in the dark, 
 gives out the light it had received from the sun; so 
 shall the words of the prophecy of this book. They 
 
196 SIGNS OF THE TIMES, 
 
 will shed around the light, which they had taken in 
 from Him, who is the source of it all. Like the vail, 
 which now obscures Israel's vision, that seal shall be 
 taken away. Its purpose will have been served. 
 "The words of the book" will be opened. Clear 
 meaning will shine out in passages, now hard to 
 understand. And the minister of Christ, as he pon- 
 ders his message, shall wonder, that words which are 
 then radiant as the dew-drop in the sunbeam, should 
 ever have seemed dark to his view ! 
 
 b. Moral. And in this aspect, the " signs of the 
 times' ' will be, equally, decided. Would to God I 
 might add equally bright. But it is not so written. 
 On the contrary, the contrast will be fearfully great. 
 Satan will put forth his mighty power. Wickedness 
 shall abound. Corruption shall sit down in high 
 places. Unblushingly, it shall stalk abroad. Legis- 
 lators shall sell their influence; and barter their 
 votes; or yield them both to the demands of those in 
 power. The hand of the judge shall itch for bribes. 
 The scales of justice shall, no more, be evenly held. 
 And gold shall blunt the edge of its sword. And 
 every interest shall be sacrificed to selfish gain. Pa- 
 triotism and purity shall be laughed at, as " obsolete 
 ideas. 1 ' Language shall preserve their names as the 
 earth does its fossil remains in proof of their former 
 existence. But the living virtues themselves, shall be 
 no more. Covetousness shall rule in the heart. And 
 boastings swell on the tongue. And pride take on its 
 haughtiest assumptions. And blasphemy speak out 
 its foulest words. And promises shall be written in 
 the sand for the first wave of interest to wash them 
 
CONTINUED. 197 
 
 out. Perjury shall lift up its head in our courts; 
 and false accusations pervade the land. 
 
 Do you say, This picture is too deeply coloured? 
 I reply: Take your Bible, and see. Examine its 
 statements; and tell me, what part is overdrawn. 
 Look at its declarations concerning the world before 
 the flood. Think what it must have been, when, 
 " every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, were 
 only evil, and that continually" when "the earth 
 was filled with violence" when "all flesh had cor- 
 rupted his way before God." Think what it must 
 have been, in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah; 
 when God swept them away from the earth which 
 they had polluted. And when you have pondered 
 this, remember who has said, "JZven thus shall it be, 
 in the day when the Son of Man is revealed!" And, 
 lest even His disciples should be borne down by the 
 flood of iniquity, as it poured through the land, he 
 bids them beware, that their "hearts be not over- 
 charged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of 
 this life." It must be a time of fearful wickedness, 
 when they require such a warning as that! 
 
 And then, there is St. Paul's description of the last 
 times; "For men shall be lovers of their own selves, 
 covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to 
 parents, unthankful, unholy, 
 
 "Without natural affection, truce-breakers, false 
 accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that 
 are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of plea- 
 sure more than lovers of God ; 
 
 "Having a form of godliness, but denying the 
 17* 
 
198 ST. PAUL'S DESCRIPTION 
 
 power thereof." 2 Tim. iii. 2-5. Is it possible, for a 
 picture of human society, to be more deeply coloured 
 than that ? 
 
 And now, compare this with the account the same 
 Apostle gives of the state of the heathen world, in his 
 day: "Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornica- 
 tion, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of 
 envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 
 backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boast- 
 ful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 
 without understanding, covenant-breakers, without na- 
 tural affection, implacable, unmerciful." Rom. i. 29-32. 
 
 How striking the parallel ! How strongly the cur- 
 rent of human society sets in towards evil ! Why, we 
 may be appalled at the darkness of the colouring 
 with which the picture is marked. But who can say, 
 " It is overdrawn? The progress of the age; and the 
 refinements of education; will prevent its realization." 
 They did not do so in the Augustan age. And who 
 can say, We are not drifting, rapidly, in the same 
 direction. No, no, brethren. We may not thus de- 
 ceive ourselves. The evils of the latter days are 
 rapidly working themselves to the surface. They 
 reach out to all classes. Old and young are affected 
 by them. And, occupying a central position in both 
 groups, is one, which, singularly enough, is almost 
 entirely overlooked; though no man can deny its 
 existence. It is one, also, which threatens the darkest 
 evils in its course. "Disobedient to parents," is the 
 declaration. And it is one which seems, eminently, 
 worthy of the place of importance which the Spirit 
 has assigned it. 
 
Or THE LAST DAYS. 199 
 
 We are now at the budding of the evil. What its 
 bitter fruit will be, God only fully sees. But can 
 you point to an evil, that may not, directly, grow 
 from it ? Can you ? No. Not one. 
 
 Some men will say, " It is easy to condemn the pre- 
 sent; but you prove nothing by it, when you have 
 done." But then, you will remember, it is still easier 
 to show the condemnation false; if indeed it happens 
 to be so. 
 
 But, now, where do we see the prompt and willing 
 obedience of the olden time ? Where shall we find the 
 discipline that produced a Washington, an Adams, the 
 Wesleys, a Havelock, or our own revered patriarch, 
 Bishop Meade? Their lofty character, and eminent 
 services, and high position, and pure fame; were not 
 these fair results of the gentle and loving, but firm 
 and unyielding, training under which they were 
 reared? But, where now, will you find the good, old- 
 fashioned, Bible rule, of prompt and unquestioning 
 and willing obedience ; as the standard of family dis- 
 cipline ? While the child pleases to obey ; it is well 
 enough. But when the act is displeasing to it ; when 
 the contest of two wills begins; is it not the parent 
 that generally gives way? The subjugation of the 
 will; the calm and kind, but unyielding demand, 
 of loving obedience, because a parent requires it; 
 where do you meet with this, as the family rule? 
 And the want of it is spreading everywhere. In 
 our schools and our colleges, the complaint is, con- 
 tinually, the difficulty of government. And impatience 
 of restraint, is spreading, everywhere, through the 
 
200 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 land.* It is a fearful and a growing evil. And, sig- 
 nificantly enough, did St. Paul give it, a central 
 position, in the dark list of ills, that mark "the time 
 of the end." 
 
 c. Religious. In this aspect, too, "the signs of 
 the times" will be equally marked. There will be a 
 great multiplication of instruments, for spreading 
 abroad the gospel. Missionary spirit and missionary 
 effort will increase. The "gospel will be preached, in 
 all nations, for a witness." There will be gracious 
 visitations of the Spirit, accompanying the word; as 
 if in anticipation of the time, when He shall be 
 "poured out from on high." But still, with all this, 
 "the love of many shall wax cold." Formalism shall 
 abound in the churches. The line, that separates the 
 Church from the world, shall be, practically rubbed 
 out. Men will have "a form of godliness." But 
 they will "deny its power." The higher attainments 
 of the Christian life, will be sneered at, as idle super- 
 stitions. And the wings of faith shall be broken. 
 And the heart of love be cold; and hope confine its 
 gaze to earth. Is not this what our Lord teaches, 
 when He asks: "When the Son of Man cometh, shall 
 lie find faith on the earth?" Some will be found pro- 
 testing against this state of things. But the mass of 
 men will be of this character; unbelieving, cold, 
 
 * It may do very well for our public lecturers, to amuse their 
 hearers, and "bring down the house," by witty allusions to Young 
 America as "one of the institutions of our day." Whatever else may 
 be said of this, it is certainly, a striking comment on the univer- 
 sality of the facts averred above. 
 
OBJECTION CONSIDERED. 201 
 
 thoroughly and intensely, worldly. Some will be 
 heard, proclaiming the nearness of the second coming 
 of our Lord.* But they will not be believed. And 
 the clearest reasonings will be unheeded. And the 
 most pointed appeals neglected. And amidst these 
 deepening signs, the predicted season will sweep on- 
 ward to its end. 
 
 Let us not deceive ourselves, with the hope of a 
 gradual and peaceful spreading of the triumphs of the 
 gospel ; until the world shall be converted to Christ. 
 It will not be. There is not one text, in all the Bible, 
 which affirms this, as taking place, before His second 
 coming. There are very many which teach the con- 
 trary. This is not the epoch of the world's conversion. 
 The Grentiles are not the instruments. It is reserved 
 for other times than ours; and other instruments 
 than us. 
 
 And, let it not be said, that this is a view, which 
 tends to repress missionary effort; and put out the 
 missionary spirit. It rather brings before us the true 
 missionary impulse; i. e., as making " ready a people 
 prepared for the Lord;" and thus hastening on the 
 coming of the day of Grod. It stirs the spirit, as with 
 a trumpet tone, to know, that every dollar, cast into 
 the treasury of the Lord; and every Bible distri- 
 buted; and every missionary sent out; and every 
 
 * Sir Isaac Newton says: "About the time of the end, in all 
 probability, a body of men will be raised up, who will turn their 
 attention to the prophecies; and insist upon their literal fulfilment, in 
 the midst of much clamor and opposition." ( Voice of the Church on the 
 Reign of Christ, p. 236.) 
 
202 POLITICAL SIGNS, 
 
 sermon preached; tends, by so much, to accomplish 
 making known the gospel as a witness. And when 
 that is done, "the end shall come." 
 
 d. Political. And very plainly are these signs 
 pointed out. Indeed, you cannot have such a state of 
 things, in the intellectual, and moral, and religious 
 world; without having it as clearly marked, in the 
 political. Our Lord condenses volumes, in the phrase, 
 "distress of nations, with perplexity;" as true of the 
 latter days. And the prophets affirm this view. "All 
 the kingdoms of the world, upon the face of the earth" 
 shall drink of the wine-cup of the wrath of God; i. e., 
 shall be involved in the disasters of the last days. 
 Jer. xxv. 26. The ten kingdoms shall be the theatre 
 of great revolutions. Thrones will be overturned. 
 Dynasties brought to a bloody end. Old monarchies 
 are to fall. An imperial chief shall arise; who is 
 to rule with despotic power. Governments will be 
 changed, for a season. It may even be, that elective 
 chiefs will be placed over them. But, whatever the 
 new form of power shall be ; it will be of short con- 
 tinuance. They shall be subordinated to one, great, 
 imperial head; whose lead they shall willingly follow. 
 The process of wasting which, as we have seen, is 
 to go on, through the kingdoms of the beast shall 
 continue, until as a kingdom, the Papacy shall perish, 
 in some great convulsion of the times. 
 
