Oak ST. HDSF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS library '"5,® oolleotlon of Julius Doerner, Chicago J^^^rclias 6d , 1918 • 23(o CQI^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/greattribulationOOcumm m Pjw.-. fi>r h Recently Published, The Great Tribulation.^ FIRST SERIES. FORMING BOOK I. OF THIS WORK One YoL 12mo. Price, $1,00. THE Great Tribulation; OR, THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH. BY THE REV. JOHN GUMMING, D.D., F.R.S.E. MINISTER OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL CHURCH, CROWN COURT, COVENT GARDEN. SECOND SERIES. “ A time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation.” — ^D an. idi 1 . “ There shall be great tribulation.” NEW YORK : Rudd & Carleton, 130 Grand Street, LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY. M DCCC LX. It. CllAlGHEAD, Printer, Stereotyper, and Electrotypcr, Caiton 58 utIUin 0 , 81, 83, and 85 Centre Street, ^36 C9I^ S^.(k PUBLISHER’S ADYERTISEMENT. This volume of “The Gkeat Tribulation” contains Dr. Cumming’s second and concluding series of lectures on this momentous subject. These lectures, which in the opinion of the best theological critics rank among the most important of recent contributions to the Lite- rature of the Prophecies, differ somewhat from those that precede them ; for while the former, in the words of the author, “ deal with the nature and marks of The Great Tribulation,” the latter relate to the character and condition, the hopes, happiness, and destiny of the People of God — ^the Blessed to whom belong the pro- mises of Scripture, and who will come out of The Great Tribulation, like gold from the furnace, refined and purified. There will be found in this part much to cheer, animate, and sustain them, in circumstances of unprecedented trouble. 701!>58 CONTENTS LECTURE XXL Page 1867 Dan. xii. 11, 12 9 LECTURE XXII. The Harvest of the Earth . . Dan. xii. 2 25 LECTURE XXIII. The Shining Throng . . . . Dan. xii. 3 41 LECTURE % XXIV. Locomotion and Learning . . . Dan. xii. 4 56 LECTURE XXV No More Sea 74 LECTURE XXVI. The Purifying Process . . Dan. xii. 10 94 LECTURE XXVII. The Glorious Lot . . . 105 LECTURE XXVIIL The Enduring Word . . . . Matt. xxiv. 35 122 LECTURE XXIX. A Thousand Years as One Day 2 Peter iii, 8 133 VI. CONTENTS. LECTURE XX:^:. The Heart’s Desire .... 2 Cor. v. 2 — 4 149 LECTURE XXXI. The First Resurrection . . . Phil, iii, 11 166 LECTURE XXXII. The Blessed and Holy Part . Rev. xx. 6 185 LECTURE XXXIIL Degrees of Happiness .... 2 Cor. ix, 6 199 LECTURE XXXIY. Recognition in the Age to Come. Rev. xx. 6 216 LECTURE XXXV. The Throned Priest and King. Zech. vi. 13 238 LECTURE XXXYI. • Our Refuge in the Great Tribu- lation Psalm, xlvi. 12 27 LECTURE XXXYII. Be Still Psalm xlvi. 10 267 THE GllEAT TRIBULATION. OR, THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH. LECTURE XXI. 186T. ihid from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken aioay^ and the abomination that maketh deso- late set up^ there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days .^^ — Daniel xii. 11, 12. This is a very diflBcult passage, but we have no right to pass it by ; and if the discussion should seem uninterest- ing we must pardon the necessity of it, while we accept conclusions only in as far as they seem borne out by data. But my discussion will be less the expression of opinions of my own, and rather what I have been col- lecting during many years — the opinions and the inter- pretations of some of the best, and wisest, and most laborious men who have given their attention to this very important subject. What I shall endeavor to show now r (9) 10 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. is this, that whatever theories of the fulfilment of these dates are held, whether they fix the commencement at tliis period, or at that period, or at some other period, neo-rlj all concur in one remarkable conclusion, namely, that 1867 is to be the great crisis, the testing crisis in the events of history, in the fulfilment of prophecy, and in the experience of mankind. What I wish to show is that the best, the wisest, and the most thoughtful of writers on the subject of prophecy, however much they may differ in certain details — and they do differ — nearly all coincide in this, that 1867 is to be a great crisis; and that if all that some expect to occur at that period do not occur, we are at least on the eve of events, as Lord Carlisle has expressed it in his work upon Daniel, the most stupendous, if not ushering in the very close of this present Christian economy, we must carefully weigh the quotations, that thus we may be able to judge whether the data on which these writers have come to their con- clusions be correct or not. Elliot and Mede have shown that the 2300 years, which Daniel gives as one of the great chronological epochs, terminate about the year 1821 or 1822 ; that is, dating them from the march of Xerxes, and the meridian splendor of the Persian Empire. But a very learned and able clergyman of the Church of England, who has written a work called ‘‘ The Terminal Synchronism of Daniel’s Two Periods,” differs from Mr. Elliot. He thinks that the 2300 years, one of Daniel’s great epochs, after which, as I showed you, the Eastern Apostacy, or the waters of the river Euphrates that should overflow 1867. 11 ^ Europe, that is, the power of Mahomet, should begin 9 to subside, began at the autumnal equinox of 433 b. c. ; and if the 2300 years began at the autumnal equinox of 433 B. c., then that great period would terminate in the autumnal equinox of 1867. Elliot’s opinion was that the 2300 years measure out the taking av/ay of the daily sacrifice, and the exhaustion of that great eastern eclipse which was to overshadow the light and the sunshine of heaven in the eastern world, and that they end in 1821 ; at which date Mahometanism as a poAver in Europe was shaken to its centre, and began to cross the Bosphorus, and to fall back upon its ancient channels in Asia, and to cease to be a dominant, trium- phant, and advancing fanaticism. But this writer thinks that the proper date is 433 b. c. ; and if so, then they would terminate in 1867, when, according to him, Ma- hometanism will be utterly expunged, and the cross Avill shine where the crescent now waves in triumph. But more than this ; this writer thinks also that the expres- sion time, times, and half a time,” Avhich all commentators admit to be 360 years, twice 360 years, and 180 years, making altogether 1260 years, called in the Apocalypse 42 prophetic months, which is the same thing — called also 1260 prophetic days — start from A. D. 607. Mr. Elliot, and Newton, and Mede, think that the 1260 years, descriptive of the great Western Apostacy, began at the year 532, at which era Justinian constituted the Bishop of Rome to have supreme civil, ecclesiastical, and spiritual jurisdiction ; they consider that at that pe- riod the Aj^ostacy was invested with Supreme civil and 12 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. ecclesiastical power, and therefore with its permanent form as a politico-sacerdotal system. But this writer differs from them ; he says that the 1260 years do not begin at 532 after Christ, but that they begin at the year 607, when the Emperor Phocas constituted Pope Boni- face III. the universal head of the universal Church, and the' supreme and chief bishop, priest, and prelate of Christendom. If you take this latter opinion, then you add the 1260 years to the year 607, and it brings you down to the same period at which his 2300 years terminate, namely, 1867 ; and according, therefore, to this theory, not only will Mahometanism totally cease at that period, but the Papacy also, with its pope and its cardinals, and its whole ecclesiastical despotism, will sink like a millstone into the depths of the ocean ; and the world east and west, emancipated from the incubus that has crushed and darkened it, shall reflect the beams of an unsetting sun, and form a portion of that greal empire which constitutes the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. I must say I prefer Elliot’s ; but w^hat I wish to impress is the remarkable fact that both in- terpretations land us in 1867, as a great dominant era, characterized by stupendous events, and involving mighty changes in the present constitution of things. The theory adopted by the interpreters' I prefer is that the 1260 years which were to mete out the dominant power of the great Western Apostacy began in A. D. 532, when Justinian in his ‘ Pandects’ gave the supreme authority to the Bishop of Rome. If you add 1260 years to 532 it brings you down to 1792. Accordingly, at the 1867. 13 exhaustion of the 1260 years, in 1792, the Papacy, according to the description in the word of God, was to come under the judgment of Heaven, and gradually to be exhausted. Read ‘‘Alison’s History,” or any other authentic history, and you will find that the great outburst of the French Revolution in 1792 commenced so overwhelming an onslaught on the Papal power, with all its dependencies, that from that day to this Roman- ism has been a dying system, exhausted of its chiefest vitality, and struggling for a foothold in any land to which it can have access ; so much so, that I have re- peated again and again the conviction, that I have no more fear of Popery gaining the upper hand, than I have of Mahometanism or Hindooism gaining supremacy. The Pope is on his last legs, struggling for existence ; and the only unhappy feature, and the most unhappy one, I must candidly confess, is that the only nation upon earth where it is gaining power amid the popula- tion is in this land of ours. Among the lowest classes, I know, from statistics which I could quote did time permit, the Roman Catholic religion is losing every day. Among the middle classes it never had a footing ; but among the higher classes it is at this moment daily gain- ing converts. They serve their apprenticeship to gaudi- ly decorated churches, some of which have been recently opened ; and after they have been saturated with homoe- pathic doses there, they finally hand themselves over to the allopathic treatment of Pio Nono, and become members of the Roman Catholic Church. It does seem the most inexplicable thing that the peers of England, 14 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. illustrious many of them for their genius, their elo- quence, their brilliant antecedents, their resistance of tyranny in every form, and their vindication of the noblest rights of our noble land, should any of them be- lieve the monstrous fables, and accept the loud and inso- lent pretensions of a system that is indeed found in the word of God, but with a brand upon its brow, and its doom pronounced before even it came into existence. But so it is. We rejoice that the feet of our nation are in the right way ; the head, or the upper classes, is bewil- dered; but the heart of old England beats sound and true, and you must not judge by the wavering pulse at the wrist of the few that the beat of England’s heart is in any other condition than its normal, its Protest- ant and Christian one. Assuming that 532 began the 1260 years, what is next to take place, Daniel tells us in this passage, to which I specially ask attention, as confirmatory of the theory I am trying to uphold, that first of all there shall be time, times, and half a time, or 1260 years, and then there shall be 1290 years. In other words, Daniel says that 1260 years shall be augmented by 30 years more ; at the end of which 30 years there shall be some great event, which we have to ascertain. Now if we add to 1792, when the 1260 years terminated, an additional 30 years, it brings us down to 1822. But 1822 is the terminating period of the 2300 years also, according to Elliot’s inter- pretation. Well, did anything take place in 1822 that would justify that period as a terminating epoch? We find that Turkey, in the language of Lamartine, began 1867. 15 to die for want of Turks ; the whole force of that great system of propagandism then began its rapid exhaustion ; and from that day to this even our efforts to keep back Russia have not kept up Turkey; it is at this moment in the pangs of dissolution. I stated four or five years ago that it would be so ; and however justified we were, and we were justified in trying to prevent Russia from dis- turbing the balance of the power of Europe ; yet, as I then said, our efforts to preserve Turkey would be vain. Russia has still a sign-board near Petersburg, on which is written, ‘‘The way to Constantinople,’’ and in the lapse of years Constantinople will be hers, and Russia will yet play a part in the history of the wwld probably unprecedented for a thousand years. But Daniel says, “ Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” Here is still an additional period. He adds 75 years to the 1260, or 45 years to the 1290. He men- tions three periods, you observe, all beginning, we here assume, at 532; first 1260, ending in 1792; then 1290, ending in 1822; and then 1335, ending in 1867; so that, according to this theory, Daniel’s period, when he shall be blessed or happy that waiteth and cometh to the close of the 1335 years, that period, assumed by Elliot to be the millennial rest, would begin in the year 1867, and last for a thousand years of uninterrupted felicity, and blessedness, and peace. But what I wish to impress is tliat, according to both theories, 1867 again evolves as the year of stupendous changes. And it is very re- markable, too, what will confirm this and what I shall quote passages to prove that Fines Clinton, the ablest chronol- 16 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. ogist of the age, has shown, and I think with irresistible force, that our era at present, namely, 1859, is not the correct and real era in the chronology of the world. His idea is that Christ came about the year of the world 4138; and that in the course of a few years more we shall have arrived at the close of the sixth thousand, and at the commencement of the seventh thousand year of the world. What it is interesting to show in connection with this is the universal belief among Jews and Gen- tiles, Rabbinists, Talmudists, and Fathers, that the sev- enth thousand year of the world is to correspond to the seventh day of the week; six days the working week, and the seventh day the Sabbath-day rest; 6000 years for the working world week, and the 7000th year to be what the apostle describes as the rest, or the that remaineth for the people of God. Several extracts so far seem to authenticate and vindi- cate this conclusion, and you will take them of course for what they are worth : First, Lady Hester Stanhope, in a letter from Syria to her physician, in the year 1827, says, All those who come may go back in the Turkish year, 1245.’* And the physician adds, in a note, “ It would appear from this, that Lady Hester Stanhope ex- pected the accomplishment of some great event in the year of the Hegira, 1245.’’ The Hegira dates our year 622, add 1245 to 622, and we have the year when she expected some stupendous event, 1867. The late Mr. Irving, deeply deceived in many things, extravagant in more, but a man of splendid genius, of unquestionable piety, the victim of a belief that everybody was good and great, and incapable of a suspicion that anybody 1867. 17 could deceive — said, Not only amongst the Turks in Europe, but all over the E'ast, the Mahometan power is wasting away ; and like all doomed things begins to be conscious of its approaching end ; insomuch that they say the Ottoman Porte is paralysed with prophecies of its speedy ruin. Is it not so written, the Turks say, in your Christian book, that our religion is to come to an end within forty years ? And what is very remarkable, a friend of mine, who travelled lately into central Africa, and stood on the Himalaya mountains in India, by the holy pool, where never Christian had dwelt before, found there also an expectation of a religion from the west which in the space of forty years was to possess the earth, remarks which they made to me with their own lips.*’ Now the African traveller or friend to whom he refers, was Major Denham or Captain Clapperton; they were in Africa in the year 1823 ; and 40 years added to this would bring us ‘down to 1863. Again in another part of this book he says, At the end of the 1335 day of Daniel, or in the year 1867, w^hich is 42 years from the time when I now write, the period of blessedness r#hall begin, and the resurrection of the righteous shall then take place.” Mr. Cunningham, of Lainshaw, a man of profound research into prophecy, writing in the year 1837, says, that if the whole of the evidence which he adduces be considered, and carefully weighed, he thinks it will be impossible to doubt the accuracy of his dates ; and he believes that we were at that time, a little more than 29 years and two months from the end of Daniel's 1335 years ; that is, they would expire in the year 1867. The author of a very able and elaborate treatise, called 18 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. The Seventh Vial,” writes thus upon the same sub- ject; sooner had the period of judgment passed over Europe from 1789 to 1815 ended, than the ancient landmarks were restored. Where is the promise of his coming? came to be the universal cry. He points to the year 1865, when, according to Daniel, a blessed era shall begin, the millennium be ushered in, and the complete destruction of Antichrist shall then take place. We are, says that writer, “on the eve of the long anti- cipated Sabbath of rest and blessedness.” And the late Reverend Edward Bickersteth, one of the most able, pious, and spiritually-minded men I ever knew ; and I have listened to him as a pupil with profit and delight many a time, and derived from his works some of my best and most precious information — the uncle of the present Bishop of Ripon — says, “If we reckon the 2300 days in Daniel from Ezra’s commission, b. c. 457, they would expire in 1843 ; but if we reckon them as we should, from the last cleansing of Nehemiah in B. c. 433, then they expire in 1867, which I conceive to be the pe- riod of the restoration of the Jewish nation, the cleans- ing of the sanctuary, and the preparations for the mil- lennial dawn and sunshine.” I shall quote lastly, from one with Vvhose sentiments in some things I do not agree. Bishop Russell, a Scottish Bishop ; he writes especially upon the idea, that the 7000th year, would be the seventh millenary, or millennial rest of the world ; and he makes the following most important and valuable remark : “ The tradition that the earth, as well as the religious state of its inhabitants, is to undergo a great change at the end of 6000 years, has been found in the writings of 1867. 19 Pagans, Jews, and Christians ; because six days were em- ployed by Almighty God in the creation of the globe, after which he rested on the seventh ; and as with him one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, it was concluded by the Cabalists and Jews, that the world was to continue 6000 years ; and on the conclusion of this period there would succeed a Sabbath of a thousand years of corresponding length, a millen- nium of rest and of peace. This idea has been traced in the Sybilline oracles, in the poems of Hesiod, in Plato, and prevailed long before the birth of Christ, relative to a momentous change which is supposed to await the earth after a period not exceeding 6000 years. We find this expectation expressed by the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans; orators, poets, philosophers; and the only difficulty we experience in the examination of the records collected from the litera- ture of ages is to account for so great unanimity of sen- timent, where we cannot discover any source of informa- tion or any authority which so many different writers would consent to acknowledge for a conclusion so remark- able.’’ And he adds, Whatever might be the origin of this anticipation so fondly cherished by J ew and Pa- gan, before the advent of our Savior, in regard to a hap- py change in the constitution of things, it is manifest that the hope of such a consummation was not supersed- ed by Christ’s residence upon the earth, and the many promises which he made to his disciples in relation to a more perfect state of existence hereafter : on the contra- ry, the first Christians looked with a more earnest desire for the new heavens and the new earth promised to their 20 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. fathers ; and connected this expectation too with the an- cient hope that this globe was to undergo a material change at the end of 6000 years, throwing off all its imperfections, which had arisen from the guilt of its in- habitants, and being then made to be the habitation of justice, benevolence, and purity, during a millennium of a thousand years, the Sabbath of this terrestrial world.” I may just add that a poet — if one may take a poet’s testimony for anything, and sometimes the deep insight of the poet is truer than the logic of the philosopher — the poet of our firesides, the most beautiful and instruc- tive of all, I mean Cowper, says, — “ The grOcOiis of nature in this nether v/orld, Which heaven has heard for ages have an end, Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, Whose fire was kindled at the prophet’s lamp. The time of rest, the promised Sabbath comes. Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course Over a sinful world; and what remains. Of this tempestuous state of human things. Is merely as the working of the sea Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest : For He, whose car the winds are, and the clouds The dust that waits upon His sultry march. When sin hath moved Him, and His wrath is hot. Shall visit earth in mercy ; shall descend Propitious in His chariot paved with love; And what His storms have blasted and defaced. For man’s revolt, shall with a smile repair.” Mr. Scott, a very able writer upon prophecy, states, in his Outlines of Prophecy,” — The whole six days’ work of creation typifies the whole six thousand years of the 186T. 21 work of redemption ; and the seventh day, or Sabbath of God, is the type of that seventh thousand year of re- demption, the millennium or sabbatism, that first day, as it were, of universal joy and praise to Christ. Almost all writers on prophecy agree that the prophetical dates given us terminate between this present time and the year 1867 /’ I have given these extracts from competent authorities, all coming to one conclusion, — that the seventh thousand year of the world is to be its millennial rest ; and I have shown you that, if the chronology of Mr. Fines Clinton be correct, and I am satisfied it is correct, we are at this very moment within eight years of the close of the sixth thousand year, and therefore, if our dates be right, within eight years of the commencement of what all these writers hope is the everlasting rest, the dawn of heaven, the millennial blessedness of the people of God ; when all tears shall be dried — when all sorrows shall cease — when death shall die — and when Christ shall shine before his ancients gloriously ; and this world shall enjoy that rest which has been foretold by prophets, celebrated by poets, anticipated by saints, and declared by an apostle to be the Sabbath-rest that remaineth for the people of God. These are the data, on which each can form his own conclusions. I do not venture to dogmatise — I do not attempt to dictate — I do not presume to decide. I have shown that the best and ablest Christian students are all agreed that 1867 is an era fraught with gigantic issues , that some think it is the commencement of the millen- nial rest; others think it is the destruction of all the 22 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. errors whose roots are struck deep into our world, and the universal spread of the empire of the Prince of Peace. Then, if these things be so, we look at Europe, at this moment, with intense and awful interest. No one can reflect upon the last ten years without seeing that they have been ten years of unprecedented events in the history of the world and of mankind. No one can look upon Europe at this moment without feeling that it is scarcely a sleeping volcano : Russia coming from its snows ; Germany aroused to its very heart ; the proud and victorious Napoleon, so far alive to the cause of righteousness, and liberty, and peace ; our own country employing all the genius of its statesmen, of every side and every party, to stave off the tides of war from touch- ing our own peaceful shores ; — and yet all things lead- ing us to fear that we shall not finally (though for a season we may) escape the terrible conflict, but all prophecy leading us to hope that England will be spared in the wreck of nations. Her banners may be torn ; but she will we hope survive, for she separated at the great Reformation, from the Ten Kingdoms of the Papacy that are now coming under the judgments of Heaven ; and I believe, therefore — and I am refreshed and delighted while I express the belief — tliat old England’s sun will have no western setting in the horizon till its beams min- gle with the beams of that Sun, beneath whose wings is healing, and in whose presence there is light and liberty for the nations of the earth. But what does all this teach us now? Suppose I had proved to you, to demonstration, tliat 1867 was to close this present era. Some will say. Oh ! then we had better not insure our livjs — we had 1867. 23 better not take leases — we had better do nothing ; but fling everything oflF, and let society go to ruin. I say, No. What is the Lord’s command? ‘‘Occupy till I come.” What is the condition of the people when he comes? “ Two shall be grinding in a mill ; the one shall be taken,” that is, one a Christian, “ and the other left.” What does that teach us ? That our duties are deter- mined by God’s plain precepts ; they are not to be modi- fied by any of his prophecies, however clear. The pro- phecy I read for comfort — the precept I read for direction. And, therefore, when people say, we act inconsistently — as it was said not very long ago by caricaturists and others in the papers — that, because I took the lease of a house, therefore I did not believe these conclusions, I answer that if I thought it would be for my interest or advan- tage, or the advantage of my family, I would take a house for a hundred years’ lease to-morrow. I have nothing to do with prophecy in determining my duties — they are to be determined by God’s precepts and by common sense ; and if I believed that 1867 were to end the present economy of things, I should have my hand equally busy in my work. I would bid the soldier ap- pear in the ranks, the merchant in his counting-house, the senator in the parliament — every man at his post ; for the post of duty is always the place of safety before God and in the sight of all mankind. But whilst our hands should be at duty, our hearts should be more than ever in heaven. Some people say. Oh ! how shocking, how terrible, that the world is to end ! Why, how shock- ing, how terrible, that you may die to-morrow ! I might say, how shocking, that the aged of sixty has only some 24 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. fifteen years to live, on an average. Death, to the indi- vidual, is just as solemn as the close of this economy to the whole world : but there is nothing shocking in it. Our Savior does not so construe it ; for what does he say ? When ye see these things begin to come to pass,’^ What ! be terrified — be alarmed — resign your duties ? No, no, no. The Bible is too rich in common-sense : Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.” And wLo can possibly regret the probable nearness of such a consummation ? What will it be ? The end of sin — the emancipation of the oppressed — the extinction of war — the return of earth’s ancient glory — the resto- ration of all the blessedness we have lost — a peace that passeth understanding — no more quarrels, no more mis- apprehensions, no more sins, no more sorrows. Instead of dreading the advent of so glorious an epoch, with all our hearts we should pray, as from the heart I do, Come, Lord Jesus ; yea, come quickly.” LECTURE XXIL THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH. The Germans call a burial-ground God’s Acre.” The prophet describes its harvest in these words — And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake^ some to everlasting life^ and some to shame and everlasting contempt. — Daniel xii. 2. This is one of the things coming on the earth. The resurrection of the dead is the corollary of the resurrec- tion of Christ; the first fruits of them that sleep. I need scarcely add, the resurrection of the dead was never dreamed of by the heathen. Even those who believed in * the immortality of the soul never ventured to anticipate the restoration of the body. When Paul preached at Athens to the most enlightened and cultivated audience that ever listened to a sermon, the idea of the resurrec- tion of the dead seemed so utterly untenable, that they, like philosophers, laughed to scorn the eloquent but fear- less preacher of it. This being so, it is evident that the doctrine is not the discovery of man, nor the guess of transcendent genius ; but simply and wholly the revela- tion of God. We are indebted to the disclosures of the New Testament and the prophecies of the Old for this great truth, that the body is immortal just as truly as the soul. 2 (25) 26 THE HARVEST OE THE EARTH. We are very prone to lose sight of this doctrine ; and justly impressed with the importance and magnificence of the soul’s safety, we give up the body as if Satan had justly earned it, and had an indefeasible right to its pos- session. But that is not so. If it be true that the dead in Christ shall rise, then we may look forward to that blessed hope just as truly, and wdth as rich consolation, as that with which we look upward to the assurance that absent from the body we shall be present with the Lord.” And certainly there is a feeling in human nature that makes one wonder the heathen never guessed it. The thought is most withering, if it be true, that the face that gladdened our home with its sunshine has gone into the shadow of the grave for ever ; that the accents that were music to our ear are hushed for ever; that the dear friend that we took counsel and walked to the house of God together wdth we shall never see again ; or if we - come into contact with him, it wdll be in a spiritual, dis- embodied state, of which we have now no just or real con- ception. But when we read in the Bible that the body is merely resting like raiment folded up in the great ward- robe of humanity, the grave ; that it is there superintend- ed by Him that made it, just as the soul is superintended in heaven, and that there is not an atom of its dust that shall not again rise ; new light is cast upon the grave, new splendors upon the hopes of the Christian ; and he feels that those snatched from him on this side the grave he shall meet again, and know even as he is known. Now in trying to illustrate a subject by some few re- marks on which I have often spoken and written, let me THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH. 27 show first of all that the resurrection of the body is pos- sible ; secondly, that the resurrection of the body is prob- able ; and thirdly, that the resurrection of the body, as the last step, is absolutely certain ; and then I will turn your attention to the time of it, the nature of it, and the results of it. The resurrection of the body is possible. It seems at first altogether absurd to expect that the dust that is deposited in the depths of the silent sea ; or that has been scattered by the winds, and incorporated into the grass that grows in the field, and the heath that blossoms in the desert ; or that has gone into other organisms, and going into them has constituted part and parcel of a wholly different and almost antagonistic nature ; can really be re-collected, re-organised, re-constituted in beauty, in glory, and perfection. This demands, the sceptic would say, very great credulity; the scientific man would add the abjuration of the first principles of science ; but the Christian says, I can see the shadow of its possibility; and if I see that, I may be able to take a step farther, and admit its probability ; and if I ascertain that, I may take a step farther, and say it is absolutely certain. What is the evidence of this possi- bility ? God is omnipotent ; I do not dwell upon that fact now — a fact, admitting which, we must admit all that is pledged and promised to follow. But is there now greater impossibility, if you will allow such a strange expression, in calling those shining orbs in the sky out of nothing into brightness, beauty, harmony, and order; or in lighting up the sun with his inexhaustible splen- dor, or in giving the laws that regulate all his depend- 28 THE GREAT TRIBULATIOX. ent satellites and servants, while the capital to draw on is nothing ; and yet the result is magnificent and gor- geous beyond all power of description and language to express. It does seem not at least more difficult to col- lect atoms that are only disintegrated, than it is to make orbs where there are none; it is surely not more difficult to gather the scattered fragments of humanity each out of its hiding-place than it is to create worlds, and angels, and souls, and bodies out of nothing. I cannot see that there is required a greater amount of power to collect the broken fragments on the battle-field, and rebuild them into beauty and perfection, than to create these bodies of ours, so exquisitely and artistically made, out of nothing at all. So far then it does seem at least possible. It is possible on this ground ; that we see individual instan- ces by way of facts, precedents, and prefigurations. Laz- arus was dead three days, and buried ; the fingers of decay were beginning to draw their outlines upon every part of his dead and cold organization. Jesus said, •^Lazarus, come forth.’’ Instantly the warm tide of life circulated through every vein and artery, and he came forth and mingled with the ranks of living men. So with the son of the widow of Nain. So at the Redeem- er’s own death, we read as a fact, that the buried dead of a thousand years burst from the grave that imprisoned them, and arose and ascended into heaven. And, there- fore, if we have one instance of a resurrection, I do not see Vf by we may not have ten thousand ; and the possi- bility is establisbed by one instance just as much as by the countless harvest of the resurrection morn itself But grant that the capital wo draw on to accomplish the THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH. 29 result is Omnipotence, tli^re are no difficulties at all; it not only becomes possible, but it amounts to certainty, if God has said it. For what is Omnipotence ? It can do anything that is merely physical. There are some things that Omnipotence cannot do : it is said Omnipo- tence cannot lie ; it is impossible for God to lie. But there is nothing physical, however difficult, that cannot be done, if the capital on which you draw for the accom- plishment be the Omnipotence of God. For what is the very definition of Omnipotence ? Power to do anything in the world, anything in the universe, except what con- tradicts the moral laws that holiness has laid down. Having seen that it is possible, let me show that it is highly probable. First, if the soul is to be rewarded as washed in a Savior’s blood, and believing in a Savior’s sacrifice, it does seem highly probable that the body that shared in its sorrows and its joys, its sunshine and its shadow, its tears and its smiles, so fearfully and won- derfully made, should, having shared in the sorrow, be made partaker of the joy into which the soul enters throughout everlasting ages. It would be a very sad thing that this body of ours, this wonderful mechanism, should be yielded to the devil ; and that though Christ has redeemed the soul, Satan should have ruined the body, and be able to quote it forever as a trophy of his success in Paradise. I do not believe that such a result is consistent with God’s great law. I do not believe that a single soul in the realms of the lost will be there because Satan succeeded in Paradise ; or that a soul will be lost because of Adam’s sin : the whole ruin of the lost is a rejected or neglected Savior ; raid the whole 30 THE GKEAT TRIBULATION. salvation of the saved is Christ, and Christ alone, all their salvation and all their desire. Judging, first of all, from the fact that the body has shared with the soul in its troubles, and naturally expecting that it should share with the soul in its triumphs — judging from the fact that man is soul and body, and that the redemption of the one without the redemption of the other would be but a half salvation — recollecting, too, God’s own de- scription of this exquisite shrine, the temple of humani- ty; and believing that" Satan will not be able to quote for ever one single trophy of his success — I hold that it is highly probable from these considerations alone that the body will be raised just as the soul will be re- deemed. But to strengthen this probability, we find analogies in our world that are very striking. I do not say that any or all of these analogies prove the resurrection ; for if analogies would have proved it, the disciples in the midst of the garden of Arimathea, in an eastern country, where spring does not come in as in our cold climate — slight sunshine to-day, a shower of hail to-mor- row, — but where spring bursts upon the earth with all its beauty and in all its blossom ; would have gathered from this that Christ would rise, if analogies were valid and competent reasons, but they did not. Yet these analogies, while they are not reasons, may constitute prefigurations, and may strengthen the probability that I am now trying to establish. For instance, spring break- ing forth from the depths of winter, and the flowers bursting from the cold and repulsive roots and stems; the seeds cast into the earth, germinating and growing THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH. 31 up into leaf and beautiful blossom; the silk-worm en- tering its prison, and emerging again a different creature ; the butterfly in its chrysalis state so repulsive, when it floats like a flower upon the air so truly beautiful, are all surely in their way prefigurations of the possibility, prefigurations and shadows of the probability, that a change such as we are speaking of from the contents of the grave to a body no longer corruptible, but incorrupti- ble ; no longer mortal, but immortal, is highly probable, to say the very least. The swallow returning by an instinct so exquisite as if it heard the footfall of the approaching summer ; all creation seeming anxious to burst forth into leaf and blossom, as if under some mys- terious touch; furnish a contrast between the winter that precedes and the summer that follows, not greater than the contrast between the body in the grave and the body in the kingdom of glory ; and therefore that these analogies, so true, to a great extent strengthen and confirm what I am trying to establish — the probability of the resurrection of the body. But I add what settles all disputes, it .is absolutely certain. To a humble Christian, Thus saith the Lord,’’ is worth all the fine similes, the beautiful figures, and the most exquisite analogies that poet can weave into song, or preacher can quote in his sermon. For what do we read ? — ^‘The hour is coming,” and this is from the lips of the Resurrection and the Life, when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth ; they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.” And in that beau- 32 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. tiful passage in Thessalonians, For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him ; for the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch- angel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first/’ Thus faithfulness has promised it, om- nipotence waits on faithfulness to execute its promise ; and it is not only probable but absolutely certain that this mortal shall put on immortality, this corruptible in- corruption, and death shall be swallowed up in victory. Having thus tried to show these three points, let us inquire what are some of the lessons that are taught by this event coming on the earth. First of all, the great end of the resurrection is to complete the triumphs pur- chased on the cross. That cross has ransomed every soul that rests upon it for forgiveness ; and that resur- rection has guaranteed that along with that ransomed soul the body shall rise from the dead and reign wdth Christ in glory. I have therefore not the least doubt that every eye of every believer shall see Christ, the Son of God; that every tongue that chants his praise from the heart upon earth shall chant it in heaven; and that every ear that listens to the preached word here shall listen to all the triumphant songs of praise in that better world ; and that we shall enter into heaven not a maimed humanity, but soul and body, and so be for ever with the Lord. In the second place, I look upon the resurrection of the body as designed to perpetuate the human race. If souls only are admitted into heaven, they would be angels ; but soul and body, as I have told you, constitute man ; and therefore there will be in THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH. 33 heaven not angels only, but glorified humanity. If the body were not raised, this remarkable creature man would cease ; after the lapse of a few thousand years he would finally disappear. But believing in the resurrection of the body as well as the redemption of the soul, there will be in heaven and throughout the endless ages of eternity eyes to see, tongues to sing, ears to hear, hearts to throb, reasons to discuss, memories to recollect, and imaginations to body forth in all their magnificence, the glories of everlasting day. This resurrection of the body will be intended to show forth the glory and the greatness of the victory obtained over death by our blessed Lord ; when the grave received him, as it supposed, as a prisoner, it found it had received into its bosom its vanquisher and conqueror. The great- est glory shall be devolved upon Christ, the completest blow will be struck at death, and sin, and Satan, and the grave, when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise. What a grand spectacle ! Some day we shall be startled by a royal sound that will ring from earth to heaven, and reverberate from heaven to earth, and penetrate all graves, and pierce the stony pyramids, and waken its echoes in the most sequestered cells of the weeping and the hopeless captives ; and the moment that sound shall be heard the green sod shall roll itself away from covering its sacred contents ; monuments of bronze and mausoleums of marble shall rend and split as beneath a mysterious stroke; the ancient pyramids shall open their stony chambers, and the proud Pharaohs shall come forth as humbly and obediently as the meanest slaves from the canals in which they perished ; and not one 34 THE GHEAT TRIBULATION. human being, whether good or bad, shall fail to hear that sound. And the stormy ocean, whose waves have sung the requiem of many a gallant sailor ; and battle-fields ; and sand-drifts in the desert, shall all open and disclose their dead ; and the very dust beneath our feet shall be- come animate ; and a sight will be witnessed at that day, I solemnly believe, more magnificent, stupendous, and impressive, than when God called worlds out of nothing into being, and said, Let there be light, and there was light.’’ I have a strong presentiment or impression, that each individual called at that day will hear his name. When Jesus raised Lazarus, he said Lazarus, come forth.” And there is something very beautiful in the thought, that the name that was given you in baptism shall be heard as an under-tone in the sound of the re- surrection-trumpet ; and that you personally will be ad- dressed, and that you personally will feel this mortal put on immortality, and this corruptible incorruptibility ; leaving behind you in the grave only what contaminated and defiled ; and appearing no more in the clinging gar- ments of corruption, but in bridal robes, in coronation dress, in the shining white raiment, washed and made clean in the blood of the Lamb. When is the time of this resurrection? We are told Christ shall descend with a shout, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. The time of it is when Christ comes. When that shall be, the day and the hour knoweth no man. But we are told by the blessed Saviour that vie are not to overlook, nor to be insensible to the signs of the age in which we live. Most people feel — you cannot fail reading it in every journal, hearing it in every con- THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH. 35 versation, noticing it in books — that we live in an age unprecedented for its intensity, its triumphs, its energy, and in some respects for its disintegration and dislocation in all its moral, political, and social aspects. Now I do not exaggerate, I am sure, when I say that there has been compressed into the last ten years more than has been compressed into the last two hundred years ; and that things that used to take centuries to ripen in, are now developed, and ripened, and finished in a week, a month, or a single year. Wars, rumors of Avars, arc tlie features of the day. Ask the most thinking men — do not believe a preacher, Avho knoAA's nothing of political and national topics — but ask the most thinking men, an^ they will tell you, that all Europe at this moment heaAT.s Avith hidden fires ; that soon, and I have no doubt sooner than most think, the next shock of the great earthquake of 1848 Avill be felt, and the soil of Europe trembles be- neath the beat of the feet of millions ; and men’s hearts lit- erally fail them for fear of the things that are coming on the earth. Take the last few years — dislocation of com- merce, dislocation of party, disorganization of churches ; kings seated, many of them on the continent of Europe, on their thrones, and doubting hoAv long they Avill be the occupants of them ; the nations, as if stored Avith com- bustible matter, and men afraid to tread too harshly, lest the spark be struck that will explode them ; eA^erything indicating just that A^ery portrait Avhich I sketched to you in 1847 and 1848 in lectures in Exeter Hall, Avhich [ have often tried to tell you since ; and every one of the statements of which you Avill find, if you Avill.look over them, are being fulfilled in Avhat is passing before you. 36 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. But what should all this be to us ? Suppose the earth be convulsed ; suppose kingdoms like ships on a tempestu- ous ocean be dashed against each other, or scattered like drift-wood upon its waves ; suppose the kings of the earth tremble ; suppose wars and rumors of wars multiply, till England’s firesides become each a scene of weeping and of sorrow, we can yet fall back on the magnificent convic- tion, The Lord reigneth.” The severest storm is near- est the everlasting calm ; and the time of greatest trouble nearest the resurrection, and the restoration of all that believe in and love the Lord Jesus Christ. The prophet, from whom I have taken the subject of these thoughts, tells us in fact, that at this very time when those that sleep in their graves shall awake — shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people ; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time ; and at that time thy people” — that is, the Jews— shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” And then at that time many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” If w^e be Christians, however much we may grieve over the sorrows and the sufferings of others, we have only for our- selves the blessed hope, the glorious prospect of immor- tality and happiness ; where there shall be no more sin, nor shame, nor sorrow, nor disappointment, nor grief, nor sickness, nor disease; but all things shall be made new. What shall be the character of these bodies that shall be raised at that day ? They will be as they are now — im- perfection, the traces of disease and sin excepted. I be- THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH. 37 lieve that all that constitutes individuality, all that con- stitutes idiosyncrasy, all that we know as that which is the man, will be raised. I admit what physiologists state — that every seven years every particle in our body is dislodged ; I admit that fully — but yet they must admit, what common sense sees, that the man that you knew twenty years ago looks the same man still. His hair may be whitened, the wrinkles on his face may be multiplied ; the furrows on his brow as if they were trying to crowd his history into that forehead, may seem closer and com- pacter together — but still, some way or another, there is the man ; there remains something that is his idiosyncrasy, and that constitutes identity. Well ! that shall be raised ; all imperfection, all disease, all sin, all traces of decay, eliminated and left behind ; and all that is requisite to constitute identity so complete, that the mother shall know the babe she lost in infancy, the father the child, the child the parent, the brother the sister, and the sister the brother ; all shall know each other. Is there not also some suggestive analogy here ? Do we not see every- thing in this world striving after perfection? We con- stantly see, as we look around us, that our earth, just like ourselves, is under a repressive curse. What does the apostle say ? ^ ^ All creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, waiting to be delivered ; waiting for the adoption of the sons of God; to wit, the redemption of the body.’’ Here is his statement that all creation groans and travails. Why ? It is under a repressive curse ; and I believe that what we see now in this earth, in ourselves, in flower, in tree, a fruit, is only a dim earnest of the beauty and magnificence that will be when that repressive curse shall 38 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. be withdrawn. God sometimes gives to man comforting prefigurations of what will be. For instance, who would believe that the exquisite rose in the garden, the loveliest and the most fragrant flower in it, is simply the common wild hedge-rose, cultivated by man till it attains that ex- cellence ! What does that prove ? That there are in that wild hedge-rose possibilities of beauty repressed, that man can in some slight degree bring out, but which under millennial suns will burst into a beauty and magnificence that eye hath not seen, and that man has never before conceived. So we see in this world of ours everything at this moment striving after perfection ; the rock seeking • to culminate in the exquisite and beautiful crystal ; the tree bursting into the fragrant and beautiful blossom ; all things striving after and stretching up to a perfection — as if nature had in her heart, some strong presentiment of a coming restoration, and tried to anticipate the era by now and then letting forth signs of the buried treasures that are in her bosom. And what a beautiful orb will this be, and how blest its inhabitants, when all sin shall flee like a shadow, and the light of an unsetting sun shall shine on it, or rather the light of that world which has no need of the sun, but where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the glory of it ! What a bright and glorious orb, and what a happy and blessed tenantry will occupy it for ever ! I need not tell you that all this points to a con- clusion I have tried before to establish — that the earth is redeemed just as well as man’s body. • I believe in a re- surrection of this globe of ours just as I do in the resur- rection of the body ; and it is on the same ground that we have no more reason to s^ ppose that the devil shall get THE HARVEST OF THE "EARTH. 89 - this earth as his prize, than that he will get our bodies as his property. We can well conceive what a fair orb this will be. At this moment it has glens, and mountains, and valleys, and landscapes, that show how much remains of its Eden magnificence ; and that give token what it may become when all things are made new. And I havo no doubt, when this earth is restored, and resurrection bodies shall be its tenantry, that the rest of the orbs of the sky that never fell, as they gaze down upon their re- covered, once fallen but now restored sister, will not only say, but shout and sing — It is meet that we should re- joice, for this our lost sister orb is found, this our dead sister world at length is made alive.” We are now in this world, I believe, laying the out- lines of our resurrection bodies. Did it ever .strike you that a man can almost be deciphered from his face ? I believe very much with Socrates of old, that the face is to the inner moral and mental economy very much what the dial is to the clock. Is a man sensual, depraved, debased? You can read it on his countenance. Take a man of ambitious passions. You can trace the shadows of them on his face. Take a Christian ; and you can see on his brow that is without wrinkle, in the expression that is without hesitation — in the whole mannerism of the man — that he is on his journey to the everlasting home ; and ripening for a place amid the redeemed in glory. May it not be then that we are in this world laying the out- lines and the framework of the body that is to clothe us for ever ; and that we deposit in the grave the germ of that body that shall rise to everlasting shame and con- tempt, or that shall rise to everlasting life, and shine like 40 THE (JrEAT tribulation. the firmament, and as the brightness of the stars for ever and ever ? If so, may we seek the Holy Spirit to inlay our hearts with that inner character which will shine in our outer life, and outlive the grave, and reach its culmi- nating perfection when time shall be no more. LECTURE XXIII. THE SHINING THRONG. Emerging from the sleep of ages shall appear a holy lustre, those of \yhom it is written — And they that he unse shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to r ight- eousness as the stars for ever and evcr .^"^ — Daniel xii. 3. First of all there is set before us here a personal char- acteristic, They that be wise f secondly, there is prom- ised to such the blessed distinction, that they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament then, thirdly, we have a missionary feature, they that turn many to righteousness;’’ and we have a missionary reward, they shRjl shine as the stars for ever and ever.” Let us first study the personnel^ they that be wise.” What is meant by this ? What is wisdom ? First of all, it is not the wisdom of the world which regards progress, riches, greatness, as the main thing in life, and bends all its energies towards the attainment of these ; that is not wisdom : to seek as the end of life that which cannot give happiness when we have it, and cannot go with us when life terminates in the grave, is follv, not wisdom. In the (41) 42 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. second place, it is not the wisdom of the schools that is here meant. Splendid eloquence, subtle syllogisms, beau- tiful and keen dialectics, questions that do not edify, dis- cussions that do not profit, this was the wisdom of the 'schools ; and of that wisdom we have a verdict we are sure cannot be wrong. The world, ’’ says the apostle, by wisdom knew not God;*’ and again, says the same apostle, God has made foolish the wisdom of this world.” The whole wisdom of the schools was to find out what they called the to ngenop^ or that which becomes us, and the TO xalovy that which is good ; and the longer they searched, the less was their success ; and thus the judg- ment pronounced upon it by Him that cannot err is, The world by wisdom knew not God.” The word philosopher means one that loves wisdom ; but such wisdom never re- vealed God our Father. Wisdom, the mark of those that are here spoken of, is something totally distinct from cunning. We often meet with a cunning man who is anything but a wise man. The tiger is cunning, the ,cat is cunning, even the dog has some particle of cunning, but that is not wisdom ; it is the mark of the brutes of the field. Wisdom is the choice of the noblest end ; the pursuit of it by the holiest measures, and the belief of certain success in attaining it by the promise of Him who cannot err. Let us there- fore see Avhat are the elements of wisdom. First, they that be wise study and settle in their minds primarily the great question, What must I do to be saved?” Now there is no question that comes home to the human heart with a greater and a more enduring emphasis than this; what am 1 ? what is the end of me ? Is this world my THE SHINING THRONG. 