 And, all the indications seem to be, that the begin- 
 ning of this, is not far distant. Europe slumbers on 
 a volcano. And how soon its convulsions shall be 
 felt; it is not for man to say. Where its first throes 
 shall be experienced; where next they shall spread; 
 
CONSIDERED. 203 
 
 we know not. No one knows. What we know is, 
 that soon, every throne, amidst the ten, shall be shaken 
 down; and every government come forth from the 
 convulsion, in a new form ; clothed with new powers. 
 But not long will that continue. In vain, do exiled 
 patriots scheme and plot and labour; for the upbuild- 
 ing of republics, in these kingdoms. It is a dream; 
 baseless and unmeaning. Its realization shall never 
 be. The word of God is against it. As kingdoms, 
 their character, duration, and end, are all, clearly 
 pointed out. They have given "their strength to the 
 beast." They have supported his pretensions; and 
 extended his power; and upheld his throne. And, 
 though, for a season, they may "hate the whore," by 
 whom his dominion has been exercised; and turn 
 against her, "and make her desolate and naked, and 
 eat her flesh and burn her with fire;" Rev. xvii. 16, 
 yet it will only be for a time. In its last form, they 
 shall still give their power unto the beast, until the 
 word of Grod shall be fulfilled." (Ver. 17.) No form 
 of government shall be abiding there. The times 
 of the end bear them all onward to the final ca- 
 tastrophe. 
 
 And this overthrow of the kingdom of the beast, 
 about the end of the twelve hundred and sixty days, 
 is not its final overthrow. It is to appear once more. 
 The Papacy is to take on another, and its last, phase. 
 Of that it is written, "All the world shall wonder" 
 when they behold "the beast that was not and yet 
 is." Once again, it is to be "drunk with the blood of 
 saints." And while the ten kingdoms shall be shaken 
 to their centre, it is in Palestine that the last great 
 
204 NOT BELIEVED. 
 
 struggle shall be made. Thither, the course of great 
 events is surely to tend. There, the last great combi- 
 nation is to be made. There, the stone out of the 
 mountain, is to " strike the image on the feet of it." 
 There, the hostile kingdoms are to be broken in 
 pieces; and the empire of the beast destroyed for 
 ever! 
 
 Such, brethren, are some of "the signs of the 
 times," which point out to us the near approach, and 
 mark the progress, of the latter days. We are sur- 
 rounded by them. In whichever of their fourfold 
 aspects we view them, I suppose we must all admit, 
 that they do fit into our day, as characteristics of it. 
 We may not believe they are signs. Many will not. 
 They will see in them nothing but the regular suc- 
 cession of cause and effect; calling for no special 
 exhibition of divine power. 
 
 And why should there be ? When our Lord blamed 
 the Pharisees, because they would not regard the 
 "signs of the times," such, precisely, was their cha- 
 racter. There was not one of them, that seemed a 
 direct exercise of Gf-od's power. Not one of them, to 
 which men of thought could not assign a clear and 
 exact human instrumentality. No; not one. But 
 they were not, for this, less the predicted signs. 
 They did not, less clearly, prove the prophetic word. 
 If the sceptre was to depart from Judah, at Shiloh's 
 coming; of course, some other power must pluck it 
 from his hands. Human instrumentality must be 
 employed. And the account, which the men of that 
 day might have given of it, would be, "Rome is 
 stronger than Judah. The weaker power must submit 
 
SECONDARY CAUSES. 205 
 
 to the yoke" And, how naturally, such an account 
 would be given. 
 
 But, though this would be the truth, it would not 
 be all the truth. The prophecy lay back of the fact. 
 And the state of the respective nations, was a silent 
 answer to its demands. 
 
 So with those signs which are to precede His 
 second coming i. e., to characterize "the time of 
 the end." They may all be explained on the known 
 and regular operation of secondary causes. Up to 
 the last moment, when "the sign of the Son of man 
 shall be seen" in the heavens there will not be one, 
 of which men may not truthfully say, as they point 
 to some visible instrumentality, " This is the cause of 
 it!" The progress of armies; the contests among 
 different nations; the setting up of one throne, and 
 the pulling down of another; the rapid advance of 
 science; the diffusion of education; the state of the 
 churches and of the world at large; all these things 
 may be thus explained. And, assuming that this 
 explanation exhausts the truth; neglecting to look 
 beyond; refusing to admit the presence of a higher 
 power controlling these causes ; men will be deceived, 
 blinded, to the last. The mistake of the Jews will be 
 acted over again. Men will be looking for some 
 miraculous manifestation of His power. And of this 
 sort, "there shall no sign be given them" until the 
 end. They will forget Him, who sitteth behind and 
 above the shifting scenes of history; and whose ulti- 
 mate design is carried on by every figure that comes 
 forth upon the stage. Hence, "as a snare, it shall 
 come upon all them that dwell on the face of the 
 
 18 
 
206 CHRIST'S PERSONAL COMING. 
 
 earth." The very facts, which are to indicate its ap- 
 proach^ will all be referred to other causes. And men 
 will doubt its coming, until it breaks upon them. 
 
 We have already seen the manner of the setting up 
 of this kingdom; i. e., by the personal coming of our 
 Lord. And the text, very clearly, refers to this. 
 What is this "coming with the clouds of heaven" but 
 that of which St. John says, "Behold, He comethwith 
 clouds, and every eye shall see Him"? What, but 
 that of which our Lord, himself, speaks: "And they 
 shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of 
 heaven, with power and great glory"? 
 
 As He stood on Mount Olivet, blessing His disci- 
 ples, "a cloud received Him out of their sight." 
 With wondering intensity of adoration, His disciples 
 gaze after Him, as He ascends. And then an angel 
 speaks: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
 into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken from 
 you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner, as ye 
 have seen Him go into heaven" Acts i. 11. Now, 
 what is this, but the coming spoken of in the text ? 
 What is it, but His coming to set up His kingdom ? 
 What, but His visible, personal coming? I submit, 
 that the uniform testimony of Scripture is, that at 
 this coming, His kingdom shall be set up His banded 
 enemies destroyed the Spirit poured out- and the 
 world converted to God. Examine and see if it is 
 not so. Examine, and see if there is a single passage 
 which speaks of the setting up of His kingdom ; which 
 does not directly, or by necessary inference, connect it 
 with that personal coming. 
 
 And I think I see clearly why this should be. It 
 
JUDGMENT GIVEN TO HIM. 
 
 is fit and right, that He who shed His blood for man, 
 should execute judgment on all who reject His grace. 
 That the earth, which saw the humiliation of His 
 cross, should look on the splendours of His "many 
 crowns." Judgment, therefore, is given to Him, "be- 
 cause He is the Son of Man." 0, it is a wise and 
 gracious arrangement, that He who died for man, 
 should be the Judge of man ! He wore our nature. 
 He knows its wants; its weaknesses; its temptations; 
 its dangers. There is not one of all those who shall 
 stand before Him at last, that shall not know he 
 might have found a Saviour, in the person of his 
 Judge! And so, in person, He is to come again. 
 The plans of God shall have passed over the circle of 
 their development. And redemption is complete ; by 
 His coming again to set up His kingdom, which sin 
 had laboured to destroy! It is this coming, of which 
 the text speaks; and to which the Bible everywhere 
 appeals. 
 
 And here, this question might be left. In the 
 minds of many, however, this great truth is thrown 
 down from its high position. A principle of interpre- 
 tation, which is allowed in no other book, is sought to 
 be set up. And, as a consequence, it has come to 
 pass, that men regard the numerous and strong and 
 varied declarations of the Bible, concerning Christ's 
 second coming, as referring to a spiritual coming. 
 
 Now, I suppose, we shall all agree, that, only as we 
 receive the truth of God, in- its purity i. e., as we 
 attain to the mind of the Spirit, concerning it can we 
 hope to be blessed by it. Only so far is it the word 
 of God to us. When the astronomer turns his tele- 
 
208 MIND OF THE SPIRIT, 
 
 scope against the sky ; unless it be in a line with a 
 given star, its beams do not reach his eye. He sees 
 it not. Its existence is not perceived by him. So, 
 unless he turns the eye of faith, directly in a line 
 with the teachings of His word, God's truth does not 
 come in to his soul. He will be deprived of that por- 
 tion of his spiritual food ; and so fall short of the 
 strength and stature of grace to which he might have 
 attained. 
 
 When therefore, I read, "If any man love me, my 
 Father will love him; and we will come to him, and 
 make our abode with him;" I hail an interest therein 
 as a blessed privilege. I claim part of all its bless- 
 ings. And he knows not of the riches of grace, who 
 knows not what that promise means. 
 
 But, then, what results from this? Suppose the 
 Bible abounded in promises as to Christ's spiritual 
 coming. What then? Is that all? Is there no 
 coming other than that ? None different from that ? 
 None beyond that ? 
 
 It was not that, which the Apostle calls "the 
 blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great 
 God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." It was not that 
 which the Corinthians expected when they were 
 "waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 1 Cor. i. 7. It was not that, which the Thessalonians 
 had in view, when they "turned to God from idols to 
 serve the living and true . God ; and to wait for his 
 Son from heaven." 1 Thess. i. 10. It was not that 
 which he had in view, when he said they were his 
 "hope or joy or crown of rejoicing ... in the pre- 
 sence of the Lord Jesus Christ at His coming." 1 Thess. 
 
;E 
 OF THE 
 r EESI 
 209 
 
 -xi^ - 1 W * ** 
 
 ii. 19. It was not that of which our Lord spoke, 
 when He said, "As the lightning cometh out of the 
 east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the 
 coming of the Son of Man be." Matt. xxiv. 26. Were 
 there no other passages than these, the coming of 
 which we speak would stand proved as a foundation 
 hope a broad and blessed and glorious truth ! 
 
 But what now, is the fact? Just this. There are, 
 
 1 believe, some twelve or thirteen words, in the 
 original, used in the New Testament in reference to 
 this coming. And these occur in plain and un- 
 doubted reference to it no less than about one hun- 
 dred and twenty-five times. They are thus often 
 used to assert that truth. And they do it so clearly 
 and pointedly, that it would seem their application 
 cannot be mistaken.* 
 
 * The most prominent of these words are rendered, revelation; 
 appearing or manifestation; coming, in the sense of bodily presence; 
 to come; kingdom; to be manifested, or to appear; and day. The 
 examples of their use are as follows, in the order in which they are 
 named: 
 
 a. Revelation, or reveal Luke xvii. 30; Rom. ii. 5; viii. 18, 19; 
 
 2 Thess. i. 7 ; 1 Pet. i. 5. 7. 13; iv. 13; v. 1; 1 Cor. i. 7. 
 
 b. Appearing or manifestation 2 Thess. ii. 8. Literally, this is 
 " the epiphany or visible appearing of His presence" 1 Tim. vi. 14; 
 2 Tim. iv. 1. 8; Tit. ii. 13; Matt. xxiv. 30; Heb. ix. 28. 
 
 c. Coming, or bodily presence Matt. xxiv. 3. 27. 37. 39; 1 Cor. 
 xv. 23; 1 Thess. ii. 19; iii. 13; iv. 15; 2 Thess. ii. 1. 8; James 
 v. 7, 8: 2 Pet. i. 16; iii. 4. 12; 1 John. ii. 28. 
 
 d. Come Matt. viii. 11; xvi. 27; xxiv. 30. 42. 44. 46; xxv. 6. 
 10. 19. 31; xxvi. 64; Mark viii. 38; xiii. 26. 35; xiv. 62; Luke 
 xii. 36, 37, 38. 40. 43. 46; ix. 26; xviii. 8; xxi. 27; John xiv. 3. 
 18; Acts i. 11; 1 Cor. iv. 6; xi. 26; 1 Thess. v. 2; 2 Thess. i. 10; 
 Heb. x. 37; 2 Pet. iii. 4; Jude, 14; Eev. i. 4. 7; xi. 17, 18; 
 
 18* 
 
210 PROOFS AND EXAMPLES. 
 
 Instances of their use may be seen in Luke xxi. 27. 
 "And then shall they see the Son of Man, coming 
 in a cloud, with power and great glory. " And in 
 2 Tim. iv. 1 "I charge thee, therefore, before God 
 and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick 
 and the dead, at His appearing and His kingdom." 
 
 They speak of an absolute and visible coming, do 
 they not? And they are, I believe, fair types of the 
 use of these various words. 
 
 On the other hand, the number of passages, which 
 speak of a spiritual coming, is exceedingly small. 
 There are two, which undoubtedly do so. There may 
 be others. But if there are, I am not able, now, to 
 refer to them. These two are ; 
 
 iii. 11; xxii. 7. 12. 20; xvi. 15; Matt. xxiv. 14. 50; Luke xii. 46; 
 xiii. 29; Rom. xi. 26; 2 Pet. iii. 10; Rev. ii. 25. 
 
 e. Kingdom Matt. viii. 11; xiii. 41. 43; xxvi. 29; Mark xiv. 
 25; Luke xxii. 16. 18. 30; xiii. 29; xxi. 31; 2 Tim. iv. 1. 18; 
 James ii. 5; Rev. xi. 15; Luke i. 33. 
 
 /. To be manifested or appear 2 Cor. v. 10; Col. iii. 4; 1 Pet. 
 v. 4 ; 1 John ii. 28 ; iii. 2. 
 
 g. Day Phil. i. 10; 2 Thess. ii. 2; 2 Tim. i. 12. 18; iv. 8; 
 Jude 6; Rev. vi. 17; xvi. 14; 1 Cor. v. 5; 2 Cor. i. 14; 1 John iv. 
 17; Eph. iv. 30. 
 
 Other words occur in such passages as Rom. viii. 17, last clause; 
 2 Thess. i. 10. And Acts iii. 20, 21. And 1 Thess. iv. 16. And 
 Gal. v. 5, c. /. 2 Tim. iv. 8; 1 Thess. i. 10; Rom. viii. 19. And 
 Heb. ix. 28 ; 1 John iii. 2, last clause. 
 
 Many other passages might be cited. But here is an array of 
 proof which might be allowed to be sufficient for any purpose. To 
 suppose that all will agree, that the application of the passages is 
 correct, is perhaps more than is to be expected. The day has not 
 come, when "we shall all see eye to eye." But, for one, I must 
 confess, it is difficult to see in what respect they are improperly 
 applied. 
 
SPIRITUAL COMING. 211 
 
 " Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any 
 man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in 
 to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." 
 Rev. iii. 20. 
 
 "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and 
 my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, 
 and make our abode with him." John xiv. 23.* 
 
 Now, these are plain and distinct and emphatic, 
 assertions of a spiritual coming of Christ : and of His 
 dwelling in the hearts of His people. They set before 
 us, in other words, the mystery of the Christian life, 
 "which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. " There 
 can be no doubt of this. And it is a blessed and a 
 glorious truth. And that man knows nothing of the 
 inner life of the Christian a "life hid with Christ in 
 God" who knows not something of the fulness of its 
 meaning. But what follows from this? The question 
 is not, whether there is not a sense in which Christ 
 comes to His people now.^ In various ways, the Bible 
 
 * It may be asked, Why not include Matt. x. 23? "Ye shall 
 not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be 
 come." The answer is, There is no spiritual coming referred to, in 
 these words. He came as King, to set up His kingdom, when He 
 entered Jerusalem in triumph. They rejected Him. This coming 
 was then accomplished. 
 
 So of our Lord's words to Peter, concerning John: "If I will 
 that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" Whatever their 
 meaning may be, one thing is plain; i. e., The disciples, them- 
 selves, understood Him to refer to the end; since the saying "went 
 abroad, that that disciple should not die." John xxi. 23. 
 
 f There is, also, a coming, in temporal judgments. Hence "He 
 shall come and destroy those husbandmen,* etc. Luke xx. 16. Rev. 
 ii. 5. Matt. xxi. 40, 41, etc. But all this is in the sense of accom- 
 modation; not reaching to the main idea of coming; i. e., an abso- 
 lute and visible presence. 
 
212 DEATH IS NOT 
 
 teaches this. It is the life of faith. It is the union 
 of the branches with the vine; of the members with 
 the head ; of children with their father. And all this 
 is the work of the Spirit in the heart, testifying of 
 Jesus. But the question is, Whether Christ's second 
 coming, "in great power and glory," is not the great 
 end to which, as the consummation of his first coming, 
 the Scripture constantly points us?" The passages 
 quoted above, establish the truth of a spiritual 
 coming, or abode in the hearts of His people; just as 
 positively, as though, instead of two, there were two 
 hundred of them. God's testimony is not to be 
 taken, as we count votes among men. One clear, 
 though single, enunciation of a truth, is enough to 
 establish that truth. It lifts it up, above all question 
 or suspicion. What account, therefore, shall we make 
 of these very numerous passages, just cited; which 
 prove an absolute and literal coming? Why should 
 there be, that oft-repeated and varied and positive 
 reference to that truth, except to show the prominence 
 which Q-od meant it to hold, in the affections of His 
 people ? 
 
 But, now, perhaps, some will say: "Well, I admit 
 that Christ will come again. It does not, however, 
 matter much. Death is His coming to me" 
 
 Is there one here, who holds this view? To him I 
 say, It matters very much, that you should hold the 
 truth of God, just as He means it. I know that, at 
 death, man's character and destiny are fixed for ever. 
 That, 
 
 "There's no repentance in the grave, 
 Nor pardon offered to the dead." 
 
 The man who goes down to the grave unprepared, 
 
THE COMING OP CHRIST. 213 
 
 goes into eternity unprepared; and that for him, 
 there remains nothing "but a certain, fearful, looking 
 for of judgment and fiery indignation : which shall 
 devour the adversary." And you know, how cease- 
 lessly this truth is set before you. 0, that you could 
 be brought to feel its power ! 
 
 But, still, I say, death is not the equivalent of the 
 coming of our Lord. The Scriptures no where speak 
 of it as such. Where is the passage which holds out 
 this idea? 
 
 It is fresh in the memory of some of you, how, a 
 short time ago, a faithful and honoured minister of 
 Christ, of large experience in his Master's work, 
 declared, in this pulpit, that he was never conscious 
 of making "so little headway in proclaiming the 
 truth, as when death and the certainty of death, was 
 his theme!"* 
 
 It was a striking declaration. And I suppose, the 
 experience of most men, goes to the same point. One 
 would think, indeed, that it would not be so. One 
 would think, that its appeal would be resistless. Alas ! 
 who does not know, that men will coolly discuss their 
 plans of business and of pleasure ; even as they follow 
 the corpse to the tomb ! 
 
 Now, why is this ? Death is not the point of appeal 
 
 * Riding out to attend a funeral some time since, with a minister 
 of another denomination by my side; I said to him: "Is there any 
 one theme, in handling which, you feel that you are making less 
 impression on your hearers, than with almost any other?" He 
 paused a few moments, and replied: "I think there is." "And 
 what is it?" "Why," said he, "It is very strange. I don't exactly 
 understand it. But / seem never to be so unsuccessful, as when I 
 preach about death!" 
 
214 CHRIST'S SECOND COMING, 
 
 which the word of G-od presents. Everywhere, it is 
 the second coming of our Lord. 
 
 Are ministers exhorted to be faithful in their work ? 
 It is: "I charge thee, therefore, before God and the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the 
 dead at His appearing and His kingdom, preach the 
 word/' etc. 2 Tim. iv. 1. And what an appeal is 
 that ! I am to preach ; and you to hear ; as in view 
 of the judgment-seat of Christ! 
 
 Are careless souls to be aroused? " What is a man 
 profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his 
 own soul : or, what shall a man give in exchange for 
 his soul ? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory 
 of His Father, with His angels: and then shall He 
 reward every man, according to his works/' Matt, 
 xvi. 26, 27. 
 
 "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my 
 words, of him, also, shall the Son of Man be ashamed, 
 when He shall come in His own glory, and in His 
 Father's, and of the holy angels." Luke ix. 26. 
 
 " The Lord is long-suffering to usward, not willing 
 that any should perish, but that all should come to 
 repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a 
 thief in the night:' 2 Pet. iii. 9, 10. 
 
 Are men commanded to repent? It is, "Because 
 He hath appointed a day, in which He will judge the 
 world, in righteousness." Acts xvii. 31. 
 
 Are we cautioned, how we build on the true founda- 
 tion? It is because, " Every man's work shall be 
 made manifest : for the day shall declare it : because 
 
 the fire shall try every mans work of what 
 
 sort it is." 1 Cor. iii. 13. 
 
 Are saints exhorted to holiness of life? It is, 
 
THE BIBLE-POINT OF APPEAL. 215 
 
 " That when He shall appear, we may have confidence 
 and not be ashamed before Him, at His coming." 
 1 John ii. 28. 
 
 " When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then 
 shall ye, also, appear with Him, in glory. Mortify, 
 therefore, your members," etc. Col. iii. 4, 5. 
 
 "And every man that hath this hope in Him, 
 purifieth himself," etc. 1 John iii. 3. What hope? 
 "We know, that when He shall appear, we shall be 
 like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." (Ver. 3.) 
 
 And what is the secret of a holy life? "Ye come 
 behind, in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ.' 1 1 Cor. i. 7. 
 