43 all, is its most magnificent hall my only home ; and when I am laid in that house which is only six feet long by three feet broad, is that the end of me ? If such be the end of me and you, the Being that made us must be a cruel monster; but if such be not the end of us, he that ignores the question. What lies beyond? cannot belong to those who are wise, and who shall shine as the bright- ness of the firmament. The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God and he is only second in his folly who supposes that the immortality and responsibility of the soul are questions he may adjourn till the judgment day. They that are wise in the highest sense of the word will never make a subordinate, but always a supreme question, What must I do to be saved?” Would you call that man wise who risks his life in the pursuit of a transient pleasure ? Would you call him wise who, when his house is dissolving into ashes amid the burning flame, saves his gold but forgets the infant that sleeps in the cradle ? Would you call him wise who in a sinking ship, being a strong swimmer, loads himself with gold, instead of leav- ing himself free, in order to save his life from the de- vouring waves ? In the same manner, can you call that n an wise who gives his whole soul to this question. How shall I be rich ? how shall I be great ? how shall I be- come renowned ? but who ignores or despises, or totally neglects the great question. What is to become of me when time ceases, and where shall I be when the great white throne shall be the only sight, and the Judge upon the throne shall summon me to give an account of all the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil ? You may determine w’hether you 44 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. be wise or not by this simple test — what is supreme in your thoughts ? I do not ask you to think of eternity as the exclusive thing, or of the soul as the exclusive con- cern, but as the supreme thing. I do not ask you to despise riches, honor, learning ; the very reverse. It is proper that you should study and contemplate these things. But if you so look to the things that perish that you utterly ignore the momentous realities that stretch into everlasting ages, then surely I do not speak uncharitably — I speak in the very words of God — when I say you are not among the wise, that shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. Tliose that be wise, and look to this great end, will as wise men ask for an explanation and a solution of their difficulties only where an infallible solution can be found — in the word of God. Were a sailor who has lost his path upon the ocean to look for guidance to the phos- phorescent lights upon the waves, you would say he was a fool. And so if a man is seeking the way to heaven, and wanting to know how he can be saved, you would say that man cannot be wise who neglects an infallible oracle, and has recourse to oracles that are human and fallible, and many of them deceptive. If you appeal to the Fathers, they contradict each himself and each the other, and none of them are inspired ; if you appeal to the Church, the Seven Churches of Asia erred, every Church upon earth has erred, and the Church is only correct when its words are the echoes of the oracles of God. If you appeal to tradition, it is only refracted and misty moonlight ; if you appeal to reason, it is only the dim and dying twilight of a once splendid and glorious THE SHINING THRONG. 45 noon ; but if jou are ^Yise, you will open the book that God has sent to be a light to your feet and a lamp to your path; and you will discover there that from a c’lild thou hast known the Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto everlasting life.” He that is wise will be in all his decisions in this res- pect eminently practical. There is no greater mark of wipdom than its being practical. How many do we meet with who are always dreaming, but never doing ; who are constantly striking out splendid theories, and dying for want of daily bread ! The wisdom of God is eminently practical ; it selects an object, it seizes that object Avith all its might ; it bends its energies to the at- tainment of it, by prayer, by painstaking, by the study of the word, by thought, by reflection, by inquiry. It seeks the grandest ends by the best measures, and in humble reliance upon the promise, They that seek me shall assuredly find me.” ‘‘The Avisdom that is from aboA^e is pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of good fruits, Avithout partiality and without hy- pocrisy :” and they that be wise are the exponents of a wisdom thus scripturally and justly defined. It is said that they that be thus wise “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament;” or as it is expressed by Solomon, “ like the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Hence the course of a Christian man is progressive. Have you ever noticed the grey and misty twilight as it tinges with its first beams the mountain tops or the church spires ? It seems so feeble that the least intercepting object threatens to extinguish and quench it for ever. But by a laAv that 46 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. no power of man can repeal, the grey dawi gathers strength, and brilliancy, and force, till the tiny ray that seemed glimmering on the very verge of extinction blazes and burns in all the splendor and glory of summer noon. It is so with the Christian. At first it is grace strug- gling for existence, but it increases and spreads, and turns obstructions into aids. Did you ever notice the sun rise ?— how first of all the great black banks of clouds seem to threaten total extinction ; then the moun- tain crags intervene between you and the sun; then the very trees of the forest seem to intercept his rays ; and if you take cloud, and crag, and forest, and moun- tain top into your thoughts, the impression would be, if your experience did not teach otherwise, that that grey, struggling twilight never could burst into day. But wait a while, and you will find the very crags will become tinged with rosy light ; the great clouds will be dissolved into rains that feed the violet that faints for want of re- freshment, in the glen below, and add to the volume of the streams that are rushing onward to the main ; you will find the very trees become shafts of flame, reflecting the splendors that they seemed at first to arrest ; and onward the grey dawn will go, until it melts into beauty and glory. It is so with them that be wise : they shall advance from grace to grace, turning obstructions into impulses, out of evil educing good, shining more and more until they reach the noon of perfect and enduring day. Take the history of a Christian anywhere or at any epoch, and you will find this is his character. For instance, Bunyan was cast into prison at Bedford ; the vails were thick, the windows small, the darkness dense THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH. 47 as night ; but out of that lonely prison burst a ray that has cast its light upon many an English fireside, and made the Pilgrim’s Progress not only a household word, but the admiration and study of all Christian mankind. St. John was banished by Domitian to a solitary isle in the ^gean Sea : it was thought by the Avorld and by this world’s rulers that John’s light was quenched for ever. But in that desert isle, in that solitary Patmos. an apocalypse of glory swept before the mind of the apostle, that has been a light to the feet and a lamp to the church in all ages ; and if Domitian had never ban- ished John to Patmos, as far as we can see, the Bible had ended with the Epistle of Jude, and the Church been without the magnificent and conforting book of Revela- tion. Paul Avhen he visited Rome was cast into the Mamertine prison, or tied to a soldier by a chain, in a miserable room in the midst of that great capital. Jews and Gentiles came to hear him; and from Rome as an echoing centre the words of Paul shot forth until Britain heard their echoes, and the whole Avorld now reverbe- rates with their glorious and concjuering music. So true is it that the wise shall advance from light to light, each footstep luminous, until at last the light of grace is lost in the noon of glory. But it is no less true that even now the wise, that is the Christian man, influences and shines. It is a great mistake to suppose that any man can, by any possibility, be a blank. There is not a man on earth, however humble, who is a blank ; there is not one man in society who is not either a blot or a blessing ; you cannot be a blank, do as you like you cannot be neu- tral ; neutrality in moral character is absolutely impossi- 48 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. ble. You have, therefore, to take your choice, and you cannot choose otherwise, whether you shall be a blessing, limited it may be, small it may be ; or a blot, limited it may be, in an obscure sphere it may be ; but still, blot or blessing, by no possibility a blank, must each of us be. What says our Lord, of Christians? ‘^Ye are the lights of the world;’’ not, as some of us would have it, the lighUimg of the world ; we would all rather be the light- ning flash that illuminates the world with its transient splendor, and makes the wide earth echo with the thun- der at its heels, than be, what is a nobler, a more im- pressive and magnificent thing, the quiet and gentle ligiit that opens by its touch the sleeping rosebuds, and covers the earth in June with all its riches of beauty and of blossom. But if you be Christians, if you be wise, you are now shining in some degree as the brightness of the firmament ; you are now the lights of the world, leaving in your path a trail of beneficent and moral splendor which thousands feel the warmth of, or are guided by in their arduous and struggling roads. This light wLich Christians are is not a polar light, cold and icy ; nor is it a meteor light, leaving denser darkness behind it ; nor is it a phosporescent light, the light of decay and death ; but it is a clear, warm, genial, heavenly light, making firesides brighter, human hearts happier, leaving the Avorld a better, a greater, and a wiser world because we have passed through it, the lights of time to be fixed as stars in the firmament, there to shine with imperishable brightness for ever and ever. Such is the character of the Avise, and such is their destiny. This destiny of grace will be complete when the dust you have left in THE SHINING THRONG. 49 the grave, quickened and renovated by the breath of God, shall again become the companion of the soul that has entered into heaven ; and this mortal shall put on its im- mortality, and this corruptible its incorruptibility; and the whole company of the redeemed shall be presented to Christ, a glorious Church, without spot or blemish, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Then shall the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of heaven. Such is personal character, and such is personal re- ward. I ask, are you wise in the highest, holiest, most practical sense of that word ? Is the safety of your soul not the exclusive, but the supreme thing ? Do you live chiefly for the future, or is your whole heart buried in the pursuits of this present world ? I do not ask you to be sepulchral or ascetic ; but so to pass through the things that are seen and temporal, that you forget not the things that are unseen and eternal ; and whilst you sip the pleas- ures as you pass along which God presents you in the cup of his providence, never forget you are travellers and sojourners, looking for a city that hath foundations, and for a home that never shall be removed. Let me turn to the second half of this interesting sub- ject, They that turn many to rightenousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever.’’ What does this mean, Turn many to Righteousness?” It implies, first of all, they that turn many to the knowledge of righteous- ness. But what righteousness ? That righteousness, we are told, which is unto all and upon all that believe. If the great question be the safety of the soul, the next, and only the next, must be how and by w^'hat process shall that soul be entitled to enter into the kingdom of 3 50 THE GKEAT TRIBULATION. heaven? Well, they that turn many to righteousness turn them, first of all, to the knowledge of this, — that no sufferings which man can endure are expiatory or atoning ; that no good deeds that man can do are meri- torious ; and that no effort that man can make is recupe- rative of his lost glory, or can reinstate him in the paradise that he forfeited by sin. Christ’s righteoifsness alone is our title, Christ’s atonement alone is expiatory ; by what He suffered our sins are all washed away ; by what He did we are entitled to a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Let us never let go our grasp of that cardinal truth in the Christian faith — that we are already, this very moment, if we be Christians, just as entitled to heaven as Christ himself is ; that we shall never be more and that we can never be less so ; in other words, that our right to heaven is not something in us, nor something done by us, nor something purchased by us ; but entirely, exclusively, something that Christ did for us, that faith receives, and God imputes. In other words, my right to heaven is something external to myself. We see this from the contrast between Christ and us. When Jesus died upon the cross, there was nothing in him worthy of that death; when I shall be admitted into the realms of glory, there Avill be nothing in me worthy of an atom of that glory. My sins laid on him and accepted by him dragged him to a grave ; his righte- ousness laid on me and accepted by me shall lift me to a crown of glory. Therefore when priests come to me and offer to forgive me, I thank them, and tell them I need it not — I am complete in Christ ; when priests come to me and bid me do penance, I tell them, Christ fin- THE SHINING THRONG. 51 ished that eighteen centuries ago ; when priests come to me and offer me all tlie absolutions, and all the good works, and all the merits in the treasury of the Church, I thank them, but tell them I do not want them, because I am complete in Christ, and want nothing more. There is no defence against Romanism except in holding flist this ’ great truth, that my title to heaven is what priests cannot give, what I cannot buy, what no efforts of mine can work out, what no church can bestow and no church can take away ; that He who knew no sin was made sin for me, that I, who have done nothing but sin, might be made the righteousness of God by Him. If I can turn you to the knowledge of that, I have led you to the most precious truth contained in the Bible ; that truth on which you can always fall back as something that you are sure will not give way. When your own heart smites you, when your own conscience torments you ; when memory, as you turn over its leaves reproach- es you with past transgressions ; when you are cast down, depressed, overwhelmed by a sense of personal demerit ; oh, blessed thought ! can each fall back upon this, that my righteousness is not what memory, or conscience, or heart can suggest to me, but what the Bible tells me — that Jesus my righteousness is all my salvation and all my desire. There is no comfort but in this. Try to extract comfort from memory, and you will be most bitter- ly disappointed ; review your best and your most splendid deeds, and you will find them no comfort to you ; but foil back upon this, — let conscience condemn me, let memory condemn, let the law condemn, let the whole past of my life condemn, here is my trust, here is my rest — Jesus 52 THE GREAT TRIBULATION- Christ my righteousness, the only and the all-sufficient ground of my acceptance ; that He bore my sins, and I shall never bear them ; and that He obeyed the law for me, and I shall be entitled to all its reward. And they that turn many to this righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. I do not mean to say that this righteousness as our title excludes or renders unnecessary what are called good works ; but if you will only make sure of the first, you may be perfectly satisfied that you will have the last. Whom God justifies, them He also sanctifies.’’ Where Christ gives us a rigliteousness external to us, the Holy Spirit works within us a righteousness personal and in- ternal. In other words, our blessed Lord gives us a title to heaven, and the Holy Spirit gives us fitness for heaven ; and the fruits we bear, the character we sustain, or the conduct that the world can take cognizance of; all vindicates our claim of being found in Him, to be found in whom is to have no condemnation. By what process do they turn many to righteousness ? First, I answer, not by coercion. No force ever made a man a Christian. No threat or penal law ever made a single human being a Christian. Conviction is the child of argument ; im- pression that lasts is produced by truth ; but never did Satan perpetrate a greater blunder, never did the church fall into a greater mistake, than when either thought that burning men’s bodies could burn out their convic- tions ; or that any patronage can build up a lie, or any persecution destroy God’s eternal and inspired truth. Nor, in the second place, are we to seek to turn many to righteousness by a bribe. This is just as bad. A con- THE SHINING THRONG. 53 vert secured by a bribe to any cause upon earth is far more dangerous as an ally than if he were an open and undisguised enemy. Besides, people are not to be seduced into truth by a bribe, nor are they to be terrified into righteousness by a threat. There is something in man’s soul too noble to be coerced into religion by a threat, or to be seduced by a bribe. Then how are we to turn many to righteousness ? I answer, by the majesty of truth, by the force of argument, by the earnestness of appeal, by eloquent persuasion. The weapons of our warfare,” says the apostle, are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of Satan and of sin.” We are to turn many to righteousness by prayer, by painstaking, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit of God; not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Who are they that thus turn many to righteousness ? First of all I will mention, as the chiefest and foremost of the catalogue, the preachers of the Gospel of Christ. No office is possessed of loftier importance, no function is characterized by richer dignity than that of an am- bassador of Christ. But because an ambassador, how dutiful is faithfulness ; because a steward, how obligatory is honesty, in bringing forth things both new and old ! A painter who fails destroys a piece of canvas ; a sculp- tor who fails injures only a block of Carrara marble ; but a preacher who trifles with his duties, and says ‘‘ Peace, peace,” when there is no peace at all, imbrues his hands in the blood of immortal souls, and will be called to ac- count for the abuse and misuse and perversion of so sub- lime a function as his. Then, secondly, among those that 54 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. turn many to righteousness are the missionaries who go forth to China, and preach the Gospel to bigoted Chinese ; w^ho visit the burning sands of India, where so many a faithful missionary has sealed his testimony with his blood ; or who wander, like the Moravians, to the steppes of Russia, or to the sno\¥S of Greenland and of Labrador ; or who, like the missionaries in our own land, go into the scenes of pestilence, breathe the air of infection, come into contact with all that is debasing, and all that is dis- gusting to exquisite and cultivated taste, in order to preach the Gospel, and fulfil the mission of turning many to righteousness. Next to him is the Bible distributor. I knoAV not an office more important than this ; for after all, the sermon has in it the alloy of the preacher, but the Bible has in it purely the word of its author, God. The Bible is the granary ; our sermons are the winds that carry on their wings the living seeds, and scatter them broadcast over waiting and receptive hearts. The Bible is the fountain, our sermons are but the streamlets that flow from it. Luther became a Christian the instant that the monk became acquainted with the word of God. And how remarkable is it that in France, during the last ten years, more Bibles have been distributed and received than during a hundred years before. How delightful is it that the colporteurs were seen following the French army across the Alps ; and as they descended into the plains of Piedmont, the Waldensianp( 25 ^fe 2 /r 5 followed in their wake, carrying to thousands to wdiom the field of conflict was then a grave, the unsearchable riches of Christ ! I have such love to that church that Sardinia has nursed in her bosom — the Waldensian church, the THE SHINING THKONG. witnesses during the middle ages ; the bones of whovSe fathers are bleaching on the Cottian Alps, the sufferings of whose predecessors are unparalleled by the sufferings of any martyrs in the world beside ; that I cannot help — I hope it is not meddling with this world’s politics — I can- not help often lifting up a prayer to God that he would save Sardinia, that he would shelter beneath his wings that bright lamp that has burnt in the middle ages, the church of the Waldensians ; and that the darkness, and the damp, and the chill of an Austrian dungeon may never quench that sacred light, which extended its beamB across the Cottian Alps, and has served in no small degree to light up Europe with the glories and the splendors of the Gospel. Thus then they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars ; their sj^lendor borrowed from an un- setting sun ; their position high above the tides and the transformations of time ; and finally they shall reign on earth with Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, in whose presence there is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore. These come out of all tribulation, and appear on the earth, and live and reign with Christ on the earth. LECTURE XXIV. LOCOMOTION AND LEARNING. A predicted sign of the approach of that glory that is to be revealed is thus set forth — Many shall run to and fro^ and knowledge shall he increased.'^'^ — Daniel, xii. 4. So far these words have been illustrated and fulfilled in every age of the w^orld, and on every acre of t':e earth. There has always been locomotion in the world ; there has always been increase of the great capital of sacred and of secular knowledge. But the words of the prophecy seem to imply that this shall be intensely, singularly, and unprecedentedly the characteristic fact ; and that as the world grows older, and the twilight of its setting sun grows dimmer, its progress over the world’s area, and its in- crease in knowledge of all kinds, shall be greater, and richer, and more ample than it ever was before. Let me take the simplest facts of the age, and show you how ex- actly they seem to be the fulfilment of this prediction. The first part of the prediction is that many shall run to and fro.” Now if were not to specify a single par- ticular, let me ask the most superficial observer if there ever w’^as an age more marked by ceaseless, boundless locomotion; or in the words of the prophet, a greater (56) LOCOMOTION AND LEARNING. 57 amount of running to and fro.’’ And tlie more that man wants to run, and the further he wants to go, the more rapidly science brings up from its wondrous depths the provisions and arrangements that meet his insatiable thirst, and enable him to develop this remarkable propen- sity. Take, for instance, the ocean steamer : not twenty years old in its highest and mightiest smise ; she lifts her anchor in the Mersey, or in the Clyde, or it may be in the Thames, on the Monday ; and plouglis right against the teeth of the gale ; seeming in her majesty — for she looks like a thing of life — to spurn the v/aters, and to tread them down, and to laugh at or play with the winds and waves ; and in ten days she drops her anchor upon the shores of another w^orld ; and the living freight in that steamer has in its transit all the comforts of a home, all the luxury of a library, all the pleasures of a promenade. What a strange provision and remarkable fact is this ! And when the Great Eastern shall begin its mission, you will then have another addition to our proof, and an- other illustration of the fulfilment of prophecy ; when a whole village shall be taken on boaitl, and carried at a speed that shall compete almost with our railways; and, as some venture to say. New York and London will only be five or six days’ distance from each other. Count now, if you can, in addition to this, the steamships that leave the Mersey, the Thames, the Clyde for all parts of the world, and set out from all the sea-gates of our empire , count, if you can, the white sails that like the doves of peace whiten with their wings the length and breadth of the desert ocean ; and, then see what is literally true, the striking fact that the sea is almost as populous as the land ; 3 ^ 58 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. that multitudes at this moment are on the broad ocean that might almost be compared with the multitudes that rush along the streets, and that cover the broad fields of Europe itself. Let us turn to another evidence ; and I quote simply facts to show the fulfilment of the prediction ; take that wondrous fact of the age, also not above thirty years old, the locomotive engine. Its speed is something wonderful. When its first great discoverer stated to the House of Commons that he hoped one day to travel with his engine at the rate of fifteen miles an hour ; that House, which, like other people, grows wiser, and is not always filled with Solons, with few exceptions, laughed at him in blind incredulity ; and they had scarcely done with laughing before they were travelling at the rate of thirty, forty, and as some trains have even reached sixty miles an hour. And then that very provision for travel- ling, by a strange law, has increased vastly the number that travel and the passion for locomotion. The calcula- lation originally was that the travellers between two towns are so many, or so many ; and the provision made, there- fare, must be so much. It has been found that travellers have been multiplied by facilities of travelling ;• and that the provision for the thirst has stimulated the thirst ; and the greater the facilities, the greater the numbers run to and fro. Turn again to that wonderful instance of the fulfilment of this passage, the electric telegraph. Were an old monk to rise from beneath his tomb in some of the old cathedrals, and to see what is taking place, he would think he had come into a world totally different from that in which he lived, and ate, and drank, and read his Breviary. And if LOCOMOTION AND LEARNING. 59 you had told a person thirty years ago tlnit people could talk by lightning, he would have smiled at you, and set you down as an enthusiast or a foolish and ignorant fa- natic. And yet, what is the ftict ? That this mysterious whispering wire, as it has been called, is covering the bottom of the ocean, spreading over Europe, Asia, and America ; penetrating even that centre of obscurantism, the dominions of the pope himself : and at this moment Paris, Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin, can carry on a fireside correspondence wdth London. And the day is, perhaps, not far distant wLen New York and Calcutta shall be able to talk wdth London as one talks with his friend on the opposite corner of the chimney. There is something in this that so transcends the expectations of the past, and so completely responds to the prediction of the prophet, that I think no man can be warranted in passing it by wLo ventures to illustrate this text. Many shall run to and fro.’’ The lightnings are become man’s messengers ; land, and sea, and mountains, are no longer obstructions to man ; space and time are very much an- nihilated now-a-days ; the sea is practically dried up ; distant capitals are neighbors ; and great continents are bound together into a sisterhood of knowledge, one day to be a sisterhood of sympathy and of love. And families scattered over the whole world not only communicate with each other now in days by steam, but in seconds and min- utes by lightning. The action of the cabinets of Europe is controlled, modified, directed, by lightning also, that is shot from one to the other ; and reveals the wish or the will of the one to the understanding of the other. Now is it any forced construction of the facts of history when 60 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. I say they are the fulfilment of the prediction in this pas- sage — Many shall run to and fro?’’ So rapidly is this increasing that if you open that wonderful disclosure of man’s wants, a morning newspaper ; that wonderful dis- closure of temptations to launch out into expense, or spec- ulation, or charity; you will find summer tours advertised for Egypt and Palestine ; friendly visits are spoken of to New York and Philadelphia ; excursions are talked of to Athens, Constantinople, and Eome. Why, to have talked of such things thirty years ago, as to be done in the time in which they are now advertised to be quietly achieved, would have laid you open to the imputation of the ex- tremest and veriest folly. So that in all these respects this nineteenth century is characterized by an extent and an intensity of running to and fro unprecedented in any other century of the w^orld. Besides, by a singular reaction, the very knowledge that is to be increased, of which I shall speak presently, is the cause in some degree of the running to and fro ; and the running to and fro is the cause of the increase of the knowledge. What was the railway once? A thought in a student’s mind. What was the electric telegraph ? A thought in the mind of an American. Vfhat was the ocean stear^er ? A thought in the mind of James Watt. Thoughts have thu^ been launched into facts ; and -what were at first the dreams of students have become the actions and the profits of the commercial world. What an encouragement to study ! I do not believe any knowledge is worthless ; all know- ledge, all study, is worthy of our attention. A cause of all this running to and fro may be that man is restless ; and that is quite true. Ever since man left Paradise, he has LOCOMOTION AND LEAENING. Gl •wandered about seeking a home ; he lost his home there ; and he never since has got rid of the impression that he is not at home. To satisfy that yearning after a home he has recourse to all sorts of experiments. The very words of this prophecy, Many shall run to and fro’^ may be translated, ^‘Many shall run for refuge,’’ ‘‘Many shall run to and fro, and seek earnestly or eagerly for shelter the word will bear that. “ And knowledge shall be in- creased.” There are two Hebrew verbs, and it has been a (|uestion not about the interpretation, but which is the true reading ; the one verb differs from the other only in a letter ; the one ends with the letter B and the other ends with the letter H. Well, it has been disputed wkich is the correct reading ; if it be the one reading, then it means, “ Knowledge shall be multiplied, increased, or augmented;” and if it be the other, then it would be, “Knowledge shall be flashed like the lightning flame;” and if this latter, it would be a striking prediction, meet- ing:; with a most brilliant fulfilment in the age in which we live. This leads me, therefore, to the second division of my subject, that “ Knowledge shall be increased.” Look around you anywhere, and at any department of knowledge, and see if this be not fulfilled. Take for in- stance geology. It has laid bare what has been called the stony page ; it has shown upon the stratified rocks of the earth the foot-prints of God. We find that five successive times God has interposed in the exercise of his creative power ; we find a dynasty of creatures destroyed ; w^e find masses of rock laid over them, once sand and now solidified, we find above that rock, without any connection with the previous race, deep down below, a new race introduced, 62 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. and fitted to the new temperature, created at its perfection, and plainly by the hand of God. Well, now, it is in- teresting that geology should discover what the Bible on the highest authority has said ; not to confirm the Bible, but to be to those that deiiy the Bible a presumptive proof that the Bible is true ; that in the beginning God cre- ated the heavens and the earth.’’ And very remarkable too, geology, once thought by some to be hostile to reve- lation, has in its maturity been shown to be in perfect harmony with revelation ; so much so that though Moses was not inspired to teach science, yet wherever Moses touches on the confines of science, you find that he either knew the geology of 1859, or he was inspired by God. He did not know the former, but we are perfectly satisfied that he spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. Take again astronomy. It has risen on soaring wings, and with its eye inspected, and in its balance it has weighed the stars ; it has calculated with an accuracy that is unim- peachable their distances. We can upset the whole the- ology of the Hindoo by predicting an eclipse ; the very hour and the very minute when it will occur ; the Hindoo stupidly believing it to be an interposition of one of his great deities. We can now show that those stars in the sky, that the poor ignorant peasant believes to be merely the gas-lamps on the ceiling of his bright home, are orbs grander, vaster, more magnificent than our own ; and teeming with populations that probably never fell, and retain all their first and primal innocency. And we can show to demonstration that the remotest of these stars, stars for instance that Herschel has recently shown, have just been able to send the missionary beam that comes LOCOMOTION AND LEAKNING. 63 from them to this world. Stars have been discovered that have been sending light at a speed so tremendous that that light only takes eight minutes to come from the sun ; yet such is the distance of these orbs that rays have just in- fringed upon the eye of Herschel which have been travel- ling for millions of years from the source from which they set out. What a remarkable fact is that. And yet these most distant stars are what ? The mere thin sentinels of that vast host that is spread out like shining dust upon ; the plains of infinitude ; For ever singing' as they shine, The hand thjit made us is divine.’ Again, what knowledge, for instance, of hands referred to in the Bible has been recently brought out ! Ninevah has responded — shall I call it ? — to the magic touch of Layard ; and has lately come up from the grave in which God says in Nahum he wDuld bury it ; it has come up from its grave ; and in the British Museum it tells us at this moment, Thy word, 0 God, is truth Babylon has been explored ; and the minutest prediction of Isaiah has been proved to have its exact fulfilment. Jerusalem, long a mere picture in the pages of visitors who could not embody it, has been by that wondrous discovery of the day, which makes knowledge more palpable — photography — been set fully before us here. It has been made a pho- tograph ; so that you can see the very stones the old Rab- l>Is kissed ; you can see the very dust on which they trod ; the Dead Sea, the springs, the Jordan, the mountains of Lebanon, all portrayed by the sunbeams with a faithfulness so exact that it is almost as good as if you exactly beheld them on the spot. And again, Egypt, that land of his- 64 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. toric greatness, that land of majesty and of mystery, of meanness and magnificence, has been explored in a most remarkable way ; the prisons, the palaces, and the tombs of the Pharaohs have been laid open ; and very recently a tomb was discovered in one of the pyramids, on the walls of which are described the exploits of that very Pharaoh of whom we have been reading in the book of Exodus ; the stony interior of the Pyramids thus testifying to the accuracy, the historic accuracy, not I admit to the inspi- ration, but, so far as it goes, to the historic accuracy of Moses as the writer. Geology shows that when he touches science he is right ; astronomy shows that when he ascends to the heavens he is right ; and tliat those who have ob- jected to him as deceived have been always in the wTong. If I may deviate for one moment I would refer briefly to that remarkable passage where it is said, God made two great lights ; the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night.’’ Well, it used to be said. This implies that Moses believed and thought that God made these orbs six thousand years ago. But when you come to examine the passage, you find it very different. It is not in that passage, He made two great lights, the sun and the moon but it is, ‘‘ He made two great light-carriers, or lamp-bearers.” The Hebrew word for light is oior^ as, for instance, when it says, “ God said, Let there be light, and there was light,” it is Yehu owr ; but when it says. He made two great lights, the sun and the moon,” it is maowrath, a different word. Our translators, I think by an unhappy oversight, have rendered the word lights;” they ought to have rendered it, He made two great light-carriers, the sun and the moon,” And therefore the LOCOMOTION AND LEARNING. 65 words do not mean that God made them ; hut that he gave them a new and definite mission towards this world ; and made the sun and the moon to hold out lights, in order that the inhabitants of this world might see. So that wherever Moses touches upon the truths of science, he is, on critical investigation, found always right, and those who have objected to him have rashly and ignorantly done so. Again, we notice another evidence of the increase of knowledge ; namely, the discoveries made respecting the human race in every land. You recollect the old predic- tion in Genesis, that Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Ham shall be a bondsman of bondsmen.’’ That was a curse mingled with a blessing pronounced upon three races. Now it is not a doubtful question at all what these represent. Shem represents the Asiatic ; Japheth the European; and Ham, or Canaan, the Afri- can ; I do not now enter into the proofs. But if you turn to the facts of the case as set before us at this mo- ment, Japheth now dwells in the tents of Shem. Eng- land is at this moment the mistress of all India; the most magnificent of the tents of Shem. And it is from this prediction that I believe England will not lose In- dia; for the prediction is that it is to be hers. And again, we read in another passage that Ham is to be a bondsman of bondsmen. Now what is the existing fact ? The African is a slave still. I am not justifying the people that make him a slave ; but it is the fact in the Southern States of America, it is the fact too in other districts of the tropical climates ; and a fact that we can- not get rid of, and that even all efforts to prevent have only ended in promoting; that the children of Canaan or 66 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. of Ham are bondsmen of bondsmen. You have there- fore the predictions of old being fulfilled ; and the more 3mu become acquainted with the world, the more ex- actly you reach the evidence of the fulfilment of the prophecy, Knowledge shall be increased.’’ It used to be said of the Hindoos, I remember reading in books on the subject, that they w^ere such a mild, amiable, and gentle race, that many of the newspapers of twenty and thirty years ago, and some, I believe, of the Directors of that day used to say, they were far better without Chris- tianity than with it ; and that when they became Chris- tians it only made them worse. But what is the dis- closure ? That greater liars do not exist in the world than the Hindoos ; that you cannot always trust them out of sight ; that they are deceptive ; and we have seen by recent events such outbursts of fanaticism, cruelty, blood- shed, and crime, that we Avonder how any that knew them thirty years ago could give them such and so splen- did a character ; and we have learned that Scripture has not exaggerated its portrait of human nature when it tells us it is deceitful above all things, and desperately Avicked.” And you Avill find that man is the same in all places, as our knoAvledge increases. Let him dwell in the kraal of the Hottentot; in the snow-cave of the Greenlander ; in the cabin of the Irish, in the sheilin of the Scottish Highlander ; in the palaces of kings, in the halls of nobles ; wherever you find him, and under Ayhat- ever color, and in whatever clime, and in AvhateA^er com- plications of political and social circumstances — he is manifested as the creature that fell in Paradise, has re- duced himself to moral and physical ruin ; but Avill one day LOCOMOTION AND LEARNING. 67 be reinstated in the lost glory, and in happiness greater than that which he originally possessed. I may mention another instance of the increase of knowledge, in respect to languages. It has been a long discussion, are all languages any way connected ? Any- body that will read Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, will see satisflictory proof there that they are connected ; and if you trace certain familiar words, you will find they run through all. For instance, the word wine is the same in almost, I think, all languages under the sun ; and the Avord sack is the same in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, English, and almost all languages ; and many other words might be specified. And Dr. Wise- man, who is a A^ery learned scholar, I mean lecarned in languages, has stated in his book, entitled ^‘The Con- nection betAveen Science and Eevealed Religion,’’ a book of great research and talent — because while Ave deplore and condemn his superstition, it Avould not be fair to deny him what is good, and right, and true; we may ad- mire the eyes and spots of the viper, while Ave admits its poison and dread its sting, and call it a viper still — that it has been discoA^ered as the result of the most exact investigation that all languages have affi'nities enough to indicate a common source; but certain dislocations that prove that some time in their history there have occurred in them a great fracture. Just go back to Avhat sceptics make m.erry with, the confusion of tongues at Babel, and you have the great fracture Avhich science has concluded must liaA^e one day taken place. If Ave look at knoAvledge in all shapes and forms, w^e ^ shall find that in all respects it has been vastly increased. 68 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. The folio read by the few is now the tract that is read by the many. You will get as much information now in a penny newspaper as you would have got for a guinea and a half before, and that not very many years age. A Bible, that now costs tenpence, once would have cost as much as the building of one of the arches of London Bridge ; so much has knowledge in that respect been in- creased. Discoveries, it took years to make known, are literally flashed upon your minds like lightning. Knowl- edge that used to be thought too sacred or grand to be committed to living languages is now on every man’s tongue. I will venture to say that the Young Men’s Christian Association in London knows more and is better instructed, and wiser, than some of the old cathedral chapters or ecclesiastical rulers some three or four hun- dred years ago. And why is it so ? Because knowledge has so rapidly increased. The embankments of learning are all broken down ; rivers rush forth in the desert ; and where aristocrats sipped deliciously, millions now slake their thirst, and are refreshed and satisfied. Then see, in the next place, as an evidence of the increase of knowledge, the increase of it in depth and in breadth. Sciences known long ago are now more completely mas- tered and understood. And then if you apply this to sacred learning, the reformers of the sixteenth century were better divines than the fathers of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries ; and I venture to assert that the best divines of the present day know more of the Bible than the fathers and the reformers together. There is a great mistake about that ecclesiastical word father;” when you hear of certain fathers, Chrysostom, Augus- LOCOMOTION AND LEARNING. G9 tine, Tertullian, and others, you think of antiquity ; but the true fathers of the Christian Church are the di- vines of the present day ; and the babes and children of the church were the so-called fathers of the first five centuries ; because we have all that they wrote, and our own researches in addition ; w’^e have the lights of science, the fruits of criticism, the discoveries of travellers, the disclosures of investigation. And their errors are of importance to us. When a wreck sinks in the Channel, they put a buoy over it, to let other ships know they are not to sail over that spot. The very errors of the fath- ers have buoys over them in the great channels of thought and knowledge ; and they let us know, while we take the good that is in them, what and where are the errors that we are to avoid. So That, as I have observed, knowledge is increased in depth ; and it is increased exceedingly in area or surface. Many years ago the sub- terranean population of London, those called the Arabs and the Bedouins of our streets, were the greater part sunk in utter darkness ; but now, in consequence of t e action of ragged schools, they are becoming more and more enlightened. I heard from the treasurer of the Field Lane Ragged School, that twenty of these children, once wicked and worthless, have been drafted into Her Majesty’s navy, and promise to be good sailors ; they have been rescued from the streets, preserved from be- coming thieves, and are now entering the navy, where I have not the least doubt, that these boys, so acute in intellect, so quick in perception, so intelligent, and hat- ing now received a thorough Christian education, will prove as fine sailors in the day of trial as ever trod a 70 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. British deck. I remember in 1848 that class of our pop- ulation was looked upon with perfect terror ; and I be- lieve that, up to that period, there was growing a sub- terranean force under the population of London, that, if left alone, like gunpowder ignited, would have blown the whole edifice to atoms. But by the efforts of Lord Shaftesbury — a name that ought to be dear wherever there is a Christian, or Englishman, or indeed a man — by his efforts specially, I do not say alone, and the efforts of others; and ihoye all, the self-denying efforts of rag- ged-school teachers ; I venture to assert that a change has been made in tlie mass of that population that has raised it to a level we never could have anticipated as pos- sible, or that would have occurred so soon ; and is evi- dence in its place that knowledge is not only spreading, but it is descending, it is rising up ; and the higher classes will have to m.ake haste, or the lower classes at their heels will very soon overtake them ; and we are glad of it : the more that the poorer classes know, the more the rich will feel it their duty to know. All prestige now sinks in comparison of that knowledge that is power, exceeded only by that knowledge of God in Christ which is peace- x\.nd now-a-days, too, the Bible distributor follows the march of armies : the Wal- densian paste iirs at this moment in the neighborhood of Turin, Alessandria, and the other great fortifications in Italy, and are so far in Austria, are preaching the Gospel where war has launched its thunders, and show- ing the way that leads to heaven and to happiness, to thousands ignorant of it. We can see, therefore, in ah these aspects, how knowledge is increasing — rapidly and LOCOMOTION AND LEARNING. 71 deeply — and Low it goes where it formerly would not have dared to look. The walls of China are levelled Avith the dust ; its countless gates are opened to the access of the missionary ; and the Gospel is at this mo- ment being preached in its heretofore impenetrable tongue by a young man, who, fifteen years ago, Avas in our schools, or, at least, took an active part in them, and sat, and Avas baptized, Avhere I now minister. I need not tell you, that, in India, Avhere Christianity is deep- est, there peace is greatest. I Avas talking Avith one wor- shipping here, Avho is the greatest authority in every sense of the Avord as to Avhat religion has done in India : and that great and distinguished man told me, that in every instance Avhere there was most of the Christian religion in Hindostan there Avas least of disaffection ; and that Christianity had nothing to do Avith the mutiny of the Hindoos ; and Avhere it seemed to have anything to do with it, it was the indiscretion of the missionaries, not the Christianity that they Avere charged to teach. And I am only sorry that ome great in poAver are advocating in the schools in India what they call a neutrality ; that is the policy of keeping the Bible out of them. I asked that most competent judge, Avhat he thought the effect Avould be of saying to the schools in India, You may have every book, but you shall not have the Bible ? He said, instead of securing peace for India, it Avould rather bring on trouble. But, mark you, throughout the Punjaub, he took a deep interest in everything con- nected Avith it ; he said that he never found that the Bible in the school in the least degree created disaffection. If you force it upon the people, that is persecution ; this 72 THE GHEAT TRIEULATIOJ^. must not be : if you insist upon their reading it when they do not belong to your religion, that is intolerance ; that must not be : but because you will not force them to read it, nor thrust it on them, why should despatches be issued stating that in India there is to be no Bible in the schools ? Cannot you let the Bible lie upon the table? Is it persecution that the master should say, Now here is the book of God ; if you will let me read it, I will do so ; and if you will read it yourselves, you may do so ? That seems to be a duty ; and I do hope that, whoever may direct the affairs of India, he will not succeed (and this is not a political question, but a high, spiritual, and Christian question) in introducing into the schools of that land a neutrality which, in other words, is absolute atheism. We would not thrust our religion upon them, we would not compel them to read our Bible; but surely it is the duty of a great Christian land like this to let the Bible lie on the school table, and to give all that will an opportunity of drinking of its living w^aters; a privilege w'e ought not to deny; a duty, I think, that we ought most faithfully and fully to dis- charge. I think I have shown from facts that this prochecy is not only fulfilling, but almost fiulfilled in the present day We draw from all this encouragement to sov;- the seeds of truth, to diffuse real religion, and to spread the Bible. In doing so we are moving in the groove in which God himself has proceeded and gone before. En- coiii'agement is given us to pray, ‘‘ Thy kingdom come;’’ for, what do we pray for ? That God would translate promise into enjoyment, and prophecy into fact. And LOCO^ilOTION AN!) LEARNING. 73 we may live, or our children may live, it may be that some aged persons that read these words may live, to hear in the eastern gale the sweet songs of Zion ; and in the western winds the voice of reclaimed and redeemed nations. Me thinks, standing on the Alps, I can already see Italy casting off the shroud from its face, and the grave-clothes from its limbs ; and feeling the warm and genial beams of that Sun that has long been a stranger to that beautiful land ; methinks, standing upon the Andes, I can see South America and the isles of the Pacific recognizing the approach of Him whose right it is to reign ; and, standing upon the mountains of Thibet, I can see in the jungles of India, and amidst the plains of China, multitudes joining in the praises of our God. Let us take heart ; the Star of Bethlehem shall be the glory of the universe ; long-crushed Palastine shall yet echo with the hum of happy millions ; and the last linger- ing Arab shall embrace the Gospel of Christ, “ Till o’er our ransomed nature, The Lamb for sinners slain, Redeemer, King, Creator, In bliss returns to reign.” 4 lecture XXV. NO MORE SEA. A great transformation awaits the earth, of which in- stalments are daily multiplying ; one of these is thus in- timated — There was no more seaJ^ — Eevelation xxi. 1. Prophecy often states in the past what really relates to and is to be fulfilled in the future. The Apocalypse passes before the eyes of John as a brilliant panorama ; he sees the whole sweep past, while he records what he saw as it swept past him. But the whole of it, at the same time, or at least the last half of it, is the prediction of things that are to be, and not the historic statement of things that were. What is meant by the strange, we would almost say startling, prediction, There shall be no more sea?’^ Does it mean that God is literally to annihilate the ocean, to dry up its waste and wilderness of waten'^, and to turn it into dry land ? There is no proof of this : we believe that all God has made is to endure for ever, all that sin has originated as its progeny is to be cut off and cease for ever. We find on referring to the original record in the book of Genesis, at the 9th verse of the 1st chapter, that God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear : and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas.” So again in the 104th Psalm we find God spoken of in this way, in language most magnificent — poetry that, were it contained in Shakspeare or Byron, would be quoted as a perfect masterpiece of beauty ; but because it is contained in the Bible, literary men have no appre- ciation of its beauties. He says, speaking of the earth, ^^Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment:” what a beautiful idea — the earth covered with a shining mantle, that mantle the broad expanse of the crystal ocean! Thou coveredst it with the deep as* with a gar- ment; the waters stood above the mountains. At thj^ rebuke they fled ; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains ; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.” All this indicates that God made the ocean ; and as God, in the very beautiful and happy language of a Collect of the Church of England, hateth nothing that he hath made,” but hates only the defiling taint that has spread over the beautiful garment, and stained it with hues that were not originally on it, we have no rg^ison to expect that he will destroy the sea or anything that he has made ; on the contrary, that the regenesis of the future will be the res- toration of more than the genesis of the past ; that what- ever sin has done shall be repaired; whatever disease, decay, and death, have wasted shall be restored : in other words, Christ will come to our world not the destroyer 76 THE GREx\T TillBULATION. of what he made, but the redeemer of what sin has made its slave, its thrall, and its victim. But if this be the case, still you ask, how can the prediction be fulfilled. There shall be no more sea?’’ I will show you just by a parallel passage in the 22nd chapter what must be its meaning. We read in another passage in the 22nd chapter, at the 5th verse, And there shall be no night there.” What does that mean ? If the earth in the day of its restoration, as we expect and believe, shall revolve round its axis, and if the sun shall occupy his central throne in our system, it is quite plain that there must be the alternation of day and night. We cannot conceive that those alternations will cease as long as the main laws of our existing economy continue. It is obvious then, that by the prediction, ‘‘There shall be no night there,” it must be meant that all the damp, the clouds, the danger, the uncertainty, the precariousness, that are the accompaniments of night, shall not exist under the regime in which the earth shall be placed at that day ; but that a glory shall rise upon the ocean and upon the earth, so great, that there shall be no need comparatively of the sun and the moon to shine on it : for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light thereof. And in the 21st chapter, where he says, “ The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it;” it does not mean that the sun will sink and be destroyed ; but it means that there will he a compensatory glory that will render sunlight as dim amid its effulgence, as a can- dle light is dim amid the beams of the noonday sun. Thus when we read, “ There shall be no night there,” it means that whatever night has now of uncertainty, or danger, NO MORE SEA. 77 or disturbance, shall altogether be put away. Wherever there are the fruits of sin, mark you, such as tears, and grief, and sorrow, and suffering, there shall be absolute annihilation on this earth ; but wherever there is what God made, there shall be reconsecration, purification, and adjustment. The prediction, There shall be no more sea,’’ is exactly the same as No more night namely, whatever are the perils, whatever the evils, Avhatever the disturbances, represented by night and sea, shall cease in that blessed and happy day. For instance, in northern latitudes, in the extreme north of Scotland, I have heard people say, “There is no night here.” You ask, How can that be? The answer is, when the sun sets, the Au- rora Borealis — supposed by the most recent discoveries of astronomy to be connected with a ring round our earth, as Saturn has a bright ring round him ; certainly not derived from the sun — shines with a brilliancy and a beauty that will enable you in its mysterious light to read even the smallest type. So in the age to come, when the seer says, “ There shall be no need of the sun, nor of the moon,” the explanation of it is given ; “ for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” Therefore we understand, that as “ No more night,” does not mean the extinction of the physical an^angements of our system or economy; so, “No more sea does not mean the drying up of the ocean, or the annihilation of its waters, but its regeneration and restoration to that state in which it was when God looked upon that shining Robe, and saw no flaw on it, and pronounced it very good. It is a just impression that religion is not a thing for the sanctuary only, but for everywhere ; and that one 78 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. should associate all providence throughout its varied chapters with all grace throughout its successive king- doms. The subject of this lecture was suggested by reading in the newspapers, that the two worlds, new and old, were connected by the electric wire; and by the strange remark of a secualr newspaper, There is no more Atlantic Ocean.’’ That expression instantly sug- gested, perhaps from previous reading, this beautiful pre- diction, There shall be no more sea.” Not that I sup- pose the electric telegraph is to fulfil this ; not that its accomplishment, when it shall be completed, and the two great continents shall talk together, will exhaust this ; though one rejoices to see in it something like the fulfil- ment of the prophecy in Malachi, ‘^He shall turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, and the fathers to the children, lest I smite the earth with a curse.” Our children arc the great Republic across the Atlantic ; we are their fathers and mothers ; and one sees in this beau- tiful bond of union and communion, as soon as it shall be achieved, if not, as I do not venture to say, the ful- filment of Malachi’s prediction, at least a happy illus- tration of it that we do well to take notice of But that the accomplishment of this great feat of science is not the fulfilment, I mean the perfect fulfilment of this text, is plain enough ; because, alas ! if we look at the Atlantic Ocean, that separates England from America, we see there indeed incipient bonds of sisterhood and brotherhood, and union and communion ; but without imputing anything — we see other signs if we look across a nearer and narrower sea. We see the ocean imprison- ed within the excavated rock ; that imprisoned ocean NO MORE SEA. 79 made to bear upon its reluctant breast great ships, teethed with cannon, and laden with shot and all the apparatus of war; we see the ocean compelled to look up to the great heights bristling with guns, looking, no doubt not intended, as if it were a frown of defiance to this isle, which is our country and our home. Cherbourg has to my eye no charm ; it is the exponent of war ; it is the memorial of what has been ; it is the awful prophecy of what will be till the Prince of Peace come. But I confess the electric telegraph has to me an ineffable charm ; it is the symbol of peace ; it is the type of union, communion, and brotherhood ; it has almost a mediatorial beauty; and it seems to speak from the mysterious depths of ocean, where it will one day sleep I trust securely — “ From either beach The voice of love shall reach, More audible than speech, We are one.” I regard all the discoveries of science as instalments of what will be, a grand regenesis, as gleams and flashes vouchsafed from heaven to let us know that the great Light is not extinct, and that God has neither forgotten us nor forsaken his own promises. I look upon it that this earth, in the beautiful language of the apostle Paul, groans and travails in pain, waiting for deliverance. Groans and travails in pain, what an expression ! — in other words, our earth and our ocean are under a repres- sive curse ; and the reason why it is not Paradise, is that the curse keeps doAvn all the beauty that is in its 80 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. bosom, and that it has not yet felt the consecrating foot- step of Him who will bring forth all its latent glory. But in the meanwhile these discoveries, so wonderful and accumulating, like star leaping upon star in a wintry night, are to me evidences of those latent possibilities of good that are hidden in the economy of things which wait for God to say, Come forth,’’ and they will come forth in all their grandeur. For instance, winter under its snowy mantle, in the months of December and January has under it, sleeping it is true, but not dead, all the glories and the splendors of J une. So this earth, this world, is now in its winter season, frost-bitten and sin- covered ; but yet it has under it all the beauties and the glories of ancient Paradise ; and as soon as that sum- mer sun that we expect shall rise and shine upon our world, there shall be no more killing frosts, nor chilling fogs, nor damps ; nothing that defileth ; nothing that can cause tears ; no spring or source of pain ; but every gar- den shall be as Eden, and every desert shall smile and blossom like the rose. I look upon the wire that will one day connect these two great continents into one brotherhood as an earnest vouchsafed from heaven that God has not forgotten what a wreck and dislocation sin has made ; nor has He forgotten what a grand promise of a perfect restoration yet awaits us. I look upon the incidental discoveries of science, steam, and electricity, and all that we are familiar with, and that it would be needless for me to recapitulate here, as provisionally con- necting the two Paradises. Did this thought ever strike you, while walking in your gardens in winter, and look- ing at the laurel and the great sisterhood of ever- NO MORE SEA. 81 greens — these evergreens are perpetuated through the winter as it were to keep open the path of the summer that has gone for its return again ? So I look upon these discoveries of science as a sort of keeping open the pathway from Paradise that is gone, to Paradise that is to come again ; showing that God has not forgotten us, and that this world is not forsaken by Him. I must say I dislike seeing everything in the light of politics, in the light of pounds, shillings and pence. I like sometimes to look at things in that high and beautiful light in which they will all shine and sparkle in a brighter and a better day. Having thus explained my meaning, let me show you what are the blessings that I have said we may expect to come, and what are the evils that I have said we may expect to be removed, when there shall be no more sea. First of all there shall be no more war in its depths be- tween the tribes that God originally placed there. God made the youngest and the smallest minnow’ as well as the tallest and the greatest angel ; and the one has on it as many traces of God as the other. For w’^hat did He say? — Let the waters bring forth abundantly the mov- ing creatures that hath life, and let man have dominion over the fish of the sea.’’ But the instant sin came in, it struck down into the very depths of the ocean as well as rose to the very heights of the air ; and the moment it reached the depths, the calm depths of the ocean, it " kindled an internecine war, so that the caves of the sea have become camps, the sparkling sands have become the dust of battle-fields, and the spacious floor of the ocean is strewn with wrecks and covered with the remains of 4 '^ 82 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. war. But He that said once, Peace, be still,’’ and its waves became like infants, and lay down by his holy feet, will say again, Peace, be still,” as he waves his priest- ly hand over all creation ; and then what shall take place ? It is not my conjecture nor your guess, but pos- itive prediction in the 8th psalm, ^^All things shall be under his feet,” that is, Christ’s feet ; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.” Here is the very first blessing that will be — that the fish in the deep made by God, set against each other by sin, meant to be under the domin- ion of man, shall be restored to peace, and shall again be subject to man ; and the trout and the minnow, and the whale, and the leviathan of the deep, the moment that they see man will recognize their lord, and hear his voice and obey his behests, for God has said it, and it is not a poet’s dream, or an uninspired man’s reverie : ‘‘ Thou wilt put all things under his feet ; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.” I do not stop to mar the thought I am considering by suggestions that will spring up about the sea being over-peopled ; just as certain peo- ple, some eighty or a hundred years ago, talked of the world being over-peopled. It is all nonsense. It will be time enough to consider such inconveniences when the event comes ; it has not come in any sense yet. What- ever God has said shall be, I thoroughly and heartily be- lieve ; and the difficulties that are about it never trouble m.c in the least. The God that gave the promise will take care to arrange and solve the difficulties. When there shall be no m.ore sea, I hold there will be NO MORE SEA. 83 no more tempest and storm ; and wreck and ruin, the consequence of tempest and storm. What heart has not often quaked when the wind whistled at our doors on a winter night, howled down the dreary chimney, and rushed with its outspread wings careering in the skies, as you recollected that you had a son, a daughter, a fatlier, a mother, a sister or a brother on the ocean, with only an inch of oak between life and a watery grave ! Who has not read, and felt his sympathy stirred, by what David tells us in the Psalms, in language equally sub- lime as that I have quoted before, They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in the great waters ; these see the Avorks of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep ! For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.’'’ What an idea, as as if the winds outstretched their great palms or hands, and lifted up the great waves upon them ! They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths ; their soul is melted because of trouble.” Who has not felt the sensation at sea of the royal Psalmist, when the ship lifts her bows as if she Avas about to ascend to the stars, and then rushes doAvn again as if she Av^re descend- ing into the very depths of the sea ; and who does not understand what is here stated, their soul is melted be- cause of trouble?” Again he says, They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He mak- eth the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.” How just is the picture ! Nature must have been in David’s days as it is now ; the same troubled, and dis- 84 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. turbed, and fretful thing that sin has made it. Or if I may quote an uninspired poet’s picture of a storm, if not like the inspired one, yet it is more expressive than any- thing I can say, — “ ’Tis a drieary thing to be Tossing on the wide, wide sea ; When the sun has set in clouds, And the wind sighs through the shrouds, With a voice and with a tone Like an evil creature’s moan.” When there shall be no more sea, and these the pro- phet’s words shall have become the historian’s record, what shall take place ? Not the sea shall be annihilated, but the winds shall be in sweet harmony with the waves ; the ocean and the atmosphere shall embrace each other like loving sisters ; both shall hear again the same voice that they heard in Galilee, and wind and wave shall render, not the obedience of an hour, but the obedience of a thou- sand years ; then there will be beauty upon its bosom, there will be only music in its chimes ; the gems upon its floor will sparkle in a new light ; it will cease to seek to muster forces and rise to the mountain tops ; and the Psalmist will no more describe it as a prison, as he now does, but will see in it a department of the palace of the great King ; for there shall be no more storm, or tempest, or anything to hurt, or convulse, or destroy. “ No more sea,” conveys to every reflecting mind an- other thought, and a very refreshing one ; it will no more be the grave of nations. What is the sea now ? The great grave-yard of the world itself Many a family have some one nearly related to them sleeping in that sepulchre. We know that its waves sweep over and toll the knell NO MORE SEA. 85 every day of millions of the uncoffined dead. The fairest forms are there wrapped in the dank sea- weeds, and ,bra.ve hearts that once were full of life now heave only with the restless waves ; and whole crews of great ships sleep there the sleep that knows no wakening ; and the very pine woods that grow on its steeps seem to me to join in the ceaseless funeral anthem chanted there by the waves over millions of the dead. Now what an awful deformity of the ocean is this ! Endearment it is in one respect, for we have an interest in the ocean as well as in the village church-yard ; yet deformity in another respect, that the shining robe that God stretched over the earth should be made the shroud of so much of the dear and the dead. But a day comes, we read, when the trumpet shall sound, and a voice, to use the beautiful language of the Psalmist, mightier than the noise of the waves, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea, shall sound ; and the oldest dead mariner in the depths of the ocean shall come forth when he hears that voice, as well as the greatest monarch from his sarco- phagus, and shall join that august and sublime procession emerging from the depths of the deep, deep sea, and rush- ing up and grouping round the great white throne to hear unchangeable and eternal retributions. If I may quote the words of a poet again, I do so simply because they express what I cannot so well express. They are the words of a female poet, and she says, speaking of this trumpet and this sound — “ What wealth untold Far down and shining through thy stillness lies ! Thou hast the starry gems, the burnished gold. Won from ten thousand royal argosies; Sweep o’er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main, Earth claims not these again. 86 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. “ Give back the lost and lovely, those for whom . The place was kept at hearth and board so long; The prayer went up through midnight’s breathless gloom, And the vain yearning woke ‘ mid festal song ; Hold fast thy buried isles, thy toAvers overthrown — But all is not thine own. To thee the love of woman has gone down, Bark flow thy tides o’er manhood’s noble head, O’er youth’s bright locks and beauty’s flowing crown; Yet must thou hear a voice, Restore thy dead ! God shall reclaim thy precious things from thee . Restore thy dead, thou Sea !” And then there shall be no more sea as the burial-place, the grave-yard, of the nations of the earth. By this prediction, There shall be no more sea,” I understand that there shall be no more obstruction to the intercourse of nations ; for we read that during the future rest there will be nations, and tongues, and peoples, and kindreds. Now we know well at this moment that by the sea (one might quote constant classic allusions if this were the place) the brotherhood of nations is disturbed ; and we mistake each other’s meaning, because it is so long before we can get each other’s mutual explanation. This will cease when the electric wire unites the opposite shores. England and America, or rather I might say London and New York, will talk together just as Mary and Martha did at their own fireside ; and I hope the funds will not be the only subject of their interesting and sisterly con- versation. When there shall be no more sea, France — a little like the sulky elder brother in the parable, who did not like to see his sisters and his brothers happy together — will NO MORE SEA. 87 cast away the cloud from her bright face, dismantle hei giant fortresses, fill up her basin into which the ocean has been entrapped, and join also in the fire-side conversation between other great nations ; and one happj^, holy sister- hood be the blessed result, not indeed of the electric wire, for that cannot be, but of the pouring out of that blessed Spirit who shall weld all hearts into one, and make all nations one family ; and Asia, the cradle of our race, and Africa, polluted by slaves ; all the nations, all the conti- nents, will no longer “ Stand aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs that have been rent asunder;” but sh;^ll constitute what they once were — one happy family, without the contingencies that overtook that family after Ham, Shem, and Japheth, the world’s three fathers, met in the ancient ark. Then there will be no more naval battles to deplore, no more naval victories to commemorate and to applaud. A battle field is a very aAvful and a very humbling sight ; but who does not know that war is not satisfied with smok- ing hamlets, with fields waiting for the sickle turned into barrenness ? It has occurred upon the ocean also ; and with the noise of its waves and the roar of its winds is mingled the more terrible sound or boom of cannon, and the shrieks of the wounded and the dying : so that some- times when one reads the history of naval battles one is tempted to think that man seems anxious only to fulfil the terrible apocalyptic saying, where the angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man. If ships shall last to that period, if there shall be ships when this prediction shall be fulfilled, they will be 8S THE GREAT TRIBULATION. no more what many of them are now ; they will be the white doves of happy social intercourse ; or in the words of James Montgomery, the Moravian poet, who predicts the millennial glory in these lines — “ With anthems of devotion Ships from the isles shall meet, And pour the wealth of ocean In tribute at his feet ; For He shall have dominion O’er river, sea^ and shore, Far as the eagle’s pinion Or dove’s light wing can soar.” I understand by the fulfilment of this prophecy, that there shall be the removal of those obstructions that have hindered the entrance of the missionaries into the dark and benighted parts of the world. How long has the missionary to spend upon the barren ocean before he reaches his destination ; and how frequently does he find a watery grave before he finds a mission-field to labor in ! Steam has brought it to pass that there shall be no more land to a very great extent ; but this greater power will seize the ocean, and bring it to pass that there shall be no more sea. And may not all this be the preparation for that angel who spreads his wing, and hastens wdth the everlasting Gospel with a speed unprecedented, and Avith a success hitherto unknown, to preach it to every tribe and kindred and tongue ? And when there shall be this happy inter- course ; Avhen ‘‘ no more sea” shall be a historic fact, and not a mere prophecy, oh, blessed vision, bright and holy apocalypse that opens upon one’s eye ! — every star shall then suggest only the morning star, every tree the tree of life, every floAver the rose of Sharon, every wind of the NO MORE SEA. 89 air and every wave of the sea shall only speak music ; pagan tribes that never heard of a Savior, jungles that the sun of nature and the Sun of righteousness never en- tered ; deserts where all is desolate ; oceans on which the mariner sings no hymn, offers no prayer, recognizes no God, and reads no Bible; homes in which there is no worship, and hearts in which there is no love, shall all be transformed at that day, as sure as there is a God in heaven; and one song overflow all nations, ‘‘ Worthy is the Lamb, for he was slain for us/’ The crescent that is still the symbol of so much that is evil shall wane into a thin recollection ; the darkness of India shall pass away ; Austria shall cease to be a dungeon ; Italy shall no more be a grave ; for in the heart of Christianity is the germ, and on the brow of Christianity is the prophecy, of a univer- sal, a never-ending, an ever-widening empire. The harps of Sion then and the hymns of her joy shall rise to the listening sky, and be reflected from the ocean and from the earth. All lauds shall accept the name and glory in the cross of Christ, and the baptism of the crucified shall be on every brow, and the palm of the glorified shall be in every hand ; and not a spot, nor a river, nor a sea, nor a shore, that shall not reflect the very glory of heaven. Such are what I conceive to be the unfolding and am- plification of the magnificent prediction, There shall be no more sea.” Now I know it will occur to some minds that we have no idea of the possibility of any- thing occurring that can produce this, except what they believe will be — the regenesis and the restoration of the new heavens and the new earth. But before that take place — before millennial suns shall shine upon our world 90 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. — there will be, and we have reason from prophecy to believe there will be, vast changes, facilitating the inter- course of nations and of worlds. God may have — nay, God has — in the depths of his own inexhaustible wisdom, means and elements of accomplishing these results of which we have no idea at this moment. To give some explanation, suppose I should have told you twenty years ago, that a day would come when a merchant on the Ex- change in London should talk to a merchant on the Broadway at New-York, and should receive answers in the course of half-an-hour ; and that positively the mes- sage sent from New-York at two o’clock in the day should reach London an hour or two before ; if I had said such a thing, you would have set me down as one of the wildest dreamers that ever lived, if not altogether a helpless and hopeless lunatic. And yet that has be- come certain. And may there not be then in the future, just as in our world, possibilities yet more magnificent than even the electric telegraph that connects worlds; and may not this very last discovery be but a feeble spe- cimen of crowds that will come within the horizon, so brilliant that we have not ventured even to conceive, still less to comprehend them ? What lessons do we learn from all this ? See in all the discoveries of science, in all the events of Providence, not chance, not man, but God. Here is a very wrong tendency in us all : we are all so apt to confine God to the sanctuary, to the sacrament-table, and to the Bible ; but the instant we go out of the church or out of the place of prayer, then no more we see God ; no God in the counting-house, no God in the warehouse, no God in NO MORE SEA. 91 the senate ; no God, in short, in things worldly. Reli- gion for Sunday and the church ; secular work altogether ^ for the six week days. This is a gross misinterpretation ; it is a disastrous mistake. I believe that God is in Cheapside just as much as he is in St. Paul’s Cathedral ; I believe God is in your counting-houses just as much as he is in the sanctuary. You never get out of the church ; because the church is not a thing of bricks and mortar, and stones and timbers ; it is the company of God’s peo- ple ; and wherever a churchman is — that is, a Christian, for all Christians are churchmen — there he is on holy ground ; and what he does, if sin, is sacrilege ; and what he does, if crime, is done in the sanctuary of God. God is just as much in the facts of history as he is in the texts of the Bible. Merle D’Aubigne said his beau- tiful history was written to show what he has assumed as his text, God in history. Now I believe that God in- spired the man that discovered printing, the man that discovered steam, the man that discovered the electric telegraph, just as truly as, though differently, he inspired the man John the Evangelist, or Paul or Peter, to write the texts in the Bible. That is my first lesson. My second lesson is, be ready, always stand ready — speaking as I do to Christian men — to avail yourselves of every vehicle of power, and to sanctify and consecrate it to be a vehicle of beneficence and of grace. Do not let the Exchange make a monopoly of the intercourse between America or India and England ; see if the Christian Church cannot make use of the mysterious wire. If the merchants of this country keep one wire for themselves, why should not all the Missionary Societies unite togeth- 92 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. er and have a wire for themselves? Thus they could correspond wdth their mission stations, and with their missionaries ; thus America could tell us what its won- drous Pentecostal shower is doing at this moment there ; and we could tell, at least that if we have not it, we are praying that God would give his Holy Spirit, and water his church till its desert places shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. And lastly, let me urge, or rather hint, another lesson. Let this new fact, this new medium uniting distant con- tinents, or it may be a new world and an old, remind us of an infinitely more glorious medium of intercourse be- tween that continent of heaven from which we were dis- located by sin, and this island of ours restored, and out of twain made one. It is fact that God sends down blessings through this medium upon us ; it is fact that God hears messages that we send up by this medium to him. It seems as if the whole idea of this were em- bodied in the beautiful and striking words of the prophet Isaiah, where he tells us in the 65th chapter, at the 24th verse, in words that have often suggested to me that very topic to which I have already alluded — it is God that is speaking: It shall come to pass that before they call I will answer ; and while they are yet speaking I will hear.’’ What a beautiful portrait of prayer that is! Now, what is the fact ? That we have communion with heaven; that the separated realms are now reunited. And, grand thought ! you have not to wait at the throne of grace till others are served ; there is no possible inter- ruption in this divine medium ; there is no misapprehen- sion of our meaning or misinterpretation of our words. NO MORE SEA. 03 How ehall you escape, what shall be your guilt, how grave your responsibility, if, with such a medium of in- tercourse with heaven, you fail to avail yourselves of it now, and with all your might ? Then, my dear breth- ren, ask and ye shall obtain, seek and ye shall find ; For all these things will I be inquired of, saith the Lord, in order to do it for them;” and it shall come to pass that before you call, God will answer; and while you are yet speaking, God will hear ; and the proof of this is, Thus saith the Lord.” LECTURE XXVI. THE PURIFYING PROCESS. Many shall he purified^ and made white^ and tried ; bnt the vncked shall do wickedly : and none of the wicked shall understand ; but the wise shall under- stand.^'’ — Daniel xii. 10. Having endeavored to shew the fulfilment of various predictions, let me here notice one moral and instructive lesson for all. First, we are told that ^^many shall be purified, and made white, and tried.’’ These are the re- deemed out of every kindred, and people, and tongue. How delightful to believe many shall be so ! The saved are not a tiny and a microscopic few, but a magnificent multitude that no man can number, with palms in their hands, and clothed in white robes, praising God and the Lamb for ever and ever. Every allusion in the Bible leads us to the conclusion that the overwhelming major- ity of our race shall be saved. Infants dying shall all be saved. Then an age comes to whose perfection all past ages have been contributing, and in whose glory all past ages will be crowned, when all shall be righteous, and they shall no more teach every man his neighbor, saying, ‘^Know the Lord,” but ‘‘all shall know him from the least to the greatest.” It is a most refreshing thought (94) THE PURIFYING PROCESS. 95 that Satan will not be able at the judgment day to show one solitary proof of the success of his dreadful experi- ment in Paradise; notone soul will be lost because Adam fell ; if lost it will be because he rejects the second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven. All Scripture leads us to feel that they that are lost within reach of the Gospel are not slain, but are suicides ; they perish because, dreadful criminality ! they will not be saved. The language of the Saviour is, Ye ivill come unto me;^’ the re- monstrance of God is, Why loill ye die?’’ the magnifi- cent embassy for all nations is, Him that cometh unto me,’' whatever nation, kindred, tribe, or tongue, or what- ever degree of guilt, or sin, or ruin ; Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” Then if every in- dividual that hears the gospel is not among the many that shall be saved and that are saved, it is not because God is unwilling, nor because he is unwelcome, it is not because there is not efficacy in the Saviour’s work, nor because the Holy Spirit will not sanctify him, but be- cause he puts it off, or puts something between it and him, or makes an excuse which has no foundation in truth, but satisfies his willingly satisfied heart in the mean time. Does not the Bible tell us that we have no power, and that unless God give us power we never can believe ? I perfectly agree with that ; but if that want of power upon your part be a want of physical power, then you have a valid excuse. God will not condemn a man at the judgment-seat who has a valid excuse for not be- lieving the Gospel ; that is equity, that is common jus- tice. If you be physically unable to believe, you have a valid excuse. You would not think of blaming a stone, 96 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. or a dog, or a horse, because they do not understand or do not believe ; they are physically incapable of it. But you forget that your inability to believe the Gospel is not physical, but purely moral : it is not want of physi- cal power, it is ivant of moral will. There are two can- nots that people very much confound with each other. For instance, a thief in prison cannot steal; an honest man cannot steal. Both these are perfectly true, but the distinction is tremendous ; the thief cannot steal because he cannot get out of the prison; the honest man cannot steal because it is not his nature, or disposition, or will to do so. So you cannot believe is not the cannot of physical impossibility ; if so it would be a valid excuse ; but it is the cannot of moral wilfulness. The lost in misery will never blame any one in the heights or in the depths but themselves for their everlasting ruin; they will feel, in all the tremendous force of that conviction, we might have been in heaven, and we would not go ; and we are now in ruin because we set our faces thither. There are words I have already illustrated that seem to me most striking and suggestive ; ^ ^ Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Come ;” the olden invi- tation ; ye blessed of my father ;” God the Father the fountain of all blessing ; inherit ;” one inherits the title of his father not by his personal worth, but because he is the son; ‘^inherit the kingdom prepared for you;” heaven the prepared place for a prepared people. But notice the obverse, where he addresses the lost. ‘‘De- part from me;” that is, continue the course you began. “ Come unto me,” is, continue the course you began. THE PURIFYING PROCESS. 97 Depart from me,’’ prosecute the course you liave chos- en : as if heaven were a centripetal force, by whicli the Christian is carried nearer and nearer for ever to Christ, and made happier the nearer that he comes ; as if hell were a centrifugal force, the unbeliever departing farther and farther, and his misery increasing in the ratio of the speed and distance of his departure. ‘‘Depart, ye curs- ed,” not of my Father, but “ depart, ye cursed, into ever- lasting fire, prepared,” not for you, but “for the devil and his angels.” In other words, hell is not meant for any human being ; it was never meant or prepared for you ; and if any man goes there, he will have the awful reflection for ever, I did it all myself ; and nobody is to blame but myself : whereas the saved in heaven will have the thrilling reminiscence. We did none of it, Ave deserv- ed none of it ; grace, sovereign grace did it all. Such then is the distinction. Now it is said, “ many shall be made white.” This passage in Daniel seems to be the original of what we find in Revelation vii., Avhere one of the elders asked, “ What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? And whence came they ?” And his answer is, “ These are they which came out of great tribulation” “ they shall be tried and purified,” “ and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” I understand, there- fore, by “ Many shall be made wdiite,” many shall be jus- tified. “ As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience shall many be made righteous,” or made white. I understand, therefore, by this expression, “ Many shall be made white,” many shall be justified, that is, acquitted, absolved from all sin ; first 5 98 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. a change of state, by transferrence from Adam, in Avhom we stand by nature, into union with Christ, in whom we stand by grace. Each of us at this moment by nature is born in the eclipse we do not need to perpetrate some great crime to be guilty in God’s sight ; we are born sin- ners, we inherit a fallen nature, it is our connection with Adam that gives us that nature, and we aggravate our guilt by our own personal transgressions. But we are wel- come and invited at this moment to step by faith from Adam, in whom nature leaves us, into Christ and his righteous- ness, in which grace and glory will always keep us. You are invited every one to leave the wrecks of ancient Par- adise, where the flaming cherubim and the guarded gates, are, and to put on, without money and without price, that raiment which you have not to w'eave, which you have not to make, which you have not to pay for, but which you have to accept as a free gift, and justified through faith before God, to have peace with him in Christ Jesus. Such is the change of state. But there is more than that. There is not only a change of state ; but it is said that those who are. thus justified, these who are thus made white, shall be tried.” Tried; this is the lot of all God’s people ; and you will find it one of the marks of the people of God that they come through much tribula- tion. In the beautiful language of the Apocalypse, They came out of great tribulation.” We sometimes try to flatter ourselves that we shall get through the world easier and more softly than our fixthers passed through it ; all that is deceptive ; you may depend upon it, as sure as you are living, if you be Christians, you will have some- thing to try you, some care to vex you, some troubl ^ to THE PURIFYING PROCESS. C9 dog jour steps, some reminiscence that you cannot get rid of, some vexation that you cannot throw off, some uneasiness on the pillow, some uncertainty in the hopes, some precariousness in the possession ; some sore disap- pointment, some unexpected tribulation. As sure as you are a Christian, so sure God will try you, the world will try you, your own hearts will try you, and you will find that tribulation is our lot, but triumph over it is our des- tiny by God’s almighty and assisting grace. Now, to show how Christians will be tried in the great tribulation, let me adduce two or three illustrations. First of all, some of you will be tried by adversity. We do not like the cold sliadow ; we would all bask in the sweet and beau- tiful sunshine. We do not like the valley of Achor ; we would all like to be upon the mountain heights of Pisgah, or upon the beautiful table land, above the storm and the cloud, and all the ills that irritate and vex in this world below. But it cannot be. Some will be tried by adver- sity. It is a heavy trial to the poor man to learn this lesson : Take no thought for the morrow : for the mor- row will take thought for itself” It is easy for a rich man to take this text, and literally observe it ; but it is a very hard matter, and goes against the grain, for a poor man, who does not know where he will find to-morrow’s breakfast, to take this text and to believe and act on it. It is also a very easy lesson to learn to say of other peo- ple’s dead, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;” but for a mother to look upon the cold pale face of the infant that she bore, and to see it consiorned to the dark and silent grave, and to say then and there, Our Father, thy will be done that is a very heavy trial, that 100 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. will test and try her faith to the uttermost. It is very difficult too to feel, and it tries our faith strongly, that God loves us when he smites us ; that the blow of the hand may be very heavy ; but that as a father pitieth his children, so doth the Lord pity them that fear him.’’ P'ut if you are not tried by adversity you will be tried by prosperity ; and I am not sure which is the hardest. If I had it in my power to give the option to many whether they will take the trial of their Christian character by being kept a very poor, dependent man ; or being made very rich, or very great ; most would of course choose the latter ; I fear flesh and blood would choose without a mo- ment’s hesitation the latter. And yet if it be very dif- ficult to hold an empty cup, out of which you can drink no sweetness, it is much more difficult to hold a full cup without letting it run over ; and manv a man who has been raised from the low and obscure levels of ordinary life, to the high and bright spots of the world, has found that he has multiplied his enemies in the ratio in which he rose ; and that his happiness has not increased with the degree and height of his social elevation. Prosperity will try us. How prone are the prosperous to become proud ! When and what were the moments when you first sought out God ; when you had the deepest and the most pene- trating sense of the vanity of all below, and the mag- nificence of all that is above ? When some great billow of tribulation has swept over you, and laid you low upon the ground. When did you forget God ; when did you care nothing about God ? when did you feel as if there were no God? Just when the world’s ball was at your foot, and all was prosperity above, and all was smoothness THE PURIFYING PROCESS. 101 beneath, and all was happiness and sunshine around. * These chiefly were your atheistic and ungodly moments, and experience also. Prosperity will try you ; often pros- perity is sent, not as a proof that God loves, but as a test by which God would try us. And it is a very happy thing too that we have not the choice whether we shalTbe tested by the shadow of adversity or the sunshine of pros- perity. If we be God’s people, made righteous, clad in the white robes, accepted in his sight, He will send us just the test that is most expedient for us. That test may be very painful, but will not be so painful as the devil would have it, nor so protracted, nor so heavy ; and it will not be so short, and so soft, and so light as you would have it ; but it will be exactly what God sees fit for you ; and the trouble, whatever it be, will not last one moment longer than it has done its work. An illus- tration is the story of the goldsmith melting the gold in the fining-pot ; he was asked why he always kept gazing upon the molten gold ; his answer was that he skimmed off the dross always as it rose to the surfiice ; and when- ever he could see his face reflected on the bright metal, he then ceased to keep it on the fire, and withdrew it for its great purposes of currency and use. God keeps us till he sees his own face reflected from our nature ; and as soon as we are like him, then he withdraws the ordeal tests, and tries us no more, and makes us ready as we are found right for the kingdom of heaven. Thus you will be tried by adversity, you will be tried by prosperity ; but there is one blessed thought, that if you be a Christian, you will not be overwhelmed by it. Recollect the words, ‘‘These are they that came out of great tribulation;’^ 102 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. they were in it, but not one was left to be overwhelmed by it ; and however much, therefore, you may be tested and^ tried, you will not be left to perish in the trouble ; but the trial will be removed by Him who watches over you with parental sympathy, with an omniscient eye, with an om- nipresent power, when you reflect the likeness of Him who hath called us to glory and virtue. It is a precious thought that the trial, whatever it be, is never sent unless it be needed. How beautiful are the words of Peter, who was very much tried! — “Wherein we greatly rejoice; though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations and then what is to be the result of them? “ That the trial of your faith, being more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, may be found unto praise and honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ; whom having not seen we love ; in whom though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Thus we have seen first the change of state, — made white; or transferred from connection with Adam, in whom we died, and placed in Christ, in whom we live for ever; secondly, the ordeal through which believers must pass, in order to be made fit for the kingdom of heaven. The result of it all is, we are told, they shall be purified ; they shall be tried, and they shall be puri- fied. There is a great deal of dross in every one of us ; and he that knows his own heart best, knows how much evil there is in it. Some one said we should never pray, ^^0 Lord show us ourselves to ourselves;” and it is most just; foi>the most aAvful sight that would over- THE PUllirYING PROCESS. 103 whelm and crush us would be an apocalypse of our own heart, exactly as it appears in the sight of a holy and a heart-searching God. The more we know ourselves, the less confidence we shall have in our own excellence, and the more we shall be led to appeal to Him who is ready every moment to pardon, and through whose intercession we have an advocate at the Father’s right hand, able to save to the uttermost all that come to God through Him. Then we shall be purified from unbelief, purified from the alloy of sin, purified from all the remains of corruption ; purified more and more, till the king’s daughter becomes all glorious within ; and the church shines bright like the sun, and fair as the moon, and glorious as an armj^ with banners. We shall be made what we seem ; the heart shall be pure, the fountain holy, the tree good, and all the fruits shall be good, and all the streams shall be pure, and all our w^orks and ways shall be the fragrant fruit of a new character and a new heart, and made neiv by the Holy Spirit of God. Such is the prediction of the destiny of the saints. The reverse of this is the doom of the lost. The wicked shall do wickedly.” It is their nature. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still.” There are two great forces in our world that seem destined to last for ever ; the force of holiness and the force of sin ; hell the culminating depth of the one, heaven the culminating glory and perfection of the other. And the wicked, we are told, shall not understand.” There is needed to understand the Bible, and to understsnd many great moral and scriptural truths, not so much a sharp intel- lect as a sanctified heart. It is most strange how passion 104 THE GREAT TRIBULATJOxW can blind the intellect, and prejudice darken it ; till a man sunk in depravity can neither see nor appreciate moral excellence at all. We well know how diffcult it is to convince a mere natural man of many of those simple truths which to a Christian appear so plain. And the reason is, that just as a shilling over the eyeball will shut out the grandest panorama from the sight, so a sin- gle passion, avarice, hate, revenge, any other evil, or stormy, or tempestuous passion, will so darken man’s in- tellect that he will not see the simplest truths nor recog- nise the plainest duties. Orthodoxy in its brighest sense is as much the product of a pure heart as of an enlight- ened mind. By force of intellect we may master mathe- matics ; but only by sanctity and regeneration of heart can we master, and appreciate, and live by the living truths of the Gospel of Christ. In which category are we — in the category of them that are made righteous by the righteousness of Christ ; w^ho, while passing through many a stormy and tempestu- ous sea, are being made fit for heaven, and will ultimately reach that happy haven into which the surf of this world’s troubles will not break, and whose waters shall never be disturbed by a tempest ; or are we in the list and category of the wicked, who will not understand, and therefore do not understand ; who do wickedly, and glory in their wickedness, who have no fear of God before their eyes ? Magnificent privilege ! we have the choice. Choose ye this day on which side you will stand. Oh, may many a humble heart say, Blessed Jesus, where thou goest I will go ; where tliou lodgest I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God ! Amen. LECTURE XXVII. THE GLORIOUS LOT. But go thou thy way till the end he ; for thou shalt resty and stand in thy lot at the end of the daysP — Daniel xii. 13. I HAVE tried in a previous lecture to show what is the precise chronological significance of those remarkable words, From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away,” that daily sacrifice the burden of the prophet’s prophecy, that incense and a pure offering shall be presented among the Gentiles,” from the cessa- tion of the Jewish polity to the consummation of the present age ; and an abomination that maketh desolate,” (for it is not the in the original, to distinguish it from that of the Roman eagles upon the walls of Jerusalem, when Titus and Vespasian utterly subverted and destroy- ed it) ; from that time there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days ; 1260 prophetic days ending, I said, in 1793 ; when the papacy began to be subverted, undermined, and destroyed ; 30 additional such days, ending synchronically with the 2300 years of Daniel, in 1823 or 1821, when the great eastern delusion began to Avane, as it wanes at this moment, and is almost extinct in the east of Europe ; that there should be an additional 5^ (105) 106 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 45 yearSj making in all 1335; and then, Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hun- dred and five and thirty days,’’ which end the age, on the supposition that the dates of commencement are right. There, mind you, the whole difficulty lies ; and if I were to assert that 532 or 533 is absolutely certain as the commencing date, then we could absolutely predict the close of this present Christian economy ; but that we cannot do. But I showed, by collecting the opinions — not opinions, but inferences and conclusions come to by the best and the wisest commentators, not only of this century, but also of the last — that 1867, which is a great closing epoch, whatever be the events that are to trans- pire, is an era fraught with gigantic issues the one way or the other. If the theory of certain divines of the present day, who are very able and very pious, be. correct, then 1867 terminates finally and fully the Mahometan and Papal apostacies, the reign of wickedness upon earth, and the commencement of at least a new, a brighter, and a better era. If the conclusion of Elliot, and Newton, Meade, and Bickersteth, and others who have written upon the subject, be correct, then 1867 would close, in the words of Lord Carlisle, this present economy, and be the end of this present Christian dispensation. The difficulty felt by many is how I begin this era at 532 ; Avhat is the nature of that system which the 1260 years mete out ? and is the church of Rome (which looks very uncharitable, but we can never be uncharitable when we speak what is true, I mean true in the word of God) that dreadful apostacy thus meted out by the days here speci- fied ? THE GLORIOUS LOT. 107 But at all events whatever be the eras or the dates, wdiatever be the commencing or the terminating epochs, here is the grand practical lesson deducible from all, ad- dressed to every Daniel in Christendom, every preacher and every student of prophecy, every Christian in this age, Go thou thy way till the end be ; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.” There seems to me three great lessons to be gathered from this pre- scription ; first of all, that present duty is not the least diluted by contingent results ; Go thy way till the end be.” The meaning of Go thy way” is, Mind your bu- siness, mind your work, attend to your duty. Secondly, there is the prophecy, which w^e are sure will be fulfilled ; Thou shalt rest ; there remaineth a rest for the people of God;” and lastly there is the assurance, personal, spe- cific, and cheering : Thou shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days.” First of all, there is the call to attend to present duty, altogether irrespective of future contingency. No reve- lation of the future that God has given or that man can make plain is for one moment to interfere with our obvi- ous unmistakable duties. In all persons w^ho make real or pretended knowledge of the future a reason for neg- lecting the duties or violating the claims of the present, there is fanaticism, the fanaticism of monks and recluses ; not what the Bible is, inspired common sense for Chris- tian men. Let us remember that the prophecies do not repeal the precepts ; and if any man were to make his be- lief of a prophecy of the future a reason for breaking or ignoring a precept obligatory in the present, that man would not rightly divide the word of truth. He would 108 THE GREAT TRIBULATIOX. most grievously misinterpret and misapply it. Whatever be in the future, and whatever we expect in the future, this is our duty in the present ; Be steadfast, immovea- ble ; fight the good fight ; hold fast thy crown, that no man take it from thee ; occupy till I come ; work while it is day, for the night cometh w^hen no man can work.’’ And therefore it appears to me that. any man who makes the bright prospects of the future a reason for neglecting the very last duty of the present, altogether misinterprets and niisdivides the word of God. Moral duties are not affect- ed by anything upon- earth. In the flame that wraps the globe, in the intense fire that calcines it to dust, this re- mains unscathed, undiluted, unaffected, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.” A material universe may go to ruin ; but moral obligations outlast the stars and all created things. We have instances constantly of God over-riding and revers- ing physical laws ; but there is not an instance in the Bible of God over-riding, reversing, or dispensing with a moral law. We have found that some physical laws have been altered ; the fire has failed to burn in the case of the three Hebrew youths ; poison has ceased to destroy ; the floods have failed to drown : these are instances of physical laws reversed. But God has never reversed the law, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself” Let me adduce an illustration : — were a mother to be so captivated and charmed with the study of the Apocalypse, and it is right to be charmed and captivated with the bright prospect before us, that she neglects her infant, or her children, or her husband, she is acting a most unchristian part ; and she is making the THE GLORIOUS LOT. 109 prospects of the future glory, and her admiration of them, a reason, a most erroneous reason, for neglecting present and instant duties. Because you are not a Martha, ab- sorbed in the duties of your household, and careful about many things, you need not be a Mary, careful about nothing, and absorbed in gratifying her intellectual and imaginative contemplations. In the words of a poet, “ Thine to work as well as pray. Clearing thorny wrongs away; Plucking up the weeds of sin, Letting heaven’s sweet sunshine in.” Here is the combination of the duties of the present with the enjoyment of the prospects that lie before us. Because our hearts are in the bright glory of the future, our feet need not be idle ; because our affections rise above the world, we are not called upon to go out of the world. It is as much a duty to do the commands of your employer or your sovereign, for a soldier to obey his superior, a sailor his officer, and a servant his master, as it is to love God, to fear God, to study his word, and to look forward to the fulfilment of all the prophecies ; and if any man makes any anticipations, or any settlement of dates, or any opinion about the fulfilment of prophecy, a pretext for neglecting any one duty that devolves upon him, he per- verts and dishonors the word of God, and acts himself most inconsistently. You must not suppose that you are not Christians because you are not preaching ; or that you are not acting under the influence of Christianity because you are not studying the prophecies. On many an occa- sion more heavenly thoughts have risen with the sparks ■from the blacksmith’s anvil, than from the swinging censer 110 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. and the ascending incense at a cathedral altar. It is not the place, it is not the work, but the spirit in which we oc- cupy the one and fulfil the obligations of the other that makes it Christian. In fact, our idea of division into sa- cred and secular is a very questionable one. I agree with the late admirable and enlightened Dr. Arnold that all things are sacred, because all things are from God ; all things are to be rescued and reclaimed for God, and all things ought to be done to honor and to serve God. And therefore wx say to every one who is absorbed with these studies, or who gives his attention to them, Go thy way,” mind your business ; attend to your present duties ; and if the world end, or if your life end, or if God step in and call you, if you be at your duty, in the House of Lords, in the House of Commons, in the counting-house, in the shop, in the streets, in the country, w^alking in the fields, or sailing on the sea ; wherever you are for duty and in the way of duty, if God finds you there, he finds you just where a good man wishes to be found — at your post and in your place. Therefore you are never to forget that all things are sacred to a Christian, and all situations holy. Go then thy way. The mount of transfiguration is the splendid vision of an hour ; the valley, or the low level of common duties, is the obligation of a life-time. The glimpse of the glory as it sweeps past is given to cheer, not that you may dispense with duties, but that you may be strengthened to go into duties. God sees that we need refreshment and strength, we need health and com- fort, and he is always ready to give and allow it ; but he requires this, that we shall still feel duties and obligations are ours. And, after all, better wear out than rust out ; THE GLORIOUS LOT. Ill better be worn out by our work than rust by indolence and apathy. If every man will only go his way, he will always find there is a way for him. God has a way or race-course for every man. You have only to look round to find it. Is your gift speech ? Then go and speak a word to those that need to be instructed. Is your gift in- fluence ? Exert it accordingly. Is your gift wealth ? Expend it accordingly. God does not make you answer- able for what he has not given you ; but only for the sa- cred use of what he has given you. I have no manner of sympathy with the sentiments of those who think that when men become Christians they ought to bid farewell to the Avorld ; in other words, translated into plain speech, they ought to hand it over to the devil, and go and enjoy themselves out of it. That is not God’s way. We are here as soldiers to figbt in God’s ranks, to protest against the devil’s usurpation of the world ; and every man at his own door-step to reclaim some little portion of that world, that it may enjoy the sunshine and the dews of heaven, and blossom like the rose, and be for a memorial to our God, and for the praise and the honor of his great name. Be- cause God makes you a Christian, he does not say. Come mechanically out of the world ; but he bids you, while in the world, in His strength, overcome the world. There- fore if I became a Christian soldier in the army, I would not sell my commission, I would be a Christian soldier ; if I became a Christian in the parliament, I would not re- sign my seat, bat I would act, and vote, and speak as a Christian senator in the parliament ; and if I became a Christian, as a tradesman I would not shut my shop and sell my goods by auction, but I would act as a Christian 112 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. tradesman, doing justly, cheating no man, speaking truth, and acting honorably and consistently with my professions and my principles. Vfe are not to be like the monk, who leaves the wwld, as he calls it, because he dreads its temp- tations ; nor are we to imitate the suicide, who leaves the world because he dreads its troubles ; but we are to be what the master has prayed that we may be — I pray not that thou wouldst take them out of the world, but that thou wouldst keep them from the evil of the world.’ ‘ That is our position, these our marching orders, this our duty in the midst of the world. And therefore. Go thou thy way. Daniel the prophet must be Daniel the preacher ; and Daniel the preacher must be also Daniel the practi- tioner. Go thy way, for there is sin to be swept away ; there are broken hearts to be comforted ; there are sorrow- ing ones to be cheered ; there are ignorant ones to be en- lightened ; there is plenty to do in this world of ours alone ; plenty to do. I do not ask you to do the thing that I prefer ; I do not ask you to engage in the specific mission that my sympathies may be with ; let every man select for himself something to do, and let him do it with all his might. I have a strong conviction that if we could only treat ourselves and the world in our Christian duties as people at Birmingham "and Sheffield treat pins, we should do a vast deal more good. In making a pin, for instance, there are some seven men^ required ; that is to say, each man has his own part ; and that part, however minute, he does thoroughly. If every person takes some specific thing, one a ragged school, another a day school, another a Sun- day School, another the circulation of useful books and tracts, another the visiting of the poor; and others, who THE GLORIOUS LOT. ^ 113 have not time for that, give something to enable their proxies to do it, for proxies are permissible where there is no personal ability or opportunity ; were each to take up some one thing, and give his whole heart to that, I am quite sure that greater good would be done. The late Dr. Chalmers used to say that success is only to be obtained by being a man of one thing. If it is to preach and spread the glorious Gospel, give your whole heart, and soul, and strength to it, and you will do some good ; but if you combine with the preacher the schoolmaster, or if you have labors that interfere with it, or duties incompatible with it, your preaching will not be successful, and your labor will not have a blessing. Go thy w^ay ; mind thy business, fulfil thy mission ; occupy till I come ; and then when the end arrives, you will hear the words, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. I gave thee one talent, and thou hast made it five ; I gave to another a talent, and he has made it ten each different degrees of success, but all, because Christians, doing something to make them- selves more useful, the world wiser and happier also. So much for the first prescription ; Go thy way.’’ There is in the second place the comforting and as- suring promise, ‘‘ Thou shalt rest.” The first the pre- scription of duty; the second the cheering promise, to enable you to fulfil that duty. Thou shalt rest.” How full is the Bible of that word ‘^rest!” ‘‘Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And again, “There remaineth a rest for the people of God.” Let me explain the mean- ing of the word “ rest” in that passage in Hebrews iv. ; it is the translation of the Greek word (Toc^^ajia/iidg^ 114 THE GREAT TRIBULATIjN. which means sabbath-keeping;’’ there remaineth a sabbath-keeping for the people of God.” The very phrase that denotes the millennial rest is sabbath- keeping.” Every sabbath, therefore, that we spend is in its measure, very imperfect it is true, a type and earnest of the everlasting sabbath ; and every sabbath that we come to is a sabbath nearer the everlasting rest that remaineth for the people of God. What a beauti- ful day is the sabbath ! I do not mean the Jewish sab- bath ; I do not mean the extreme Puritanic sabbath ; I mean the Christian and the evangelical sabbath. It looks to me as if on that day the sun rose with a freshness in- dicating his design to begin a new and more glorious march ; as if the sanctuary, wherever it be, and however humble, stood out from amidst the houses with sharper and more beautiful relief; as if there were a burst of heaven’s sunshine once a week, to let us know what a bright and blessed state that will be ; when all the mills stand still; the shops are shut; the noise, and bustle, and excitement of life seem laid , and it seems as if there were what in the Apocalypse is called a half-hour’s si- lence ; when man may listen and hear ringing unspent in their transit from home the blessed accents of his father and his God. That sabbath, with its privileges, its les- sons, its sanctuaries, is a type, an imperfect type, but still a type of the rest, the sabbath-keeping, that re- maineth for the people of God. Thou shalt rest.” Now what will be the nature of that rest — that future ? For I confess I look oftener forward than I look upward. We are more prone to look upward than to look forward. It is remarkable that all promises of glad things, and THE GLORIOUS LOT. 115 bright things, and blessed things are in the future ; and that the most common direction of the Bible is to look forward for our heaven, rather than to look upward. If death takes us, then it is God’s will; but if we are spared, and so are introduced into that rest, that is what the New Testament points out. I do not think there is a text in the Bible warning man by the prospect of death, or bidding man look to death, or directing him to think of death. One will be very much struck on reading the Epistles by finding how constantly we are enjoined, By the coming of the Lord;” by what is in the future; by the inheritance laid up for us ; by wlmt we are taught to anticipate. We are constantly encouraged to duties by the reward not that is above us, but the reward that gleams in the distance far beyond and before us. It is promised, Thou shalt rest.” What will be the nature of this rest? First, it will not be a mere scene of sen- suous enjoyment ; — I use the word sensuous in contra- distinction to the word sensual ; — it will be the enjoy- ment of sense, but of sense sanctified. The future rest will not be spiritual only ; we shall have bodies, but re- surrection and glorified bodies, made after the image of our Lord’s glorious body. There will be all that can charm the ear ; can we suppose music is unfit for heav- en ? On the contrary. There will be all that will gra- tify the eye ; a panorama of splendor, beauty, and mag- nificence, such as eye never saw, and such as poet never delineated. It is true all this will not be heaven, nor the chief joy in heaven; but on one ledge at least of our ceaseless ascent, ear, and eye, and taste, and imagination 116 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. will be gratified by things such as eye has not yet seen, and ear has not yet heard. That blessed rest will not be exclusively intellectual. There will be the gratification of the intellect ; questions that perplex philosophers now will be axioms then ; the difiSculties of the most culti- vated intellects here will be the perfect knowledge and possession of the humblest in the kingdom of heaven. What we know not now we shall know hereafter. The desire of knowledge becomes knowledge, just as the de- sire of grace becomes grace. How many things do we want to know ; what heights, and depths, and mysteries, and perplexities, and obscurities, constantly beset our path ; and how do we long for some (Edipus to solve the riddle, some Solomon to teach us more than we dream of! how earnestly, therefore, should we anticipate that day when what thou knowest not now, thou shaft know hereafter,’’ shall no longer be a promise in the future, but a reality in the present ; and when we shall know even as we are known. But this is not all ; the fu- ture rest will not be a Pagan Elysium, nor a Mahometan Paradise, nor a great intellectual school, a higher uni- versity; it will be all this, but it wilh be something greater still. It will be that perfection to which all past ages have contributed, and in whose glory all past ages shall be crowned. It will be to the world what the flower is to the stem and to the root ; its culminating beauty and perfection. It is a thought I would not give up for the world that this earth of ours is not doomed to annihilation, nor to be made a present of to him who has corrupted it; every inch of it is to be purified, every THE GLORIOUS LOT. 117 atom of it is to be rebaptized ; it is to be the loveliest orb in the sisterhood of stars ; on which all orbs will look, and from which lessons will leap up soaring into distant wwlds, and making the universe wiser, and hap- pier, and more thankful, because one sister orb fell, and has been reclaimed, restored, and introduced again into the communion of the happy, the holy, and the unfallen. Imagination will find its rest ; intellect its rest ; prophet, and patriarch, and evangelist, will find their rest ; we shall have all the heart’s yearnings gratified, all the mind’s desires met ; and as we enter into that blessed rest, and taste of its joy, and find all broken circles re- stored, and all those that we called lost waiting for us, we shall be astonished that we groped, and loved to grope in this dark, damp crypt that we call the present world, and that we did not long to go up into that glorious sun- lit cathedral, the high altar of which is the Son of God, in which the song never ceases, in which there shines the light of an everlasting sabbath ; in which there is no need of the sun, nor of the moon, for the glory of God and of the Lamb are the light thereof. Such then is the rest that remaineth for the people of God. It will be rest from all toil, ofiicial and political. Daniel was a prime minister in Babylon ; he met with persecution ; he was maligned and misrepresented. When God told Daniel this, he said, Daniel, you will cease to be a minister of the earthly sovereign, you must now come up higher, and become a minister of the heavenly ; your work in Babylon is done, your enjoyment in heaven begins, and in the rest that remaineth for the people of God Avill be 118 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. augmented day by day. This expression, Thou shalt rest,’’ means also. Thou shalt be free from all trouble, and grief, and aches, and ills, that flesh is heir to. These are the progeny of sin ; but in that blessed sabbath, that glorious rest, we shall be free from all these. There Avill be a sky whose sunshine will not scorch, nor be in- terrupted by a transient cloud, nor know a western de- clension ; there will be that river that maketh glad the city of our God , there will be rest, enjoyment, peace, immunity from all that disturbs ; for the gates of glory that let the Christian in shut out all the cares, ills, and aches that the Christian has long been heir to. No wave of trouble will fall into that beautiful and peaceful bay ; the unspent and remote sound of it from far off only will be heard ; and the sense of past trouble will only add to the intensity of present enjoyment. The promise to Daniel, Thou shalt rest,” implies. Thou shalt rest from all sickness, from disease, from death, from sin; thou shalt rest for ever. In the language of the prophet, ^^The inhabitant shall not say any more, I am sick.” Headaches and heartaches will be unknown. Those of us who have health, oh how thankful we should be ! I do not believe that any one knows the blessings of health except those that, like Job, say in the morning, Would God it were the evening,” and in the evening, Would God it were the morning.” There will be health, un- interrupted health, perfect freedom from all sickness, from tears, from death. You will rest, finally, from all the assaults of Satan, all the temptations of the Wicked One ; from all that can lead you to diverge or to go THE GLORIOUS LOT. 119 astray, or to do Avliat is sinful and unholy in the sight of God. What a grand thought, that every sabbath brings 4 us nearer to this rest ! Each sabbath is like the wave of the advancing tides of the sea, kissing the shore, prelim- inary to the approach of the whole weight and grandeur of the ocean. Every year that we spend, every sabbath that we enjoy, is so much of this world gone, and we are so much nearer that rest that remaineth for the people of God. Such is the rest before us. Broken-hearted ones, there is healing for you. Rachel, weeping for your children, because they are not, there is the restora- tion of them for you. Ye who are weary and heavy laden with this world’s burdens, there is rest for you. Ye Avho are sick and suffering, and know not what health is, be patient ; there is an issue out of it, a glorious de- liverance, a blessed rest. Let us draw on the future for a little sunshine in the present. You may draw from that inexhaustible capital and you will find that the pres- ent will be lightened in its load as the future comes in to cheer and to comfort you. Thou shalt stand in thy lot.” What does this mean? I answer, first of all, that the individual Christian is here recognised as individually seen of God. This is a thought I wish each of us could realise, that God’s eye, his loving eye, his careful eye, is as much upon me as if there was nobody else in the whole of Europe he cared for. There is not a sorrow in your inmost heart that has not its resounding echo in the heart of your Father ; there is not an anxiety you feel, however trivial it may seem to others, that God regards as unworthy of notice. 120 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. Magnificent thought, we move in the midst of a cease- less guardianship ; all heaven encompasses us ; our Fath- er’s eye is ever on us. -‘Go thou thy way ; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot.” What is this lot? It is described in that passage which the poet Burns said he never could read without weeping. Who are these, and whence came they ? These are they that came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” That is the lot ; in that lot, in that shining lot, Daniel and we shall stand. But perhaps there is something more specific still in the promise, Thou shalt stand in thy lot.” There are de- grees of glory ; the right of entrance into heaven is for all Christians ; but there are heights in heaven, there are thrones, and degrees of glory. If I were to put a vessel that holds a pint, and a vessel that holds a quart, and a vessel that holds a gallon, into the ocean, they would all be full ; but the one that holds a gallon would contain more than the one that holds only a pint. So when all Christians go to heaven, they will all be full of happiness, but one has a larger capacity than another, and is capable of a greater amount of felicity. Daniel liimself says, They that turn many to righteousness THE GLORIOUS LOT. 121 shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever.’’ Daniel was to be numbered in that lot. He had been a successful preacher, a faith- ful martyr, and he will therefore be in the goodly fellow- ship of the prophets ; others in the noble army of martyrs ; others in the glorious company of the apostles ; and others in thy holy church throughout all the world. 6 LECTURE XXVIII. THE ENDURING WORD. “ Heaveji and earth shall j)ass away ^ hut my words shall not pass away^ — Matthew xxiv. 35. I HAVE explained these words, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things bo fulfilled.'’ I showed, first, by references to the usage of the words ; secondly, by facts that are legible along the whole path of history for eighteen hundred years, that one great na- tionality, -which is the meaning of the word, has not passed away ; and gives token still by its existence, its influence, its insulation from the mass, and yet its com- mand of all the wealth almost of the w^orld ; that the Jewish race, so ill treated, insulted, and reproached, but so mistakenly so, shall exist until the close of this dis- pensation ; and then, like a streamlet that has pursued its course for eighteen hundred years, shall mingle and mix with the endless main of a redeemed and regene- rated people. The word rendered pass away,” here used to describe the duration of the Jewish race, is also applied to the word of God, Christ’s word ; heaven and earth shall pass away, but it shall not pass away. We have seen that various physical phenomena, moral calam- ( 122 ) THE ENDURING WORD. 123 ities, great changes and convulsions in the physical con- stitution of things^ will precede the winding up of that magnificent drama of which angels are the spectators, and men the solemn and responsible actors. All these earthquakes, famines, darkening of the sun, shaking of the heavens, distress of nations, perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, are the tokens of nature’s sickness, the evidences of her increasing disease, and advancing de- cay, foretokens, according to their depth and multiplica- tion, that her death is near ; when the old earth, weary with the sobs of her children, sick of being a grave for her offspring, torn and ploughed by war, convulsed by earthquake, shall at last die, but only to rise again a new and more beautiful earth. But, says our Lord, this heaven and this earth may pass, away, but something shall outlive them all ; and draw its nutriment, and the elements and growth of its victory from all ; that word which lasts forever : the most magnificent of created things being transient ; the least word that Christ has spoken eternal and enduring for ever. What Avord is this? The answer is, My word.” Who spoke this word ? Jesus Christ the Savior. Must not He be God who could fling upon the winds such a prophecy as this, and be sure of its everlasting success ? The man of sor- rows, He who was acquainted with grief, He wdio accom- plished that mysterious tragedy which ended in a cross on earth, but culminates in a crown in heaven ; He who had nowhere to lay his head. He who was marching to a grave, says, seated on the Mount of Olives in the midst of a few fishermen, My word shall never pass away.” He that said so was either a fanatic, or He was the living 124 TliE (iKEAT TKlEULATiOX. God ; that He was the latter we know ; that the pro- phecy, therefore, is truth, we are sure: ‘‘heaven and earth may all pass away, but my word shall not pass away.” But I have said it is Christ’s word : do we not however, when we open this book, think it is the word of Jeremiah, of Moses, of Isaiah, of John, and of James? They were the instruments, but Christ’s word is neverthe- theless audible in all. In all the songs of Moses is heard the song of the Lamb ; in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in the rushing strains of Isaiah, in the plaintive hymns and melodies of David, in the awful magnificence of Ha- bakuk, when he speaks of the perpetual hills bowing themselves, and the everlasting mountains being scatter- ed ; in the dying prophecies of Malachi, in the startling accents of the Baptist ; in the gentle speech of John, in the rushing logic of Paul, in the gorgeous eloquence of the seer of Patrnos ; in all their varied strains we can hear ringing clear, sweet, pervading all, audible in all, the word and voice of the Son of God ; their words are the mere echoes and reflections of Christ’s mind. What are some of the marks and characteristics of Christ’s word ? I will quote one or two as given in the Bible. First, it was said of him, “He speaks with au- thority.” Now open a page of an ancient philosopher; it is full of guesses, of hopes, of dim imaginations. Open a page of the gospel : “I say unto you “ It is writ- ten;” “ This is the truth ;” “ I am the way, the truth, ; nd the life;” an unfaltering utterance of truths that never came within the horizon before, a decisive expres- sion of, magnificent words, never guessed in Grecian school, never dreamed of in Jewish synagogue. There THE ENDURING WORD. 125 is a glory on the inspired page that you cannot mistake ; it has a kingly stamp and majesty about it ; it bears the very impress of the authority and the superscription of a king. There is a simplicity and a grandeur in that book, an acquaintance with the past and the future, an inspec- tion and a revelation of heaven and hell ; and what is greater than all, an analysis of my heart and my con- science ; so that when I read this book it looks as if there was a mirror before my heart that reflects all its most fugitive lights and shadows, as if there were a hand touch- ing my conscience that lays bare all its innermost doubts, fears, hopes, perplexities ; so truly that He who wrote this book was none else than He that made my heart, and gave me all my mental and moral organism. Christ speaks in this word with authority ; we hear men in the present day saying. We want an authority, here it is ; they want a speaking authority, here it is ; Hear what the Spirit saitli unto the churches.’’ The peculiarity of the Bible is, it is not So much written as lived and spoken. Even Milton’s majestic poem palls upon the taste ; even the most magnificent passages in the great dramas of the master of human speech and knowledge we get tired of reading ; but there is about this book a freshness, so real that it makes us feel as if we heard those beautiful ac- cents, such as never fell from man’s lips, upon the banks of the Jordan — that awful and piercing wail from the cross, which rent the grave and entered heaven — those congratulatory strains when He rose from the dead, those sweet encouragements, those gentle rebukes, those musi- cal promises. There is about the Bible • a freshness that makes us feel, whilst it speaks with authority, it speaks 126 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. in such a ivay as makes it, like the song in the Apoca- lypse, ever old and yet ever new. If Christ speaks in this word with authority, let me ask, Avhat have critics to do ? Not to amend the Bible, but to ascertain what are the very words of the Bible. Vfhat have preachers to do ? Not to adorn the Bible ; for to adorn its glorious truths is to try to paint the lily, to gild refined gold, or to add fresh perfume to the violet ; but simply to unfold them. What has reason to do ? To bow before an au- thority which is the author, and the inspirer, and the maker of reason. What have all of us to do ? To receive God’s truth ; to lay it up in our hearts, to exemplify it in our lives, to spread it abroad, at home, and amid the heathen in distant lands ; and not to cease to do so till the accents uttered by the Man of Sorrows ring in glo- rious reverberations from east, and west, and north, and south, and from heaven and earth, and the whole earth is filled with his glory. I turn to another characteristic of his word ; and it is one which He gave himself, his testimony is true. I am the truth ** Thy ivord is truth.” Christ’s word is truth. So, you say, is Euclid ; so is mathematics ; so is sunrise and the sunset. But there is a distinction among truths ; some truths are useless, other truths are instruc- tive, other truths are interesting ; but the truths in this book are saving, essential, vital. As in the human econ- omy, you may lose an arm, and yet be healthy and live long; you may lose a foot, and yet be healthy and live long; but if you lose the heart, or the brain, or the lungs, there is an end of you for this ivorld. In our body there are some organs that core essential, there are THE ENDURING WORD. 127 other organs that are very useful, and there are a few that are merely ornamental. It is the same with this blessed book ; there are certain truths in it essential ; there are other truths that are most valuable, and there are some that are ornamental; but none that are not true, and of importance to the conversion, the comfort, happiness, or progress of the human soul. Our blessed Lord says his word is truth ; truth without the least al- loy ; light reflected from words in which there is no de- flection whatever. We need not only to see an object, but we need to have a pure medium through which to see it ; and to find the way to heaven as inspired by the Spirit of God, it needs the pure medium of pure words, that we may see the way, the truth, and the life, in all its pristine purity and glory. His word is spirit and life. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and life.’’ Milton’s Paradise Lost” is poetry ; Cicero’s writings are eloquence, but Christ’s word is life. One other characteristic I must give. It is the admission of his enemies; Never man spake like this man.” What proud spirits has a single sentence from the Scripture humbled ; what broken hearts has it bound up ; Avhat sorrows has it diluted or washed away ; wdiat tears has it dried up ! Other voices leave echoes behind them ; this voice leaves a deep and perma- nent impression wherever it strikes ; it is the savor of life, the incorruptible seed, through Avhich we are born again. Now such is the character of Christ’s word, drawn from itself What does Christ say of this word? ^‘Heaven and earth shall pass away ; but my word shall not pass away.” 128 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. The empire of Caesar is gone ; the legions of Rome are mouldering in the dust ; the avalanches of Napoleon hurled upon Europe have melted away ; the pride of the Pharaohs is fallen ; the pyramids they raised to be their tombs are sinking every day in the desert sands ; Tyre is a rock for bleaching fishermen’s nets ; Sidon has scarcely left a wreck behind ; but the w^ord of Christ still sur- vives ; it speaks with undiluted emphasis, it spreads with uninterupted speed. All things that threatened to extinguish it have only aided it ; and it proves every day how transient is the noblest monument that man can build, how enduring is the least word that the Son of God has spoken. Tradition has dug for it many a grave, intolerance has lighted for it many a fagot ; many a Judas has betrayed it with a kiss ; many a Peter has de- nied it with an oath ; many a Demas has forsaken it ; but heaven and earth may pass away, but my word shall not pass away till all be fulfilled. Those things that once seemed to rise like mountain obstructions to its march are day by day dissolving like wreaths of snow in the sunshine, in contrast to the advancing and triumphant word of the Lord. The scepticism of Hume, and Rous- seau, and Paine, is now^ laughed at even by disbelievers in Christianity ; the objections of Strauss, urged a few years ago with great power and in the most plausible lan- guage, are now regarded as untenable even by those who are opposed to the Gospel. And the last and the only form of scepticism that we have now, if we exclude mere practical sceptism, is that of Emerson, and some who have arisen in the continent of America, who seem to .triumph in pulling down everything, but who have lost THE ENDURING WORD. 129 all idea of building up anything ; and their objections are so metaphysical, so fanciful, so transcendental, that they have only had effect with a few speculative minds ; they have made no impression upon the masses of man- kind. If we turn to other forms of error, Mahometan- ism is dying out ; Romanism is losing its influence ; and the hour is almost at hand when a voice shall ring from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and shall rise no more at all.’’ We see on every side evidence of the progress of the Bible ; and of the fulfilment of this prophecy ; and of the decadence or disappearance of all that stands in its way. And after heaven and earth have passed away, and a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth right- eousness, are come, will Christ’s w’ord cease then ? No ; the only change will be — all its promises will be enjoy- ments, all its prophecies history, all its invitations expe- rience ; and what is , now inscribed upon the parchment, or upon the frail paper, shall be inscribed upon all space as its glorious page, — the stars will be its magnificent letters, constellations will be its magnificent sentences ; the winds will whisper its sweet sounds, the waves in their chimes will give utterance to its glorious truths ; and that word so long persecuted, then enthroned and enshrined, will be the reference book of the redeemed in glory ; and ever as a Christian wants to trace and retread all the way through which God led him upon earth, he will take the chart in his hand with the experience in his heart ; and ever as he discovers a new place where he raised an Ebenezer here below, he will lift up a fresh song unto Him that loved him, and washed him from his sins in his 6 * 130 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. own blood, and hath made him a king and a priest unto his God. But this sentence shall be felt in hell, as well as enjoyed and realized in heaven. The lost in misery will be constrained to say, Heaven and earth have passed away, 0 God ; but thy word has not passed away. Thou didst say, He that believeth not shall be damned ; 0 God, it is true, hopelessly, terribly, without mitigation, without measure, without end, it is true. And the saved in heaven shall be able to say. He that believeth shall be saved ; 0 Lord, it is true, gloriously true. It will be discovered then that what we thought adjuncts were es- sentials, and what we thought exaggerated metaphors were literal truths ; and that the least promise, or bless- ing, or mercy, that Christ spoke or that the Spirit taught was never couched in exaggerated language, but rather in words not vast and magnificent enough to embody the glorious living truth. Christian believer, here is comfort, in the great tribu- lation to you. Of the least promise that you choose to select you may say. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but this promise shall not pass away. ‘‘ I will never leave thee ; I will never forsake thee this is not a ran- dom expression : nor language that needs to be diluted ; it is literally and strictly true, applicable to you, may be enjoyed by you, wLerever you are, and under what- ever circumstances you are placed. Hesitating, trembling one, who would be a Christian, and yet fears ; who be- lieves that the Gospel is true, and yet says, I wish I felt its power ; I wish I could believe ; I wish I could see my way as clearly to Christ and to happiness as you do. The way is plain ; Him that cometh unto me,’’ says THE ENDUKING WORD. 131 Christ, I will in no wise cast out.’’ Heaven and earth may pass away, but I will not cast him out. Do I ad- dress those who sigh and grieve over all they see around them ; heathen at home, darkness at our doors, vice in public places, sin everywhere ? There is a promise which will cheer you ; and what is it ? The whole earth shall be filled with my glory, saith the Lord of hosts.” Then remember you are on the winning side; a Christian is in a Phalanx that never can be permanently if it be temporarily beaten ; for the whole earth shall be covered with the glory of the Lord, as the Avaters of the ocean cover the channels of the great deep. If these words reach a preacher of the Gospel, there is comfort here for him also. One sometimes feels depressed to be doomed to ceaseless sowing, and never, or at all events rarely, reaping; but we are wrong. Ours is to fulfil the Master’s commission ; it is his to evolve the appropriate issue; and he himself has made the distinction; “One soweth, and another reapeth.” Some ministers excel in ploughing, harrowing, tearing up, and preparing the heart’s rugged soil, taking out its gnarled roots of wick- edness, in order that a second may come and sow the seed. He that sows the seed amid the tears of weeping eyes, as martyrs have sown it amid the blood of w^arm hearts, may never see the harvest ; but another av ill come in, and he will bring home the sheaves with joy rejoicing. We can therefore fall back upon this promise, and I must say * it is enough, “ My word shall not return unto me void.” If, therefore, we speak Christ’s truth, it is hardening some, it is softening others ; and where w^e can see no immediate issue at all, it is going forth upon the wings of 132 THE ailExVT TillBULATION- the wind to accomplish promised, pledged, and magnifi- cent results. We take therefore the words of advice of the poet, — “ Drop it where thorns and thistles grow, Scatter it on the rock ; Then when the glorious day, The day of God is come, The reapers shall descend, And heaven cry. Harvest home.” These are words of promise, and therefore of encour- agement. A greater than the poet has said, word shall not return to me void.’ This is the foundation of our hopes of success. LECTURE XXIX. A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY. beloved^ he not ignorant of this one tiling^ that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years^ and a thousand years as one day ,^^ — 2 Peter iii. 8. It is the obvious drift of the apostle, in these words, to vindicate God from the charge of what seems delay in fulfilling his promises to them that fear Him, and in exe- cuting judgments upon them that dishonor and disobey Him. You must not, says Peter, measure the greatness of God by a rule of human construction ; you must recol- lect that eternity is the measure of his' existence ; three- score and ten mete out ours ; and that on the great scale of an everlasting Being, a thousand years is less, rela- tively, than a single day is when measured and estimated in relation to the few and weary years that bound the pil- grimage of man. The idea that the sacred penman teaches us is, that our days are fleet and few ; that God’s days are endless and enduring ; and the practical infer- ence we are to draw from it is our duty to use the days, few or many, that God has given us, for those great and magnificent ends which will involve at once our highest happiness and God’s greatest glory. Man’s life since he sinned and fell, and still more since the Flood, has been (133) 134 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. likened to the most evanescent of created things. We read, ^‘Man spends his days as a tale that is told.’’ When you hear an interesting story, the echoes of which continue to ring in the cells of memory, it seems as if the time spent in telling it had been moments and not hours. So when you look back upon the past period of life, how rapidly it has rushed away ! Let the man who has crossed the keystone of life’s arch, and instead of ascending begins at length to descend, take a retrospect of the past period of his life ; does it not seem almost like a dream ? We can scarcely realize the thought that ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty years have passed away ; but we find the thought meetly and happily expressed by the inspired penman, we spend our days as a tale that is told.” Again, it is likened to a flower of the field; it is likened to the mountain torrent that rushes for a few hours full, or overflowing its banks, and then disappears and leaves only dry rocks in its channel. All nature seems exhausted of her choicest imagery to persuade us — how strange that we should need to be persuaded ! — that our days are few, and in many a weeping case full of sorrow. But so it is ; we admit the fact ; but of all facts it is one we least feel. A poet said in scorn — “ All men think all men mortal but themselves.” We believe abstractedly what we read ; but the diflSculty is to treat a grand truth as men sometimes treat a sinful feeling, to give it hospitality, and to cherish it, until that which was an applicant outside at the door, is received to the warm fireside of the heart, and is there wrought into the very w'oof and warp and tissue of our every-day life and feeling. Take home this varied imagery, so expres- A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY. 135 sive of the brevity of man’s life ; and when you feel it, do not say with the sensualist, We must soon die ; let us eat, and drink, and be merry : do not say with the monk. We must soon die ; let us leave the world and go into a convent: but let us say with the Christian, ‘‘The time is short ; it remains, therefore, that they that weep be as though they wept not ; and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not ; and they that buy, as though they possessed not ; and they that use the world, as not abusing it ; for the fashion of it speedily passeth away.” While speak- ing of years, and of our experience of what the years are, let me notice a very interesting truth that w^e are disposed sometimes to forget ; that not a minute, nor an hour, nor a day, nor a year sweeps over us without leav- ing influences, and impressions, and giving impulses that may never end. There is not a cloud that sw^eeps through the sky, and casts its shadow on the green field, that does not leave an influence and an impression upon the grass over which it has swept. Whether this be true or not, it is certainly true that there is not a year passes over us that does not alter the aspect of home, leave grey hairs to some, broken hearts to others, and testify its transit by gaps, and losses, and crosses, and bitter disappointments, and heavy trials, and heart-quakes worse than earthquakes : time as it sweeps over us leaves traces and footprints eternity will scarcely be able to efface. Let us notice some of these. Every section of time, however small it may be, alters the body itself. There is not a year that passes over the head which does not whiten some hair that was not whitened before, or leave on the outward physical system traces of its rough 136 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. / flood rushing through its many channels to the deep. I do not believe that we are physically at any one moment the same in all respects, however microscopic the changes may be, that we Avere a few hours or months before. It seems as if, in youth, time amused himself by decking every part of the body with beauty and with blossom, and it seems as if, after forty, time spent all his attention in picking off each flower and blossom, till all becomes sere, and withered, and old. During the first half of our life time is constantly giving ; during the last half time seems continually abstracting ; during the first building up and making more beautiful and strong ; dur- ing the last breaking down and making more feeble and frail : of a certainty not one of us is physically to-day what we were twelve months ago. I mean, of course, in outward condition ; ^some are older, others frailer ; the prints of the crow’s feet are multiplying above one’s eye ; the wrinkles of the retreating tide of life begin to appear upon the brow of another ; the heart has a more muffled beat, and the limbs feel less strong, the muscles are less elastic, and what is worse than all, the buoyancy of the heart is not what it was before. We are changed ; the times change, and in the current we are changed also. But each minute, day, and year, as they pass, leave an impression on the mind or the intellect just as truly as on the body. From infancy to maturer years intellect is developed, powerfully and unmistakeably developed ; but it does not follow that during the decline of life, when the body decays, the intellect decays proportiona- bly also. On the contrary, you will find in the old man, not indeed the same buoyant and soaring imagination A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY. 137 ihvd was in liis youth, but what is better, a ripeness of judgment, a maturity of experience, and a capacity of discriminating and distinguishing, altogether strange to the season of youth. I have long thought there is a great deal of nonsense talked and written in the newspapers, alleging the inca- pacity of old age. If I wished to have the mind that one could most rely on, and most defer to in the greatest crisis, it w^ould just be an old man with good health and an ex- perienced and ripened judgment. True, he could not lead the forlorn hope as he used to do ; he could not mix in the fray with all the energy with which a young soldier wars ; but then he compensates for the absence of these by other attributes. I do not believe that the mind decays with the body. But you say, Do we not see old men sometimes get very stupid ? I admit it. But what goes wrong ? It is not the mind ; it is only the machinery through which it acts that will not act as it once did. There is in mind more or less ceaseless development. Who can doubt that the mind of an adult at thirty years of age, and the mind of a child of seven or eight years of age, are totally dissimilar ? The chasm between the intelleet of Sir Isaac Newton, a baby on his mother’s knee, and the intellect of Sir Isaac Newton when it weighed in scales the orbs of the sky, and defined wdth majestic precision the density, the distance, and the velocity of every star, is very great. And should the future be, what we have reason to expect it w ill be, the ceaseless expansion and development of man’s intellect, I can in some degree anticipate what a grand home, what a blessed estate, what a glorious reward, will be the eternal heaven that is before every true and believ-’ 138 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. ing Christian. Our intellects change for the better as ive grow older. I am quite sure, to take a more humble illustration, when we think of what we said and did when we were young, we are ashamed. However little im- proved may be what I preach now, yet when I look back twenty years upon the notes of what I preached then, I am amazed that any one listened with patience to the very small talk I then uttered. One feels growth in one’s mind ; and it is a most delightful thought that one is growing wiser and more experienced, and more able to be useful and to instruct ; instead of feeling, what would be a great calamity, that one’s intellect decays, and one’s mental powers lose their elasticity, and one’s stores of instruction and reading become useless. Our feelings also are affected by the lapse and current of years. Experience modifies the exercise of feelings of one class, and resists the action of others that belong to another class. Time has dried up the springs of some feelings, but he has opened new springs and swelled the currents of other and of better feelings. Feelings to which we are now strangers were most familiar to us once ; and feelings that we now cherish will be very much stran- gers to us by and by. But above all in importance, the years as they sweep past are affecting our spiritual and moral condition. Our moral and spiritual nature is in a state of constant development and growth. This growth may not always be good : it may possibly be evil ; but growth there is ; stagnation in moral and spiritual devel- opment I believe there never is, and there never can be. Every act of liberality, every deed of goodness, every feeling and affection that we cherish, is becoming a habit, A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY. ISO and that habit is becoming a nature ; and every one is consolidating by the lapse of years a moral and a spiritual character that will only be developed more and more through endless ages, either in eternal misery or in eter- nal blessedness. And though it may be very true that the influence is noiseless as the flight of an angel’s wing, yet it is not the less mighty on that account. The cease- less falling of one drop of water will hollow a stone ; the ceaseless application of slight blows in continuous suc- cession will shake the strongest foundation. In the same manner thoughts become Avords, v/ords become acts, acts become habits, habits become life ; and that life lasts and endures for ever and ever. What a solemn thought then, we are builders for eternity ; and the yesterdays, the to- days, and the to-morrows, are the materials with which we are building up a superstructure that shall either glow amid the splendors of unsetting suns, or reflect the lurid glare of that fire that is not quenched, and of that mingled day and night which is for ever and ever. Well and justly, therefore, has the poet said — “ Build to-day then strong and stout, On a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place.” The years also alter our relations and relationships in life. Let any one look back a few years ; what changes have taken place ! I v/as one day trying to count the students with whom I sat at college on the same bench. I found so many dead, so many gone to distant lands, so many sunk weary with the march on the road to success, and such changes, that when I review and ponder them 140 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. all, I cannot help feeling somewhat melancholy and dis- tressed. But if you will not look back on a public field, but take your nearer one — the friends of your youth, where are they ? Echo can only answer, W-here are they ? Some of them turned into rivals, others into bitter foes ; some of their familiar faces passed into the shadoAV of the grave ; and voices that once were musical in your ears, hushed in the silence of the tomb ! And if you wdll go home this day, and look at your family at the close of the year ; the family that meets to-day under the same roof and at the same board, in a very few years, even in the case of the youngest mother, will be all scattered ; some dead and buried, some in distant lands, some strug- gling with or succumbing under the waves they cannot swim or wade through ; and so great changes in a few years will take place that when you visit the old home- stead it will look to you such an altered, changed thing, that you cannot believe that it once W'as home, or that there you spent many a merry Christmas, and wished many a happy new year. Such changes will speedily occur ; and if nothing else does it, they will constrain you to detach your affections from seeking a home below, and will lead you to lift them up, and seek where there is the true home — a place synonymous with the heaven of our Father. The flight of years will affect not only your relation- ships. but very materially your fortunes ; as they have affected the fortunes, and the whole condition of thousands. Men rich at the close of one year, are penniless at the close of another. The master of yesterday is the servant of to-day ; the statesman who one year leads the nation in A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY. 141 its march, another year is at the bottom of the ladder, de- pressed, and almost forgotten. The writer celebrated to- day, is cast aside for another to-morrow. The soldier whose name is synonymous with victory, and whose praises are on the nation^s lips, is forgotten too soon. Everything seems to have a date and a time, an entrance and an exit ; and all of them — oh ! with what impressive and thrilling eloquence — teach, Arise, and let us depart ; this is not your rest ; there remaineth a rest for the people of God. Such is the influence of the years as they pass by ; such the impressions they have left : and the sum total is, that more and more they are lessening the links and ties that knit us to this world. The great question is, are we mul- tiplying the bonds, and bands, and ties that bind us to a better world ? Time clearly is detaching the world from us, and us from the Avorld. Is eternity enlisting our sym- pathies, our hopes, our thoughts, and our prospects with it ? Having thus looked at the year in its individual influ- ence, let me now look at it in its social — I might almost say — national influence. Look at the sweep of past years. What a year of commercial hurricane is one ! — houses of business, supposed to be built upon the rock, have yielded like straw huts to the overwhelming mountain torrent. Merchants that started in 1857, like strong men ready to run a race, have scarcely enough to maintain them decent- ly with bread, as far as they can see, during the remain- der of a life-time : and, what is worse, widows and orphans, that trusted their all where they ought not to have trusted any, are deprived of the little amount bequeathed by a husband, or the little savings which they had accumulated 142 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. hy their industry ; and are left dependent upon the charity, it may be of the uncharitable, during the remainder of their weary life. Battle fields have awful spectacles of shattered limbs : but there must be, after a commercial hurricane, broken hearts — not so visible, but more terrible and awful still. May it not be, that every such great con- vulsion has a meaning ? I think it is all very well to say, it w'as speculation, over- trading, want of caution. It is wonderful how wise we are after — not before ; and how prone we are always to find out causes, and excuses, and palliations. These secondary causes may be plausible ; but I believe there are higher causes at work that alone explain all. Trust not in uncertain riches. We see with what force that single adjective comes up — uncer- tain riches.’’ Many a man believes that epithet to-day, who laughed at it as an exaggerated hyperbole lately. Do not these things also teach us another lesson ? If riches increase, wdiich is not sinful ; on the contrary, I like to see a man industrious, and getting rich by his in- dustry — but, if riches increase, set not your heart upon them. Now, I will tell you why : if you be a Christian, if God see you setting your heart upon any one thing beneath Himself, that is the one thing that God will sweep away. And, therefore, I warn every man, upon the au- thority of God’s word, that whatever be the thing that he is setting his mind upon so much that it dislodges God, and displaces the homage that he owes to Him, — as sure as any are living Christians, God will smite the idol in its niche, and create in the chasm it leaves behind a thirst for God, the living God. May there not be another lesson taught us by these commercial convulsions — namely. A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY. 143 what Christ said 1800 years ago — Riches make to them- selves wings, and flee away?’’ Let us mark well the words : it does not say that you make wings for them ; this you could easily understand ; but, by some myste- rious law under the control of God, riches that you have accumulated and have worshipped, make to themselves wings, and flee away. And may we not also learn from all this, that the loss of earthly riches has been to some the gain of riches that never fade? — that they who were rich in money yesterday, are poor in it to-day, but rich in faith ? And, at all events, there is one lesson passing times do most deeply impress ; and that is, the old lesson, — Set not your afiections upon things that are beneath, but upon things that are above.” Should great losses dislodge from our country’s heart, that growing, miserable, contemptible worship of Mammon, which was beginning to be substi- tuted for the worship of the living God, its painful disci- pline will be matter of thankfulness for ever. I think of all pride, purse pride is the most detestable. I can understand a man being proud of his lineage ; sinful as that is, there is something noble in it : I can understand a man being proud of his learning ; I can understand a woman being proud of her beauty ; sinful as it is, wrong as it is, yet there is something magnanimous or real in these. But for a man to be proud that he has made thousands by chicanery, or by cheating, or, if you like, by honest industry : to be prou 1 that he has been able to scrape together so much trash that we call gold, is a detestable sin ; and if God has opened our eyes to see its meanness and its detestable nature, apart from its sin- 144 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. fulness, we will thank God in after years for the com- mercial earthquake of recent days. But if we cast our eyes abroad, there have been, as I have often alluded to, yet more terrible scenes. You remember how we all felt during the Russian w’ar, when the brave, the strong, the wise, that could defy the Rus- sian foe, fell before pestilence, and plague, and hunger, and nakedness, and cold ; you remember what an awful impression it made upon the country ; and what vows of reformation, what great changes for the better were to take place ; and men certainly felt solemnized as they had never been solemnized before. The Russian war has ceased ; at least a lull has taken place ; we just begin to get as purse-proud, as forgetful, as grasping, as world- ly, as we were before. And the strange fact is, that v^e never look at these things, such is our nature, as God’s judgments ; I will not say that, but as God’s chastise- ment for special sins ; we are always sure to select a scapegoat. It is wonderful to see how man likes the idea of atonement when it suits his selfishness ; ho»7 little he likes it in its own grand and spiritual beauty. If anything goes wrong, it is some statesman ; if a bat- tle is lost, it is some commander-in-chief ; all that, I be- lieve, we are not competent judges of ; but we are very competent in our opinions of ourselves, and we fancy that whoever is to blame we are not ; whereas it is God wak- ing us to a sense of responsibilities we never felt before, and teaching us at the cannon^s mouth lessons we would not learn from the lips of his consecrated preachers. Af- ter the Russian war had ceased, and all its scenes had passed away, a war ten times more severe, more disas- A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY. 145 trous. more terrible, without the moral grandeur of the Russian war, because it was a mutiny of revolted soldiers and subjects, absorbed the thoughts and anxieties of the nation. I am sure I do not exaggerate when I say there is scarcely a family in England that has not been in some way affected by the scenes that transpired in India; scarcely a parsonage in England — I am sure there is scarcely a manse in Scotland — that has not its dead on Indian plains to weep over, and forebodings about the living exposed to perils greater than those encountered by the dead, over which to pray, and ponder, and meditate, j Our brilliant and our rapid victories have not been with- out bitter and terrible losses ; and I have not the least doubt that the gloomiest Christmas spent in England for half a century, if not for a whole one, was Friday, the 25th of December, 1857. Many who were strong, young, and hopeful are now numbered with the dead ; many left behind who with heroism, and hope, and courage, long struggled amidst tremendous difficulties, encountering terrible resistance; some wounded, others starved, others injured in health, so that when they come home they will be but the shattered wrecks of what they once were. Nothing I think can lead one to tolerate war except a deep sense that it is an awful and inevitable duty. But when we review that Indian war, the cruelties inflicted, the sufferings endured, the hairbreadth escapes, one is constrained to feel there cannot be chance in it ; it cannot be accident ; it is God teaching our country a les- son. Do not blame the government ; do not blame the East India Company ; blame ourselves, blame our sins, blame our selfishness, our avarice, our love of wealth, all that 7 146 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. Tve have done that we ought not to have done, and all that we have left undone that we ought to have done. But even this sore calamity was not without interming- ling lights that are of most precious value to us. For in- stance, we may see in the Indian war that some lessons have come out that we would not learn before, which it has most emphatically taught us. We have learnt, for instance, first of all, that our Indian empire is to be re- tained not by the prestige of a grand name, nor at the point of the bayonet, nor by the fear and terror that we can strike to the hearts of a very susceptible and sensi- tive race ; the only hope of India’s being continued as an appanage of our grand empire is the thorough Chris- tianization of it from its one end to the other. We re- member how often we tried to teach this at our mission- ary meetings, but it fell powerless and cold. It has now been taught in the most impressive and unmistakable way. In Bengal Christianity had no hold ; the Brah- min was absolute in his power ; the Christian missionary dare not hint to a Sepoy that there was a Savior, Christ the Lord. What is the history of Bengal ? There the revolt had its focus ; from thence it radiated over India ; and it is the Bengalese Sepoys who have murdered women, tossed infants on their bayonets, and left hun- dreds of women in India at this moment, I am told, who prefer (what an awful fact !) to be registered at home as dead, than to present themselves mutilated, as these fiends in human shape have left them. But, mark the contrast. Go to Madras, where Christianity has struck its roots the deepest, where its light has spread the widest, where there are hundreds, I mean in the sur- A THOUSAND YEARS AS ONE DAY. 147 rounding districts, of Christian temples, and where mis- sions have been most successful ; the territory of Madras has been comparatively peaceful. Is it possible to es- cape the conviction that the revolt has been great, cruel, and barbarous, just where Christianity was least known ? and that peace and loyalty have abounded most, just where the seeds of Christianity had been most widely scattered, and had grown up into the largest and most luxuriant harvests ? This lesson thus taught us, I hope, will never be forgotten. Another lesson has been taught us — that education without Christianity may be a curse, it never can be a blessing. Nana Sahib, the instigator of those cruel and barbarous murders, was educated at a secular school ; he never was infected by the presence of a Bible, he never had his mind modified by a lesson from it; he was educated at an out-and-out secular Indian school ; he knows mathematics, and sciences, and litera- ture, and politics, just as well as we do. Education without religion can give you a Nana Sahib ; it is educa- tion, saturated by the word of the living God, that mil make a nation what it has made us — a land of subjects whose obedience is mingled loyalty and love ; presided over by a Sovereign whose mightiest bulwarks, and best bayonets and defence, are the affections of her people ; a land on whose wide domains the sun never sets ; a land, the roll of whose conquering drum is still the warning to the oppressor that vengeance is at his heels, and to the oppressed that deliverance is at hand. As the last lesson, I would say. Redeem the time. You cannot recall the past, you cannot retain the pres- ent; you may charge the hours of the future with new 148 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. and intenser duties and sacrifices. And also seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all other things will be added unto you.’’ And finally, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do,” of goodness, of love, of charity, do it with all thy might, for there is no device nor work in the grave, whither we are all hasting.” LECTURE XXX. THE heart’s desire. Man as we find him is not at home : he cannot domes- ticate himself here. Dissatisfied, he longs to go where all is perfection without alloy. This grand issue is com- ing on the earth. For' in this wegr'oan^ earnestly desiring to he cloth- ed upon with our house which is from heaven ; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan^ being burdened : not for that we would be unclothed.^ but clothed upon., that mortality might be swallowed up of life . — 2 Corinthians v. 2 — 4. We at once perceive, from the imagery employed in this passage, that the soul is regarded as the inhabitant, per- fect and complete in all its functions ; and that the body, ^ that body which the soul lives in, is likened to a gar- ment, which may be put off without the soul being scath- ed, or put on again without the soul being intrinsically altered ; less a part of itself, more a clothing for its pro- gress and communication upon earth. If this be so, then death is simply the putting off of that outward garment which is here employed to describe the body, and has no (149) 150 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. more effect upon the integrity and grandeur of the im- mortal inhabitant within than my undressing at night has upon the integrity and perfection of the body that wears the clothes to defend it from the cold. If this idea be correct, then at death we merely disrobe; or put off the frail earthly garment that we have long worn. It may pine and w^aste by disease ; it may be shattered by shell or shot upon the field of battle ; it may be sunk into the depths of the desert sea ; but all we do at death is simply to disrobe ourselves of that which is not part of ourselves, but the mere garment that shelters and pro- tects the soul, until that soul is ready to lay aside the robes in which it ministered as a Levite in the temple below, and to ascend and minister where it needs no such robe, in the presence of God and of the Lamb forever. Now then, if this idea be the correct one, that the body is the simple garment in which the soul is wrapped, learn very important lessons, lessons that will be comfort- ing to many that are bereaved. Man is still man, whether clothed in fur, or purple, or fine linen, or clad in miserable rags. The outer dress may be elegant,. or it may be mean ; it may be rich or it may be the reverse ; but the wearer is the same. Man is man in rags, or in purple and fine linen. So the soul is not touched nor altered in its value, in its intrinsic excellence and glory, by the weakness nor the frailty of the body ; and still less when the body is put off and laid in the grave, to wait for that day when the roll of the resurrection trumpet shall penetrate the homes of the living, and the sepulchres of the dead ; and the dead shall come forth, no more arrayed in the frail and cling- THE HEART'S DESIRE. 