 Were they to be comforted? "Be patient: stab- 
 lish your hearts : for the coming of the Lord draweth 
 nigh. 1 ' Jas. v. 8. 
 
 " Wherefore comfort one another with these words." 
 1 Thess. iv. 16. What words? "For the Lord Him- 
 self shall descend from Heaven, with a shout, the 
 voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; and 
 the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then, we who are 
 alive and remain, shall be caught up together with 
 them, in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and, 
 so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, com- 
 fort, 11 etc. 
 
 And so, brethren, I might multiply instances, to 
 almost any extent. Everywhere, this is the point of 
 appeal. The position of this great truth, is one of 
 central and commanding importance. It stands forth 
 in the word of God ; unequalled in its power to arouse 
 the careless; to comfort the mourner; to incite to 
 holiness of life; and to exalt the Saviour and His 
 cross ! 
 
216 CONTRASTS. 
 
 And can you substitute death for this glorious hope 
 of the coming of our Lord? Never. Look at the 
 vastness of the contrast between the two. Even to 
 the believer, death is a humiliation. Of every one, 
 who goes down to the grave, it is said : " It is sown 
 in dishonour. 1 ' It is a season of unnatural separa- 
 tion, between the soul and body. But the coming of 
 the Lord is a time of blessedness and glory. It puts 
 an end to this separation. It brings body and soul 
 together again; but not as they were before. It 
 unites a sinless soul to a new and glorified body. 
 
 There is hope in the believer's death. There is 
 the fulness of blessedness and glory for him at the 
 coming of the Lord. The one event frees him from 
 toil. The other introduces him to "the inheritance 
 of the saints in light." Death breaks the chains of 
 sin. The coming of the Lord makes him perfect in 
 his Saviour's likeness. The one event puts a period 
 to his warfare. The other gives him his crown. One 
 sees his body laid in the tomb. The other finds it, 
 made like unto Christ's glorified body. The grave, 
 the spade, the worm, attend the one. Light and 
 blessedness and glory; the presence of the Saviour, 
 and the companionship of His saints, are the incidents 
 of the other. They can no more change places in the 
 believer's regards, than the one can be substituted for 
 the other in the word of God. He has put them 
 asunder. And you cannot bring them together. 
 
 And this is the coming of which the text speaks; 
 and at which the kingdom of the God of heaven is to 
 be set up. 
 
 We learn from this subject, The position of glorious 
 
PRACTICAL LESSONS. 217 
 
 prominence ivhich the doctrine of Christ's second 
 coming holds in the word of Grod. What could more 
 clearly teach us this, than the passages which have 
 just been named? And many others, equally strong, 
 equally clear, equally decided, might be cited. For, 
 you will bear in mind, that not one single text has 
 been given from the Old Testament. And it abounds 
 in them. "All his holy prophets, since the world 
 began," have borne their testimony to this great 
 truth. Indeed, the first and second coming of Christ, 
 stand out as mountain peaks on the plain of God's 
 word. They catch the first and last rays of its light. 
 The earliest beams of His truth play upon them. 
 And the latest rays from heaven linger and glow on 
 their summits. Long before the plain between them 
 receives the light ; long before the truths which are in- 
 termediate to them, are revealed ; they are made known. 
 The living sunlight of revelation brings them distinctly 
 out ; while yet, other truths and great, practical, and 
 glorious truths too are in the dark. The first has 
 long since been fulfilled. And now, all the prophecies 
 turn to the second, as the one living hope of the 
 Church. Preparation for it is everywhere our instant 
 duty. It gives point and power to every appeal. It 
 underlies every hope. It urges to, and quickens in, 
 every duty. It is the consummation of the first ; the 
 harvest of the world ; the "gathering together in one, 
 of all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and 
 which are on earth. " All before it is but a prepara- 
 tion for it. 
 
 Well, brethren, what is all this to you? This 
 coming of the Lord of glory ? What is your relation 
 
 19 
 
218 CONCLUSION. 
 
 to it? It is just the one question, infinitely more 
 momentous than any other. Gather together all the 
 interests of earth. Place them in the light of this 
 truth. And how utterly worthless they appear ! Its 
 riches and honours and pleasures ; what are all these ? 
 Will they avail you, at that hour? Will the honours 
 of the great man ; and the wealth of the rich man ; 
 and the wisdom of the wise man, profit him then? 
 He may have wielded earth's mightiest sceptre. 
 Armies may have moved at his command; or senates 
 thrilled with his eloquence; or nations trembled at 
 his power. But what will all this avail? The victo- 
 ries of Alexander and Caesar and Napoleon, will give 
 them no importance before the bar of God. The 
 wisdom of earth yields no answer to the question, 
 Who shall stand when He appear eth ? There is no 
 wisdom but that which prepares for this. He only is 
 the wise man, who so lives that he " may have con- 
 fidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His 
 coming." Brethren, is this your state? 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 THE Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints 
 of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed 
 the kingdom. 
 
 His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall 
 serve and obey Him. DAN. vii. 22, and last clause of ver. 27. 
 
 WE saw in the last lecture, that the kingdom of the 
 God of heaven, is to be set up at the second coming 
 of Christ. And now, it will be well to pause a mo- 
 ment, and define as nearly as may be done the 
 posture of affairs at that point. 
 
 The Jews will have been partly restored. The last, 
 great combination of the armies of Gog and the beast, 
 to destroy them, will have been itself destroyed.* 
 And very terrible will that visitation of judgment be. 
 The swords of that mighty host which, as a cloud, 
 shall cover the land shall be turned, " every man's 
 against his brother.'' Ezek. xxxviii. 21; Zech. xiv. 13. 
 Pestilence shall mow them down. (Ver. 12.) Great 
 dismay shall be tugging at their heart-strings. Fire 
 
 * See Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix ; Zech. xiv. 1-3 ; xii. 2, 3. 6. 9 ; 
 Micah iv. 11-12 ; Hag. ii. 22. And the preceding verse clearly 
 fixes the time when this shall be done. 
 
220 SILENT RESURRECTION, 
 
 from heaven shall destroy them. It shall be as it 
 was of old, when 
 
 " The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
 And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed. 
 And the eyes of the sleepers waxed heavy and chill, 
 And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!" 
 
 That mighty host shall melt away; though no op- 
 posing bands shall be the instruments of their destruc- 
 tion. For seven months shall the people of the land 
 be burying the slain. Ezek. xxxix. 11-12. 
 
 And other events, of far greater magnitude, shall 
 be going on at this time. Steadily, and by many un- 
 observed, as "signs of the times," shall the events 
 "of the time of the end" advance. The resurrection 
 of the righteous dead will be silently going on. The 
 prophet says: "The Lord my God shall come; and 
 all the saints with Thee.' 1 Zech. xiv. 5. Now, how 
 can they come with Him, unless they are raised 
 before He comes? 
 
 You are surprised at this statement ? Well, " search 
 and look" if it is the true statement of the case. If 
 it is not, you are bound to reject it. 
 
 St. Paul says, " Them, also, which sleep in Jesus, 
 shall Gf-od bring with Him. 11 1 Thess. iv. 14. 
 
 And again: "To the end that He may establish 
 your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even 
 our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 with all His saints. 11 1 Thess. iii. 13. 
 
 And again: "When Christ, who is our life, shall 
 appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.' 1 
 Col. iii. 4. 
 
PROOFS OF. 221 
 
 "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his 
 saints." Jude 14. 
 
 "He came" says Moses, in "the blessing, where- 
 with he blessed the children of Israel" "He came 
 with thousands of saints." Deut. xxxiii. 2. And 
 Daniel, in describing His coming, says: "Thousand 
 thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand 
 times ten thousand stood before Him." (vii. 10.) 
 
 And so, we find in Rev. xix. that this event i. e., 
 the first resurrection is to precede His coming. 
 The Bride which is the collected body of Christ's 
 glorified people is to be "arrayed in fine linen, clean 
 and white," before the visible advent of the word of 
 God. When he goeth forth, "the armies in heaven 
 followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, 
 etc." (Ver. 14.) Now, we are expressly told, that 
 " the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." (Ver. 14.) 
 Beyond question, therefore, it is the saints who thus 
 accompany him. It is the saints alone who have the 
 righteousness of saints; and who constitute "the 
 Bride, the Lamb's wife." They come "with Him;" 
 in glorified bodies, like His own. They are married 
 to Him; i. e., exalted to His station and glory, and 
 go out from His presence no more. They are "joint- 
 heirs with" Him. The glory which results from His 
 death, they share with Him. All that He has, be- 
 longs in part to them; as a bride has an interest in 
 all the possessions of her husband. 
 
 Then follows the judgment of the beast ; whose 
 destruction Christ hath reserved for His own hand.* 
 
 * When that is done, the song is heard from the harpers on the 
 sea of glass: "Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God 
 
222 TRUMP Or GOD WHAT? 
 
 In the words of Daniel, he is to be " given to the 
 burning flame." Satan is then to be bound. And 
 thus the millennial period is introduced. 
 
 Of course, the question will here be asked, "Is not 
 the sounding of the last trump to be the signal for the 
 rising of the dead ? How, then, can you speak of it 
 as silently going on? 
 
 The Bible does speak of the trump of God. But 
 you do not suppose it is a material trumpet, do you ? 
 The Book of Revelation is a book of symbols. There 
 are seals and trumpets and vials; i. e., symbolic seals, 
 and trumpets and vials. Now, there are seven of 
 each. The seals have all been opened. Six of the 
 vials have been poured out. And six of the trumpets 
 have sounded. One yet remains. That is "the last 
 trump." Its note shall summon Christ's dead to rise. 
 But it is no material trumpet. It is a symbol; i. e., 
 it denotes an event which may be fitly represented by 
 the sounding of a trumpet. A trumpet-sound arrests 
 attention. The most careless are attracted by it. 
 
 Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints: Who 
 shall not fear Thee, Lord, and glorify Thy name ; for Thou only 
 art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for 
 Thy judgments are made manifest." Rev. xv. 3, 4. Now this is 
 very significantly termed "the Song of Moses and the Song of the 
 Lamb." But, why the "Song of Moses"? The deliverance of 
 the Israelites from Egypt, and the destruction of their enemies in 
 the Red Sea, were types of the greater deliverance of the Church 
 in the last times ; and of the destruction of the banded enemies of 
 our Lord. That Church shall yet look on, and see all its foes de- 
 stroyed. And then shall this song such as earth had never heard 
 before, go up before the throne. And yet, you observe, after this 
 deliverance, the song speaks of nations, dwelling in the flesh, coming 
 and worshipping before God! 
 
SOUNDING OF THE TRUMP. 223 
 
 And, as the sounding of the six trumpets symbolized 
 the occurrence of the events that were to take place 
 under them ; even so does this. It symbolizes a given 
 event; i. e., the going forth of Almighty power to 
 arouse His sleeping dead. No ear but theirs shall 
 hear it. "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son 
 of God; and they that hear shall live." And if that 
 is not exact enough our Lords adds: " All that are in 
 the graves shall hear His voice, and come forth, etc." 
 John v. 25. 28. 
 
 The trumpets, as symbols, belong to the visible 
 representation which the Apostle saw. The sounding 
 of them, to the events which they set forth. No 
 human ear heard the sound of the six which are past. 
 The occurrence of the events described, alone told men 
 of their sounding. So it will be here. In vain may 
 you listen for the bugle-note which calls the dead in 
 Christ to arise. It is a delusion to expect it. Their 
 rising will be the proof, that the Archangel is fulfill- 
 ing his commission. Silently, the power of God shall 
 reach to the sleeping dust of His saints. Silently, 
 they shall arise ; as did the bodies of the saints* after 
 our Lord's resurrection. Business and pleasure and 
 vice and folly and crime, shall pursue their usual 
 rounds. And men will scoffingly ask, Where is the 
 promise of His coming? even while the resurrection 
 of the dead is taking place around them. We deceive 
 ourselves, brethren, when we imagine that this glo- 
 rious event is to be crowded into the space of an hour 
 or a day. Through months and years the seals were 
 broken; and the vials poured out; and the six trum- 
 pets sounding; i. e., through the period of the historic 
 
224 CHANGE OF THE LIVING. 
 
 events in which they were fulfilled. So it will be 
 here. The last trump may be sounding for months 
 and years. We know not how long. It will sound, 
 until the last of His sleeping dead have arisen. The 
 phrase "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" 
 refers to the change of the living saints not to the 
 rising of the dead. From the midst of the occupa- 
 tions of their daily life, they will be taken. " Then 
 shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and 
 the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the 
 mill; the one shall be taken and the other left." 
 Matt. xxiv. 40-1. But no sudden outburst of power 
 no circumstances of terror or of grandeur shall at- 
 tend the taking. An invisible hand shall be stretched 
 forth to take the living saint out of the midst of his 
 unbelieving companions. "In a moment" it shall be 
 done. "In the twinkling of an eye" they "shall be 
 caught up;" and corruption put on incorruption ! 
 And this process shall go on-, until the number of 
 God's elect is accomplished. "And then shall they 
 see the Son of Man coming in the clouds, with great 
 power and glory." With all His glorified saints, 
 Christ shall come down to earth. " The shout" the 
 word expresses that of the warrior, as he goes down 
 to the battle 0, it will be given by His glorified 
 saints, as they swell His triumph, and attend His 
 throne; "to execute upon them" i. e., the banded 
 enemies of God "the judgment that is written. This 
 honour have all His saints" Ps. cxlix. 9. And this 
 is the state of things at His coming. 
 
 I know not, brethren, how it may affect you. But 
 for myself, I confess, there is nothing which awes my 
 
IMPRESSIVENESS OF THE THOUGHT. 225 
 
 spirit so much, as this idea of the silent process by 
 which the dead are raised; and the world hastens on 
 to judgment. Who can help recalling our Lord's 
 words? "They knew not until the flood came, and 
 took them all away. So shall also the coming of the 
 Son of Man be.' 9 
 
 Yet this destruction is not universal. It extends 
 to the banded enemies of Christ. The rest are 
 spared. The prophet expressly confines it to "the 
 people that fought against Jerusalem." And such 
 will be the effect of these judgments, on those that 
 are spared, that the prophecy represents the glorified 
 saints declaring that, "all nations shall come and wor- 
 ship before Thee; for Thy judgments are manifest. " 
 Kev. xv. 4. What nations shall then be on earth? 
 Just those that are spared, when the beast and his 
 army perish. Just those of whom it is said, that 
 " They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into 
 the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for 
 the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake 
 terribly the earth." Isa. ii. 19. Israel shall be re- 
 stored. The Spirit shall be fully poured out. The 
 report of these terrible yet glorious events, shall go 
 out over the earth. And the Gentile nations witness- 
 ing them, shall know and confess God's hand in them 
 all. It is written, "What shall one answer the mes- 
 sengers of the nation ? That the Lord hath founded 
 Zion; and the poor of His people shall trust in it." 
 Isa. xiv. 32. By their instrumentality, the whole 
 house of Israel shall be brought back to their own 
 land. "And they" i. e. the Gentiles "shall bring 
 all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord, out 
 
226 EVERLASTING CHARACTER 
 
 of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots . . . .to 
 my holy mountain, Jerusalem, saith the Lord." Isa. 
 Ixvi. 20. 
 
 And while these events are going on, and the 
 spared nations are blessed in the conversion of Israel ; 
 the judgment spoken of in Matt, xxv., will, probably 
 take place. It is not the dead, that are then to be 
 judged. It is "the nations;" i. e., living nations for 
 the term is never once used of anything else that 
 are to be subjects of that judgment. And when that 
 is ended, sin will be banished during the millennial age ; 
 as far, i. e., as the binding of Satan for a season, and 
 the purifying of the world, from every outward temp- 
 tation to sin, can banish it. 
 
 And now, we stand in full view of the subject, 
 which the text brings before us; i. e., The subjects 
 and officers of the kingdom of Crod. And these, I 
 think, will be found to consist of Three Classes. 
 
 We greatly err, when we suppose that the results 
 of Christ's atoning work, are ended at His coming 
 again. The Bible draws no such narrow lines around 
 it. It expressly teaches the contrary. He is to be, 
 "a priest for ever." How can that be, if he ceases to 
 act as a priest after His second coming? 
 
 "He hath an unchangeable priesthood." But who 
 can say, it is unchangeable; if it comes to an end? 
 
 "He is able to save to the uttermost," or evermore, 
 as the margin has it; "seeing He ever liveth to make 
 intercession for them." Now, how is it true, that He 
 saves for evermore ; how is it true, that He ever liveth 
 to make intercession; if, at any time, He ceases to 
 save or make intercession? 
 
OF CHRIST'S PRIESTHOOD. 227 
 
 "He is consecrated for evermore." But how can 
 that be ; if the work, to which he is consecrated, is to 
 cease after a season? He would, then, only have 
 been consecrated for a season; and not, as the Bible 
 declares He was, "for evermore. 11 
 
 So, "He offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever." 
 But it was only a sacrifice for a limited period; if it 
 is to be avail no more after He has come again. 
 
 No, brethren, no ! There is no such thing. The 
 priesthood of Christ is here affirmed, to run on, in an 
 even line, with the existence of Christ. Neither shall 
 ever end. If "He ever liveth," it is "to make inter- 
 cession;'' i. e., to discharge the high-priestly duties? 
 
 And what flows from this ? Just this : Priesthood 
 is an oifice of relation. It is founded on the existence 
 of being, on behalf of whom, it is to be carried on. 
 If, therefore, Christ is "a priest for ever; 11 there must 
 be, "for ever," fresh generations of men, who are to 
 be the subjects of His priestly office. He is a priest 
 to His people, whom He is now gathering. He will 
 be so, until He comes again. . But He is not a priest 
 to His departed saints. He will not be to His glo- 
 rified ones. And that, not because his priesthood 
 changes. It is, simply, because they pass beyond its 
 operation. They are perfected by it. They stand up, 
 as monuments of its power. But they receive His 
 sprinkled blood, and are subjects of His intercession, 
 no more. The priesthood continues. Others receive 
 its influences. But in them, sin has no more place. 
 And, therefore, the priestly office is exercised on 
 them, no more. " Do you not see, that the central idea 
 of the priestly office the fact, on which alone it rests 
 
228 COVENANT WITH NOAH. 
 
 is the existence of beings lorn with a sinful nature ?' 
 And, if that office is to continue for ever ; it must be, 
 that new subjects of it, shall continully appear.* 
 
 And, this seems, very clearly, the doctrine of the 
 Bible. 
 
 God's covenant with Noah, for man and every 
 living creature on the earth, was "for perpetual gene- 
 rations;" i. e., for the generations of eternity. Thus 
 long, the earth, with its varied inhabitants, was to 
 exist. And, "while the earth remaineth, seed-time 
 and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and win- 
 ter, and day and night shall not cease." Gen. viii. 22. 
 Need any one argue, that this looks to the presence of 
 men and animals on the earth, through the genera- 
 tions of eternity ? Language could hardly affirm any 
 truth more pointedly, than this language affirms that. 
 
 So again, it is written: "They shall fear Thee, 
 as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout 
 all generations. Ps. Ixxii. 5. Who shall fear Him? 
 Those, of course, who are spoken of as "genera- 
 tions;" i. e., men, in the flesh, as successively they 
 appear on earth, for their appointed time. 
 
 And shall this ever come to an end? "In His 
 days," continues the Psalmist, "shall the righteous 
 flourish; and abundance of peace, so long as the 
 moon endureth." (Ver. 7.) 
 
 * Will it be objected to this, that it counts on the presence of sin, 
 through the millennium? I reply: Not at all as it is now. When 
 Satan is bound; and the world purified; when all temptations to 
 sin are put away, and the Spirit freely poured out; earth will be a 
 blessed school, in which men will be trained for glory. Who can 
 estimate aright, the vastness of the results which these changes shall 
 produce? 
 
THE NATIONS BLESSED IN CHRIST. 229 
 
 And, are any excepted, then? "He shall have 
 dominion from sea to sea ; and from the river unto the 
 ends of the earth." (Ver. 8.) 
 
 And, can there be no mistake about the fulness and 
 certainty of this state of things? "His name shall 
 endure for ever: His name shall be continued as long 
 as the sun: and men shall be blessed in Him: all 
 nations shall call Him blessed!" (Ver. 17.) And, 
 thus, through all these endless ages, men shall be 
 receiving the influences of His atoning work. They 
 shall be saved by Him. They shall stand in Him. 
 In Him all shall be completely blessed! Thus, for 
 ever, shall generations come and go. Thus, for ever, 
 shall men dwell in the flesh. Thus, for ever will 
 the bounds of the Redeemer's kingdom be extending. 
 Thus, for ever, will He see of the travail of His 
 soul;" as its results go forward through "perpetual 
 generations." And, thus, new inhabitants shall be 
 added to the many mansions of our Father's house; 
 and new jewels set in the Redeemer's crown! 0! the 
 might and the grandeur of this scheme of redemption, 
 through Jesus Christ the Lord ! How like a thought 
 of God, it seems. And, how striking its contrast 
 with that other scheme, which teaches that, when 
 Christ comes, He is to destroy the earth; and put a 
 final period to the results of His great work. It is a 
 mistake to suppose, that the elect Church, which He 
 is now gathering, will exhaust the application of the 
 "everlasting righteousness," which He brought in; or 
 reach the outer circle of its fulness. Not so, does the 
 Bible teach. That Church, indeed, is complete at 
 His coming! But it is only the first fruits of the 
 
 20 
 
230 GOD'S COVENANT 
 
 great harvest. The harvest itself, will be perpetually 
 gathering in. Everlasting ages shall bring in, its still 
 increasing sheaves! 
 