151 ing garments of decay, but in coronation robes ; the bride having made herself ready to enter with the bride- groom into the palace of the Great King. The existence of the soul, therefore, is not bound up with the existence of the body ; it may be an advantage to the soul ; we know it will be so in the future ; it is necessary now ; but in the future, after the resurrection, it will not oTaly be necessary, but useful and ornamental. But we can conceive, what we are sure of from the assertion of Scrip- ture, that the soul can exitt separate from the body ; that it is not mutilated in its functions, or in its prerog- atives, or in its powers, by the laying down of the body. The house is not the inhabitant, the clothing is not the wearer, the body is not the man ; it is merely an append- age, something added to the man ; and soul and body may be disintegrated and divorced, and yet life not destroyed ; their connection is a contingency, not an absolute and in- evitable necessity. It is very true, and there is no doubt of this, that our present existence is such that we cannot feel the possibility of the soul existing separate from the body ; they are so linked together, and the po'wers of the one so interpenetrate the functions of the other, that we cannot from present experience realize the possibility of the soul existing separate from the body. And yet there are moments when we can almost gather an idea of the possibility. We are immersed in thought ; w^e are busy examining or working out, a profound, a deep, an abstract problem. How often — I appeal to every thinker — when seated in your study, has the clock struck, have bells chimed, servants gone out and come in ; and yet you have heard nothing, and recollect nothing, though you may 152 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. have been seated three or four hours : all sorts of noises, from children up to visitors, have been going on, and yet you are utterly unconscious of any. What does that show ? That the soul needs to disentangle itself from its earthly tenement in order to be capable of its noblest ef- forts ; and that there are moments when the soul seems not to lay aside, but in some degree to disburden itself of its earthly clothing, in order to rise to its loftiest flights, and think most deeply, feel most keenly, and act in all it does with greatest power. Now what is all this ? A sort of dim type and prefiguration of what we are when absent from the body, but, in the language of the apostle, present with the Lord. I proceed to bring these ideas before you, under a three-fold shape. First, let us consider man as clothed upon — that is, as having a body in this present life ; secondly, let us think of man as unclothed, when he is absent from the body, and present with the Lord ; and then let us, in the next place, view man in his last and perfect state, when he shall be reclothed with his resur- rection and his glorified body. The three great divisions, then, of man’s history are, — man clothed upon, man un- clothed, and man reclothed with his robes of glory and of beauty. I have said the body is the garment of the soul : and you will mark another thought — the body has no life in itself, as far as we know ; its life is derived from its connection with the soul. In man, at least, the moment that the soul goes, that moment the body ceases to live, but because the body ceases to live, it does not follow — and we are sure it does not follow — that the soul also ceases to live. In fact, the soul is quite independent of. THE HEAKT’S DESIKE. 153 and distinct from the body ; and indicates it is so in many things. The brain is not the soul ; ho^Y absurd in any one to maintain that man’s soul is what is called the pineal gland ; that is, a part of the brain, which has been analyzed by chemists, and shown to be made up of phos- phate of lime ! Now phosphate of lime could not write Shakspeare’s dramas : phosphate of lime could not com- pose Milton’s Paradise Lost. And the same phosphate of lime is found in animals ; and yet they do not write, nor think, nor indicate the intellectual powers that man has. The truth is, the brain is to the soul precisely what the hand is to the body ; that is all. And when the brain is hurt, you say. Is not the mind — identifying the mind Avith the soul — affected ? I answer. No ; I do not believe it : some may doubt the thought, but I can see clearly its foundation, that in the most thorough lunatic the soul retains its integrity, as completely as in Sir Isaac New- ton or John Locke. You ask. Then why is it that every- thing is wrong ? that he cannot exhibit the ideas, or utter the Avords, or do the actions of a rational and intelligent man ? I ansAver, The defect is not in the soul, but in the instrument through and Avith Avhich it Avorks. You see the first musician of the age placed at a piano or at a harp ; he tries to play, but there is nothing but discord. Why ? Not that the minstrel’s fingers liaA^e lost their cunning, but that the instrument through which he acts is out of tune. So in the case of the lunatic ; it is not the soul AAuthin that has lost its mighty functions, but it is the instrument through A\Lich it makes music in the ear of a listening world that will not respond, and exe- cute its high behests. The brain influences the nerA^e, 7 * 154 THE GREAT TiUBULATIGE. the nerve influences the muscle ; but all this is but the complicated machinery through which the soul acts on this world. In a higher sphere, the machinery may be dissolved, the garment thrown off, and the soul will then and there be able to act without a medium of matter or of flesh at all. While this is true, it cannot be doubted that, in our present state, the body, though an instrument, does color all the decisions, the feelings, the thoughts, the actions of the soul. In the resurrection state, the body Avill be the exact exponent of inner thought, inner desire, inner feeling ; because the body then will be perfect : but in our present state, the body is so far the exponent of what the mind thinks, what the will resolves, ^vhat the heart feels ; but then, sin having crept into this outer garment of clay — the moth having fretted and injured this exquisitely woven texture — you find now that the body gives its coloring to your thoughts : in the language of Saint Paul, you find a law in the members warring against, instead of carrying out the law of the mind ; so that an apostle, under a deep sense of that disastrous in- fluence, exclaimed in his agony, Wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death Now, in the resurrection state, as I shall show, the body will be the exact expression of what is in the mind, the .heart, and the will; and in this world it would be so, were it not that the body is crippled, diseased, defiled : but when all this defilement shall be removed — A^hen all its imperfections shall be taken away — when the dim mists that now cover the eye shall be dissolved — when the grey hairs shall again be restored to their original color — when strength, and vigor, and beauty, and immortality shall TPIE heart's desire. 155 all be together the resplendent prerogatives of the resus- citated raiment; then man’s mind will find a meet chan- nel for its expressions, and we shall then think no more, nor think any more through a glass darkly, but face to face. So much for our first condition — clothed upon.” Let me now look at the second — unclothed. Now this con- dition, unclothed, comes — who can possibly doubt or deny it — nearer and nearer every day. Every ache that you feel, every feebleness of which you are conscious, all show that the vital force is being exhausted by wear and tear ; and that the tide of life is ebbing from the shores of the senses on which it has so long, and so divinely beaten. Disease touches the springs of one ; old age Avears out the vigor and exhausts the energy of another ; and by-and-by we drop the garment no longer fit for us to Avear, and we do not folloAY it, but leave it in the grave, and ascend to the presence of our Father and Christ’s Father, of our God and Christ’s God. This idea then shoAVS, in the sec- ond place, that when a Christian dies he merely takes off his garment. When you lie down at night to sleep, and undress, you do not leave Avith your dress any portion of the body ; the body retains its perfection and integrity. And when you lay doAvn your dress in the last Avardrobe of all, the grave, the soul does not go Avith the body, but leaves it there in the hope of the resurrection from the dead, and goes unclothed into the presence of Him Avho is a Spirit, and who is worshipped in spirit and in truth. Hence, those who we say in human language die, merely throw off the outer robe in Avhich they haA^e ministered in the world ; they lay aside not life, but its restraints ; they do not cease to be, they only cease from being seen ; they 156 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. do not leave life, they only leave us ; they retain con- science, memory, with all its sweet and its hallowed recol- lections, sensibility, intellect, thought ; they may see iis, though we cannot see them ; we are said to be surrounded with a great cloud of vfitnesses, and that cloud of wit- nesses are said to be the spectators of the race ; and there is in this one incentive to wdiatsoever things are pare, and just, and lovely, that not only love to Him that has redeemed us, but the recollection of those that have left us, should stimulate our hearts to run the race set before us with patience, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our fixith. Of those then that have laid the garment of the body in the grave, these are the thoughts and the only descriptions we need. ^‘Absent from the body, present wnth the Lord.’^ I desire,” says Paul, to depart, and be with Christ.” No purgatorial tor- ment between ; no insensibility, as some are trying to show, between ; but the instant the garment is laid in the grave, that instant the w^earer has entered into the con- scious glory of his blessed Lord. And this very thought should teach us that it is not so terrible a thing after all to die. True, we have worn the robe long that has well fitted us, and we should like to wear it still, if it will only hang together ; true, we have lived in a house, every nook, and corner, and room of which we are fami- liar with, and we would like to live in it still; but the rains enter here, and the winds blow in there, and the w^alls are decaying elsewhere; and we must leave i , whether we like it or not. And so when we die, it is simply the last time we undress upon earth, that is all ; and the indestructible thought goes with me, almost TRE heart's L-E3IRE. 157 like a note of the resurrection voice, that I do not suffer, I do not become insensible, I do not go down to the grave ; on the contrary, I am more conscious of my powers, feel loftier and grander capabilities than ever ; and when I have laid down the garment of the body, I have but laid down the limits and restrictions on my actions, and shall never feel so free as when I am unclothed upon, and death is swallowed up of life. This leads me, therefore, in the third place, to notice the fact that one day, a day tlie distance or the "nearness of which no arithmetic of' ours can calculate, we shall be reclothed. We are here clothed, but with bodies that sin has defiled, and weakened, and rendered imperfect vehi- cles of our volition ; we are, till the resurrection, uncloth- ed ; that is to say, we are present with Christ, but we have no body ; but when the resurrection comes, then we are told here, in the language of the apostle, we shall be clothed upon. What a glorious thought is that ! we leave the frail, tainted garment upon earth, every thread of which is tinged with sin ; we leave it in the grave, where it lies the pledge and the prophecy that we shall return with Christ, and resume it, not another, but a new body ; this mortal having put on immortality. It matters not where the body is deposited, for every atom of its dust is in the keeping of the Son of God ; whether it lie under a marble mausoleum, or beneath a monument of bronze, or in the depths of the largest Pyramid, or be ‘ sunk in the desert sea, the grave of empires and of indi- viduals ; or if it be shattered, and torn, and buried wliere it fell upon the battle-field, it matters not ; every atom is in the kee, ing of Christ ; as closely watched, as thor- 158 THE GHEAT TRIBULATION. oiighly taken care of, as if it were already glorified, and amid the splendors and the glories of the beatific vision. This very mortal shall put on immortality; this very corruptible shall put on incorruptibility,’’ The apostle’s reasoning is most remarkable ; he was himself, as every- body knows, a diminutive and a deformed man ; and when he uttered these Avords — for he preached them as well as wrote them — he laid his hand upon his breast, so unpro- phetic of aught that Avas grand, and he said, This very mortal shall put on immortality; this very corruptible shall put on incorruptibility, and death shall be SAvalloAved up in victory ; it is soAvn in corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body ;” not a spirit, but a spiritual body. And therefore Ave see the resurrection is not the elimination from the great mass of the earth of a body of some sort for each ; it is not the extraction of indefinite humanity for each individual soul ; but it is the resurrection of that very body that you laid in the grave ; and its reinvest- ment with a glory, a perfection, and a beautjT'j Avhich Adam and Eve, when they came forth from the plastic hands of God, never realized. So real is this, that there is not one feature that lies hidden in the shadoAV of death that shall not come out, and be reproduced in the living countenance in all its perfection at the resurrection morn ; there is not one tone that has been like music beneath your roof tree, that peculiar tone in each man’s voice by Avhich I can distinguish indiAnduals better than by tlie features that I look on, that shall not be resuscitated, only in more musical and beautiful reverberations; there shall be nothing in those you call dead peculiar to them as THE HEART S DESIRE. 159 individuals, constituting what we call their idiosyncrasy, that shall not be resuscitated, purified, beautified, glori- fied ; so that the mother shall know her infant then better than she knew it on earth, and the sister shall know her sister, and the father shall know his child, and the child shall know his father, far more perfectly than before. There is something wTong in our present state, that prevents the countenance from being the full expres- sion of what is going on within. I have noticed, as I have gazed on the face of the dead, that five or six or twelve hours after death the features resume a calm and composure that tempts the nearest and the dearest to say. He is more like himself than he ever was before.” What is that ? The battle is finished, the struggle is done ; the conflict between an imperfect body that imper- fectly reflects the volitions of the mind, and the mind ever anxious to speak out its true thoughts, is ended ; and it drops into that soft and beautiful repose of victory that is a dim prefiguration of that day when it shall rise in unknown beauty and perfection, and be the bright clothing for the immortal and the glorified soul. This thought is so precious in the mind of the apostle, that throughout the whole New Testament the Christian is represented as longing for his resurrection. ‘‘Not,” he says, “ that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon ;” not that w^e have any pleasure in dying ; a person can have no pleasure in feeling a prick in his finger, a sting in his hand ; and so death is pain ; death is unnatu- ral ; it is superinduced by sin. And therefore the apostle says, “ Not that we would be unclothed upon;” but we are willing to go through the painful process, for the sake 160 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. of the splendid glory that shall be revealed ; we. are willing to wade the deep, cold, and chilling stream for the sake of the sweet sunshine that lies upon the moun- tain beyond ; we are willing to be unclothed, that we may get rid of this impediment to our best and holiest purpo- ses ; and that we may be clothed upon with that glorious exponent of all we think and feel, which will be perfect. And, hence, throughout the New Testament, we read that God’s people groan within themselves, waiting for the redemption of the body — not the creation of a body — but the redemption of the body. From these three facts, man clothed in this mortal life, as he is ; secondly, man unclothed, when he leaves it, and enters into the presence of God ; and thirdly, man re- clothed upon, Ave gather some useful and comforting les- sons. First, what you intrust to the graA^e is not your father, nor your mother, nor your sister, nor your son ; you intrust to its keeping only the no longer useful gar- ment that your son, your daughter, your sister, your mother, your father, have left behind them. The graA^e has not them in its keeping ; it has only this garment Avhich they have cast away, to wait in heaven for that better and more beautiful apparel Avhich Christ, the re- surrection and the life will provide. In the second place, those Ave call dead are really and truly more alive, if I may so speak, than we. The Christian that we call dead, truly and nobly lives. Then what is the change that takes place ? Our dead may at this moment be nearer us than our friends across the Tweed, or across the Chan- nel, or in India, or in America ; they may be nearer to us than our next-door neighbors. But Avhat is the reason THE heart’s desire. 161 that we cannot communicate with them ? Two friends are corresponding between different lands ; some mis- chievous person, or some accident snaps the working wire ; there is the machinery at the one end, there is the ma- chinery at the other ; there are the waiting friends, but there is no communication. Why ? The medium of the communication has been interrupted, that is all ; and the minute that it is restored, the communication that was sus- pended is restored also. Well, the difference bet wen our dead and us is just this : we cannot now speak to them, and they cannot speak to us ; we cannot communicate with them — Why ? Because the body is essential to commun- ion between spirit and spirit in this present state of life. All that has been interrupted is the medium of commu- nication. But your dead son, your dead sister, lives as truly as you do ; only the body, that is necessary in our present condition as a medium of communication, has been dissolved and laid in the grave ; and, therefore, communion cannot be maintained ; sweet words of friend- ship cannot be reciprocated ; kind looks of welcome can- not be transmitted ; you must wait till both are reclothed upon with that body that is from heaven. How injurious is it in this life to dwell only upon what we see and what we hear ! You do not estimate a friend’s excellence by the richness of the clothes she wears, or the jewels by which she is adorned ; these are not the person. And so you must not estimate a friend, or those with whom you are associated in life, by the beauty or the perfection of the material garment that they wear. There is attrac- tion in beauty ; there must be whilst sense and sight gaze upon these things ; but the true Christian must look be- 162 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. yond or penetrate these, and see an adorning far more beautiful than gold, and silver, and pearls, and precious stones ; namely, the hidden man of the heart, which is not corruptible ; even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price. Su- preme devotion to what relates to the body, ministers to and gratifies its tastes, should never be the dominant thought of man. In other words, we must think what we shall eat and what we shall drink ; but the sin is in think- ing with too absorbing a thought what we shall eat and what we shall drink. We must think, and we must pre- meditate wherewithal we shall be clothed ; but the sin lies in thinking too much about it. And hence an enlightened man looks down with contemptuous pity upon those who seem to regard their raiment as their chief ornament ; and whose only worth seems to be that of the cinnamon tree, the excellence of which is in the bark, not in the wood or fruit ; and whose personality seems to be absorbed in what they stand upright in. But if you look down with con- temptuous pity upon such, it is only one stage higher, if indeed it be higher, if the whole of your thought is ab- sorbed about what shall adorn the body, what shall min- ister to its tastes. When all these things, which are necessary in their place, are made predominant and ab- sorbing, then man falls from his grandeur as an immortal, and sinks down to the level of the very brutes that perish. Do we not learn from all this the vast importance of seeking to adorn the soul ? I do not believe what is called physical plainness of face ; let there be an illu- minated mind, let there be a meek, gentle, holy heart ; let there be contentment within ; and the countenance THE IIEAHT’S desire. 163 'vvill be irradiated with a beauty that no arrangement of flesh and blood can possibly communicate. Let me remind you, all you lay out upon the body is a bad investment ; it must all be consigned to the worm and the grave. Not one atom of what you lay out in pampering its appetites, in ministering to its tastes, in clothing and beautifying it — not one particle of that will ever be raised again at the resurrection day. But, on the other hand, what you lay out upon the soul — if I speak to merchants I touch a chord that must vibrate in your hearts — what you lay out upon the soul is a thoroughly sure, ever increasing, ever growl- ing investment ; all that you have shed upon it of beauty, all that you have trained in it of excellence ; all that you have added to that soul of embellishment ; every holy bias you have given it ; every holy affection you have kindled in it, will all appear again in perfection. Oh ! miserable men, who are investing their all in the flesh that must be laid aside in the grave ; and investing nothing, where investment is eternal, in that soul that liveth for ever and ever. What shall it profit a man if he gain’’ — which is not certain — ‘Hhe whole world, and lose his own soul ?” These thoughts mitigate, in the case of mourners, all the painful thoughts that they often feel about the grave. The heart of the weeper longs to know where and what their departed are. They know the fact that they live ; they do not know how they live. And w hat a picture gallery is the memory of many a Christian upon earth, stored with the images of them that have gone — images that they value more than all the master-pieces of Europe — but, blessed thought, images in the memory that are prophets of the restoration of their holy and beloved 164 THE GKEAT TEIBULATIOH. originals. What therefore we know about those that are gone is this — that, at least, they are happy, in glory, safe in Christ here ; they are with Christ, which is perfect happiness in heaven. And how delightful then that the seeds we have cast into the earth shall grow again ; that the voices whose tones linger in our ears shall be heard again, and that every atom of dust shall come forth the instant that Christ’s voice penetrates the recesses of the grave, ‘‘Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment!” All that pain has wrestled with, all that disease has disfigured, all that decay has transmuted, shall emerge again in beauty and perfection. Death has gleaned the treasure, transplanted the flower, reaped the wheat ; but not one portion of the treasure shall be lost, not one flower that death has laid in the grave shall be withered or faded ; not one thing you call your own but shall appear again. Happ}?' thought, blessed expectancy for the people of God ! Earth’s palaces part with their glory every day ; earth’s riches take wings and flee away ; but all the good that we do, still more all the good that, by the inspiration of the Spirit, we accumulate within — faith, patience, gentleness, meekness, charity, love, hope — shall all be resuscitated ; and once clothed upon on earth, weeping because of its imperfections ; unclothed upon in heaven, and waiting and hoping for the resurrection day ; we shall be reclothed again in that glorious garment which shall never be laid aside, but worn as a trophy of what Christ has purchased, and what his word has promised — the meet companion of a holy, a happy, and a glorified soul. Let us then be less concerned about the cares of time ; more deeply and solemnly ponder the realities of a world THE HEART S DESIRE. 165 to come. Day by day, one after another is dropping into the tomb ; whose turn will it be next ? What is it that keeps ever beating that thing we call the heart ? I have often told you it cannot be explained except by this ; God gives it its every pulse ; God’s finger keeps it going. When He shall bid it stop, when He shall Avithdraw his touch. He only knows ; but this lesson is ever for us. Be ye ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Master cometh.” LECTURE XXXL THE FIEST RESURRECTION. If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the deadP — Phillippians iii. 11. Paul states in the previous part of the chapter, as we have seen, the great distinctions he enjoyed as a Jew : — Circumcised the eighth day f and therefore no ceremony was wanting; ^‘of the tribe of Benjamin,’’ — the noblest of the twelve ; an Hebrew of the Hebrews,” — without the least admixture of Gentile blood ; as touching the law,” one of the most popular and dignified sects, a Pharisee.” As to conduct, it was perfectly consistent with these proud pretensions. My zeal was displayed in persecuting the detested Christians ; and as to the righteousness which has come from fasting, paying tithes, observing the feasts, the rubric, and the rituals of the law, — in that respect, I was perfectly blameless. But how altered! ^^What things were gain to me,” those things I thought to be aids and impulses to my course to heaven ; those things w^hich I thought would weigh so heavily in the scale in my favor, I have now learned by the teaching of the Spirit of God to count — what Paul counted the cargo in his vessel when it tvas tossed in the storm — to be loss ; so that I fling all overboard, and regard it as truly worth- less in comparison of the excellency of Christ Jesus my Lord. ( 166 ) THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 167 This conclusion, he says, is not a rash one, rashly taken up to be rashly laid down; for I have experience of the cross, I have suffered the loss of all things,’’ — honor, rank, dignity, prospect, preferment — I have suffered the loss of all. Do I regret it? Just the reverse. In- stead of wishing I had never made the exchange, I re- joice in it. Did you ever hear any man regret that he had sacrificed that which he loved most in order that he might love, and know, and obey the Savior, and be found in Him,” — as a branch is in the vine, as a living member is in the body ? Not having mine own right- eousness,” whether it be the righteousness that preceded his conversion, in w^hich he was blameless, or the right- eousness which succeeded his conversion, in his sanctifi- cation and conformity to God’s law ; not having that — it is what I cannot trust in — which is of the law ; but that righteousness w^hich is through the faith of Christ,” — a righteousness not produced by me, but re- ceived by me ; a righteousness perfect on its reception, incapable of increase, and proof against decrease ; the righteousness wliich is of God by faith : that I may know Him,” — as if his past knoAvledge of Him was but the twilight of a brighter knowledge that was to come. A Christian’s progress in the knowledge of Christ is end- less; and the powder of his resurrection, and even the fellowship of his sufferings,” I am willing to take part in all respects. In short, I am willing to be conformed to his death, to be crucified, if it be for his glory, and for the good of his people. And then he adds, ‘‘If by any means” — any amount of suffering, any amount of trial, 168 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. any amount of toil — I might attain unto the resurrec- tion of the dead.’’ Let me notice the three great resurrections, — first, the resurrection of Christ; next, the resurrection of his“-' people ; and thirdly, the peculiar and emphatic resurrec- tion which Paul labored that he might attain to : and I should just like to add how large a portion of Scrip- ture the resurrection of Christ occupies, as well as our own. The resurrection of Christ was foretold by the ancient prophets. Psalm xvi. 10 : Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades ; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Isaiah xxvi. 19: ‘‘Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust : for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” His resurrection was foretold by himself. Mathew xx. 19 : “ They shall deliver the Son of man to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him : and the third day he shall rise again.” The Pharisees themselves admitted that Christ predicted his own resur- rection; for they came to Pilate, and said, “That de- ceiver said while he was yet alive, “ After three days I will rise again.” You have, therefore, our Lord’s pre- diction of it most explicit. This resurrection of Christ is said to have taken place by the power of God the Father. Acts ii. 24 : “ Whom ^ God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death : because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” Romans viii. 11 : “ But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 169 up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in youl’ It is said, in the next place, to have taken place by Christ’s own power : Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. I have power to lay down my life, and power to take it again.” Now, this is the most wonderful statement of all. One can understand that a dead man should be raised by an Omnipotent God external to him ; but one cannot understand, in the common knowledge and experience of life, that a dead man should raise himself. The fact that he is dead im- plies inability. The fact that Christ raised himself from the dead is one of the grand evidences of his own Deity. He is said, in the next place, to have been raised by the Holy Ghost : Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” The resurrection of Christ was attested by angels : “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not dead, but risen.” His resurrection was attested by the apostles : Acts i. 22: “ One must be ordained to be a witness with us of Christ’s resurrection.” Acts ii. 82 : “ This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.” The same resurrection too is attested by his very ene- mies ; for you will observe, the chief priests and scribes admitted the fact that He was gone, that the tomb was empty, and that the dead one laid in it was removed ; but they tried to explain the fact on principles which look at the first blush extremely satisfactory, but which needed only to be analyzed in order to demonstrate how untenable they Avere. There was placed around the 170 THE GEEAT TRIBULATION. grave of Jesus a battalion of Roman soldiers. The night on which Christ is said to have risen from the dead, was a moonlight night, as it can be demonstrated alike from Jewish customs and from historical facts. Not only so, but that night was one of the great festivals of Jerusa- lem, when the whole heart of that mighty metropolis heaved, as it were, with joy; and the teeming crowds that came into it were so overwhelming that they had to spread tents and booths in the streets and lanes and fields for miles about the capital, in order to have room for the gigantic population that rushed into Jerusalem at one of its grandest festivals. Now it was alleged by the Phari- sees, the scribes, and the high priests, that Christ’s body was stolen by his disciples, who entered into a conspiracy for the purpose. It was alleged that they called the sol- diers, and they bade the soldiers say that Christ’s body w^as stolen by his disciples. To show you how strong, for here ^\e can only give you a specim^en, are the proofs and credentials of this great fact in our common Christianity, first observe the impossibility that the soldiers could have slept, as they Avere bribed to say, and yet escape the punishment of death, which by the martial law of Rome, was instantly inflicted on the soldier who slept at his post. If the sol- diers had slept, as they Avere made to say, they confessed their crime. Why were they not punished ? Again, if the soldiers slept, is it not miraculous that some twenty, or thirty, or forty, or fifty men should all have slept exactly at the same moment ? And is it not equally remarkable that all these fifty men, who hap- pened to sleep exactly at the same moment, were not THE FIRST RESURRECTIO T. 171 punished when they told their offence ? That the apos- tles should have come — men of no experience, of no great tact, as their past history shows — and should have rolled away a massive stone, that would have taken some dozen of men to move, and should have rolled it away without some machinery, or at least without noise, and should have done it so deliberately that they descended into the empty tomb, after lifting the body out of it, and rolled the linen clothes aside, wrapped them up, and laid them quietly in a corner ; should have carried that body out in a bright moonlight night, when all the streets were lined with men, on foot, in tents or in booths ; should have carried it through the streets, teeming and heaving with a vast population ; and in a bright moon- light night have so cleverly concealed it that no witness saw it ; and should have defied the police, who were in- structed to make the most rigid inquiry where it was, — I say, to suppose all these things to occur at that very time, requires the sceptic to suppose a miracle almost equal to the miracle of the resurrection. We are, there- fore satisfied that the evidence adduced by the scribes and Pharisees is most untenable ; not that we need it to be disproved, but only that we should q^lways be able to render a reason for the faith that is in us. This great fact of the resurrection of Christ was the doctrine of the Old Testament Scriptures themselves. I have shown that it was the doctrine of the Old Testa- ment Scriptures, foretold by the prophets, foretold by himself, attested by angels, attested by the apostles, at- tested by his enemies. He was raised by his own power, raised by the Spirit, raised by the Father. 172 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. What doctrines, or what truths are established by the fact of Christ’s resurrection ? Again I take you to the Scriptures. It is declared to be a proof of his Deity. Declared to be the Son of God with power by the resur- rection from the dead.” He was raised, we are told, for our justification. Ko- rnans iv. 25 : Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Again, Romans viii. 34 : Wlio is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, w'ho is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” The resurrection of Christ is stated as an emblem of our regeneration. Romans vi. 4. As Christ wa^s raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so Yie also should walk in newness of life.” It is alleged, in the next place, to be the first-fruits of our resurrection. Acts xxvi. 23 : That Christ should sufier, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead.” 1 Corinthians xv. 13, 20 : If there be no resurrection from the dead, then is Christ not risen : but now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.” It is also associated with our hope. 1 Peter i. 3 : ^‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath be gotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” We are told also in Acts i. 3, and by John, that by many conclusive proofs He was known to have risen, and THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 173 that to many ‘‘he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days.” We have then the fact of Christ’s resurrection, and the doctrines which the Scriptures make to lean on and derive their nutriment from that fact. Let me notice, in the next place, the resurrection of believers as the result of Christ’s resurrection. We are told clearly in Scripture, that because Christ died and rose again, so we shall rise again. There are some who, in most learned and most able notes, deny, like the Ger- man rationalist divines, that there is to be literally and strictly a resurrection. They say that it is all figurative, and that it does not mean literally the resurrection of the body. Now, the language of Scripture is very explicit. “ The hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth : they that have done good to the resurrection of heaven ; they that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.” Here is a positive assertion of the res- urrection of the body. Again, that it is the very same bodies that are to rise is plain from the word “ resurrec- tion.” It comes from “ resurgo,” to rise again. If the bodies of all believers are not all raised, but new bodies are created, then the language is misapplied : it wwld not be a resurrection ; it would be a new creation. The apostle calls it in the first epistle to the Corinthians a “ mystery.” It would be no mystery at all to give us new bodies ; but it is a mystery that our dead dust should become quickened with new life, and that that dust should be reconstructed in more than its pristine beauty 174 THE GREAT TRIBULATION^. and glory, and made a resplendent dwelling-place for the redeemed and regenerated soul. Blit it is objected, all science leads us to a contrary conclusion ; that we have no experience of such a thing, and that w^e have no reason to anticipate such a result. It seems to me the reverse ; all science leads to the con- clusion that the resurrection is possible. I am about to give an illustrative analogy, not an evidence of the resur- rection. Take the discovery that is now universally admitted, that there is no such thing as annihilation. When the wood or the coal is cast into your grate, it is not annihilated, it has only changed its structure ; it has assumed the shape of a gaseous body, and it exists in all its completeness only under other names, and with other appearances, in another shape, and probably incorporated into other elements. We know of no such thing as anni- hilation. A seed is cast into the earth, that seed grows up into flax, that flax ripens into flowers or fruit ; that again is prepared, and made into linen; that linen is worn out ; it is torn into rags, it is turned into paper ; that paper is written upon — it is thrown into the fire ; and that first seed of the flax has changed itself over and over again ; but all its constituent elements are all there, with other elements added ; it is not annihilated, it has only changed its form ; so that science shows that change of structure is the great law, not annihilation. All this supports, not opposes, the doctrine of the resurrection. All things are possible with God, except to lie ; but there is no lie here, no deception. He tells us literally that it will be so. If a chemist living in the present THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 175 day can take any substance, submit it to his tests, resolve that substance into its pristine elements ; and if he be in pursuit of any particular element, be it arsenic, or prus- sic acid, or other deadly poison, he can hunt it out of all its retreats and combinations, even after it has entered into the animal tissues, and can bring the element out in all its integrity just as it was before, shall ‘we think it impossible that the great Maker, the Architect, the Chem- ist, if I may use the expression reverently, of the whole universe, will be able to trace out the constituent ele- ments of my body, and bring those elements, dust to dust, atom to atom, bone to bone, till the whole earth is covered with an army of resurrection, living, and responsible men. He will speak to the distant streams of the earth, and each stream will send forth its dead. His voice will be heard in the silent caverns of the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Pharaohs that are sleeping there will come forth. His word will sound in the remotest deserts of Africa and Asia, and they that have the sands for their wdnding- sheet, and solitude as their only companion, shall come forth. He will call to those that are beneath the green sod, and that sod will lift itself aside and let God’s priso- ners of hope come forth. The very dust on which we now tread will become instinct with vitality ; and the awful fact will then be seen, as we now admit, that on the very ground on which we now tread — every inch of this great metropolis — the numbers that are below it far outnumber those that are above it ; and the mighty popu- lation that shall come forth from these spots on which we now are, will prove at that day alike the truth of the resurrection from the dead, and the faithfulness and 176 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. power of HiiRj Avliose voice they shall hear, and come forth. Thus, the resurrection of the dead seems not at all improbable in whatever light we look at it. But let us notice the facts connected with it, and the evidence of it drawn from Scripture. First, this resurrection will consist of two great classes. They are called the just and the unjust ; they that have done good, and they that have done evil. And there will then be but two great characters. All the drapery of outward circumstance will be left behind; there will be but two vast classes, they that have done good, and they that have done evil. Every other distinction will be lost ; every other accidental characteristic will have van- ished ; every discrimination, ecclesiastical, national, so- cial, Aviir be merged and lost in that one which was first, and shall be last, and for ever, the just, and the unjust. The king cannot carry his crown with him ; the beggar will not take his rags with him ; both shall appear, each in his category, among the just that live and rejoice, or the unjust, that suffer for ever and for ever. The patri- archs of ancient times, and the babes of yesterday ; Adam and all his mighty family shall then and there hear the voice of the Son of man, and come forth. They that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. This was the doctrine of the Old Testament. Job said, ‘‘ I know that m.y Redeemer liveth, and that in my flesh I shall see God.’’ In Psalm xlix. 15: ‘‘ God will redeem my soul from the powder of the grave : for he shall receive me.” Daniel says, Many that sleep in THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 177 the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame and contempt.” It was expected, too, by the most enlightened Jews. There was Martha, who had heard little of the resurrec- tion, but who said, “ I know that my brother shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” The great doctrine which the Sadducees objected to, and the preach- ing at which they gnashed their teeth, was the resurrec- tion of the dead. We have in Scripture, too, individ- ual instances of it, — Christ the first-fruits, the son of the widow of ISTain, and the raising of Lazarus. All these prove that this truth is a doctrine of Scripture, and a truth taught by our blessed Lord. But the language of Paul in this present verse is very emphatic, and very peculiar. He says, ^‘If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” Why, how could he escape it? We have just heard that all shall rise. The just and the unjust, the greatest criminal and the greatest saint, shall equally rise from the dead in resurrection bodies. Then what does the apostle mean when he says, If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead ?” The only way in which we can explain it is by that supposition, or rather historical statement, impugned by some, but, I think, unequivocally established by others, that the res- urrection, while it is of the just and of the unjust, yet implies an interval between the resurrection of the just and the resurrection of the unjust. In other words, it can only be explained, I conceive, by admitting what I cannot escape on impartially reading the Scriptures, that there is a first resurrection, consisting exclusively of the 8 ^ 178 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. just ; and that there is a second resurrection, consisting exclusively of the unjust. Let me refer to the passage contained in the 20th cliapter of the book of Revelation, and see if it cast any light upon the subject on which I am now commenting. It says, I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, wLich is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thou- sand years should be fulfilled : and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them ; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and wdiich had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had re- ceived his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thou- sand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resur- rection : on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” The reply to this may be, but all this is figurative.” You do not mean,” it is argued by those who do not hold a distinction in the res- urrection of the dead, You do not mean to assert that there will be literally a key, and literally a great chain, and literally Satan bound with its links for a thousand years. And if you do not literally interpret the first THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 179 verse” — and the imagery I have read is figurative — you are bound to interpret the sequel, namely, the first and second resurrections, figuratively also.” If it was stated similarly, as the imagery in which the first verse is given, without any explanation, then perhaps their construction wwld be the most probable. But you will observe, that when the whole thing is stated, and when it has been said that the rest of the dead lived not again, but that the first section of the dead reigned wdth Christ a thousand years, it is added, This is the first resurrection.” Is not this the explanatory literal remark upon the figurative ima- gery employed in the preceding part of the chapter? Just as, ‘‘I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks one like unto the Son of man.” Now, what is added? The seven candle- sticks w^hich thou sawest are the seven churches.” That is the literal clause thrown in to explain the figurative language that has been employed. So, by parity of rea- soning, this clause, ‘‘ This is the first resurrection,” is the literal clause thrown in to explain the imagery that has been employed in the previous part of the chapter ; and, therefore, that the first resurrection is literal, and that the rest of the dead shall not rise again until the thousand years have been finished. It has been argued by those who oppose this view, that all this is to be re- garded as figurative. But at the close of the chapter there is an account of the resurrection which the very op- ponents of my view of the first resurrection allow to be literal, namely, at the 12th verse of this 20th chapter of the book of Revelation : And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God ; and the books were opened : and 180 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. another book was opened, which is the book of life ; and the dead were judged out of those things which were writ- ten in the books, according to their works.” Now, they all say, This is literal. But is it not very fair to say, if the first be figurative, the second must be figurative too ; if the first be literal, the last must be literal too ? You must not say. This is figurative, just when it suits a previous conclusion ; and. That is .literal, just because it suits another previous conclusion. Take the parts that are avowedly literal, as I conceive, in the chapter, and ac- cept the whole as such ; or admit that both are figurative, and then you must conclude with the German rationalist divines, that there is not a literal resurrection of the dead at all. If the first is literal, the last is literal too. But the original language is extremely peculiar. When the apostles, or our Lord, speak of the resurrection of the dead, the words that are used are dvdarraavg vsTcg^p, the resurrection of the dead.” But in all those pas- sages, which by their very context are proved to refer to a special resurrection, the words are as follow : Luke xiv. 14, ip dvacridast T(bp dtxaiMv^ the resurrection of the just,” a distinct one. Luke xx. 35, dpuaTdcrsMg Trig ex pfxqwp^ they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain the resurrection from the dead;” but it is, lite- rally translated, ^‘that distinctive resurrection from the dead,” dpaaidasog^ — irigy that emphatic one,”— LX psxQibp ^Hhat resurrection,” that special or distinc- tive one from among the dead.” Again, in John v. 29, elg (xpdccTTaaip lorqg^ unto the resurrection of life.” And in the very passage on which I am commenting, the same remarkable distinction is qbseryed, If by any THE MUST RESURRECTION. 181 means I might attain, f Jg irii^ F^aviiaKxaip i(bp veTiQihv, hav- ing the very same If this be the common resurrec- ion of all, there is no reason for the apostle having any doubt at all about its certainty ; but if it be the first 1 esurrection which is at the commencement of the Mil- lennium, and just when Christ comes, and not the resur- rection which is at the close of the Millennium, then there is meaning in the language of the apostle, ^Mf by any means I might attain,’^ not unto the resurrection at the close of the Millennium, but unto the resurrection of those w^ho are raised at the commencement of the Mil- lennium. So, in Revelation xx. 5, the same words are used, Avii] dpdcaraaig nqmrj ‘‘this is that resurrec- tion, that first resurrection, that chief or distinctive one.^’ Now, wherever the context shows that the resurrection was an object of hope, of desire, of ambition, invariably the preposition f I occurs, and denotes a resurrection out of the dead, the rest of the dead living not till after the thousand years. If you say the interval between the two resurrections of the dead seems long in 1 Cor. xv. 23, I answer, it is said, “Everyman in his own order: Christ the first- fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” Well, He who was the first-fruits rose 1800 years ago; they that are his will be raised very soon, when the Lord comes. “ Then cometh the end,” that is, the end of the thousand years. And as there is an interval of 1800 years between “ Christ the first-fruits,” and the resur- rection of them “that are Christ’s at his coming;” so there may be an interval between “ they that are Christ’s at his coming,” and those that did not live until the thousand years were finished. 182 THF GREAT TRIBULATION. It thus appears irresistibly evident that there are two distinct resurrections; the firsts the resurrection of the saints, those that believe ; the second, the resurrection of the unjust, or those that believe not. It may be that in ten, in twenty, in thirty, — we know not in how many years, the Lord shall come ; but the instant He comes, we which are alive,’’ says the apostle in another pas- sage I might have quoted, and remain, shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air : the dead in Christ shall rise first.” The instant Christ comes, every dead saint, wherever buried, shall hear his voice, and come forth ; every living saint, wherever he is, shall recognize that royal sound, and go out to meet Him. What an awful separation will there be ! One grave, in which there are twain, will throw up one, and the other will remain. One family will see one, drawn by a mysterious attrac- tion, go forth to meet the Lord, and the rest remain be- hind. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first resurrection ; sad and sorrowful is the state of him who has no lot, nor share, nor part in it. Then our bodies, as the bodies of the just, will be made meet for the glo- rious spirits that have been redeemed by the Savior’s blood ; and when every eye shall see Him, and they that pierced Him, we can say, Whom, having not seen, we love ; in whom, though at present we see him not ; yet then we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” No wonder then that the apostle Paul prizes this attain- ment, If by any means I might attain;” I am willing to sacrifice wealth, honor, credit, health, life, “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from among the dead.” THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 183 Do we thus anticipate it ? Do we thus desire it ? Do we look forward to it as the coronal of our hopes, as the great object of our ambition, for which, and on account of which, we are ready to sacrifice all things ? The way to it is Christ ; the means to it are prayer, painstaking, sacrifice, toil. And if you feel that prospect magnificent, even as the apostle felt it, you will long and pray that by any means God in his wisdom may appoint, you may at- tain unto the resurrection from among the dead. Then shall we behold Him as He is, then shall we be satisfied with his likeness, then shall we be as the angels in heav- en, then shall we know no more sorrow, nor tears, nor cares, nor mourning ; then shall we meet those that have fallen asleep in Christ, recognizing them, and they re- cognizing us, and both rejoicing as an holy and happy family to be ever with the Lord ; then shall we be able, even now are we able, to say, Grave, the guardian of our dust, Grave, the treasury of the skies; Every atom of thy dust * Rests in hope again to rise. “ Hark! the judgment trumpet calls. Soul, rebuild thy house of clay ; Immortality its walls. And eternity its day.” Is this your hope ? If it be your faith that Christ died for you — that your sins are washed away in his blood — that you have been accepted in his name — then you prove his acceptance by imitating his holy and his blessed example. This glorious hope is based upon liv- ing faith. There can be no Easter Sabbath without a 184 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. previous Friday of sorrow and of suffering. There is no way to the crown, but the way of the cross. There is no really founded hope of everlasting life, except on the blood, the death, and sacrifice of Christ Jesus. Have you then believed on Him ? Have you committed your souls to Him ? Are you living under a sense of real, vital, influential, constraining religion ? Christianity is not a Sabbath-day profession, but a week-day life. It is not a form, but power ; it is not a name, but life. And that man who has no well-founded hope for believing that his sins have been forgiven, through Christ’s blood, has no well-founded evidence that he shall be found in that resurrection, — that resurrection from among the dead, of which it is said, Blessed and holy is he that hath part in it.’’ LECTURE XXXIL THE BLESSED AND HOLY PART. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : on such the second death hath no power ^ but they shall be priests of God and of Christy a7id shall reign vnth him a thousand yearsP — Revelation xx. 6. There is in the minds of ns all a lurking notion, even in those who do not accept it, that there is something in matter, in our corporeal nature, in the earth, in all the things connected wdth the earth, essentially and intrinsi- cally sinful. When you hear of dwelling in a literal world, or of the body being raised and your living in it, and that body being admitted into a state of perfect hap- piness; the question does occur to you, whether you like or not, how can this vile body be admitted into that holy, holy, holy presence ? All of us have the remains of the old gnostic, Gentile, or rather heathen philosophy, that spirit was made by God, that matter was made by the devil ; that the two are antagonists, and never can dwell together ; and that the body is the prison of the soul, and must be annihilated in order that the glorious inhabitant within may emerge, and enjoy the full blessedness of them that are forever with God. The consequence is, that in many minds the state of the happy dead is so etherealized (185 186 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. that they cannot appreciate or comprehend it. I know that in the preaching of some most excellent ministers, whose preaching of the Gospel is powerful, and full, and faithful, this thought is implied. But I must ask all not to accept what doctors say, nor what rabbis believe ; but to read this doom book, for we are Protestants; what is here is everlasting truth, if the whole world should de- nounce it ; what is not here is not necessary for any man to believe in order to salvation. Now let me show you, in the first place, that your idea about matter cannot be correct ; for matter, in all its multitudinous developments, is as much the creature of God as the holiest seraph that wings his flight and sings beside the throne of Deity. God made the stars of the sky, the flowers of the earth, the waters of the deep sea, and the streams of all earth’s rivers. And if God made all things visible and material that we see, that we touch, that we handle, will you believe that a holy God made matter originally tainted, poisoned, polluted ; with disease and decay, with disorder and dis- cord, and finally with death — can you believe that ? If God made matter so. He made sin ; and if he made sin, how can you reconcile his constant denunciation of it; his declaration that he will extirpate and banish it from his world for ever ? Does He hate what He himself made ? Does He war against what He himself introduced ? The idea is absurd ; the contradiction is too gross to be for one moment entertained. Does not all the teaching of Scrip- ture, on the contrary, demonstrate that all creation, this orb, and that sky, and those stars, and those flowers, and that great sea, were all made originally holy, perfect, harmo- nious, pure ; and that sin is a subsequent interpolation ; that THE BLESSED AND HOLY PART. 187 it is an after-creation intrusion ? Whence it came, why it came, are questions I cannot solve, and need not discuss ; but the fact that sin was introduced after the earth was made is a fact that appears upon every page of God’s blessed book. If sin was introduced after creation, and if sin be not part and parcel of the original constitution of creation, then sin is not part of God’s creation. Do you think dis- ease is part of my body? that blindness, deafness, pa- ralysis, decay, death, were ever made originally as part and parcel of my nature ? They are imperfections, the fruits oS sin, and subsequently introduced, and were not made by God. I was no more made to die than the angels in glory ; I was made immortal, holy, happy ; and what- ever of disease, whatever of ache, w^hatever of decay are felt in me, are not from God, and Him I cannot blame : they are simply from myself ; that is, from the creature. But, blessed thought ! they are destined to be expunged ; God will purify the creature He made once so holy ; and earth restored will be a grander spectacle than earth as originally created, and its last Paradise will be a more brilliant scene than the first with which time dawned and in which Adam dwelt. Now then, if this be true, that sin is an interpolation, let me ask, is there any diflSculty in supposing that God will eliminate from my nature that which has infected it ? Is man, for instance, able to purify the infected dwelling ; is he able to detach decay, and arrest it ; is he able, by the most sifting and exquisite analysis, to trace the retreats and the hiding-places of the subtle poison that has been introduced into the body ; and literally to bring up from the grave the evidences of the poisoner’s guilt and criminality ? Is man able to do all 188 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. this; and shall Omnipotence be unable to extract the poison from the work it made ? Shall Omniscience fail in tracking through all its windings the evil that has been introduced? Shall He who expelled the leprosy, who opened the blind eye, who arrested the corruption of the grave, and brought forth the dead, living and happy, to mingle again with living men ; — shall He be unable to purify a world He had made? — to eliminate from this body the sin, and the decay, and the diseases that have entered ; and to reconstruct and to constitute me a crea- ture far nobler and better than when he gazed upon the new made Adam, and behold, all was very good ? But vre are not left to a mere conjecture ; there are express de- clarations in Scripture to that effect : for what does it say? We look for the Savior, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.’’ That one text settles the matter. What was his glorious body ? That body with which He rose from the mount. But our vile bodies shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body. And, says Paul, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised ; and we shall be changed ; for this mortal must put on immortality.” And therefore we believe, that out of the dust the fallen shrine of human nature shall be rebuilt, and consecrated afresh I by God himself: on its cold altar a new vestal fire shall be kindled ; and the second temple of humanity will be grander than the first ; and there will be heard over it, in its beauty and in its perfection, a shout — an anthem peal of praise, richer, greater, more lasting than when the morning stars sang together for joy over a new born world. THE BLESSED AND HOLY PART. 189 Throughout Scripture itself there is the intimation of man longing, yearning, and desiring this very resurrection of the body. What does the apostle say in that mag- nificent chapter, Romans viii. ? ‘‘We ourselves, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves that is, are in trouble. Why ? “ Looking for the adop- tion, to wit, the redemption’’ — that is, the resurrection — “of the body.” And in the book of Revelation, the souls below the altar cry with a loud voice, “ How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” And Rev. XX. is the response. Now then, this thought is forced upon my mind ; the soul at this moment in the realms of glory, conscious, living, unspeakably happy, feels related to an absent body ; in other w^ords, amid all the felicity of heaven, there is remaining still a sense of incompleteness. For what does the apostle say? “I long to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord :” well, he is present with the Lord, but he is absent from the body. And the very sense of enjoyment that consists in presence with the Lord has the relieving sense — the deep recollec- tion — that he is still absent from what is not a house se- parate from myself, but part and parcel of myself ; for the definition of man is not spirit — is not animal, but soul and body joined together ; and those that God united shall again be re-knit, and so shall man thus be for ever with the Lord. If these things be so, I think the language that we sometimes hear men use, in reference to the body, is most unscriptural. We ought not to speak of the body with contempt ; we ought not to regard it and denounce it as incapable of joy. The body is not an enemy, to 190 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. be destroyed with death ; but a sorrowing partner in our fall, that needs to be comforted, and that will be restored. My blessed Lord sanctified my nature when He took a handful of the dust of which it was made, and knit it to himself, and filled it with all the splendor and glory of the shechinah upon earth. My blessed Lord speaks through my lips, looks through human eyes ; has in heaven with Him a human heart ; can sympathise with us in all our griefs. The Savior therefore, having my nature in heaven, is to me an earnest, proof, and prophecy, that man can and shall be there also. But then you meet with this. Do we not see, what you must admit, that when death comes you must take this body, lay it in the dust, even as Abra- ham was obliged to hide his beloved Sarah out of his very sight ? What a humbling thought, that the noblest, the fairest, and most gifted, and most beautiful, must one day lie down in the house appointed for all living. Man surely has little ground for pride ; though, blessed thought ! even in the grave he has the sweet germ of ev- erlasting and indestructible hope. But what seems decay in the grave is only a process preparatory to a glorious resurrection. The beautiful blossom emerging from the dark stem ; the golden-winged butterfly breaking its chry- salis shell, and coming out ; the spring rising from the winding-sheet of winter snow ; the summer about to be born of spring, are illustrative prophecies of the new body, the resurrection body, rising from the dust of the old ; for that which thou so west is not quickened until it die.’’ And as long, therefore, as I look round me on spring, and see the seed decay that is cast into the earth, but THE BLESSED AND HOLY PART. 191 issue in a lovelier plant ; and the petals wither, but dis- close the ripening fruit ; so long I am satisfied that those sweet buds of promise that are scattered throughout this blessed book, that seem to wither into dust the instant we bring them near the grave, where corruption has begun its work ; those buds I am sure shall not decay ; they shall blossom, they shall bear immortal fruit, and live in endless beauty ; for stronger, surer, than spring, and sum- mer, and autumn, and winter, is one word the Lord our God hath spoken. But it has been asked. How are the dead raised ? Let me turn your attention to one illustrative clause, which has struck me as containing thoughts that I have not dis- closed before. It is in 1 Corinthians xv. 35, where the apostle says, But some one will say, How are the dead raised, and with what body do they come ? Thou fool, that wdiich thou sowest is not quickened except it die.” That one clause contains the secret of the whole. Let me ask you to watch and analyse that sentiment, and see if we have not in it some dim but not uninstructive illus- tration of the resurrection from the dead. First of all observe, ‘‘ Except it die,” teaches us dissolution. The seed is dissolved ; the body is dissolved. You take a seed of corn ; you deposit it in the earth ; it is disorganized, it is reduced into its constituent elements. So the body is laid in the grave. As long as life is in my body, it re- sists the laws of chemistry, and will not dissolve. The moment a man is born he begins to die ; and the thing that keeps him from dying is the higher law of life, wLich prevents the lower chemical laws of disorganization in- stantly taking effect ; life holds you back from disorgani- 192 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. zation. When life departs, and the body is left ; when the soul takes its flight, the body yields to the laws of chemistry, comes under new aflinities, and falls into disor- ganization. But still, as the decaying seed that you have deposited in the earth is related to the full plant which that seed nurses in its bosom, and the death of that seed is necessary to the life of that plant, so the old body de- cays, but it has in its bosom the elements of the neAv one ; and the relation of the body laid in the tomb to the body that will be resplendent in glory is as vital and as inde- structible as the relation between the seed that you put in the earth and the seed that grows on the ripe stalk when the season of autumn draws near. The seed in the earth is essential to the seed that ripens above it ; the body in the grave is essential to and inseparable from the body that shall appear at the resurrection morn. And hence is the second law of evolution. ^‘That which thou so west is not quickened,’’ that is evolution; — “except it die.” When the body is laid in the grave there is not the de- struction of the old body absolutely, and thereby an end to it, and afterwards the creation of a new ; but there is the disappearing of the old by its appearing in the new ; the new body gathering strength and vitality from the de- struction of the old, till the old is exhausted, and all its constituent elements are taken into the new ; thus that which fell is that which rises, corruption having become incorruption, and mortality immortality ; yet all the while there is perfect identity, for there is no interruption or break in the development. It appears as the decaying seed in the earth evolves into the flowering stalk, and the seed in the ripe ear is the repetition of the seed that decays THE BLESSED .AND HOLY PART. 193 at its roots. The flower on the stalk would not be there, were the connection between it and the decaying seed in- terrupted for a moment. The resurrection body would not be, were the continuity of its connection with my de- caying and mortal body interrupted for a moment. God could create another body, but He does not; He evolves the new resurrection body from the destruction and disor- ganization of the old ; and the connection and continuity between them is as complete as the connection between the ripe ear on the stalk, and the decaying seed that died and perished in the earth at its roots. And it is really, I have sometimes thought, an interesting inquiry — a thought >I leave others to consider — whether the resurrection of the body does not in some degree begin, in the case of a believer, even in this present world. The moment that a man’s soul is regenerated, scripture teaches us that a present process begins in the central seat of the man, which will radiate outwards, and, uninterrupted by decay in the grave, it will continue till the trumpet sound, and the body rise immortal. For what does our Savior say ? When Jesus told Martha, Thy brother shall rise again.’’ Martha, thinking that He alluded to the resurrection at the last day, said, I know he shall rise again at the re- surrection in the last day.” Now Jesus evidently meant something more, for He adds, I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me shall never die.” May it not be that the regenerated soul, even in this world, is laying the foundations of the resurrection body ? May it not be possible that the regenerated soul is weav- ing, even in this life, the finer tissues, the more exquisite and delicate filaments of that glorious body which shall 9 194 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. rise and be immortal for ever ? If you ask, how do I prove this? I answer, look around you. Take a true Christian, who for years has cultivated purity of thought and purity of life ; who has restrained by grace his pas- sions, who has curbed his appetites, who have striven more and more, by prayer and by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to be like his Lord. And take now the contrast to this — a profligate who has given scope to his appetites, his passions, his lusts, his evil and his abominable desires. Is there not in outward aspect a contrast that is unmistakable ? In the first there is a calm, a serenity, and in his sorest aflflictions a peace that makes his face radiant almost with the forethrown glories of the resurrection morn. In ih^ second character there is a gloom, a repulsiveness, an un- attractive character, that seems darkening more and more. In the words of one who has written well upon this sub- ject, See we not in our neighbors and friends how long habit impresses their characters upon their faces. We admire and respect more and more the cheerful counte- nance of frankness, the calm brow of contemplation, the mild serene eye of holiness, the beaming, deep-seated smile of charity. We shrink with increasing horror from the leer of lust, the idiotcy of drunkenness, the scowl of malignity, and the contracted features of cunning and fraud. Thus these announce themselves to be at various stages towards that final state of the body, when no longer in a flux between decay and renewal, it shall be unchange- able and informed by an unchangeable mind to all eternity. If then it be true that the thoughts of the mind, the af- fections of the heart, are writing themselves upon the outward countenance, may not that justify what seems a THE BLESSED AND HOLY PART. 195 novelty, and which I have now ventured to state, that the soul of the regenerated man may now be acting on its material tenement ; may now be laying the foundations of the incorruptible and the immortal body ; and that even in this life Christ’s great words, which always mean more than we generally attach to them, are strictly and literally true, I am now the resurrection and the life ; he that belie veth in me shall never see death, but shall live for ever ”? But let me add that in one respect the analogy fails. The ripe seed no sooner attains its perfection than it be- gins to decay ; The beautiful flower is no sooner perfected than it begins to drop off. I have often felt, in looking round at nature, which the apostle so stril^ingly describes as groaning and travailing in pain, when I look on a flower-garden, as if nature had made one gigantic effort to throw forth the evidences of perfection. But when autumn comes, all fall back into what they were before ; they drop and decay. Nature in her mightiest struggles gives birth to beauty that no language of mine can ex- aggerate ; but that beauty is so feeble and imperfect that it decays and falls back into what it was again. But this will not be true of man, because man attains a high- er life ; he inherits what the flowers have not, what na- ture has not in its present economy, — a lasting life. And hence man will be the blossom of creation, ever fragrant, ever amaranthine ; man will have the perfection of life ; but his life will be so lasting because our blessed Lord has said, “ Because I live, ye shall live also.” That is not said of fruit, or flower, or blossom ; but it is said of regenerated man. And therefore man’s nature, when it 196 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. reaches its' culminating glory, never falls back, like the flowers and fruits of the earth, into their original decay ; he lasts and lives holy, beautiful, and happy for ever and for ever. I need not quote from Scripture evidences of this, in the resurrection of our Lord, in the identity of Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration. This is the disclosure of revelation, it is not the discovery of man’s reason. And what a glorious body will ours be ! All its aches and its imperfections gone ; the wrinkles about the eye, and the wrinkles on the fiice, that remind one of the brown sea-sand from which the tide of life is rapidly ebbing away, shall all be removed ; all its defects shall be put away ; the image of God shall be struck upon man in all its splendor ; every pulse shall be praise, every action ecstasy, every feeling peace ; and the second Adam will be, if man may be called so, happier, nobler than the first. And this great truth is the distinctive disclosure of revelation, on it the second death hath no power. Therein is the evidence of what I have said of man’s en- durance wLen risen again, that over him the second death hath no power. There will be nothing in man for death to fasten on ; there will be no fuel for the last fire, no crevice by which Satan may enter. Blessed, happy, and holy is he that hath part in this resurrection ; for they will be priests and kings unto God. What was man made to be ? The king of creation. And you do not need the Bible to tell you this ; you have the evidences of man’s kingship everywhere. Let man look the ravenous lion firmly in the face, and it is said the lion, recognizing the remains of man’s sceptre and crown, will retreat and skulk away. Is it not true that though there be much in THE BLESSED AND HOLY PABT. 197 man to indicate he is discrowned, he retains many of the traces of his aboriginal sovereignty ; and that all nature every day, under science, is coming up to serve, and* sub- serve, and be the slave of man ? as if God would teach you in the world that there are prophecies everywhere that man had a sceptre that is now broken ; that he shall have a sceptre again which shall never be snapped in twain. And when man is risen, he shall not only be the king of creation, but he shall be the priest of it. He shall be nature’s eye, ever seeing God as the giver of all ; nature’s ear, ever listening to God as the sovereign of all ; nature’s minister, ever offering up her first-fruits and her incense of praise and adoration to God. How sad and sorrowful the creed of the heathen abroad, or the creed of the unbelieving heathen at home ! I wonder how any man that does not believe in the Gos- pel can look upon a grave without horror ; or can gaze upon the forsaken shrine from which the soul is gone without committing suicide ; for of all things the most unnatural, the most inexplicable must be death, if the Bible be a repudiated and sealed book. But to a Chris- tian, who follows his dead to the grave, and feels that it is not a funeral march, but a triumphant procession through that dark, deep valley up to the glorious sunlit mount that shines and sparkles beyond ; he sees over the deep- est grave in which he lays his dearest dust the star of Bethlehem shining ; and his ear of faith can hear, rising even from the depths of that desert tomb, these beautiful words, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me;” and hearing 198 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. those thrilling accents, he can pronounce a benediction, not for ever, but only for a little, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord ; they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.^’ My dear friends, see to it that you have that resurrec- tion of the soul which is the sure prophecy of this glori- ous resurrection of the body. The new birth by the Holy Spirit is the germ of the future ; it is the spring- tide of the everlasting summer ; it is the seed sown that is of immortal growth. Oh, may our hearts be opened by that blessed Spirit v/ho alone can change the heart ; may we feel, what we should most deeply feel, that the burial-place of the human heart, in which are so many dead, must be emptied before the burial-places of the dead can give forth their charge, that they may enter into glory ! This is one of the things coming on the earth — all joy to some — all sadness to others. LECTURE XXXIIL DEGREES OF HAPPINESS. But this I say. He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly ; and he which soweth hounti- fully shall reap also bountifully .^^ — 2 Corinthians ix. 6. There is clearly indicated in the Bible a distinction be- tween what is called the first resurrection, or the com- pany of those that believe ; and the second, or subsequent resurrection, namely, those that die in their sins as they lived in them. I have already endeavored to obviate some of the difiiculties that occur to thinking minds on the subject of the resurrection. The resurrection of the body is not the extrication of something new from the great mass of humanity ; but the resurrection of the in- dividual body that fell, elevated, ennobled, purified ; the mortal having put on immortality, the corruptible incor- ruption. The same body deposited in the grave shall rise from that grave, no longer pervaded by sin, defacing and disfiguring it; but holy, perfect, beautiful; our vile bodies fashioned like unto His glorious body. There are traces scattered through the word of God, not few nor far between, that evince that not only in the state of the resurrection, but in the state of the soul sep- (199) 200 Till!] liRtlAT TRIBULATION. arate from tlic body, there shall be mutual recognition ; in other Avords, that each Christian in glory shall be not in a separate niche alone, without one countenance to re- flect his thoughts, or one recollection of those from whom lie was separated for a season ; but that it is our Father's liouse, the everlasting home, the gatliering place of all tliat fell asleep in Christ ; and that we shall know each other as distinctly and fully as we ourselves are then known. Is there any evidence that there will be degrees of glory and of happiness in the age to come, and in a re- generated earth? in other words, is there any connection between what is sown on earth and reaped in heaven, — between character generated here and glory inherited hereafter ? Now it may seem at first that this inquiry is more cu- rious than important ; but if God has spoken on the sub- ject. it is not curiosity, but duty to investigate, under- stand, explain. If the Bible be silent on the subject, investigation or search is useless and undutiful ; but if God has touched upon the subject at all, it seems a duty to investigate whatever God has written ; for there is nothing in the Bible to satisfy a mere curiosity, but everything, from the least jot to the loftiest promise, to sanctify and make happy the human heart. In the next place, it would seem to me that while our title of admission into the realms of the blessed is equally and in all the same ; that is to say, while all, whatever be their height of character, or whatever be the degree of their attainments on earth, if Christians, are admitted into heaven by a title unto all and upon all, without a difference, by a DEGREES OF HAPPINESS. 201 righteousness done for them, not done in them, through Christ’s intercession, in virtue of his sacrifice, and by his all-availing name. Yet upon the basis of a common title of admission into glory, there may be raised a super- structure of ascending degrees of happiness ; and one saint differ from another saint, as one star differeth from another star in the firmament. In other words, while there is no merit there may be degrees of grace on earth ; and if there be degrees of grace on earth, why not de- grees of glory in heaven above, or in the Millennium beyond ? Besides, shall it be thought worthy of man to explore all the conditions of this present orb ; and shall it be thought curious or undutiful to explore the revealed characteristics of the world which is to come ? See the zeal and labors of men of science, how one will travel to the Andes, to the Alps, to the Appennines, and to the Polar realms, in order to prosecute their researches about the structure of a bird, or about the habitat of a plant, or the genus of a flower. How many will dig into the bowels of the earth, in order to ascertain the archives of creation and of this orb from its earliest date. An as- tronomer, in the cold and frosty night, will watch through all its hours for the transit of a planet, or submersion of a satellite. And shall we, who are pilgrims and strangers, candidates for, and, we trust, heirs of a more exalted in- heritance — shall we be careless about its nature ; shall we be indifferent to what its characteristics are ? Will it not be our irrepressible instinct, if we are on our way, to consult the map, to study the geography, and to ascertain all the bright peculiarities of that better and future country — the rest that remaineth for the people of God ? 9 ^ 202 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. Besides, there may be in this study of the degrees of glory, if it be true, or revealed, a stimulus to effort that we need ; and very often while one stimulus fails, another may take its place. While one man is more drawn by one attraction, another is more impelled by another. At ; 11 events, whatever God has written was written for our learning ; that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope. Let us, in humble reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit, try to ascertain what signs or hints there are of degrees of glory in the age to come. If grace be simply the bud of glory, and if glory be simply the culminating splendor of grace ; if, in other words, the Christian’s course, from his new birth below to his introduction into heaven, is a continuous and a progressive one, it is quite clear that earth and heaven or our present state and future rest, in the case of a Christian, differ in degree only, not in kind. Heaven enters into us before we can enter into heaven : heaven’s holiness must come into our hearts now, that we may enter into heaven’s happiness when the world is lost in the eternity to come. If this be so, if we can ascer- tain that one man seems in this life to have got more of heaven in his heart than another ; if we can show that in this world, and under the regime of grace, there are de- grees of progress, and approximation to the everlasting lest, we establish the principle, and I can see no reason for doubting the transference of the result to that better rest that is yet to come. Let me notice some instances. A beautiful description of how near one may approach to that better land ; or rather, how much of heaven may be condensed into a human heart below, is given in his DEGREES OE HAPPINESS. 203 own figurative but eminently poetic, I would add, mag- nificent language, by the untutored and untaught preach- er, John Bunyan. when he says, in the following words, I saw in my dream that by this time the pilgrims were got over the enchanted ground, and entered into the country of Beulah, whose air was very sweet.’’ Those bright anticipations of the future, which a thoughtless world often brands as fanaticism, are really the increasing splendor of the approaching glory; merx of great piety and soberness of mind, as remote from fa- naticism as they were from scepticism, have on their deathbeds seen a nook of the curtain lifted up, and gazed into the future rest, and only fallen back from excess of glory, unable to behold the spectacle any more. If this be reality, what does it show ? That there are distinc- tions among Christians on earth ; that one man seems to walk along the margin of the city that hath foundations ; another man seems to bask at a distance in its brilliant sunshine, another seems to have cloud and shadow over him ; another seems so far remote from it that his faith trembles on the verge of extinction, and he is doomed continually to cry, ‘‘Lord, I believe; help mine unbe- lief” If these be facts, they are prophecies also ; for if such degrees of happiness be realized in the church be- low, if such difierences be realities in the experience of Christians here, it is not unreasonable nor illogical to con- clude that such degrees, distinctions, and differences will exist hereafter. Must we not suppose also, that such men, with such distinctions here, were capable of eleva- tion to a glory or a table-land in the world to come of which others were not? Would it not seem as if these 204 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. distinctions upon earth were evidences of varieties of meetness for varieties of glory in that city that hath foun- dations, in our Father’s home, and amid its many man- sions ? Bear in mind, then, this very important truth, that the future, or rather the upper life, is simply the continuity of the present ; grace is the bud, glory is the full blos- som. And just as our lower , life has its childhood, its boyhood, its mature age, and its various stages ; so the Christian life, v/ho does not know if he be a Christian at all, has its growth, its new birth, its youth, its ripening into manhood ; and death does not arrest its development, it only removes the obstructions to its progress. The soul carries with it into the other world the habits and S3^mpa- thies of this. The harvest for ever is the fruit of the seed-sowing now ; the nature of the future is generated by the facts and experience of the present. Eternity bas no water of ablution, it simply fixes for ever the direc- tion in which each is to move. If I may represent it by a figure, Christ is the great centre of the infinite uni- verse ; all Christians are like radii drawn and approac- ing from a common circumference to that centre ; the new birth is the point in the circumference from which they start ; all eternity to come is the ceaseless approach to the infinitely remote centre ; the happiness accumulat- ing the nearer they approach what they never wnll be able to reach. Can we not conceive then, that some have approached nearer than others ; and if so, that one en- joys a happiness that another does not.? Can w’e not conceive that one enters into heaven a babe in Christ, crying even as he touches the threshold of glory, Lord, DEGREES OF HAPPINESS. 205 I believe ; help mine unbelief*;’’ another enters into heav- en, shall I saj a giant or a full-grown man in grace ; exclaiming, shouting, rather singing, ‘*1 know in whom I have believed ; and that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him against that day.” Are not these likely to differ for ever ? If they do not, God must either violently advance the one, or violently throw back the other. But if glory be the continuity of grace ; if heaven be simply another table-land in the endless progression ; then each will enter upon that place for which his previ- ous discipline has fitted him ; and as there were degrees in grace, so also there will be degrees in glory. We see in this world that God gives distinctions to men, Christian men, that are unmistakable and indisput- able. Some Christians pass through the world unknown ; they have left behind them no stain that blots their mem- ory, but they have bequeathed no legacy of excellence that adorns, ennobles, and dignifies it. It may be be- cause they had not the opportunity. Other Christians pass through the world like clouds big with countless blessings; vindicating the truth, spreading the truth, winning souls to Christ ; leaving behind them grateful hearts to commemorate their march and excellence. If then God makes such distinctions here, is it unnatural to suppose that there will be analogous distinctions in the future ? If in this lower department of his kingdom He gave one double honor, and another less honor ; is it not fair, and reasonable from analogy, to conclude that there will be differences and degrees in the world to come ? If God makes distinctions in the nursery, will He not make, and will they not make distinctions in the heav- 206 THE GREAT TRIRULATION. enlj palace ? if lie makes distinctions among his child- ren He is training below, is it not but reasonable to infer that He will make distinctions in the enjoyment of their rest and happiness ? God shows by the very varied experience of Christians that there must be a difference. One Christian is per- secuted, tormented ; he is in perils by sea, in perils by lan'3, in perils among false brethren ; his life is a contin- uous martyrdom. Another Christian, a true Christian, lives in the sunshine ; his home scarcely has^ cloud in its sky ; few bitter losses, no severe crosses. Is it rea- sonable to suppose, while repudiating all merit in both, that there will be no difference in the enjoyment of the one superior to the enjoyment of the other ? Do not such texts as these seem to vindicate it? Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, ivorketh for us a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. And again he says, If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.’’ If Christ remembers at that day a cup of cold water given to a disciple in his name, and says it shall, not be without its reward, will he forget the fountain that has been opened by another, and made to overflow in streams of beneficence upon the needy, the destitute, and the poor ? Suppose two Christians, equally pardoned and equally justified through the full and perfect righteousness of Christ, are admitted into heaven, as saints in glory re- tain what they had on earth, their memories, these two Christians look back upon the past. One looks back and sees nine-tenths of his life spent in ministering to vanity and sin, in the gratification of the lust of the eye, the DEGREES or HAPPINESS. 207 pride of life, and the love of this present world. On a death bed, perhaps, he was brought to know, to love, and trust in the only Saviour, and to receive what at the eleventh hour is as accessible as at the first, complete forgiveness, and a perfect and a joyous welcome. When that Christian looks along the vista of the past, can his life minister to him great comfort ? — can he see that he has been a great blessing ? If tears drop upon the pave- ment of the sky, a tear would surely drop from that eye that sees in the past a life all vanity ; while the tear will be wiped away when he sees the infinite mercy and grace that so wonderfully forgave him. But another Christian, equally pardoned, equally justified, looks back, and what does he see ? He sees the prisons of the captives that he visited with Vvords of comfort ; he sees the hovels of the poor, into which he carried a little of life’s sunshine ; he sees the naked whom he clothed, the mourner whom he comforted ; and while he gives all the glory to grace, to sovereign grace, and takes no merit to himself, but feels all his right to be there exclusively what Christ did for him, not what he did for Christ ; is it possible that the latter shall not feel his heart’s pulse bound with richer joy, while he sees in the distant retrospect, through grace, his life was not a blot, nor even a blank, but a lar^e blessing to mankind ? I cannot conceive that there shall not be a difference in these two. Will Paul, wit- nessing from heaven the bright record of his toils, and trials, and sufferings for Christ, have no richer joy, though no more gratitude, than the thief upon the cross, when in his agony Christ said to him, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise” ? Shall they that are in 208 THE GKEAT TKlBULATIuN. heaven, who have turned many to righteousness, and shine as the stars for ever, shine with no greater splf^ndor than they who have been saved ‘‘ yet so as by fire,’’ that is, just in time to find Him who is the way to heaven? But are there not in the Bible actual instances of such distinctions? Are not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob emi- nently distinguished wdien God says for ever, I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob” ? Were not Enoch and Elijah translated ? Was not that a difference, a distinction? Were not Elijah and Moses on the mount of transfiguration? Were not the three great suffering apostles made the three favored apostles on the mount Tabor, in that interval of heaven’s glory let down to this present world? If these distinctions were just in themselves, such distinctions and degrees multiplied a thousand-fold will be but just and right hereafter. We read of the state of the lost that there are degrees of suffering ; and if there be stages of successive sorrow deepening still for ever, is it not fair to assume that there will be stages and degrees of endless joy ? What does our Saviour say? It will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for Caper- naum;” degrees of guilt followed by degrees of penalty. What else does he say ? The servant that knew his lord’s will, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not his lord’s will, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.” Does not this imply degrees of suffering ? And what does the apostle con- vey when he says, If he that despised Moses^ law died without mercy, of how much sorer punishment” — de- DEGREES OF HAPPINESS. 209 grees of punishment — shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing?’’ How do you explain these differences or degrees of happiness ? I answer, not by holding that the title to heaven is different in A from what it is in B. Our right to heaven is without distinction one and the same ; but what we maintain is, that there is a difference in men’s capacities, and that the capacity of one is fitted for a glory for which the capacity of the other is altogether unfit. It is not in heaven probably that the outer hap- piness will differ ; but the inner power of taking it in and appropriating it will materially and for ever differ. For instance, more sunshine falls on the palace than falls upon the peasant’s hovel. Why ? The sky has the same brightness over and around both ; but the one has a larger area, and is covered, therefore, with a greater amount of sunshine than the other. More rain-drops fall upon the large rose than fall into the cup of the se- questered violet. Why? The same shower descends, but the cup of the violet cannot hold so much as the rose. A scholar and a peasant w^alk forth in the month of May, or in the leafy month of June, amid the fields, the forest, or the garden. Both see the same sunshine, both witness the same green trees and the same bright flowers ; but the difference in their joy and happiness is prodigious. The peasant sees, and is pleased ; the scholar sees, and appreciates; he sees design, and plan, and arrangement in everything about him ; and derives, by the superior capacity that he has, an amount of enjoyment that the peasant cannot have. So in heaven, the happiness may 210 THE GREAT TRIBULATION^. not be different in itself ; but each man’s capacity may so differ that one shall have an amount of joy that the other must be a stranger to. Dean Trench says, They whose spiritual eye is most enlightened will drink in most of His glory.” We read that God will reward every man according to his work.” Now what does that mean? I must not, for fear of being suspected of believing that a man is justified by his own doings, shrink from what I find in the Bible. Never be afraid of the full statement of each truth ; for, depend upon it, every truth is in per- fect harmony with every other. Whatever God has re- vealed is true, though we may fail sometimes to see its accordance with other portions of the divine plan. God will reward every man according to his work.” Bless- ed are the dead that die in the Lord ; for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them :” ^Mn the Lord,” their safety; their works do follow them,” the evidence of what they were, and what they have been made by grace. What mean such words as these : God is not unrighteous, to forget your work and labor of love;” ‘^Whosoever shall break one of the least of my commandments shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven ; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” ? When Peter told, “ Lord, we have left all, and followed thee,” what did Jesus say? Verily I say unto you. That ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel ;” a text on which Matthew Henry says, ‘‘There are here degrees of glory for those that have DEGREES OF HAPPINESS. 211 done most and suffered most.’’ Again, in Matthew x. 41, we read, He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward,” — the reco^i;- nition of different rewards in the world to come. And again, we read in 1 Cor. iii. 13, Every man’s work shall be made manifest ; for the day shall declare it, be- cause it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss ; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire;” literally, ^Svith the greatest difficulty;” or, as Peter says, If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?” Now, this statement of Paul indicates that one shall receive an ever- lasting reward; that another shall be saved with the greatest difiiculty. And upon this, Scott, another com- mentator, perhaps more sensible, though not more pious than Henry, says, Some will suffer great loss in respect of the degree of future glory.” In Daniel xii. 3, And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the fir- mament ; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” On that text Bishop Louth says, ‘‘ These words import that they who have been the great lights of the world shall have a more glorioas re- ward at the day of judgment.” And, finally, we may draw the same conclusion from the analogy of this present world. All heaven will not be a monotony ; all the splendors of the blesssed will not 212 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. be in all the compartments of that magnificent domain the same. Do we not find it so in this world? One flower differs from another flower in beauty, in fragrance, in preciousness ; yet each lives in the same sunshine, and breathes the same air. One star differs from another star in magnificence and splendor ; yet all the stars are moving in their appointed orbits for ever and ever. One woman differs from another in beauty ; one man differs from another man in strength, in wisdom, in genius. In the bowels of the earth the granite and the gem are vast- ly different from each other ; one crystal is superior to another crystal. In the head and in the heart, in the attainments of the one and the feelings of the other, what differences in different men ! In the human countenance, what infinite and inexhaustible variety of expression ! In social life itself we have the vast pyramid of society, the basis and the apex ; the masses, descending in successive layers to the foundation, constituting the base of society. If God, then, has made degrees of dignity, of beauty, of excellence, throughout his material, his natural, and his social world ; if God has made degrees of happiness, fit- ness for heaven, and enjoyment in all his regenerated church, is it not the just and legitimate inference that there will be degrees of happiness infinitely differing from each other in that world which is the complement, the blossom, and the perfection of the world that now is ? These things being so, let me remind you of the prac- tical lesson for us, first to take care that you are resting on the only Savior. It is of no use for you to discuss the probability of degrees of glory, if you are a stranger to the right and title that enables you to cross the DEaREES OF HAPPINESS. 213 threshold. Your first anxiety, therefore, must be, Have I felt my sins an intolerable load ? have I felt that God is offended with me as a conscious transgressor of his law? have I heard the joyous tidings that a Savior descended to my grave, and died upon a cross for me, that my sins might be forgiven ? have I accepted Him as all my title, all my righteousness, all my salvation ; whose name I plead in prayer, whose name shall be my pass- word through the very universe itself ; whose work for me is my only and exclirsive ground of acceptance this day ? Do I feel this ? Do you feel this ? Have you ever en- tertained it as a serious question ? Is it a mere subject that you hear in sermons, but that you have never dis- cussed in the silence and in the secrecy of your own in- dividual heart ? Till that question is settled, till that subject be entertained, pondered, and solved, all subse- quent to it is but waste of words and loss of time. If paralysis, now almost endemic ; if apoplexy, the result of the excessive excitements of a world exhausted beyond its normal obligations ; if fever, or sickness, over- take you ; if the heart, weary with its march, stands still, there is not an end of you then. There is not even in death, let me remind you, a suspension of the continui- ty of conscious life. I believe that the moment when your relatives look upon your pallid face and say, He is gone !’’ at that very moment you will be in possession of a consciousness clearer, brighter, more real, than ever you were possessed of on earth. And what is that con- sciousness ? To look upon the face of the Son of God'at the judgment-seat. And, oh ! blasting thought, if you should discover that this is He that was slain for 214 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. me, preached from the pulpit, pressed on my conscience, and we dismissed the subject from the mind, and w^ent, one to his farm, another to his merchandize, another else- where ! How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation What a strange thing that men think every- thing real but religion ! They seem to think everything intensely important but living religion. They seem to have a notion, too, that if they venture to touch religion, their happiness will wither and die. It is all the reverse. If you at this moment do feel, That blessed Savior is mine;’’ if you do feel, ^^I can commit to Him my soul, with its inexhaustible prospects beyond the grave that come life, come death, it will be well with you, that sud- den death will be sudden glory ; then you must be happy. But are you to be satisfied with even this ? No. I fear that many true Christians will discover that they make justification by faith alone in Christ’s righteousness, so infinitely precious, a substitute for charity, for meekness, for liberality, for love, for duty. Pardon through Christ is not the end of religion, but the preface to religion. What are we doing in the world around us ? what are we doing to help the cause of Christ, to promote the gos- pel, to add to the comfort of the destitute, the needy, and the poor? Is it nothing? Is it little? It ought not to be so. If I were a physician, I would try to be the veiy best in England ; if I were a lawyer, I would try to be the ablest and the most eloquent pleader at the bar ; if I swept a crossing, I would try to sweep it better than any other crossing in London. Whatever my profession, I would determine to excel in it. Let the ambition which shows itself in the things of time be sanctified and con- DEGREES OF HAPPINESS. 215 Becrated to a nobler being ; and when you leave this pre- sent world, let there be a train of beneficence behind you that will inspire many to pronounce your memories bless- ed. Let there be schools you have supported ; let there be the ignorant you have taught ; let there be the heathen you have enlightened; and, by thus making friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, when you enter into that everlasting rest, they will meet you and make you w^elcome there. LECTURE XXXIV. RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : on such the second death hath no power ^ but they shall be priests of God and of Christy and shall reign with him a thousand years^ — Rev. XX. 6. Let us try to gather from the word of God what light is cast upon a belief that most of us entertain, but that some have doubts and many have dijfficulties about, whether in the state of the soul as separate from the body pre- vious to the resurrection, or in the soul united to the body subsequent to the resurrection, we shall be able to recognize relative relative, friend friend, companion com- panion, with whom we walked and took sweet counsel to- gether. My conviction is that we shall; my belief is that the soul of the saint now in its disembodied state holds communion with and recognizes souls of others sep- arate from the body now in glory. And it is not im- probable that our relatives in perfect joy are nearer to us than our relatives across the sea ; we may not see them, but they may thoroughly see, and know, and understand us. The state of the blessed in glory is less a place, and more, as Dr. Chalmers called it, a condition ; less a lo- ( 216 ) RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 217 cality, and more a state. And if that be so, then the beautiful Beatitude, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” may have a wider application to mourners on earth than we are disposed to think ; they may be comforted with the hopes of reunion, and with the cheering additional hope, without which reunion would be comfortless, of recognition and restoration. Some families in every sense have their home in the future and the brighter land ; their fathers, their mothers, their sisters, their brothers, have all emigrated — no, not emigrated ; for we are in a strange colony, they have gone home ; you that remain, like solitary trees in a once crowded forest,^after a few years will also be transplanted and gathered home. There are few families that have not a stake in eternity above us and before us ; few fam- ilies that have not relatives beyond the grave. Blessed thought ! it will be but a transient separation, the fore- taste and the vestibule of an everlasting and unending communion. Some have said, If I could only be sure that those I have lost are amidst pjs unspeakable and full of glory ; if only some voice could whisper in some stilly night from the depths or the heights, it is well with them or if they could only speak one word, and say it is well with us ; you think you could be comforted. But this cannot be : the Avaters of the Jordan that rush along the valley of the shadow of death make no audible music ; there is at present a chasm between saints on earth and saints in glory impassable to either. We have what is equally good, a lamp that strikes its beams into the upper and the future, a sunshine that projects its shafts beyond the grave ; and this book assures us, in Avords as certain iO 218 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. and clear as a voice from heaven, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord ; they rest from their labors, and their works do folio av them/’ But is there a prospect not merely of reunion, but also of recognition ? First, let me show the instructive feel- ing of the heathen on this subject, as evidences of nature feeling a want that yearns to be satisfied. Let- me se- condly show what traces there are of this truth in the Old Testament ; next in the NeAV, in the teaching of our Lord and that of the Apostles ; and lastly, obviate some of the objections that occur to inquiring minds. Almost every wise and enlightened philosopher in ancient times cherished the belief that he Avould meet Avith those who had preceded him into the future. I admit they had no revelation ; I do not quote Avhat they felt as any authority ; I simply quote Avhat they said as evidence of nature’s conscious want, yearning, and desire to meet and mingle Avith them that had preceded them to the other Avorld. The first I will quote as an evidence of nature expressing its feeling is Socrates speaking in Plato, when he says very beautifully, Who Avould not part with a great deal to have a meeting with Orpheus, Hesiod, and Homer, and again to converse with Ulysses !” Again, Homer, a great representative of the feelings of human nature, speaks of meeting in the future Ajax, and Patroclus, and Achilles. Cicero, the great Latin orator and philosopher, says, feel transported Avith ardent impatience to join the society of my tAvo departed friends. I ardently wish also to visit those celebrated worthies of Avhose honorable conduct I have read, and to associate Avith the assembly of departed spirits and Avith my dear Cato.” Virgil KECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 219 again, a Latin poet, represents ^neas as visiting the future, and recognizing the dead that are there. I quote these not as proofs of the doctrine, or authorities whose verdict on the subject is of weight; but as evidences that there are in nature instincts that are prophecies ; and that in Briton, in Hindoo, in Pagan, in Jew, you find a voice rising, not from sect, not from locality, but from the very silent and secret depths of the human heart ; a voice of yearning and anxiety to meet and mingle with the de- parted dead that is in its place a prophecy and an earnest that it will be actualized. The longing for it on the part of the heathen is incorporated with many absurdities, with extravagance and error ; but as sunshine broken in a rill, though turned astray, is sunshine still,’’ so this truth, distorted as it may be, and mingled up 'with absurdity and and extravagance as it is, is yet part and parcel of the original and primal feeling of human nature ; and deep instincts in our nature are prophecies of their own ful- filment and gratification. This mutual recognition, let me proceed to show, Avhether it ‘be before or after the resurrection, I believe to be a reality. The resurrection is only the intenser manifestation of the individual, not the creation of the possibility or fact of mutual recognition. The spirit dis- embodied and in eternal joy may recognise spirit, as angels recognizes angel, with an accuracy and an exact- ness far greater than that with wdiich we recognize each other through the media of these tents and veils of hu- manity in which it is our lot now to dwell. The fact is, we see less of each other in the flesh than we shall see of each other out of it. The body is a veil ; and we know 220 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. that such is the power of mind over exterior matter that it can shape and mould the countenance to give expression to what is not, as well as permit it to give expression to what really and truly is. And hence it seems perfectly reasonable to conclude that soul may recognise soul ; that there is an identity there as real, as discoverable as in the features of the face, the gait or the walk, the tone of the voice, the look and expression of the countenance. It may be in that spirit land that a mother lifted to glory, wondering for a little if the son she left behind be with her or still in the flesh, may meet one spirit in that better land who sliall give expression to his joy in the language of one of old, I am Joseph and these words will waken lost reminiscences and features, and swell the Joys of the redeemed even in the presence of God and of the Lamb. We must feel that in the upper glory or in fu- ture rest memory is not extinguished. The resurrection does not quench a single attribute of humanity that ^vas part and parcel of it originally ; it glorifies all, it annihi- lates nothing. In the parable of the rich man and La- zarus, we read that Abraham said, Son, remember therefore, memory survives the grave. We read also that the rich man in misery recollected the number of his brethren on earth. If memory survive in the lost, surely it will survive in the blessed. The admission of human nature into heaven does not effect the mutilation of it, but the glorification of it with all the splendors of eternal and undying perfection. And if we carry memory with us into the realms of glory, surely we shall instinctively and necessarily recollect persons, scenes, circumstances, relationships, and associations ; and as sure as we recol- RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 221 lect them we shall feel anxious to know that it is well with those who with us took part in them ; and that anxiety to know, unmet and ungratified, would be a con- scious want in heaven somewhat incompatible with the perfect felicity of the saved. Christianity is as a religion, the mother of union. Sin is the cause and the spring of disorganization : true religion begins in this world asso- ciations, friendship, intercourse, communion, that never Avill and need not be dissolved. If Christianity has cre- ated new ties between me and others, and it was Christian to create them, it is only Christian to conserve and per- petuate them ; if they be the fruits of this religion, like all its fruits they shall have an amaranthine life, an im- perishable glory. And again, natural ties, the ties of parent, of child, of brother or sister, are intrinsically pure and holy ; they were originated before sin entered. And if they be in themselves intrinsically holy, we must expect that the religion which sanctifies all that is natural will perpetuate for ever what it has sanctified. Can we suppose that Lazarus will not know Martha, and her sister Mary? Will the friendship of David and Jona- than be quenched for ever ? Will the beautiful affection of Ruth and Naomi wither the instant that it is admitted into that land where all bright things never fade, and all blessed things die not? Besides, there are certain facts here that seem to demand further recognition. For in- stance, some unseen benefactor has interposed in the hour of your trial, and relieved, comforted, or delivered you. Some word spoken in a distant part of the world by one you never saw has become to you a ministry of everlast- ing joy. Some great truths in the printed page, set in a 222 THE GREAT TRIBULATION, new light, have struck your heart with irresistible force ; you never saw the person that wrote them, you never heard a word from his lips ; but if you feel that what you read, written by some one across the Atlantic, has been to your soul a savor of life, will it not be natural in heaven, will it not be natural in the future state, to seek out the unknown individual, to ask what he is and who he is ? If they that have turned many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever, will it not be natural that you should see that bright star that has guided you across a stormy and a tempestuous sea, now that there is no cloud to in- tercept its splendor, no darkness to dim, and no space to separate ? The desire seems to be so natural that surely the sense of it here is the prophecy of its gratification hereafter. One cause why we do not see as we are seen, is that sin has enfeebled the intellect, deadened the con- science, depraved the heart; but we are absolutely as- sured that in the future world we shall see in a brighter light all things more clearly ; for in this world we see through a* glass darkly. Remember, that in the times when the apostle wrote, the window through which they saw, or the mirror which reflected the human countenance, was then very imperfect, and from its nature extremely opaque. The apostle says, ^ AVe see now through a glass darkly ; but then face to face ; now we know in part ; but then we shall know even as we are known.’’ But the decisive proof is God’s holy word. I will refer first to the feelings of the Jews, as they are indi- cated in the Old Testament. We all remember reading the anxiety of Abraham to find a burying-place at Mach- pelah for the dust of the beloved Sarah ; and his eloquent RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 223 and yet business-like transactions with the sons of Heth upon this subject. Also, the dying request of the patri- arch Jacob when the time drew near that he must die ; and he called his sons and said, ‘^lam to be gathered unto my people ; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in he field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife ; there they buried Isaac and Eebekah his wife ; and there I buried Leah. The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.’’ Now what was the reason of this desire of the patriarchs to find one common resting-place? It was not a morbid fancy, nor a mere imperfect human passion ; it was an instinct that taught them that the dead dust beneath the oaks of Mamre should one day be quickened with the pulse of everlasting life ; that the dead dust, that can still be traced to the very spot where it was deposited by the patriarchs, shall hear the voice of the resurrection trumpet, and shall come forth and be the heir of ever- lasting life. But we go a step further : it is said, Abra- ham was gathered to his people.” Does that mean simply that he was buried with them ? That is not true ; for Terah his father died in Haran, and Abraham’s body was not buried along with his. But Abraham is said to have been gathered to his own people previous to his burial ; and therefore it must mean his soul joined the company of them that had preceded him to glory. You recollect what Jacob said, I will go down into the grave that 224 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. is our translation, it is properly, The place of disem- bodied spirits I will go to the company of disembod- ied spirits, to my son, mourning.'’ And when his chil- dren tried to comfort him, it is said he refused to be com- forted ; evidently his feeling was to mourn till he should meet his son ; then the patriarch felt he should be pom- forted. The very fact that he expected comfort when he should meet his son in the place of departed spirits is proof that he expected then and there to recognize him. Moses, again, was buried on Mount Nebo : it is said he too was gathered to his people. But his sepulchre was an unknown sepulchre ; it must therefore have been his spirit gathered to the spirits of just men made perfect. This desire to rest their dead dust where the dust of their fathers was ; the expectation to be gathered to them who had preceded them to glory, all assumes their belief of reunion, their expectation of recognition ; for it was not to a strange people and a strange land, but to the com- pany and communion of them that preceded them. The memorable expression, too, of David is very suggestive ; v/hen his child was taken from him, his first feelino- was absolute submJssion to God ; but his second was a special spring of consolation, I shall go to him, though he shall not come to me.” Does not that very expression of hope imply his belief, that his joy would revive because he would recognise his son that God had taken from him in just and righteous chastisement to him ? In the teach- ing of our blessed Lord this reunion and recognition is assumed rather than asserted. It may be said of human nature what is said of the law, I am not come' to de- stroy the law, but to fulfil it.” When Christ came to RECOUNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 225 redeem us, He came not to alter the essentials of human nature, but to sanctify, to perfect, and to glorify all. When Jesus comforted Martha, what did He say ? Not ‘^He is happy;” that would have been so far comfort; but He said, ^‘Thy brother shall rise again;” not simply ‘^Lazarus shall rise again;” but ‘Hhy brother.” As if to show that there would be the resurrection of the visi- ble relationship as well as the resurrection of the dead man. He says, Thy brother shall rise again.” Speaking of the future, Jesus says, “ In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Then heaven is represented as a home ; all the saved are under one sheltering roof, and derive their joy from one common domestic hearth- stone. Will that great, perfect, and holy family be the only family where all the inmates are strangers each to the other, and strangers to their common Father ? If Jesus recognized those that were gathered round Him below, and they recognized each other, is it possible that they should be gathered round Him in glory, and one fail to recognize the other ? When He says again, ‘ ‘ Many shall come from the east, and from the west, and sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob;” will they be un- conscious in whose presence they are ? Will they not know that this is Isaac, and that Jacob, and that Abra- ham ? Is not the very fulfilment of the promise necessa- rily recognition, so that they that heard and believed the promise may know that it is fulfilled ? He also says, Ye also shall sit down on twelve thrones,” that is, the apostles ; ‘^judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Will they not know that these are the twelve tribes ; will the twelve tribes not know that these are the apostles ? And at tho 10 * 226 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. judgment-day, what does Jesus say? “Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these my brethren,” pointing to groups that Avere around them, “ ye have done it unto me.” He says, “ Make to yourself friends of the mam- mon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may re- ceive you into everlasting habitations ;” that is, that those you have benefited by your wealth, and riches, and in- fluence, may at the gates of glory welcome you into ever- lasting mansions through Christ the Lord ; and to testify that inasmuch as you did it unto them, therefore you did it unto Christ. Moses and Elijah appeared together on the mount of transfiguration; their identity preserved, tlieir persons recognized. The lost rich man seeth Abra- ham afar off ; Lazarus in his bosom recognised Abraham, and Abraham recognized him. Again, if we come to the epistles of the New Testament, w^e find equally clear proof of a recognition. For instance, Ave read in the epistle to the HebrcAvs, “ Ye,” speaking of the saved in glory — “ are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the liv- ' ing God, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general as- sembly and church of the firstborn, Avhich are Avritten in heaven, and to God the Judge of all.” Does not that im- ply recognition, communion, reunion ? Paul, speaking to his converts, says, “Warning every man, and teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” Does not that seem as if the apostle expected to recognize those that he expected to present as the seals of his ministry, as the fruits of his labor? Archdeacon Paley, a man of no imagination, of no great, or deep, or tender feeling, writing upon this very text, RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 227 says, This affords a manifest and necessary inference, that the saints in the future life shall meet and be known again the one to the other.’’ Again, the apostle says, ‘‘We are your rejoicing, as ye also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Does not that seem to indicate that they shall know him, that he shall personally know them ; and when they meet at the judgment seat of Christ they shall rejoice in the company of each other ? Again, the apostle says, “ For what is our hope, our joy, our crown of re- joicing ? And not yet in the presence of the Lord Jesus at his coming? For ye are our glory and our joy.” Does not this imply that the apostle expected as his reward to meet them to whom his ministry had been blessed, and to derive accession to his joy from the sight of the multi- tudes of theiR who, through what he taught them, had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ? I have quoted Paley on one text, let me quote another clear and logical writer, a perfect par- allel to Paley, who had no tender feeling or deep pas- sion, Dr. Macnight ; in his Critical Edition of the Epistles of the New Testament, he says upon this text, “ The manner in which the apostle speaks of the Thessalo- nians shows that he expceted to know his converts at the day of judgment. If so, we may hope to know our relations and our friends in everlasting joy.” Again, in 1 Thess. iv. 13, we have no less conclusive evidence of the same thing. The apostle says, “ I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring 228 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. with him.^’ Now wliat Avas the cause of the sorroAV of these mourning Christians ? It was the separation from their society of those they loved and held communion with on earth. What would be comfort to them ? Not the general fact of the certainty of the resurrection from the dead, for they knew this ; but the special fact that those that had been taken from them they should meet and min- gle with, and recognize again. The words prove this inference irresistible. He says, Them which sleep in Jesus will he bring Avith him ; and so shall we be for ev^er Avith the Lord.’’ And again he says, We Avhich remain shall be caught up together Avith them.” The idea that runs through that most beautiful passage is restoration and recognition of those that have been taken aAvay ; re- union and restored communion with them from whom they had been separated. The spring of consolation he opens to the mourning Thessalonians because of the loss of their near and dear ones is not the resurrection, but the recog- nition, reunion, and restoration of the ties and bonds that death had snapped, when Christ should come again, and they all should join Him, and so be for ever with the Lord. There are objections to this great truth, and objections that haA^e a great deal of plausibility in them. First of all, it is alleged by some that death makes so great, so aAvful a change, that we cannot reason from any experi- ence that we haA^e below to facts and phenomena which may exist in heaven or hereafter. I answer, we mistake Avhat death does ; death does not annihilate a single faculty of the mind, a single pure affection of the heart ; it operates no change in the individual Christian Ayhateyer, KECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COJVIE. 229 except that of transference from grace to glory, from earth to everlasting heaven. At deatli we leave behind us simply our sin, and at the resurrection day we shall be raised with all the traits of an individual and character- istic identity ; sin, imperfection, tears, and headaches and heartaches, only being left behind for the last fire to con- sume. In the second place, it has been objected that at the resurrection the change will be so great in our present body, that it will be impossible to reason from what w^e now see or feel in the body, to anything that can possibly be realized after that great and radical change. I answer, wdien the body is raised from the dead, not one fugitive expression on the face, not one glance in the eye, not one tone in the voice, not one feature that constitutes the identity and personality of the man, need or shall be al- tered or destroyed in the grave. Sin only will be elim- inated — imperfection and sorrow, its progeny, will be driven away ; but this very corruptible shall put on incor- ruption. Nay, we have evidence what it shall be ; it is said in the Corinthians, He shall change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.’’ Have we any picture of Christ’s glorious body? We have. The fashion of his countenance was altered ; his raiment was white and glistening ; and his face did shine as the sun.” Now, here is the photograph of Christ’s glorified body. Well, our bodies shall be like his glori- fied body. But did the apostles fail to recognize Him as they thus beheld Him ? On the contrary, all the marks of his identity were there. They recognized the same man of sorrows, that hung upon the cross, that wept and sympathised with us, and struggled in his agony in the 230 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. garden of Gethsemane. And when He rose from the dead himself. He said, Touch me, and handle me; and see that a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’’ What is meant by all this, if not to convince us, not only of our Lord’s identity, but of the recognizable and dis- tinguishable identity, between the resurrection body and the body that now is ? But it has been objected that in- dividual, and personal, and social, and relative affections and attachments are incompatible with the supreme affec- tion and attachment that we owe to the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. It is thought by some that all personal and relative affections shall be merged and lost in the one ab- sorbing and consuming love to the Lamb that sits upon the throne. But I do not see that this must follow. For instance, Jesus had the disciple whom he loved — loved not merely as He loves you and me, the sinners He has washed in his blood ; but loved as his friend, preferred as as the companion of his travels, and has inspired the sacred penman to record not the least beautiful and touch- ing proof of his true human heart, The disciple wLom Jesus loved.” And because in tlie realms of the blessed we may have affections and attachments to each other, it does not follow that these will weaken or dilute our at- tachment to our common Lord. The moon moves round the earth ; yet no less than the other planets round the sun ; no saints in glory may have their particular orbits, their individual attractions ; yet no less do they move wdth all saints round the central sun, the Sun of Righteousness. Our human affections on earth are not incompatible with our love to our common Lord ; and when all shall be pu- rified, they will still less be incompatible. But it has been RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 231 objected that our Lord has said, In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.’’ Luke explains what this means when he says, As the angels, neither can they die any more.” But because marriage ties are not created in the future, it does not follow that the friendships, and affections, and bonds of that very relationship shall not be remembered and realized. It does not follow because there are no new ties formed there that we shall fail to recog- nize each other there. Can we suppose each Christian in heaven to be like a monk in a cell, or a statute in a niche ; cold, unfeeling, unconsciously connected with the thousands, the teeming thousands, that are around him ? If so, heaven would not be our Father’s home ; it w^ould be the cell of the anchorite, not the home of the Christian son. But it has been objected by others — and this is, per- haps, the strongest objection of all, or, at least, the one the most difficult to deal with — that if memory survive the grave, if there be no essential revolution in all its re- collections, that there will be and must be pain, sorrow, and bitterness in the future rest or in heaven ; for shall we not miss there some that we would give all the world to mjet there ? And if we miss in the groups that arc clad in white robes, and that are around the ;hrone, beloved ones that we revered and loved with nature’s warmest sympathies on earth, will not that be a gap ? will not that be agony, and sorrow, and distress? And how is that compatible with the statement that in the age to come there will be neither sorrow, nor crying, nor tears, nor any more pain ? I admit this is the most difficult to 232 THE GREAT TRIBULATION answer ; but I submit what I think approximates to an answer, if it is not a perfect and complete one. May it not be that only the ties of nature that have also been sanctified by grace shall survive even in recollection, in sympathy, and in thought? For instance, a Christian woman is married to an unregenerate and an unchris- tian husband. The tie of nature ceased when the hus- band died, or when the wife was gathered into everlasting glory. May it not be that this tie, not having been con- secrated and baptized by grace, not having been glorified by Christian light and Christian love, may, having ceased to be a reality — for death separates wife from husband, aud dissolves the marriage tie — cease also to be a recol- lection? The saved in heaven are washed from their sins, but they cannot forget the sins of which they were guilty upon earth. It will be impossible to forget, be- cause we have memories, that w^e once did sin upon earth. Yet the recollection of those sins will occasion us no sor- row. In the same manner the glorified wife may have no pain at the recollection of the lost husband, or, at least, no pain from missing him there, because that tie, once so near and dear, dropped when nature died, and is remem- bered no more. Besides, may it not cast a little light upon this very difficult thing if we consider that th^ an- gels that are in glory must recollect that a vast batallion of their numbers is now writhing in endless agony ? Angels fell; Satan is the prince of the fallen angels; yet the happiness of angels in heaven is not diluted by the recollection that many of those that were once there are not there now. There is also a text, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God that is, all RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 233 ties, bonds, relationships, that are mere flesh and blood, and that never were consecrated, sanctified, or baptized by the Spirit of God, do not enter into the kingdom of heaven ; are broken off* and cease there for ever and for ever. And we have almost a dim presentiment of this from our blessed Lord’s words : While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand with- out, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him. Who is my mother ? and who are my brethren ? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother as if the earthly relationship was absorbed and annihilated in the divine and the higher re- lationship of God. But if it should be maintained bj^- any that there is no recognition above, or before us, that would not diminish these supposed sorrows. If there shall be pain, or the possibility of pain, from the remi- niscence that one is missing that we want to meet, if there be no recognition at all, we shall equally fliil to be sure that those we wish to meet have been admitted here. You do not get rid of the difficulty by denying recognition in the world to come. But besides, of this we are abso- lutely sure, that all painful recollections are impossible there. We know from our own experience what may be a presentiment and prefiguration of it, that feelings of grief at the loss of near and dear ones, at first most 234 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. poignant, almost intolerable, gradually subside into resig- nation. And so it may be, that missing in the groups of the saved some that we could wish to be there, our re- grets may so subside into resignation to God’s most ex- cellent will, that we shall be able to say, with an emphasis with which we never said it before, Thy will be done here, even as it is done elsewhere in heaven.” But may it not be that as there is a hope against hope respecting dead relatives which w^e feel here, it may be in mercy permitted to us, in the realms of glory, that we shall never be sure that some we expected to meet are not there ? Our Father’s house has all infinitude for its di- mensions, ail eternity for its duration ; and though we may not meet some that we may wish to meet, that will not prove that they are not in some other chamber of the universal home, in some other compartment of our Fath- er’s house. But of this we are absolutely sure, that we shall have no feelings, desires, or sympathies that are not in perfect harmony with the will and the mind of God. For instance, Aaron held his peace when his two sons were struck dead ; and the brothers of these two were forbidden even to weep for them, and w^e read that they held their peace. So our sympathies and afiections shall be so entirely moulded according to God’s holy will, that we shall not have a wish that is not a reflection from the throne ; no desire that is not an echo of his word ; no want that is not perfectly, completely overflowed by Deity. W e shall miss some great professors that all the world would have canonized ; and we shall meet many a quiet, reserved, almost speechless one, who felt deep thoughts, RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 235 uttered few words, was a saint concealed, it may be, by his imperfections, concealed, it may be, by his timidity, but a saint indeed, and an heir of everlasting glory. And it does seem that if you were to take away that blessed thought of meeting Christians whom we have known and loved below, relatives above wdiom we have spent our pilgrimage with upon earth, it would take a gem from the crown of glory, a bright beam from ever- lasting day. Beautifully, therefore, does the poet say, — “ Oh, when the mother meets on high, The child she lost in infancy, Hath she not then for pains and fears. The day of woe, the watchful night. For all her sorrows, all her tears. An over-payment of delight.” And in that remarkable book by Tapper, Proverbial Philosophy,’’ full of precious thought, he says, I look to recognize, through the beautiful mask of their per- fection, the dear familiar faces.” But if you should ever think of missing one in glory, what is the available remedy ? Are you, husband, asso- ciated with a wife who gives no evidence of being a child of God ? Speak to her the sacred words ; tell her of the availing name. Oh, let not that foolish, stupid, worth- less shame that you would not show as a soldier, a sailor, a lawyer, or a physician, prevent you one moment from saying, “ This is the way; walk ye in it. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” And if I address a wife whose husband gives no evidence of grace, speak to him; gentle words, spoken in a gentle spirit, 236 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. may fall like the dew upon the soil, without noise, and without seeming present effect ; but they saturate the soil, and the beauteous summer gives token of its effects. A word in season, behold how good it is.’’ I ask, is there anything more worthy of being spoken of than Christ, the soul, eternity ? In a few fleet years the youngest and the healthiest and the strongest must lie down and die ; in a few fleet months the aged must leave this pilgrimage of toil, this battle-field of conflict. Surely, surely, if there be one thought that ought to dominate, that ought to be supreme and overwhelming till it is settled, it is this. Will it be well with me at the judgment-seat of Christ ? Shall I be among those to whom He will say, ‘‘ Come, ye blessed of my Father” ? How is it that men are all anxiety about the things of the world, all apathy about the things of eternity ? How is it, I ask in the name of common sense, not to speak of the name of Him whose ambassador I am, how is it that the trifles of a day stir every passion and sympathy of the human heart ; and that the very world for which we are here, the very end for which we are born, the safety of the soul, accept- ance through the blood of sprinkling, are treated as if time were eternity, and eternity were time ? If you have any one connected with you, live Chris- ^tianity, speak Christianity, teach Christianity, and, above all, pray. I do not believe that a child that has been the object of a mother’s prayers will ever perish. I do not believe that a husband who is the ceaseless burden of a wife’s prayers at the throne of grace will die eternally. I have perfect faith in God as the hearer of prayer. RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME. 237 Pray, pray, pray. And then when your prayers are an- swered, they will be lost in everlasting praise ; and you shall meet above them with whom you held sweet com- munion below ; and nature’s ties, glorified in the light and splendor of the better land, will be the media of only more reciprocal delight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory. LECTUEE XXXV. THE THRONED PRIEST AND KING. And he shall sit arid rule upon his throne ; and he shall be a priest upon his throne : and the counsel of peace shall he between them boihP — Zechartah vi. 13. The prophet, I need not say, refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, this is the prophecy of what He shall be. There can be no difficulty in coming to this decision. I do not therefore spend time in attempting to prove it. It has been fulfilled in no other, it has been actualized in Christ, and this alone as proof that it relates to Him. This spectacle of Christ upon his throne was seen by Isaiah when he saw ‘^the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above stood the seraphim : each one had six wings , with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts ; the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me ! for I am un- done ; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips ; for mine eyes (288) THE THRONED PRIEST AND KING. 239 have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.’’ Who was this King, or Lord of hosts, that Isaiah saw? We are in- formed by the evangelist John that these things spake Esaias when he saw Christ’s glory, and spake of Him; and those things that he thus refers to are the things quoted, specifically quoted, in the sixth chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah. I cannot conceive how it is possible to conclude that Christ is merely a creature, as long as I find an evangelist, inspired by the Spirit of God, quoting a prophet’s delineation of Jehovah, the Lord of hosts, and asserting that vision and delineation to be the Lord Jesus Christ. I only wonder how the Unitarian ever gets over the difficulties of his creed : they seem to me insuperable ; and either he must be gifted with su- perhuman penetration to arrive at so extraordinary a conclusion, or he must have badly read a book which the more it is read reveals more clearly the impress of its author, and the deity of our blessed and adorable Lord. He was seen upon a throne by Isaiah ; and he is here predicted to sit upon his throne. The expression, sit- ting upon a throne,” is figurative, but being figurative, it must have substance as its meaning. Spoken of in Scrip- ture are several thrones. There is first the throne of majesty, or that universal sovereignty and precedency which Christ exercises over all the universe ; all the things that are fair upon earth, all the things that are beautiful in the sky are under his control and subject to his gov- ernment. Heaven is his throne, we are told, and earth is his footstool ; he made the sea and the dry land. He superintends and governs from that throne the sea with its waves, earth with its flowerets, the sky with its clouds, 240 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. and its stars, nations and their people, thrones and their occupants, cherubim, and seraphim, and children, all are under the presidency, the government, and inspection of Him beyond whose cognizance the greatest things are not, and within whose superintendence the minutest things ceaselessly lie. But there is also a throne called the throne of grace.’’ He is exalted a prince,” that is royalty, and a savior to give repentance and remission of sins.” And the apostle says in the epistle to the Hebrews, Having a high-priest over the house of David, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help us in thu time of need.” There is the throne of judgment. Christ will be the occupant of that. We read expressly, The Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all the nations.” Again, We must all appear at the judgment-seat of Christ.” Again, ‘‘ He will judge the world in righteousness.” And again, Christ says from the throne, Come, ye blessed of my Father.” There is another incidental proof that Jesus is God. If God be not upon the judgment-seat, where can He be, or should He be ? I could almost conceive God to be absent at the creation of the world ; I could almost conceive the absence of a God in the government of the world ; but I cannot conceive that Deity shall be absent from that throne, at which and from which the doom and the interests of all flesh shall be adjusted, all hearts laid bare, and to every man meted out the exact and everlasting retribution that justly belongs to him. Grant me that my Kedeemer is to git upon the judgment throne, and I need no text to prove THE THRONED PRIEST AND KING. 241 that He is God ; none but God can be there ; and if God be not there, He seems to me absent from that place where of all places in the universe His presence is imper- atively required. But all these thrones, we are told, will be ultimately merged in one, called the throne of glory. When he shall sit upon the throne of glory, a Prince and a King for ever every knee bowing to Him, every tongue con- fessing that Pie is Lord. Unto the Son he saith. Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever.’’ Now a picture of this throne w^e have very beautifully and graphically set before us in the book of Revelation, where John says in the fifth chapter, And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns,” — that is, omnipotence — seven ages” — that is omniscience — which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth unto all the earth.” Then he says, And they sung a new song, saying. Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof ; for 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 w^e shall reign on the earth.” At the eleventh verse : And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders ; and the num- ber of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” It will not be a little number that will be saved ; w^e cannot agree with the exclusive bigot that a handful will be saved ; W’e cannot agree with the lafitudinarian universalist that all mankind will be 11 242 THE GREAT TRIBULATION, saved ; but I believe that, taking all the generations of the human race together, the overwhelming majority will be the occupants of heaven, and a minority the inmates of a prison into which they rushed themselves, in spite of remonstrating appeals, and where they are, not because God sent them there, but because they themselves made themselves fit for being there, and for nowhere else in the universe of God. A great multitude,’’ he says in another part. And what did they say? And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” Can that be a hu- man being, can that be an angel, to whom the universe thus lifts anthems of everlasting praise, and who receives them on the throne as his just and inalienable due ? Thus we have seen every throne which Christ occu- pies and will occupy ; let us now look af the functions which He fulfils as the occupant of these thrones. First it is said, He shall be a priest upon his throne.” Part of the priestly office He fulfilled without, when He suf- fered without the gate, and gave himself for us. Another part of the priestly office He carries on in the holy of holies, where He ever liveth to intercede for us. But here He is set before us in combined or conjunct charac- ter, not only as a priest, pleading by the altar, but also as a king throned or seated on his throne. This is Christ’s intransferable glory — that He is a priest and a king at the same time. The house of Aaron had a priesthood, but they had not a sceptre and a crown. The house of THE THRONED PRIEST AND felNG. 243 David had the sceptre and the crown, but not the altar, the mitre, the breast-plate, the Urim and the Thummim, and office of the priesthood. But Jesus combines all the sa- credness of Aaron and all the royalty of David — the priestly office and the kingly office welded into one. The occupant of that great and lasting throne in this vision shall have the altar and the throne in one — the cross He suffered on and the crown He wears inseparable in his approaching reign ; and this I shall show is the spring and source of our greatest blessings. Look at Christ upon the throne, and the element you feel must be despair ; look at Christ upon the altar, and you may want that awe, and reverence, and godly fear, wherewith you should approach Him. But look at the majesty of the king through the mercy of the priest, and you will not de- spair ; look at the mercy of the priest through the ma- jesty of the king, and you will not presume. Thus look- ing and resting upon Christ a priest upon his throne, you will have peace with God through Christ Jesus. From God’s altar He sends forth rich mercy ; from God’s throne He sends forth direction and authority. Thus love and law, justice and mercy, righteousness and truth, are brous^ht together, and descend from heaven to earth a river that makes glad the city of our God, the tabernacle of the place of the Most High. He shall sit upon his throne as a priest. Now this is a mark of special dignity, power, and authority. We find in the ancient economy that Aaron and the priests of that dispensation, when they officiated at their altars inva- riably stood. Bat the distinction that is here implied, that Christ sits upon his throne, teaches us that we have 244 THE GBEAT TRIBULATION. no need of propitiatory sacrifice. It is finished. If Christ were still standing by his altar or by the throne, it would imply that propitiatory sacrifice was still going on ; but the fiict that he has sat down indicates that all the painful sacrifice without is finished, and that he now w^ears the trophies and enjoys the spoils of his glorious and blessed victory. Thus in the ancient economy we are told by the apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews, the tenth chapter, at the eleventh verse : And every priest stand- eth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God.’’ What a beautiful con- trast ! Every ^ ^ priest ’ ’ in the ancient economy ; many priests contrasting with this man ” — one priest. Then every priest The attitude of servants car- rying on a process incomplete ; but this man sat dovm. And ‘‘every priest standeth daily offering” — that is, many sacrifices ; but “this man after he had offered one sacrifice for ever” for ever ; that is, completely, perfectly. And these offered sacrifices which can never take away sin ; but this man offered one sacrifice for sin for ever. And I may notice what I see is corrected in a later edi- tion of Bagster’s Bible — the wrong placing of a comma in that very verse which I am quoting ; and it is one of those little mistakes that are of very great importance. In the twelfth verse we read; “This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins.” In most Bibles the comma is put after the word “sins;” and then it is added, “for ever sat down on the right hand of God.” Now He is not set down for ever on the right hand of God ; He is THE THRONED PRIEST AND KING. 245 to rise and come again. Every one that knows the Greek language would see at once that the comma should be placed after for ever.’^ And therefore this verse should be thus read : ‘‘ After he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever,’’ — completely, in opposition to the many sacri- fices of Levi — “ sat down on the right hand of God.” Unless read in this way, the full force of the contrast is not brought out. We have thus our High Priest, not standing like a servant with a process incomplete, but having sat down — the sacrifice finished, the oblation offered, and no more needing to be made as an atonement for sins. These two oflSces of Christ as a Priest and a King are never separated in his person, and yet they are perfectly distinct. The inquiry why God should be pleased to reveal himself in offices, is to be answered just in the same w^ay as why should He please to reveal himself in attri- butes. We speak of the attributes of God — omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence. So God is revealed partly in nature, partly in providence. And it is only in analogy with these and similar attributes that we speak of Christ as revealed by offices ; it is the accommodation of the infi- nite to finite minds. Christ is revealed to us as a king and a priest. It is not the office of a king to intercede ; it is not the oflSce of a priest to reign. Therefore it is as a priest He is appointed to give remission of sins ; and as a king He is appointed to give repentance. Thus in that text often quoted you will see a revelation of Christ as a priest upon his throne. “ He is exalted a prince and savior, to give repentance and remission of sins.” A prince to give repentance, which is something created 246 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. within US ; a priest to give remission of sins, which is something declared without us. The efficacy of his blood secures for us the pardon of our sins ; the efficacy of his royal sceptre creates within us repentance or sanctifica- tion of heart. Now let us see the Lord Jesus Christ as the great priest and king upon his throne, and view Him in both features as he is set before us in the gospel. View Him then first of all as a priest ; for we cannot comprehend all the fulness and glory of his character at once ; giving remission of sins, and ever living to inter- cede for us. The priestly office of Christ is constantly referred to in every part of the New Testament as the great spring of all the consolations of the people of God. Do you need the comfort of pardon — do you need the comfort of assurance — do you need hope, and peace, and joy ? The fountain that is open is the fountain in the house of David — that fountain of atoning blood, the foot-print upon earth of a high priest that has passed over it, is the great source and cause of all our joy, and our peace, and our comfort. He is spoken of in the next place as a king. You will see in his royal character nothing to awe or to alarm. Because He is a King, He has command ; but because He is a priest as well as a king, his commands are not grievous. Because He is a king. He has a yoke ; but because He is a priest as well as a king, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. His very commands are royal ones. He commands to us to be happy. This is his com- mand ; that you believe on his name. His very law is love ; his sceptre is so mingled with his cross that when you are thinking of the majesty of the one, suddenly 24T THE THRONED PRIEST AND KINO. there comforts you an apocalypse of the mercy, and love, and sympathy of the other. Do not separate the two great functions of his character, and yet view them as perfectly distinct. Some try to separate them ; there are excellent people, moral and upright people, who look exclusively to Christ as a king. Those that deny the atonement — that do not see their own ruin by nature — that do not see their need of a remedial system, look to Christ only as a king ; they hear his law, and they say, How beautiful !” they listen to his precepts, and they say, How perfect!’’ and they set themselves to obey them, not to express their allegiance to Him, but to win their way to heaven and to everlasting happiness. Now they that look to Christ alone as a king, need to be told that by deeds of law, that is, by obedience to Christ’s precepts, no human being can be saved. You never can get to heaven as the reward of being holy ; the steps by which we climb to glory are not those carved on Sinai by the Ten Commandments ; you never can strike a way, or purchase a way, or by dint of force prepare a way by which, and in which, and through which you can get to heaven. Therefore, do not look to Christ alone as a king; in other words, do not regard Christianity as a mere more beautiful edition of the law, as a code of ex- quisite precepts, as it is ; as a compendium of holy law’, which it is. I do not blame you for so regarding it ; but I do blame you for so regarding it exclusively. It is right you should see Christ the king ; it is wTong you should think of Him only as the king. And just to take the obverse, you, are not only not to look a Christ’s kingly office alone, but you are also not to look at Christ’s priestly office alone. There are some 248 THE GKEAT TRISULATION. people who so look at the kingly oflSce, that they try to get to heaven by obeying his law ; there are other people who so look at Christ’s priestly office, that they hope to get to heaven in spite of disobeying Christ’s law. Now, our answer to the latter is, you are not saved by good deeds, but you cannot be saved without them. The dis- tinction is broad ; — you are not saved by good deeds as if they were the grounds, and merits, and titles of your salvation ; but you are not saved without good deeds as the fruits and evidence of your personal acceptance of the Gospel. There are those who may be called Anti- nomians, who look to Christ’s priestly office alone, their idea of salvation is immunity from the consequences of sin ; whereas, if I understand the Bible, salvation is im- munity not only from the penalty, but from the polluting presence of sin. It is human nature that wishes to be saved from the consequences of sin — that is, hell ; but it is a sanctified human nature that desires to be freed from the presence, the touch, and contact of sin — that is of a new man in Christ Jesus. A true Christian shrinks from sin as much as from its effects ; and he cannot be satisfied, and he will not be satisfied with a heaven which is physical separation from hell, but not also moral sepa- ration from the taint, the contact, and the pollution of sin. So that he that looks at Christ as a king alone, is trying to get to heaven by his own deservings ; he who looks to Christ as a priest alone, is making the cross a shelter for his sins, not the place where those sins are crucified. But if, on the other hand, we look to Christ as priest and king also,, we view Him as saving us not only from the consequences of sin, but also from the THE THRONED PRIEST AND KING. 249 presence, the pollution, and the power of sin ; so that we not only get rid of the fear of its consequences, but pro- gressively, if not wholly in this world rid of the power, and the pollution of its presence. Interwoven with both, running through both, the sub- stance, the vitality, the virtue of both, is Christ God as well as man. Now, if Jesus were not God, he could not be a king upon his throne ; if He were not man. He never could have been a priest or a sacrifice. You will find in all his functions the assumption of his Deity al- ways involved. And look at his priestly office : He must be man in order that he may suffer ; because suffer- ing was the penalty of sin, and our nature He took upon Him that He might pay that penalty. He was therefore man that He might suffer and sympathize ; but he was also God, for while human nature could suffer, it could not satisfy while it suffered. His humanity made his sufferings suitable ; his Deity made his sufferings satis- factory. Hence, Deity inlaid every thought, inspired every feeling, partook in every action, was audible in every accent, and toned and colored the whole biography and life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Him in the next place as a king, and you will see how Deity is necessarily there. What is the realm of this great King ? One day it will be the universe, partially it is so now ; it waits for this earth, the prodigal orb, to be restored in order for the whole universe to be under his sceptre. But part of his kingdom is the hu- man heart. Christ reigns within actually, as well as prophetically promised to reign without. But who can see the heart — who can search it — who can note and 11 =^ 250 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. meet its aberrations — who can give it a new and a holy ^larity — who can sanctify it, turn the rock into flesh, and deadness into sensibility ? He must be God. He therefore who is my priest to pardon me, and is also to sanctify me, must be the maker of theheart in order to be the regenerator of the heart ; and therefore God as well as man. Thus, we have seen Christ in his priestly ofiice, Christ in his kingly ofiice, and Deity the inspiration and effica- cy of both. Let us now turn our attention to the result of all this. The counsel,’’ the covenant, of peace shall be between them both.” I argue from this that it is impossible there could be peace between heaven and earth — in other words, it is impossible there could be salvation except through Christ as a priest on his throne, or a king by the altar ; or priest and king in one. Two things are required in order that I can be saved. What are those two things ? That God shall see no ob- struction to the going forth of his pardon ; and secondly, that I should be willing on God’s terms to accept God’s way of pardon, and happiness, and peace. There is therefore a double work to be done ; a work without me in reference to God ; and a work within me, in myself, which is a royal or a kingly act. We shall find that the “ coun- sel of peace,” or in the more popular phrase, salvation, can only be accomplished by them both. For instance, Christ as a priest offers up sacrifice, expiates guilt, pro- nounces a blessing ; Christ as a king again rescues from enemies, and subdues us to himself. As a priest He ex- piates my sin by his blood ; as a king He extirpates my sin by his power. As a priest, Christ pardons my sins. THE THRONED PRIEST AND KING. 251 ■which is an act without me ; as a king, He purifies my heart, which is a work within me. As a priest, He gives me a title to heaven ; as a king. He makes within me a fitness for the kingdom of heaven. It is as a priest that Christ makes it possible for God to pardon me ; it is as a king that He makes me willing to take God’s pardon when it is so provided for me. What an awful idea does that give of human nature, that though we know that God is willing to save us, such is the instinctive enmity in our hearts that we need a divine work within us to make us willing to receive pardon ! In his priestly office, Christ restores me to the divine favor ; in his kingly office, He restamps upon my heart the divine image. He conquers and subdues to himself as a king those whom He has ransomed as a priest. He makes us his property by the purchase of his blood, He keeps us his property by the power and sovereignty of his sceptre. Thus I can see how peace can be between them both ; namely, that as a priest He has removed every reason why God should con- demn me. There is no reason in the universe why God should condemn a sinner that flees to him as a Father through Christ Jesus. Do you assign the law as a reason? It is magnified ; for Christ my representative obeyed it. Do you assign sin as a reason ? It is atoned, it is expiated ; for Christ my sacrifice has expiated it. There is no reason therefore in the character of God why He should condemn me. But you say He is just? Quite so: He is just; but He is just when He justifies them that believe in Christ Jesus. There is, therefore, no reason on God’s part why I should be condemned, because Christ is a priest, and has made that atonement for sin which is the grand 252 THE GKEAT TRIBULATION. provision of God — a provision we reverently accept, and , shall never be able sufficiently to explain. He has made it possible for the God that hates sin to pardon the crimi- nal who has committed it, but flees to Him in Christ for pardon. He has made it true that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’’ Thus then there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. ‘‘Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth ?” The lanOTao;e of universal defiance. “ It is Christ that died ; yea^ rather who is risen again.” Thus the priestly office of Christ has its aspect towards God ; the kingly office of Christ has its aspect towards man. By virtue of the first He makes it possible for God to dp what God delights to do — namely, to save my soul ; in virtue of the second, He makes me willing by my renovated heart to accept and hail with gratitude and joy all the provision made for my pardon in his blessed and glorious Gospel. So there is peace : if I look to God it is peace, for I see no more the Judge shrouded in the clouds of Sinai, but I bow the knee and raise my heart, and breathe the most beautiful words in the language of the world, “ Our Father which art in heaven.” All that made me shrink from God is put away ; all that made me with the instincts of my nature recoil from his book is put away. 1 shall no more say, like God’s servant of old, “ We shall die, for we have seen the Lord but the language is reversed, and I answer, “ I shall live for ever, for I have seen that this Lord is my Father.” And so God can look down upon me, and see no reason why He should condemn me ; there is no reason in the THE THRONED PRIEST AND KING. 253 law, there is none in me, there is none in sin ; for the law is magnified, sin is expiated ; I am willing to accept the provision of infinite mercy and wisdom, and therefore, justified by faith, I have peace with God ; I can say to Him, in the language of adoption, My Father;’’ and he can respond, in the music of heaven, ‘‘My son;” and if a son, an heir of God, a joint heir with Christ Jesus. Thus we see where the fountain and source of peace is — namely, between the priestly and the kingly office of Christ, or from Christ a priest upon his throne. Mark then, as inferences from this : first, the secret of uni- versal peace, the only source of peace amidst the nations of the earth is the influence of the everlasting Gospel. You may as well try by Peace Societies to make sunshine at mid- night, as to make peace without the Prince of peace. Peace over all the nations of the earth is not to be woven as cloth is ; it is not to be made by diplomacy, it is not to be created by fine speeches about the inexpediency of war ; the true way to create universal peace, and to render the soldier and the sailor, the battle field and the quarter deck relics of the past, is to spread more vigorously and speedily that blessed Gospel, which in royal hearts and in plebian hearts, makes wherever it is felt the peace that passeth understanding. Nations are simply groups of individuals ; and m the present day, when popular power seems to be growing for good or for evil, so great nations will be more and more just what individuals are. Far better introduce peace into our own hearts, peace at our own firesides, and thus peace in our own nation. As nations cling closer to the Prince of peace, their hearts will beat in nobler and in- tenser unison one with another. 251 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. Let US see in all this that great lesson, that there will one day be universal peace. We have faith in God’s word. There is no fear of its failing. Momentary tri- umphs of Infidelity, or of Popery, or Tractarianism, are merely eddies in the majestic current, that will soon be absorbed into its waters and disappear. God has spoken, we have confidence in his word. I am just as certain that the religion of this Book — the religion that we know, and love, and live in — shall overspread the whole earth, as I am that another sun shall rise, or that the sun that now shines shall set behind the western hills. We must have confidence in God’s truth. The church maybe in danger, the altar may be in danger, the priest may be in danger, the ceremony may be in danger ; but true religion is nearest to its most glorious victories when its peril seems to men the most imminent. It is God’s truth, God is with it, and it must prevail. And the effect of all this will be, the work of righteousness shall be peace, the effect of righteousness, gladness, and assurance for ever. A day, beautiful as ever dawned in Paradise, is no doubt almost at our doors. The last conflict is approaching ; all Europe will soon blaze like a volcano. All ancient landmarks will be obliterated, thrones shall be again overthrown, dynas- ties will be shaken, the awful tumults of the people will be heard again ; but in the midst of all the Christian ear shall hear, ringing sweet and clear from the heavens, Be still ; know that I am God ; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” After a short, a dark, and a sharp night, that beautiful day will come, sweeter than thaw after frost, than sunshine after night ; when the Prince of peace shall reign from sea to sea, and THE THRONED PRIEST AND KING. 255 all creation, restored to its morning beauty, shall bask in the beams of an unsetting and a holy sun. All sin which rends creation shall be extirpated, all sorrow shall vanish away, tears shall be wiped away from every eye ; and the very dumb brutes will be restored and be happy — happy as they were in Paradise. It is said in prophecy, The lion shall eat straw like the ox’^ — every creature in Paradise was made graminivorous. If you will turn to the record of the animal creation in Paradise, you will find it states expressly that every creature was made to eat grass, or to be what we call graminivorous; To every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given’’ — what? Every green herb for meat; and it was so.” Animals were not made to eat each other. I know how difficult it is to prove this. I know that the naturalist wdll say, — The lion has a peculiar structure of the teeth ; and the viscera of the lion differ from those of the ox : he is carnivorous, and not graminivorous. I an- swer, probably God made them thus in anticipation of what He knew would come — not what he caused to be, but what He knew would come — the Fall, the wreck and ruin of mankind. But He that thus made them can make them again, and the promise is that ‘^the lion shall eat straw like the ox;” and that creation shall cease its groans, its expectancies, its woes ; and be delivered from all its sad forebodings ; and the stormy and the troubled surf of this world shall end in the peaceful calm of an everlasting and an undisturbed heaven. Are we looking by faith to this priest for pardon — are we listening to this king for law ? Are we trusting in 256 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. what He had done as a priest, and to that alone, that our sins may be forgiven ? Are we illustrating the sincerity of our trust by obedience to his commands as a king? for the same Christ that gives us by his blood immunity from the results of sin, gives us by his sceptre deliverance from its polluting power every day more and more. LECTURE XXXVL OUR REFUGE IN THE GREAT TRIBULATION. God is our refuge and strength^ a very present help in trouble — Psalm xlvi. 1. This psalm has been sung in scenes of great tribulation for two thousand years passed away. It is a psalm for the day. It was the favorite psalm of Luther amidst the scenes and storms of the great Reformation, and its words were the expression of his trust and confidence when the as- saults of men were heaviest, their threats sorest, and their power greatest. Whenever circumstances seemed all but overwhelming about him, he used to say to his companions in this great cause, ‘‘ Come, let us sing the 46th psalm ; ‘ God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’ ” We too are entering on scenes in which the psalm will have an appropriateness we could have wished not to have occasion for. War is no sooner ended on one field than we are embarked in other conflicts, the issues of which no human being can foresee. The loss of treasure, the loss of means, the loss of life, and the calamities entailed in 1859 upon the European nations none can estimate ; but we can retain in the midst of all, in spite of all, tri- umphant above all, our confidence in God, and feel as believers that our refuge is there, and that he is still here, (257) 258 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. a very present help in time of trouble. It is therefore inspiring to find the Psalmist lifting up his heart above the waves, and finding in every attribute of God a bay of consolation. So has it been with others in the worst of times ; when no hand on earth can help, and no eye on earth will pity, it is a blessed resource that remains for the believer, I have One in heaven under whose overshadowing wings I can find protection, in whose paternal presence I can find peace , under whose all encompassing attributes I have a shelter from the storm, a shadow from the heat, a refuge from fear, a present help in the very sorest time of trouble. Every attribute in God is a believer’s refuge ; every cleft in the Rock of Ages is a shadow and a shelter for a Christian. If God loved us, but were not omnipo- tent, we might never be able to enjoy Him as our refuge ; if He were powerful, but did not love us, his power might be arrayed against us ; and if He had all power and all love, but not omniscience. He might not know our trials ; or if he were omnipresent, He might not see our trials ; but having all power, all love, omnipresence, and omnis- cience, we can find in him a refuge always adequate, and always open; his great mercy bidding us welcome, his power when w^e reach it able to protect and to preserve us. How glorious then is the fact, that all the attributes of Deity arrayed against the least of sins out of Christ, are combined for the protection of the greatest sinner that flees to Him by Christ, the way, the truth, and the life ! How interesting the thought that this refuge is not in the past, nor in the future Jbut always in the present ! God is our refuge,” is as true to-day, and in the great tribulation, as it was two thousand years ago. He is not only our OUR REFUGE IN THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 259 refuge, but very present help;’’ always at hand, alwa^^s waiting, alivays willing to help, defend, and deliver us. He is our refuge in all places ; in the secrecy of our re- tirement at home, in all the recesses of the soul when it meditates within itself, in the sanctuary, and in the great congregation, in all the intricacies and associations of public and of private life, on the quarter-deck, on the field of battle, on the ocean’s bosom and in the distant desert, in India and China, and on inhospitable shores; God is there and then, in all these places, always and everywhere, our refuge, our strength, our present help in time of trouble. There is no place so secluded from the light of heaven that his eye does not pierce it ; there is no dis- tance so great that his arm cannot reach it ; there is no sorrow or tribulation so minute as to be unworthy of his sympathy, and no suffering so great as to be beyond the reach of his consolation, mitigation, or removal of it. Wherever a believer can go — if he take the wings of the morning and flee to the uttermost parts of the earth ; if he say, Perad venture the darkness will cover me ;” if he ascend into heaven ; wherever he is, he finds in his own heart a presence that cheers him in sorrow, strengthens him in trouble, refreshes him in trial, and makes him more than conqueror through him that loved him and gave him- self for him. Not only is God our refuge in all places, but in all seasons. In the season of youth, to guide us, to save us in its slippery paths from falling, and to conduct us safely up to man ; in the season of old age, when the strong men bow themselves, and the golden bowl gives notice that soon it will be broken at the fountain, and the grass- 260 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. hopper IS a burden, and desire fails — even then, to gray hairs and old age, God is a refuge and a present help. In seasons of suffering, of losses, and crosses, and painful trials — in all the ripples of solitary sorrow, in the over- whelming torrent of national distress, God is to them that seek Him, and lift their hearts to Him, a refuge to which they may have recourse, a present help on which they may lean, a strength made perfect in weakness, that fails not in the least, and falters not in the worst of trials. Thus present is God our refuge and our strength, in all the attributes of his nature, — his mercy forgives us, and is a refuge from the guilt of sin ; his justice acquits us, his grace saves us ; all that He is in Christ is a refuge, a shelter, a trust, and a support to the humblest believer. And when we flee to Him, all things instantly assume an altered aspect, a different relationship to us who have fled for refuge, and laid hold upon the hope set before us. To the prisoner for Christ’s sake, the prison glows with all the beauty and the glory of a royal palace. Suffering has lost its sting when it touches a believer. In his case, bereavement, and poverty, and loss, and trial are pain- ful, but they are not penal. This refuge does not shelter us in this world from the ordinary incidents of a fallen world ; but it lets no incident touch us until the penal element has been extracted from it, and it has received a commission from the Throne not to hurt, but to work for good to him that loves God, and is called according to his purpose. The fiery furnace became as a garden to the Hebrew youths ; and its heated floor as a bed of roses. Wherever we have God our refuge, our present help, there we can say, with no feigned lirs, ‘‘It is good f()r OUR REFUGE IN THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 261 me to be aifflicted ; and though no tribulation for the pre- sent seemeth joyous, yet I am sure it is working out the peaceable fruits of righteousness, to them that are exer- cised thereby.’’ When God is our refuge, and our strength, and our present help in time of trouble. He sanctifies all we have remaining that is good, and He be- comes more than a substitute compensating for the absence of all that has left us. If all the trees of our garden are cut down, but the tree of life still remains, we have shadow from the heat, and its pleasant fruits still to par- take of God's presence adapts itself to every taste, and every Christian derives from his presence that which suits his case, supplies his wants, pleases hJs taste, and fills his longing soul, in the language of the Psalmist, as with marrow and with fatness. When all else is gone, and we have nothing left, God is more than a compensa- tion for all. One sun is better than a thousand stars ; the riches of Christ are realities, the riches of the world are phantoms The things unseen are real, the things seen are shadowy and ephemeral. No man who is a Christian can be overwhelmed by the greatest losses ; no man who is not a Christian can fail to suffer, and suffer severely, even from the least of the daily losses that be- fall us in this present w^orld. It is when a man can find a constant refuge in the bosom of his Father, a present help in the strength of Omnipotence, that his severest losses part wdth three-fourths of their severity, and his ordinary losses are altogether unfelt. And when all take wings and leaves him desolate and alone, he feels he is not alone ; for He in whom he has all, and from whom he 262 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. derived all, and whose hand has taken what He gave, is still his present help in this his time of trouble. What in our case are the individual trials, afflictions, sufferings, that as individuals we now feel ? I speak not of national or public, but of private and of personal suf- ferings. Are we under deep convictions of sin ? Do we feel in all its poignancy, I am guilty before God?’’ We have a refuge to go to ; not that our sin may be ca- nonized, and we and it go forth again to live together ; but that there the guilt of our sin may be washed away, and we justified freely by the righteousness of One who was made righteousness to us, in whom w^e find a refuge from the guilt of our sin, and go forth accepted and ac- quitted, hating what is forgiven, and praising the unmerit- ed mercy that graciously forgave it. Are you harassed with temptations, trials, and evil thoughts, suggestions, propensities, desires? There is but one refuge in which you may leave them ; there is but one shelter from the angry and the scorching shower ; there is but one to whom you can have recourse as to the clefts of a rock that is mightier than you. God is your refuge, in Him alone can you find shelter, there alone will every arrow strike only to recoil broken and blunted ; there alone you will hear those blessed words, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not.” Your trials will purify and humble you ; but they will not destroy or even endanger you. Have you the feeling that God has forsaken you, that your God has forgotten you, as many a Christian has said OUR REFUGE IN THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 263 before ? You must remember that, because you have not the conscious signs of the nearness of this presence always, it may not be the less near, less real, on that account. There is daylight when there is no sunlight ; ceaseless sunlight would not be good, daylight is better and softer than sunlight, and more expedient for us. God may withdraw from us his comforting presence, though He will never withdraw from us his sustaining presence. God may not be a present comfort even when He is most felt as a present help ; but He never ceases to be your refuge, even when your faith falters and your confidence fails ; He changes not, you change ; the cloud is not down from Him. but up from you. The cloud will not last forever ; it will be dissolved and scattered, and the sunshine of his countenance will be lifted up upon his be- lieving and adopted child ; for He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. Are you surrounded Avitli great troubles, vexed with cares, oppressed by many anxieties ; fears within and fightings without ; dark re- miniscences behind, gloomy prospects before ; and do you fancy that all these things are against you ? jMay not your case be that of the ancient Patriarch? He said, Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me.'’ There was not one word of truth in Avliat he said Joseph was, and Simeon was, and Benjamin was only taken away as a pledge ; and all these things, instead of being against him, were all truly working for him. The hand of God may be against a believer when the heart of God is full of sympathy with him. You may be a son of God, and yet you may be sorrowful. A beggar, without sixpence 264 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. upon earth, may be an heir of glory in splendid and cer- tain reversion. It is not by sense that we walk, but by faith. Our treasure is not here, but beyond the sky ; and the sorest trials may be part tod parcel of that pa- ternal discipline which is preparing a child for his home, a son for the presence of his Father in heaven. Thus a believer, everywhere and always, in all time of his wealth, in all time of his tribulation, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, may say, may sing, with ecstacy and triumph, God is my refuge and my strength, my very present help in this and every time of trouble.’’ What is needed to enable us to see all this? The great want in us all is faith. We believe ; Lord help our unbelief” Faith is to a Christian what sense is to a natural man ; and the objects believed on are as real to faith as the objects seen and heard are to sense and hearing. What we need, therefore, to be able to realize all the peace and all the repose that spring from the con- viction in the text, is just that faith which man can de- fine, but which the Holy Spirit of God alone can implant in the heart. Faith shows us God is ; history tells us God was ; prophecy tells us God will be ; faith reveals to us God is ; and not only is, but is related to us ; and not only is related to us, but works for us, watching over us, ordering all things for our good ; making the most painful things subserve our interests, the most cross things contribute to our progress ; melting the largest obstruc- tions into impulses and elements of advancement from grace to glory, till we appear before God in Sion. And faith not only reveals God is, not only is thus the evi- OUR REFUGE IN THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 265 (ience of things not seen, but faith is the appropriating grace. When I have faith, divine faith, implanted in my heart, I not only see God, but I take hold of God ; I not only can see God is a refuge — faith can reveal that — but I can see also and say by faith, “ God is my refuge and my strength, and my present help in all time of trouble. Nay, faith can enable me to say, ‘'All things are mine ; Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or life, or death, or things past, or things present, or things to come — all are mine, for I am Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Faith also can enable us, not only to see all these things ours, but to see God, and all that is in God, very near. Faith brings near. When I see an object, I see its shape, its form, its dimensions as clearly at the distance of a hundred feet, as if the sense of touch could enable me to measure and ascertain its form. So faith brings distant things near ; it brings God near, eternity near, heaven near, the judgment-seat near ; and these things brought near to me become the very atmosphere I breathe, the very food I live on, the constant and ceaseless companions of my progress through this world to a brighter and a better beyond it. Can we then say, God is our refuge ? Can we say, not in sunshine, but in shadow. He is our present help in time of trouble ? Do we believe this trutli, do we live on it ? Our belief in it is measured by the trust and the pressure we can lay upon it, by the amount of peace and joy we can derive from it. That man in whose heart’s experience this truth is the greatest, most continuous, shaping, coloring reality, is the man who believes most, who has the greatest confidence in God as our refuge and 12 266 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. our strength, our very present help in time of trouble. Faith in mathematics, in science, is a natural gift ; faith in Christ, as God our refuge, is a divine grace. Nature has left us the faith that concludes in the discoveries of science ; grace is ever ready to give us the faith that is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. LECTURE XXXVIL BE STILL. Be stilly and know that lam God: I will be exalte ed among the heathen^ I will he exalted in the earth?’' Psalm xlvi. 10. The forty-sixth psalm is evidently from first to last a military or a war song. It assumes tribulation, war- fare, in the midst of the world ; and it points the Chris- tian to his refuge, his safe and blessed retreat, amidst the war storms gathering from the distant horizon. God is not only our refuge, but He is also with us. He mak- eth wars to cease unto the end of the earth ; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder ; He burneth the chariot in the fire.” If God is thus the source of victory, if the battle is not to the strong nor the race to the swift, then be still do not be alarmed, agitated, and vexed ; but be satisfied of this ; that God will be exalted in the earth. Fear not for his kingdom, be not alarmed for his cause ; not a hair of the head of his saints shall perish. Be still, and know that He is not man to repent, nor a creature to fail ; but the mighty God, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. This prescription is suitable to the age in which we live, in the scenes that are opening on a world that ap- C267^ 268 TilE GREAT TRIBULATIO.V. pears to be about to go through its last baptism. What are some of the grounds of disquiet in the minds of true Christians ? Why is it that we need the prescription. Be still’’? We answer, first, from the imperfection of* our knowledge. We see but a fragment of God’s pro- cedure ; we cannot see that out of evil He still educes good. When we behold overshadowing error, we think it will deepen and darken till the whole sky is overcast ; whereas, by-and-by it is dissolved, and truth shines forth with all the splendor of the sun, and the momentary cloud seems to have only increased the intensity of the glory that succeeds, and follows it. We hear of divisions and disputes among Christians ; we think the Church is going to pieces ; but that is because we see but a part, we do not see the whole. If we saw the Avhole we should discover that the momentary discord is only preparatory to lasting harmony ; and that the dispute of a day pre- cedes the peace that will prevail through ages to come. We see through a glass darkly ; we do not always recol- lect this, and because we forget it, and fancy that we can see more clearly than is the case, vfe are troubled and disquieted. Because we are blind, we think the world is going to pieces, and that God has left it to itself. Another reason why we are disquieted is, that we judge very much after the senses. We call that bright which we see to be so ; we call that dark which we feel to be so ; and we judge of God’s procedure by the same senses with which Ave judge of things that are properly within their pro- vince, and ought to be submitted to their verdict. Noise seems greatness, but it may be very emptiness. Glare seems sublimity, it may be puerility in the extreme. We BE STILL. 269 judge after the senses, and we are often mistaken. Christ’s cross looked the meanest thing ; it was really the most magnificent. Christ’s grave in the garden looked a dark and a lonely spot ; it was really the birthplace of a greater power, the dawn of a brighter glory than ever shone from heaven upon the hills of earth and the habita- tions of mankind. We must not think that is power which looks so, nor that misfortune that seems so. Under the most unlikely garb there may be an angel from heaven unawares. The hand of God operates beneficent results when all seems to us inevitable catastrophe, ca- lamity, and ruin. Another reason why we are disquiet- ed, when we look abroad upon the world, and on the present state of the world, is the hastiness of our judg- ment. We see what is sad now ; we think all will be sad to the end. We judge of a long season from the change at its commencement. Yet you Avould blame very much the man who would judge of the excellence of a poem from the title-page. You would form a very poor esti- mate of his good sense who would pronounce upon the splendor of an imperial palace by a specimen of a brick taken from the wall, or by seeing a few stones of the foundation laid. Of the true Christian it is said that he shall not make haste;” and again, it is good quiet- ctly to wait.” Another reason why we are disturbed is, that we form an atheistic judgment. We look at the world, and we leave out Him who is its harmony, its order, and its cohesion. A world without God would be the saddest spectacle, and its history would be the bloodi- est tragedy. And if we look at the Avars that are gleam- ing like lightning upon the ea^^t, the west — in India, in 270 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. China, in Italy — everywhere and no further, we should form a very sad and sorrowful conclusion. But if we can look at all that statesmen arrange, at all that w^arriors achieve, in the light of the sanctuary, we shall find that Italian and Indian, and Englishman and Frenchman, are but the chessmen upon the board, and that God is the great mover of them all. They think they are inde- pendent agents, they are really the instruments in his hand, accomplishing his grand and magnificent designs. Do not judge after the senses ; do not think of the world without God ; but look upon the w'orld in the light of Him of whom it is said, The Lord reigneth ; let the nations tremble. The Lord reigneth ; let his people rejoice.’’ Having seen some of the obvious causes why we are disposed to take very gloomy views, and to be disturbed and troubled in our minds, let me explain what that still- ness is that is here enjoined. God says through the Psalmist, Be still ; and know that I am God.” This stillness, or quiet, is not insensibility. Man must weep over the losses that are constantly taking place around him. He must grieve at fields that are red with slaugh- ter ; he must deplore the necessity of the sword being taken from its scabbard, and the banner unfurled upon the field of battle. We cannot but grieve when we know that tlie wave of war, whether it be the wave of conquest or defeat, rolls laden with sorrow into ten thou- sand times ten thousand hames. We are not called upon to be insensible. Jesus wept. We are made not of granite, but of flesh and blood. Stoicism is not Chris- tianity ; insensibility is not the peace that passeth under- standing. The stillness that is enjoined is not insens:- BE STILL. 271 bility, but something far richer. This stillness is not fatalism. A fatalist is quite a different person from a predestinarian. You may believe in predestination, and yet not be a fatalist. The Mahometan is a thorough fli- talist. The Moslem sits down when he hears of the pes- tilence sweeping through the streets of Constantinople, or when he hears the roll of the Russian drum and the boom of its artillery thundering in his rear ; he sits down, smokes his chibouque^ and exclaims in perfect ease, '^It is the will of Allah — God’s will be done.” That is fatalism, not Christianity. There may be the intensest energy in action with a back-ground of un- broken repose on God. There may be the stillness of confiding trust, there may yet be the energy of active and of vigorous exertion. The stillness of the Moslem is the stillness of stagnation, or the calmness of an iron nerve, or the stupor superinduced by opium ; it is not the Be still, and know that I am God.” This, which is here enjoined, is not the stillness of atheistic defiance. There is a stillness arising from a belief that God has forsaken the earth, that He has left the most splendid vic- tory to the greatest strength. There is a stillness arising from the belief that the battle is to the strong, that the race is to the swift ; and such confidence is full of scorn towards God and indifference to the sufferings of mankind. The exclusion of God, and thinking that by our own arm, and might, and inexhaustible resources, we can achieve the victory, that is the stillness of Nebuchadnezzar when he congratulated himself on his Babylonian splendor ; the stillness of the Assyrian when he came down like a wolf on the fold,” and thought that by his own prowess he 272 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. would gain the day. The stillness of a Christian’s heart is an inspiration of a nobler and a more glorious stamp than this. It is not presumption. There is a stillness, or a quiet, or a peace arising from excluding God from the world, and thinking that our army and our navy will do all ; and there is a quiet resulting from including God, and so thinking of God that we ourselves shall do nothino^. Now I know not which is worse ; the atheistic sensuous- ness that excludes God from the world, and asserts that we can work the world without Him, or the infidel pre- sumption that throws all upon God, and sits still, and says, ‘‘ God will accomplish his purposes.” God’s grace is not a substitute for us, as many read the text, but it is sufficient for us. God’s strength is not made perfect in indolence, in apathy, in presumption, but in trusting and in trustful weakness. Thus there are grounds of disturb- ance which are untenable and there are grounds for a peace that are equally untenable. Let us therefore turn to that true stillness, the prescription from heaven, the possession of a Christian’s heart, which is generated chiefly by the blessed assurance, ‘ ‘ Know that I am God ; I will be ex- alted amid the nations of the earth.” We find that the stillness, or the peace, or repose, that a Christian feels springs from the conviction or the experimental knowledge that God He is God, and will be exalted in the nations and in all the earth. It is God as revealed in Scripture that is the foundation of a Christian’s peace. If I did not be- lieve in a God, I should dread the falling of a leaf, the turning of a corner, the stumbling of a foot; but because I believe in God the Almighty, the Father of heaven and of earth, therefore I am still. Were God other than He is BE STILL. 277 All things, disturbed kingdoms, desolated nations, broken sceptres, shattered thrones, the roar of artillery, the roll of the conquering drum, the blast of the trumpet, the cry of the wounded, the grojlns of the dying, have ‘‘ a needs be.” Be still. See the expediency of such a prescription as this. It is by stillness, self-possession, and Christian quiet that we can best look around us, and estimate our position, and see clearest. It is in the calm, not the stormy sky, that we can best see the stars : it is in the still ocean, not the stormy one, we can see reflected a hundred fathoms down all the splendors of the sky. It is when our minds are at peace with God, and thoroughly satisfied that the issue will be right, that we can best look around us and see things in their right light, and come to the most just and consolatory conclusion. And it is by stillness that w^e are most prepared for all that may await us. The most col- lected and composed are the fittest for duty ; the greatest minds are usually calm ; high brows are still ; holy hearts beat with unbroken composure. It is when the storm is expected, that the sailor reefs every sail and makes his canvass less ; it is when the battle is looked for, that the general calls in and concentrates all his forces for the issue. It is by calmness, composure, confidence in God, that we can see the furthest, that we can act with the greatest energy. And hence the man who is a Christian by grace has gener- ally been the bravest hero on the field of conflict or upon the quarter-deck. Be still.” How often is this prescription given in the Bible. Rest on the Lord, and wait patiently for him.”' ” It is good for a man that he both hope and quietly wait.” Remember ' the Lord reigneth. What a 278 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. truth is that ! The Lord not only is. but the Lord reigneth. He is clothed with majesty, his throne is stablished of old. The floods have lifted up their voice, hut the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of iITany waters, yea, than the mighty waters of the sea. This stillness or perfect com- posure in the wisdom, the power, the goodness of God, all enlisted on our side, encompassing, enveloping, and shel- tering us, is, as I have stated, not only compatible, but necessarily compatible, with the most vigorous and earnest discharge of the duty that devolves upon us. And the very first duty that becomes us in the crisis which is thickening on the earth is prayer to Him that reigns, for our country, for our countrymen exposed to the perils and the calamities of war ; and especi^dly that God would be pleased to decide the great conflict of the nations, that his name may be exalted, his cause prospered, and ancient prophecy, that scepticism has denounced as obsolete, may be translated into modern history, that the nations of the earth may see and know that they were the, inspiration of God. APPENDIX In order to prove that those who do not attend to prophetic investigation are impressed by the abnormal complications of Europe and Asia, and witnesses unconsciously to the fulfilment of prophecy, I will here append some remarkable extracts from the various representatives of public opinion. My first extract is from an American point of view : — I. EVENTS IN ASIA. “ It is not surprising that bold theorists like Dr. Gumming of London, and other students of the Bible, should imagine they see ‘ the beginning of the end ’ of prophecy in the historic events of the past few years. There has been something strangely provocative of that idea in the return of the currents of strife and revolution to their original centre, the continent of Asia. The thoughtful have long anticipated and pre- dicted such return, but while the indications were faint and gradual they escaped the common attention. Now, however, when the world has seen the great Northern Power of that continent arrayed against the nations of Europe; now that the whole Persian empire is swaying betwen the eastward march of Russia on the one hand, and the Indian ambition of England on the other; now that the entering wedge of the ‘ opium war ’ has been succeeded by a new and unexpected second assault upon the exclusive policy of China; now that the extent of that vast and stag- nant empire has been shaken by the tramp of revolution ; now that the conquering policy of Russia is expanding into railroad ramifications through the Continent pari passu with the canal and steam projects of European commerce along its southern and western margin — now that these things have become matters of history, the world seems to be awakening to the fiict that Asia is to be the theatre of gigantic events in the near future, and grave statesmen find excuses for speculative solici- tude in regard to the ultimate results. ( 279 ) 280 APPENDIX. “ What precise turn these results are to exhibit is not a practical ques- tion, but the unmistakable tendency of events already past or now transpiring is among the most momentous considerations of the day. The abrupt termination of the Russian struggle with Turkey and the Western Powers was far more remarkable than the origin and incidents of the war itself, wonderful as were the latter. Its full significance is hardly, however, even yet discernible- With seemingly lowered crest the Muscovite escaped from a tremendous and rapidly exhausting con- flict, but at once proceeded to avail himself of the appliances of an ad- vanced civilization possessed by his enemies, to unite and consolidate his empire. The idea of commercial convenience, and consequent financial augmentation and strength, no doubt enters fundamentally into these schemes; but that this aim is singly or even mainly, as is made to appear, the design of the Emperor, will be hard to impress upon those familiar with the inexorable policy of Russia. That icy despotism stands the iron type of military power in the nineteenth century. — Her network of rail- ways is primarily to answer the same purpose as the wonderful thor- oughfares constructed by Pmman energy, and to perfect the communi- cation between the centre and the circumference of the empire. “ Nor will it be sufficient that these means of instant communication ramify the empire itself. Already is the Czar busy with a counter- check to the Anglo-Indian encroachment on Persia, and the projected railroad from Tiflis, his trans-Caucasian centre-point, to Teheran, the capital of the Shah, marks the first of his colossal strides, to dispute the empire of Eastern Asia with all the world. To the same purpose have tended his aggressive spoliations on the Amoor river over his feeble southern neighbor in that quarter. In the case of Persia, the Shah is after all, and has long been, but a plastic instrument in the hands of the Autocrat ; and even now European statesmen are perplexed to conjec- ture whether or not Persia acted in her recent English disturbance upon the assurance of Russian succor should matters reach a dangerous posi- tion. “ This conflict between Persia and England, too, now said to be closed for the present, is not without significance, and though it had seemingly very simple causes, it is possible the precise share the partial discom- fiture of Russia in the late war had in it will never be known to the cabinets of Europe. Upon the side of England it was unquestionably but another of those events which, like the hand of destiny, have con- tinued to impel the march of her Asiatic accessions. The difference in BE STILL. 273 described in the Bible, I could not trust in Him ; were God ignorant, all might go to ruin without his knowing it ; were God unwise, He might injure the very cause He designs to support ; were God limited in power. He might not be able to help where help is most important ; were God not omnipresent. He might not see where there was suffering, and sympathy was needed, or where there was ruin, and restoration should be interposed ; and were God unmerciful, we should never be pitied. But because He is the God that shines from every page, and speaks in every chapter of the Bible, I am still, because I know that that God is my God for ever and ever. We have peace or stillness, not only from knowing God as revealed in Scripture, but from knowing God in his own past providential dealings. The antediluvian evil seems once to have gained the supremacj^ : Christ’s flock re- stricted to a handful ; evil, as far as we can judge by signs, had gained the day, and asserted its supremacy ; yet it was not so ; the Flood burst upon the earth, and washed away the guilty ; the remnant were saved in his sovereignty that were to be the seed of a population countless as the dew- drops sparkling in the rays of an unsetting sun. The Assyrian once burst upon Israel with all but irresistible power ; and when he came, he exclaimed, in the pride and triumph of his heart, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom ; for I am prudent : and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a val- iant man ; and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people ; and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth ; and there was none that moved 12 * 274 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. the wing, or opened the mouth.” So said the Assyrian, when he congratulated himself upon approaching victory. But what does God say? Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith ? or shall the saw mag- nify itself against him that shaketh it ? as if the rod should shake itself against him that lifted it up, or as if the staff* should lift up itself as if it were no wood. Therefore shall the Lord ; the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones lean- ness, and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.” So Pharaoh prided himself on his strength, thought Israel was in his grasp for ever, but just at the moment his pride was stoutest and his hope the brightest, the pathway that seemed to him a prome- nade to victory presented the awful spectacle of the walls of w’ater that closed in and buried the hosts and chivalry of Pharaoh. Napoleon the First is another instance. All seemed to be within his reach ; kings, thrones, and dynas- ties were shattered by his touch; the victory of the world seemed to be within his grasp ; and lo ! so weak is man, so great is God, the snows of Russia became the grave of his mighty army ; and that element, so soft in itself, wielded by Him that rules, sealed the fate and precipitated the doom of Napoleon. Thus, when I read the past, and find God has depressed the proud, cleft the sea for his people to pass through, led the blind by a way they knew not ; made every scene resonant with his voice, left the footprints of his presence upon every acre of the world, I can lay the stress of my hopes and confidence upon Him, and amidst all the convulsions of the earth I can be still, for I know that the Lord is God. Another reason for this stillness should be our own BE STILL. 275 personal and almost universal experience. There is no one, however obscure in his life, however under-ground the current of his years, who may not seethe shadow of God at every winding and eddy in its ceaseless stream. You cannot explain your past history Avithout God ; you cannot account for your present position if you exclude God. Do you not feel that a tone and coloring has been given to your mind, a direction to your progress, an arrest here, an impulse there, that you cannot account for except by know- ing that it was God ? Leave God out of the humblest life, and that life is a labyrinth inexplicable, unintelligi- ble. Let God be seen in it, and the thread runs along it all that guides you through every perplexity, and ex- plains every turning, and shows a divine hand leading the blind by a way that they knew not, and by paths that they had not known. All this, then, convinces us that God reigns and rules, not only in individual his- tories, but in the histories of the world, and in the move- ment of the nations of the earth. He reigns over the battle-field ; He is no unconcerned spectator of the havoc. He sees where the guilt is ; He knows Avhere the misfor- tune lies ; He sees who is there in the discharge of a stern but inevitable duty, and who is there the minion of a ruth- less and unjustifiable ambition. And out of all the evil He will educe good, from the storms of war shall issue the calm and the sunshine of everlasting peace ; the sword shall yet be beaten into the plough-share, the spear must be turned into the pruning-hook, and the most sav- age nations of the east and the most cultivated tribes of the west shall learn war no more. The Danube shall reflect his glory ; the Euphrates shall make Avay for his progress ; 276 THE GIIEAT TRIBl^LATION. and the snows of Russia and the sunshine of Constantino- ple shall equally, beneath his plastic and regulating pres- ence, redound to the glory of his name, and to the ever- lasting good of his believing and his trustful people ; China and India shall sing his praise. When I think of all these things, I can prescribe with an emphasis with which I never prescribed before, ‘‘ Be still and know that I am God.’’ The evil only shall perish, the good shall endure. Man is made use of to punish man, and to make a path- way for the progress of the saints of God. It is a hum- bling thought to the natural man, a magnificent thought to the Christian, that while Napoleon thought in his folly he struck out his own path, he was really a battle axe wielded by God for cleaving a pathway for the Gospel of Christ. But let come what may, Christians can be still ; their hope is beyond the stars, their foundation is stronger than the everlasting hills ; their cause, their destiny remains when all is overwhelmed and overthrown. The kingdoms of this world may be shattered, but the kingdom of our God only emerges into greater brightness. The flame that wraps wide Europe, and calcines great thrones, shall only light the saints of God to their everlasting home. Tlie trees of the forest may blaze, but the bush on Horeb remains in the flame, unscathed and imperishable for ever. The ships of Tarshish may be tossed and founder in the waves, but the ark of God’s people has Christ in thh midst of it ; it shall never perish. The cities of the nations may be destroyed, but we have a city that hath foundations, whose builder and whose maker is God. ^‘Let not your hearts be troubled.” ‘‘ Be still, and know that I am God.” APPENDIX. 281 this case, however, has been and will be that she must encounter the rival pretensions of Russia, thus precluding the probability of that suc- cess which has hitherto attended her Eastern usurpations. “ Of the tendency of the events of the past few years in China — to which may be added the new relation occupied by Japan to the rest of the world — it is much easier to form an estimate. There were few men versed in the history of the ‘ opium war ’ who ever anticipated that China would have remained as long as she has free from a second European drubbing. That war was but a preliminary buffet, before which the walls of Cathayan isolation — endangered by the senile insolence of the Chinese themselves — are eventually to succumb. It is possible this would have been repeated before now if the revolution in that country had not supervened. As it is, that astonishing convulsion of a people stagnant beyond all criterion is but another link in the general chain. Tai-ping-Wang could have sprung successfully into the character of a Chinese Mohammed only by the awakening c^Jnsciousness of the people that godship did not dwell in the Tartar potentate. Two hundred years of undisputed rule had deadened the memory of doubt as to the Manchu divine right and divine person. It had also extinguished the vitality of the Ming tradition. But the English opium war taught the shrewd among the Chinese that their super-serene superiority was a deception and a myth whose absurdity stared them in the face. Such a man was the disappointed schoolmaster, ‘ the elegant and perfect,’ Siu- tshuen. He had witnessed in his day the miserable farce of Chinese resistance, and the total and disgraceful overthrow of celestial valor and might. His literary studies acquainted him with the potency of the iling prestige as a historical souvenir. He may or may not be a remote descendant. This is immaterial. All that was neceseary was to make the Chinese Saxons believe that he was of the race of their own Harold, and the immemorial and ineradicable prejudices against the invader and usurper would come to his assistance. The whole scheme illustrates the sublime duplicity of the Cathayan character. The ‘ Prince of Peace ’ — Tai-ping-Wang — the ‘ Great Pacificating King ’ — could do no less than avail himself of the national superstition, and he therefore holds his fol- lowers enthralled with a belief in his indispensable divinity, while on the other hand he extorts their homage as the representative of the native nationality. He has caught a glimpse, faint though it be, of the power of the ‘outside barbarians he is too shrewd not to appreciate it; he feels that contact is strengthening the ideas of his own people, and that 282 APPENDIX. their bleared and besotted vision is clearing to something higher; he therefore boldly plunders the Christian of an improved idea of divine relationship, flatters by Oriental policy, and frightens by practical per- formance, and meets the coming shock of events as a hero and a re- former. “ But the history of the revolution is nothing in itself. It is only as an evidence that the lethargic spell of centuries has been broken that it is important. Whether Ming or Mang-chu shall rule China, until the spirit abroad in the out-of-door world shall reach her she is inert and worthless. Already and naturally enough we find the rebel powers eager to exceed the government in patriotic resistance to the Canton aggression. Not, we presume, that Tai-ping-Wanghas not sense enough to see that the overthrow of the government forces would militate to his own advantage by destroying the idea of invincible might in the impe- rial rule, but that he ajso sees that the irrepressible sentiment of patri- otism in the human breast would effect a general desertion from his cause if he should appear lukewarm against a foreign foe. “ The effect of the recent proceedings at Canton is the one important point to the rest of the world. The fate of the Chinese portion of the continent of Asia trembles in the balance there. The indications that Asia is to resume her ancient importance in the affairs of the world may hinge in no unimportant degree upon circumstances which have already transpired in that quarter. The knowledge that the Government is not invincible will cause its overthrow, in all probability, sooner or later. Pressed upon the north by Russia, from the sea by her open enemies, within convulsed by a resolute and popular rebellion, the redemption of the Flowery Land may be lodged in the elements which constitute the ruin of other nations. The events in Asia, everywhere, of the past few years are pregnant with meaning. “ The present aspect of the world is eminently fitted to command the attention even of men unaccustomed to reflect. If we look to the West we see a mighty nation covered with the wreck of fortunes of all magni- tudes. Numbers in every part of the land have been precipitated from the summit of wealth into the depths of poverty. All ranks and con- ditions of people, both in the Church and in the world, have been equally affected by it. The root of pride has been torn up as if by a hurricane, which could neither be resisted nor eschewed. Multitudes, nursed in the lap of luxury, have, without preparation, and without warning, been cast forth and thrown on the wide world ! Status on which so APPENDIX. 283 many were wont to congratulate themselves, and which they were acciis« tomed to guard with sleepless jealousy, has been annihilated at a blow. Riches have made to themselves wings and fled, quickly followed by sun- shine friendships. Like death, the panic has levelled all distinctions. Property, whether inherited or earned by personal elfort, has perished. Like the gourd of the prophet, the prospects of myriads withered in a night. In many cases, the servant and the master have changed places. They who were proud to lend are now fain to borrow to sustain life, and help to begin the world again. The gains of many years, or a whole lifetime, have been swept away with the besom of destruction ! “ These events have a strong practical bearing; they show the vanity of life, and the unsubstantial nature of all earthly good. The expecta- tions of multitudes of respectable families have been blasted as if by the breath of Heaven ! Copartneries in business, and settlements for life, have been, in the very act of formation, hopelessly deranged or set aside for ever. Provisions liberally made for wives, and children, and dear dependents, have been scattered to the winds ! In cases not a few, such arrangements were scarcely completed, and the eyes of the affectionate son, husband, or father, that made them closed in death, when the sound of the approaching whirlwind was heard, and this terrible aggravation of previous bereavement completed ! The luxury of benevolence w'hich consisted in attending to the neglected, and remembering the forgotten, in acting as feet to the lame, as eyes to the blind, and making the heart of the widow to sing with joy, has been summarily put an end to. In many cases, former dispensers of favors have now become humble sup- pliants. The work of Christian charity has in many instances come to a stand-still, and helpless age, during the last stages of its journey, has been deprived of its only prop. In a word, ruin in a multitude of cir- cles has been paramount. “ If we look to the East, we behold on a scale, both vast and awful, the wreck of fortunes, accompanied with the blasting of prospects, and the loss of life : all the destruction which has been i-ealized in all the oceans of our globe during the same period are as nothing compared with the havoc of Hindoostan. India, always a region perilous to life, alike from the climate and its diseases, has now become more so, to an extent which it were impossible adequately to describe. The horrors of war are but secondary to those of the barbarities which have just been perpe- trated. They are altogether peculiar ; there is nothing that resembles them connected with either war or pestilence. Even individual assassi- 284 APPENDIX. nation, collective murder, and multiform massacre, present a compara- tively winning aspect. It is difficult to say, whether the accompani- ments tended to mitigate or to aggravate the misfortune. Collective is, perhaps in some cases, preferable to individual destruction. Men and women, parents and children, have been cut down by tlie same blow, sacrificed by the same hands at ihe altar of the Furies, while others per- ished apart, but under conditions not less revolting. Death, under ordi- nary circumstances, has ever been arrayed in beauty as compared with the diabolical indignities, horrible beyond description, with which in many cases dissolution has been attended. Here the use of appropriate language is interdicted to us; it may not be polluted with the ideas which facts present. The soul shudders at the very thought ! ’ ’ ‘ ‘ It cannot be denied that public opinion anticipates extraordinary events. European policy resembles a vase so full that the addition of a single drop would cause it to run over; and the question now is whether that drop will fall at once, or whether the equilibrium will be maintained for some time longer. Without, however, on that account attaching too great importance to the rumors of war, we may be convinced that they are not altogether devoid of foundation. In the present situation of pub- lic opinion the first important act which any Cabinet whatever may undertake to cause its political maxims to prevail over those of another cannot fail to become a cause of war. . . . If to these considerations we add the hostility of Russia to Austria, the neutrality of England and Prussia, and the agitated state of the East and of Italy, we see accumu- lated such a quantity of inflammable elements that a simple spark may occasion an immense conflagration. Does this spark exist, and does it only await the hand to put it in contact with the combustible materials, or is it not yet formed? ’’ II. MAHOMEDANISM. I have often taken occasion to notice the expiring of Mahomedanism in Europe as the fulfilment of the “drying up of the Euphrates.” It is striking to notice its steady evaporation from 1821 to this very year. The JSTew York Observer ^ a judicious, accurate, and able journal, thus wrote at the close of 185S : — ‘ APPENDIX. 285 “ In various parts of the Turkish Empire, and in other countries where the Mohammedan religion has believers, the present is marked by fearful outbreaks of finaticism resulting in the massacre of Christians. Last week we mentioned the Jeddah murders. Below we give minuter particulars, of that and other scenes. “ From Bosnia . — A letter from the frontiers of Bosnia of the 8th of July, states that another sanguinary collision had just taken place be- tween the Christian population of Bosnia and the Turks. The conflict had been caused by the tyrannical conduct of the fanatical Beys, who had declared that they would sooner take up arms against the Sultan than suffer any compromise to be made with the Christians. “ From Candia . — Accounts from Athens state that a terrible reaction of the Mussulmans against the Christians has taken place in Candia. A young Greek of Canea killed a Turk. The body of the Mussulman was conveyed to the mosque, and a general rising soon after took place. The European consulates, as well as the Catholic churches, were insulted. The French flag was fired on, and the hotel of the Turkish Admiral was threatened unless the Greek was put to death. The Greek was strangled by order of the Admiral, and his body was given up to the populace, and was dragged by them before the houses of the Consuls. The Chris- tians are leaving Canea in crowds. The Tuiks at Retimo have devas- tated the churches in that town, wounded several of the clergy, and taken possession of the citadel, the artillery stationed in it taking part with the mob. “ Disturbances have broken out in the province of Bagdad in conse- quence of the recruiting of the army. In several villages the authorities have been driven out. Omar Pasha has sent troops to restore order. “ Another account from Candia says : — Before every Consulate and every Christian’s house the crowd made a short stay, hurling stones and shouting, * We, too, will show you that we can get what we want.’ On the morning of the 4th all the more wealthy Christian families were seen leaving the town in whatever ships were at their disposal. The Mohammedan population was still in arms, and in a fearful state of excitement. If it be taken into account that the Christian peasantry in the interior are likewise still in arms, it may be readily comprehended that we have not yet heard the last of these bloody events in Candia.” “ From Egypt . — Accounts from Alexandria of the 6th state, that a considerable agitation against Europeans prevailed at Suez, and that it had been found necessary to send troops there in order to prevent a movement.” 286 APPENDIX. “ The Massacre at Jeddah . — A correspondent of the London Times adds the following particulars : — Her Majesty’s steamer ‘ Cyclops,’ lately sent to the Red Sea by the British Government for the purpose of taking a series of deep-water soundings, had been lying for about a week in the harbor of Jeddah, whither she had conveyed, as passenger from Suez, the English acting Consul and his French colleague. Nothing whatever had occurred to show that the people of the place were animated with any extraordinary sentiment of hostility towards the Christian inhabi- tants. The officer of the steamer had made excursions in the vicinity of the town, and never once met with the slightest molestation or even insult; and even on the very evening of the outbreak several had been walking about in the bazaars until near sunset, without the least appa- rent symptom of the approaching storm. This was on the 15th ult. In the evening a few persons — Greek residents in the town — came swim- ming off to the ship, and stated that disturbances had arisen, and that they feared a conspiracy had been entered into against the Christian inhabitants. Everything, however, continued in appearance perfectly quiet; not a shot nor a cry was heard, though the savage work had even then already commenced; but the assassins had taken the precaution to use cold steel alone. The English Consulate was the first point of attack, and Mr. Page, the acting Consul must have fallen under the blows of a crowd of ruffians, who followed up the murder by sacking the house and tearing down the flag. The unfortunate man’s body is said to have been found literally hacked to pieces. “ Maddened with excitement the mob appears next to have poured down upon the house of the French Consul, M. Eveillard. Here, how- ever, the Kaimakam, or governor of the town, made some feeble attempt to interpose; the force at his disposal amounted to only eighty men, and whatever efforts they may have used, they did not succeed in saving the life of either the Consul or his wife. Both were murdered, and their daughter alone — a young lady, who, though under twenty years of age, appears to have possessed the spirit of a heroine — was rescued from the hands of the assassins, and, covered with an Arab cloak, she was carried to the house of the Kaimakam. Her face was laid open with a gash from a sabre-cut across the cheek, but before being dragged forth she had avenged the murder of her father by the death of the assassin. “ Early on the following morning Captain Pullen, still ignorant of what had occurred, sent two boats ashore. When they neared the inner reefe Turkish soldiers were observed warning them off ; they con- APPENDIX. 287 tinued, however, to advance until they found themselves surrounded by acroAvd of about 600 men, who from the outjutting reefs poured a shower of stones upon the boats. The crews were fortunately armed, and soon forced their way back to the ship, not, however, without having been compelled to pour a volley of musketry into their assailants. “ The crew of the steamer entreated their officers to be allowed to take vengeance upon the city, if not by laying the place in ashes, at least by being permitted to land, even though at the risk of finding themselves, at most 200 men, opposed to a population of 40,000; but the Kaimakam sent repeated messages beseeching Capt. Pullen to desist from all inter- ference, warning him that his own house was surrounded by infuriated fanatics clamoring for the surrender of the Christians who they knew had obtained refuge in the house, and declaring that were a single gun fired, or one armed man landed from the ship, not only the lives of the refugees, but also his own, would, to a certainty, be sacrificed. This officer can doubtless not have yielded without a struggle, and no other argument would probably have saved the city from its well merited doom. Even though it be granted that only a portion of the inhabitants wund upon the wounded Russians at Inkerman was a Slavonic book, well besmeared and smoke-scented, and purporting to be a guide to the above-mentioned fabric. This work discloses a secret which the ingenuity of western speculators has failed to worm out. It shows that the Czars have had another pole of attraction besides Constantinople; they have fixed their greedy gaze upon the fallen city of the Hebrew. In order to gain possession of the Ottoman capital, they have appealed to the cupidity of their subjects ; they have pointed to the sunny south as their heritage; they have depicted it as the ‘ land of milk and honey,’ which they are destined to seize and inherit. But their day-dreams have not been content with so rich an inheritance as that. They have also aspired to plant their eagles upon the hill of Zion, to see their vultures hovering with outstretched wings over the desecrated fane of Salem. To realise this grand vision, not only have they operated upon the baser passions of their people; not only have they fed their lust for conquest and plunder, but endeavored to excite their fanaticism, to awaken their religous enthusiasm. In short, they have preached a new crusade. ‘The empire of the Koran must be destroyed,’ say the Czars. ‘The profaned and desecrated lands of the East, once hallowed by the tread of angels and blessed with the presence of Divinity, must be recovered, and the broad highway to this sacred prize is through the fertile provinces of the Turk. Constantinople is the gate to Jerusalem.’ “ As a remembrance of this high destiny the Czars have erected in the heart of their empire a structure modeled upon the oft-visited church of the Nativity. They have styled it ‘ VoskrCseenskoe,’ or ‘ the New Jeru- salem.’ Thousands of pilgrims visit its shrine every year, and they are encouraged to perform that ‘ holy act ’ as a means of impressing strongly upon their minds the thought of Jerusalem itself — that ‘ future capital of the Orient.’ The Muscovite rulers teach their subjects that the deliver- ance of the Desolate City must not remain unaccomplished. That is to be the supreme end of all their fond hopes, an 1 toward its attainment no species of cunning is left unemployed.” — (Illust. JVews.) “ The invasion of the Holy Places at Jerusalem by Russian schismatics is going on every day with singular rapidity. We mentioned a short time since with what solemnity the Russian church was sending preach- ers into Palestine, but we have now to state something still more impor- APPENDIX. 293 tant. The Russian Government has conceived the idea of founding seven new establishments in the holy countries for its clergy and its pilgrims. It is about to erect at Jerusalem a bishop’s residence, a church, a consu- late, and two hospitals. Two other hospitals will be founded at Jafla and Bethlehem. The Czar has also, it is said, taken other measures to strengthen his influence in the Holy Land. Such facts, accomplished under our very eyes, are of a nature to excite the solicitude and zeal of Roman Catholic France.” — {Union^ 1858.) “ Extract from a Sermon on the Cause of the TVar^ hy Rev. TVm. Schauffler, for many years a Missionary of the A. B. C. F. M. in Turkey. — But all this does not bring us a clear and true result in our inquiry, which is necessarily and naturally, what is the character of the cause ? What are these thousands and scores of thousands fighting for ? Ask the people in Russia. There is no man or woman, in Russia I mean, who is not familiar with the Emperor’s design to seize Turkey, and reside in Constantinople. The more intelligent understand the further bear- ings; which are, Russia will rule the Mediterranean, and be a mistress in Europe. This they consider the divine destiny and mission of their nationality. The priests see still farther. The means, pretty successfully employed in Russia, to draw in by fraud and keep in by force, the mem- bers of religious communities, will be carried all over the Old World. Protestant missions will be crushed, Bible and Tract Societies crippled by laws and restrictions, and the Russian priests live in their millennial glory. Of these plans, which are perfectly transparent to every reasonable man in Russia, European Governments have comprehended at least the political part. Few see the ecclesiastical and religious, which, however, to us is the burden of the inquiry. To carry out these plans immense fortresses and navies are built, unlooked-for