 And, you observe, that the quiet assumption of the 
 prophet is, exactly, in the line of this view. "All 
 people <*nd nations and languages shall serve Him;" 
 i. e., when His kingdom is set up at His coming. Dan. 
 vii. 13, 14. But this cannot be, unless there are dif- 
 ferent people and nations in the flesh; even as now. 
 "And His dominion," i. e., His dominion over these 
 people and nations; "is an everlasting dominion, 
 which shall not pass away." "And His kingdom" 
 then set up, and of which these people and nations 
 are subjects "that which shall not be destroyed." 
 "People and nations and languages," mean, "people 
 and nations and languages," do they not? And these 
 are to continue for ever; as the subjects of His king- 
 dom. Over them, His dominion shall never cease. 
 From amongst them, His kingdom shall never depart. 
 And this calls for a succession of generations, through 
 the ages of eternity! And, thus, one class of the 
 results of the work of Christ, is carried forward 
 through the everlasting age; in the persons of the 
 converted Crentile nations. 
 
 Not less decided, are the promises to the seed of 
 the literal Israel. The covenant with Abraham, like 
 that with Noah, was "an everlasting covenant;" and 
 the possession of the land, under it, " an everlasting 
 possession." And the promise to David was, "Thy 
 seed, also, will I make to endure for ever; and thy 
 throne as the days of heaven." Ps. Ixxxix. 29. 
 " Once, have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not 
 
WITH ABRAHAM. 231 
 
 lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and 
 his throne, as the sun before me. It shall be estab- 
 lished for ever as the moon, and as the faithful witness 
 in heaven." (Vs. 35-3T.) 
 
 In a variety of ways, this was reaffirmed. "As for 
 Me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; 
 My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I 
 have put in thy mouth, shall shall not depart out of 
 thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of 
 the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, that hath 
 mercy upon thee." Isa. lix. 21. 
 
 Now, it will not be for a moment contended, that 
 this has been fulfilled. Every one knows that it has 
 not. It remains, therefore, to be fulfilled. It calls 
 for a perpetual succession of generations of the seed 
 of Jacob. It calls for them as generations; i. e., as 
 men living, and multiplying, in the flesh. It calls for 
 generations of men, thus in the flesh, as perpetual 
 witnesses of God's fulfilment of His gracious word. 
 There is no limit drawn around it. God says it shall 
 be for ever. And we are to receive it under the 
 sanction of His oath. He has sworn "by His holi- 
 ness" that it shall be so! 
 
 As yet, we look not on its fulfilment. The tribes 
 of Israel are in dispersion. The veil is over their 
 face. They see not the glory of the promises. Not 
 yet has God put His words in their mouth, nor written 
 His law in their hearts. All this remains to be done. 
 Not yet has the "Lord set His hand again, the 
 second time, to recover the remnant of His people, 
 which shall be left." Isa. xi. 11. Thus far, only once 
 has He gathered them from their dispersion. And 
 
232 GLORIOUS PROPHECIES 
 
 then, it was only the two tribes of Judah and Benja- 
 min; and for a short time. The ten tribes have never 
 been restored. But here, the promise is to bring them 
 all back. It is, to "assemble the outcasts of Israel, 
 and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the 
 four corners of the earth; (ver. 12.) And the same 
 promise is, even more fully and minutely and posi- 
 tively, repeated in Ezek. xxxvii. 21-28. 
 
 All this is clearly future. The outcasts of Israel 
 are not yet assembled. The dispersed of Judah are 
 not gathered. They are still homeless wanderers on 
 the face of the earth. Not yet have their adversaries 
 ceased. Not yet do they dwell in their own land in 
 peace. Not yet are Judah and Israel made one. 
 
 And the same is true of the glorious prophecies of 
 Jeremiah, of Ezekiel, "and all the prophets." Not 
 yet are they fulfilled. God has not yet put His law 
 in their inward parts; nor made them "a name and a 
 praise among the nations of the earth." As yet, 
 Judah is desolate; and Jerusalem mourns for the dis- 
 persion of her sons. As yet, "her adversaries are 
 chief." "The crown is fallen from her head;" and 
 she is "delivered into their hands, from whom she is 
 not able to rise up." But still, the promise is, 
 "Again shall be heard in this place ... in the cities 
 of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are 
 desolate, without man, and without inhabitant, and 
 without beast: The voice of joy and the voice of glad- 
 ness ; the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the 
 bride; the voice of them that shall say, Praise the 
 Lord of hosts; for the Lord is good; for His mercy 
 
CONCERNING THE JEWS. 233 
 
 endureth for ever; and of them that shall bring the 
 sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord. For, I 
 will cause to return the captivity of the land, as at the 
 first, saith the Lord." Jer. xxxiii. 11.* 
 
 And when shall these " glorious things, spoken of 
 Zion," be fulfilled? The prophet answers: " Thus 
 saith the Lord, / am returned unto Zion, and will 
 dwell in the midst of Jerusalem ; and Jerusalem shall 
 be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the 
 Lord of hosts, the holy mountain." Zech. viii. 3. 
 Now a return, necessarily implies a presence, an ab- 
 sence, and a going back again. There can be no 
 "return" without these. Literally and personally, 
 Jehovah- Jesus was present in the cities of Judah. In 
 that sense, He left them; and was absent from them. 
 He is absent from them still. But, in that sense, He 
 will be there again. And that will be His return. 
 And what will then be their state? The same pro- 
 phet tells us: " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, There 
 shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets 
 of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his 
 hand, for very age. And the streets of the city shall 
 be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets there- 
 of." (Ver. 4, 5.) What a picture of peace and bless- 
 edness ! Once, on earth, Jesus took up the little 
 children "in His arms; put His hands on them, and 
 blessed them." And yet again, the gladness of a 
 nature, cleansed by Him from sin, shall put forth its 
 
 * Ilead also Jer. xxxi. 27-40; xxiii. 3-9; xxx. 7-12, 18-24; 
 Ezek. xxxvi. 8-13; 19-38; Hosea x. 6; Zeph. iii. 19-20; Obad. 
 17-21. 
 
 20* 
 
234 THE TRUE PERIOD OF 
 
 brightest joy, and wear its sweetest smile, in the con- 
 sciousness of His presence and blessing ! 
 
 And, of the same time, we are further told: a As 
 ye were a curse among the heathen, house of 
 Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and 
 ye shall be a blessing.''' (Ver. 13.) Now, how can this 
 be, unless there are others living among them at the 
 time? Only so, were they " a curse" before. Only 
 so, can they be "a blessing" then. It is the two 
 houses of Judah and of Israel, that are thus to be a 
 blessing to the nations. And they are to be so, at 
 the time when the Lord is returned to Zion, and 
 dwells in the midst of Jerusalem. They shall then be 
 a blessing ; because " they shall all be righteous' 1 i. e., 
 all shall be clothed, and blessed and saved, in the 
 righteousness of their Messiah: because, God will 
 have poured " on the house of David, and upon the 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of 
 supplication." Zech. xii. 10. And, because they shall 
 have looked on Him whom they pierced, and mourned 
 for Him. A new heart shall be given them, and a 
 right spirit put within them. They shall be sprinkled 
 with the Saviour's blood: for, "in that day there 
 shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and 
 to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for un- 
 cleanness." Zech. xiii. 1. In it they shall "wash 
 and be clean." Their sins shall be put away; to be 
 found and remembered no more. The veil shall be 
 taken from their eyes. They shall see their own 
 Messiah in Him whom their fathers crucified ; but who 
 now reigns gloriously over them. That sight shall 
 
THE WORLD S CONVERSION. 
 
 break up their stony hearts; and streams of repent- 
 ance unto life shall flow forth. They shall own Him 
 theirs for ever. "All shall know Him, from the least 
 of them, unto the greatest of them. "There shall no 
 more be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord." They 
 shall be holy, every one. " Their children also shall 
 be taught of the Lord. And great shall be the peace 
 of their children." The broken branch shall be 
 grafted into the Olive Tree again. And " Israel shall 
 blossom and bud ; and fill the face of the world with 
 fruit." Isa. xxvii. 6. 
 
 And what is our assurance of all this? God's pro- 
 mise. He has said it shall be so. Is it a hard thing 
 to believe Him? "And so all Israel shall be saved, 
 as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the De- 
 liverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 
 For this is my covenant with them, when I shall take 
 away their sins" Rom. xi. 26. 
 
 And this is the true period of the conversion of the 
 world. The popular idea is a mistake ; both as to the 
 time and the instruments of that glorious event. The 
 time will not be, until Israel is restored. This dis- 
 pensation is elective ; preparatory. While God visits 
 the Gentiles, it is "to take out of them a people for 
 His name." Acts xv. 14. 
 
 I desire not, brethren, to raise any side issues here ; 
 or to encumber this question with any gratuitous 
 weight. There are the plain words of Grod. And I 
 ask no more. Let me add, however, that it is in the 
 commission of the minister of Christ to proclaim a full 
 and free salvation a salvation enough for all a sal- 
 
236 CONTINUED. 
 
 vation offered to all. God bids us come, in His name, 
 and ply an unbelieving world with the solemn appeal, 
 "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the 
 death of him that dieth; but that the wicked turn 
 from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye, from your 
 evil ways; for why will ye die?" Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 
 This is God's solemn interrogatory, addressed to every 
 man that hears the gospel. He asks it of you of 
 you of every one. Yet while this is true, it is also 
 true, that men do thus die. In point of fact, it comes 
 to pass, that all men are not saved. And so re- 
 turning from this digression it is true, that the time 
 of tne world's conversion, will not be until Israel is 
 restored. When the blindness is taken from their 
 eyes, and the hardness from their hearts; then "the 
 glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall 
 see it together" But this will not be until He has 
 "returned to Zion;" or, in other words, until Christ's 
 second coming to set up His kingdom. Through 
 their fall "salvation is come to the Gentiles." How 
 much greater blessings then, shall their restoration 
 bring? And this is just the argument of the Apostle. 
 " For, if the casting away of them be the reconciling 
 of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, 
 but life from the dead?" Rom. xi. 11-16. "Life 
 from the dead," to whom? To others, beside them- 
 selves, of course; i. e., to the Gentiles. Their fall 
 brought salvation to us. Only in part have we i. e. ? 
 the Gentile nations received it. Their restoration, 
 however, will be "life from the dead" to all beside. 
 And this will be the time of the world's conversion. 
 
INSTRUMENTS OF. 237 
 
 And then, as to the instruments; the mistake is 
 equally great. It is not the Gentile nations. Israel, 
 restored and converted Israel, is to be the instrument 
 of the world's conversion to Grod! This is clearly 
 proved by the texts just given. And, beside these, 
 there are many others. 
 
 "In that day," i. e., when "the Lord shall be King 
 over all the earth," "living waters shall go out from 
 Jerusalem.' 1 Zech. xiv. 8, 9. Now, this is just a sym- 
 bol of a saving knowledge of "the truth as it is in 
 Jesus." And its going out from Jerusalem, plainly 
 indicates that, from restored Israel, shall a knowledge 
 of it be gained. And "many people" shall seek it. 
 Isa. ii. 2; Micah iv. 2. "Yea, many people and 
 strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts, 
 and to pray before the Lord." Zech. viii. 21, 22. Out 
 of the different nations, men shall come and "take 
 hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We 
 will go with you; for we have heard that Crod is with 
 you." (Ver. 23.) 
 
 Again. "At that time, they shall call Jerusalem 
 the throne of the Lord ; and all the nations shall be 
 gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord," etc. Jer. 
 iii. 17. "And many nations shall be joined to the 
 Lord, in that day, and shall be my people, and I will 
 dwell in the midst of thee." Zech. ii. 11. 
 
 Now, from these passages, it clearly follows, that 
 restored Israel shall be known as the depositories of 
 the knowledge of the true God; that the nations of 
 the earth shall seek that knowledge from their hands ; 
 and by their instrumentality, be brought to a saving 
 
238 PROOF OF. 
 
 knowledge of the truth. They shall all be witnesses 
 for God. And with what mighty power shall their 
 testimony be rendered; as they stand before the 
 world, telling over the story of Him, whom, in their 
 blindness, their fathers crucified! The Lord will 
 "give the word; and great shall be the company of 
 those that preach it." And when the Spirit dwells 
 on every tongue, and pleads powerfully in every 
 heart, what, indeed, will their ministry be, "but life 
 from the dead." "The families of the earth" shall 
 be blessed in them. " The eyes of man, as of all the 
 tribes of Israel, shall be towards the Lord." Zech. 
 ix. 1. They shall be a name of joy, among the 
 nations. "A crown of glory, in the hand of the 
 Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God." 
 "I will make thee an eternal excellency; a joy of 
 many generations." 
 
 And, what is the scene, where all this is laid? "For 
 as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will 
 make, shall remain ; so shall your seed and your name 
 remain. And, it shall come to pass, that, from one 
 new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to 
 another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, 
 saith the Lord" Isa. Ixvi. 22, 23. 
 
 The renewed earth is the scene on which this is to 
 take place. How clearly, the restored and converted 
 Jew, is for ever to be numbered among the dwellers 
 thereon! How high his position of glory! How 
 exalted and blessed his mission ! How bright his 
 name of praise! Here, in the midst of the nations, 
 shall the seed of Jacob "multiply and replenish the 
 
THIRD CLASS WHAT. 
 
 earth/' Here they shall have the supremacy. The 
 dominion shall come to the daughter of Zion. The 
 earth and man, shall each, be restored to their first 
 state of peace and blessedness. The circle of revealed 
 truth, shall be carried forward, to the point, whence it 
 commenced to run. And the glorious scheme of 
 Redemption freed from the clouds which rested on 
 it, through the fall shall shine out in all the gran- 
 deur of its wondrous proportions!* 
 
 I submit, now, brethren, that, beside the Gentile 
 nations, there shall dwell on the renewed earth, the 
 literal house of Israel and Judah; restored, converted, 
 sanctified! 
 
 There yet remains one class more. 
 
 Child of God! Suppose you, you have done with 
 the earth ; when you go down to the grave ? It is not 
 so. You shall return to it again. You have a mission 
 to perform upon it, through perpetual generations. 
 As now, God designs to lead others, by means of His 
 people, to Himself; so it will be then, only, they will 
 then be faithful to their work ! 
 
 You are to bear in mind, that, it is the saints that 
 are to possess the kingdom. Now, there can be no 
 kingdom; except there are those, over whom rule is to 
 
 * Take one reference more. It is after the last great gathering 
 of Anti-Christ and his powers, against the Jews; after the judg- 
 ment, which destroys them and sets Israel free ; after the sickle is put 
 in and the harvest of the earth is reaped; that we are told: "Ye 
 shall know that I am the Lord, your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy 
 mountain. Then shall .Jerusalem be holy: and there shall no 
 
 strangers pass through her any more But Judah shall dwell 
 
 forever; and Jerusalem from generation to generation." Joel in. 27, 20. 
 
240 GLORIFIED SAINTS, 
 
 be exercised. If, then, "the saints are to possess the 
 kingdom;" clearly, they must rule over the dwellers 
 of the earth. They must be exalted to places of 
 control. They must wield the authority ; and execute 
 the powers; and carry out the purposes of God. 
 And this is no strange doctrine. 
 
 "Know ye not," says St. Paul, "that the saints 
 shall judge the world?" 1 Cor. vi. 2. 
 
 "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath 
 appointed unto me ; that ye may eat and drink at my 
 table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the 
 twelve tribes of Israel." Luke xxii. 29, 30. 
 
 " We shall reign over the earth" is the song of the 
 ransomed ones before the throne of God. 
 
 " They shall reign for ever and ever;" is the asser- 
 tion, concerning the elect Church, the Bride of Christ, 
 as they stand before Him, arrayed in their glorified 
 bodies. Rev. xxii. 5. And a place on the Redeemer's 
 Throne i. e. the exercise of a portion of his power is 
 expressly promised to every one that overcometh. Rev. 
 iii. 21. * 
 
 Ho ! ye people of the living God, there is rank and 
 honour, and glory and power, and blessedness ; to be 
 given to you, at last. But, not to all alike. There 
 are degrees of each. Some will have a place in the 
 kingdom. Some, will attain to a higher rank. And 
 some will shine out as stars and as suns. 
 
 First : They will be associated, with their Lord, in 
 the judgments, which are to be visited on the apostate 
 powers; according to the word, "I will give him" 
 i. e., him that overcometh "power over the nations. 
 
JUDGING THE EARTH. 241 
 
 And he shall rule them, with a rod of iron ; as the 
 vessels of a potter shall they be broken to pieces; 
 even as I received of my Father." Rev. ii. 26. 
 
 But after, and in addition to, this, there will be 
 the power of a peaceful and glorious sway over the 
 dwellers of the earth. And so, our Lord says to 
 him, who has been most faithful to his work; "Have 
 thou authority over ten cities." To another, to whom 
 less had been entrusted; "Be thou ruler over five 
 cities." While, to every man, he will "render, accor- 
 ding as Ms work shall be. 11 Now, what mean these 
 distinctions? What, but that the people of God in 
 their glorified bodies, shall be entrusted with different 
 degrees of power, and exalted to different degrees of 
 glory? And so, "one Star different from another 
 star, in glory: so, also, is the resurrection of the dead." 
 
 And so, we read, " Hold fast that which thou hast; 
 that no man take thy crown." Rev. iii. 11. Now, this 
 crown is not the eternal life of God's people. It never 
 means that. That is the free gift of God through Jesus 
 Christ. No man can take it from them. Nowhere in the 
 Bible, I think, is eternal life spoken of, as a crown.* 
 The crown is not the life. It is something very dif- 
 
 * We read of "a crown of life." Rev. ii. 10; Jas. i. 12. But this 
 is very different from saying that the crown and the life are the 
 same thing. On the contrary, it shows a distinction, between them. 
 The "crown of life" is our position in that life. The "crown 
 of righteousness" is our state of elevation in that righteousness. 
 And the " crown of glory," is the degree of glory to which we shall 
 be exalted. Surely, life in the kingdom of God, is different from 
 a crown of life therein. 
 
 21 
 
242 DEGREES OP GLORY 
 
 ferent, from it. It is the position of authority and 
 glory to which we may attain, in the kingdom of God. 
 It is just the result of our attainments in holiness, on 
 earth. He, who is most like to Christ, here ; will be 
 nearest to Christ, hereafter. He, who has most of 
 His spirit, on earth ; will be clothed with most of His 
 glory, in heaven. He who most honours his Master 
 here ; will be most honoured by Him, when He cometh 
 to set up His kingdom. He who most improves what- 
 ever talents, God has given him in the kingdom of 
 grace ; will be raised to the highest authority, in the 
 kingdom of glory. And that is the believer's crown. 
 And others may take from us : i. e, may attain to that 
 position, which we might have won. Some will have a 
 crown, thickly set, with the richest gems of heavenly 
 grace; studded, as it were, with the jewelry of souls, 
 won, by them to God. And to lay this down at the 
 Saviour's feet 0, is there a joy which the ransomed 
 of God's shall experience; that can compare with the 
 rapture of this ! Others will merely enter the king- 
 dom; "saved yet so as by fire." Are all God's 
 people, equally, like Him, on earth ? Do they love 
 Him, with an equal love ? Do they, equally, show 
 forth His Spirit ? Do they all, attain to the same 
 health and robustness of Christian character? Is 
 their statue, as children of God, equally high? No. 
 We all know it is not. And thus various then, will 
 their position and attainments in His future kingdom 
 be ! And, as the crown is a symbol of royal power ; so, 
 different degrees of that power, are thus set forth. 
 And so, St. Peter speaks of an entrance being " min- 
 
IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 243 
 
 istered" or added "unto you, abundantly, into the 
 everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ." There is an entrance into His kingdom. 
 And that is the gift of God, through faith in Jesus 
 Christ. And there is an abundant entrance. And 
 that is for him, who attains to the largest measure of 
 His spirit here. 
 
 And then, they are "priests," too. "Kings and 
 priests" is the averment of His Word, concerning 
 them. Their authority is not, merely, that of abso- 
 lute power. They exercise "a royal priesthood." 
 The office of instruction, shall be joined to that of 
 regal sway. They shall make known God's will 
 explain His purposes and unfold the objects, of His 
 grace. In the splendour of their glorified bodies, they 
 shall hold communion, and intercourse, with the dwell- 
 ers on the new earth. Their sway over the nations, 
 will be peaceful and holy, in its character. They will 
 tell over the story of the cross. They will speak of 
 all the glories of their Saviour's work. They will tell 
 of the designs of God, concerning the inhabitants of 
 the earth; the position to which they may rise; and 
 the means of attaining it. They will instruct them, 
 in the truths of His service; in the nature of His 
 great sacrifice ; and lead them, in their approaches to 
 His throne. All this pertains to a human priesthood. 
 All this .pertains to theirs. In its exercise, the Spirit 
 will attend them. "The Spirit and the Bride say, 
 Come!" Now, "the bride," is the collected body of 
 Christ's raised and glorified people. The figure will 
 not be realized, until they all sit down, at "the mar- 
 
244 THE MINISTRY OF 
 
 riage supper of the Lamb ;" i. e., until He comes to set 
 up His kingdom; and take His people to Himself; 
 "that where He is, there they may be also." Then it 
 will be proclaimed; "The marriage of the Lamb is 
 come; and His wife hath made herself ready." (Rev. 
 xix. 7.) Then and thenceforward, through per- 
 petual generations will this ministry of u the Spirit 
 and the Bride," be exercised." In their glorified 
 bodies, the people of God, will continually, repeat the 
 story of the love of God, in Christ. The invitations 
 of the gospel the gracious, "come" will be everlast- 
 ingly repeated. The Spirit will attend the call. And 
 every heart will be willing, in this day of God's power. 
 They that hear the dwellers in the flesh shall re- 
 peat the call. And, as fresh generations appear, to 
 take the place of those who are glorified; the invita- 
 tion will be perpetually renewed, and perpetually, 
 obeyed ! 
 
 It is not here and now, that this ministry of the 
 Bride is exercised! It will not be, until she hath 
 made herself ready; 1 ' i. e., until His elect are all 
 gathered and glorified. It will not be a ministry, ex- 
 ercised as that of the angels is. They are here; 
 around us ; on every hand. We see them, not, indeed. 
 But God's word assures us they are here. But the 
 ministry of His glorified ones, will be a visible minis- 
 try. Men, in the flesh, shall see those, whom God has 
 brought, as the first-fruits of the harvest of the work 
 of Christ. They shall hear them speak of the won- 
 ders of His love. It raised them from the death of 
 sin. It found them in a world, "where Satan's seat," 
 
GLORIFIED SAINTS. 245 
 
 was. It plucked them as brands from the burning. 
 It washed away their sins. It gave them hearts of 
 flesh, to love Him. It made them, new creatures, in 
 Christ Jesus. They went down to the grave, trusting 
 in its power. He raised them thence. He gave them, 
 the bodies of glory, which now they wear. He sent 
 them forth, as messengers of His will; witnesses of 
 His grace ; monuments of His love ! Who can esti- 
 mate the honour and the glory, of such a ministry as 
 this ; and the ever- widening circles of its results ? 
 
 Arid it is but a realization of the plain words 
 of Scripture. It is but a fulfilment a perfect fulfil- 
 ment of the setting up of the ladder which Jacob 
 saw. Then, for the first time, men shall see, how 
 heaven and earth, are brought together, in the person 
 and work of our Lord. Christ is the ladder. On Him 
 i. #., because of His work visible intercourse will 
 be held, between God and man. The people of God 
 understand a little of this now. They know how to 
 mount up to Him by faith and prayer. They know, 
 something of the sweets of communion with Him. 
 They know, a little, of how visions of God can come 
 into the soul, by faith in Jesus Christ. But of all 
 this, it is still true; " We see through a glass darkly." 
 This veil of flesh hides its glories from our view. We 
 could not sustain them, now. Our vision is too faint, 
 confused, and dim. But it will not be so then. Earth 
 will be a living picture of its meaning. The landscape 
 of this world will lie in the light of it, for ever. You 
 and I, brethren if we are truly the people of God 
 will have a place among those glorious beings : pass- 
 21* 
 
246 CONTINUED. 
 
 up and down : and holding perpetual intercourse be- 
 tween the renewed earth, and the far-off mansions of 
 our Father's house ! It is but the realization of our 
 Lord's own words: " Ye shall see the angels of God 
 ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." 
 And these are the three classes who are to experience 
 the results of Christ's atoning work; and form the 
 subjects and officers of his kingdom. 
 
 And thus, brethren, I bring this theme to a close. 
 I have traversed the ground, originally proposed. I 
 have laid before you a portion of the Scripture tes- 
 timony concerning it. My responsibility is ended. 
 Yours is for the reception of it. And, to God, we 
 must each render our account. 
 
 I know, that you have heard, with divided minds. 
 Some would not hear at all. Some many thank 
 God, I can say, most of you, have heard with profit. 
 It is now, as it was of old: " Some believed the things 
 which were spoken; and some believed not." Some 
 of you have called it "speculation:" when nothing, I 
 think, has been advanced; except on the authority 
 of the Word of God. Some have said it was "pre- 
 sumption" thus to preach. 
 
 Well : brethren, if it is so ; it is a grievous wrong. 
 And fearful will be my account. "Presumption?" 
 0, no ! Unbelief is presumption. Doubt is presump- 
 tion. Turning aside from the written word, is pre- 
 sumption. Faith which believes what God says, 
 just because he says it is humility. It has none of 
 the elements of presumption; in it or about it. And 
 so, I leave the whole theme with you; to do with it, 
 
GLORY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION. 247 
 
 as your examination of the book of God, may require. 
 I take you to witness, that what has been taught, has 
 been taught simply on the testimony of that book. 
 There has been no appeal to human authority.* I 
 have asked you, to "call no man Master, but Christ." 
 If His word supports it not ; it matters not who 
 teaches it. It is false. But if it does; then, no 
 matter who is against it. It is true. " Search and 
 look." 
 
 We learn from this whole subject, 
 
 a. The greatness and glory of the Plan of Salvation. 
 It is no chance affair; brought in to remedy an un- 
 foreseen evil. It is God's great purpose, from all 
 eternity. All else has reference to it. For this, the 
 earth was made. For this, all creation has a being. 
 
 * It may, however, be well to remember, that the materials for 
 doing this, are very abundant. "The fact is" says the late 
 Bishop Henshaw "that the commonly received opinion of a spirit- 
 ual millennium, consisting in a universal triumph of the gospel and 
 the conversion of all nations for a thousand years, before the 
 coming of Christ, is a novel doctrine unknown to the Church, for the 
 space of sixteen hundred years. So far as we have been able to 
 investigate its history, it was first advanced, by the Rev. Dr. 
 Whitby, the Commentator." (Henshaw on Second Advent, p. 115.) 
 
 The Bishop further avers, that "we may safQly challenge its advo- 
 cates, to produce one distinguished writer in its favour, who lived 
 before the commencement of the eighteenth century." (Ibid.) 
 
 I believe that challenge has not been accepted. Indeed, Dr. 
 Whitby himself, terms his theory, "A new hypothesis." And so it 
 is. It was not the doctrine of the Church in its purest and best 
 days. The change of novelty lies with all its weight, against those 
 who hold it now not against those who hold to the pre-rrillennial 
 Advent! It is in vain to deny this. 
 
248 RESULTS OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 
 
 For this, it is sustained. For this, nations rise ; and 
 kingdoms perish and pass away. Grod's eternal pur- 
 pose runs through all the changes, that sweep across 
 the earth! He has a people to gather out of every 
 clime; a church, to build up, out of every land. A 
 world, lost in sin, is to be restored. And is that all? 
 It would be very much; if it were. But it is not. 
 All creation is to be blessed in the atoning work of 
 Christ. " The whole family in heaven and earth is 
 named of Him." All sinless intelligences, in all parts 
 of the universe are interested in His great work. 
 Christ's death has finished the transgression, and 
 made an end of sin. It shall spread no more, in all 
 the universe of God. It has drawn a limit around it. 
 No other orders of beings shall fall. In themselves, 
 no created beings can be incapable of sin. That is 
 an attribute of God alone. Where, then, is their 
 safety? Where the assurance that they will not fall? 
 It is found in the death of Christ. They stand in 
 Him. They rest in his great work; as all the parts 
 of a temple do, on the foundation. There goes out 
 an influence from His cross, which is the salvation of 
 all the creatures of his hands. How it is exercised, 
 we know not now. That is reserved for our future 
 state. We shall then see how its lines of saving 
 power, go out to the farthest dominions of His uni- 
 verse. All His sinless intelligences shall learn through 
 it, "the manifold i. e., the many-huedm much varie- 
 gated wisdom of God." As the light, in passing 
 through a prism, scatters around the beautiful col- 
 ours of the rainbow; so redemption unfolds the char- 
 
DESTINY OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 249 
 
 acter of God. It displays to far-off worlds, the many- 
 hued attributes of his wisdom, and power, and love ! 
 They all meet in his cross. And in it alone, when 
 fully displayed, shall we learn what God is ! 
 
 b. What a glorious destiny is reserved for the people 
 of G-od! Well, indeed, is it written: "Eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for 
 them that love Him." It is much, that the eye hath 
 seen. It is much, that the ear hath heard. How 
 much more is it, that the heart hath conceived ! That 
 busy, restless, deathless thing how boundless are its 
 desires ! How insatiate its cravings ! And yet, what 
 are they all ; when compared with the rich provision, 
 which God has made for the blessedness and glory of 
 His people ? 
 
 Are you a Christian? Why then, you "are an 
 heir of God; and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ?" In 
 all the glories of His kingdom ; you shall have a share. 
 Are you a Christian? Why then, there is a day 
 coming, when you shall walk the earth, in a glorified 
 body; exercising the power; doing the will; and 
 spreading the reign ; of your Lord. All His works 
 are before you. There is is no part of His universe, 
 where you may not go. No secrets, 'which you may 
 not seek to explore. No blessedness, which you may 
 not enjoy. Are you a Christian? Why, then when 
 sin is banished; and Satan bound; and the earth 
 renewed ; it will be . yours, to tell over, to dwellers in 
 the flesh, the story of redeeming love! And this 
 will not be amidst the sneers of the sceptic ; and the 
 
250 CONCLUSION. 
 
 cold, but polite, indifference of the man of the world; 
 and the contempt of the Pharisaic formalist. All 
 these will have been put away; gone to their own 
 place. But it will be, to hearts opened by the Spirit ; 
 and only anxious to know the truth, in order to yield 
 themselves up to its power. Are you a Christian? 
 Why, then how holy you should be ! How this glori- 
 ous destiny should move in your heart ; and rule in 
 your life! How your character and conduct should 
 take the impress of this truth; and men learn from 
 you something of its purifying power ! 
 
 Are you a Christian? On this single question 
 everything depends. Men and Brethren What is 
 your answer to it? 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY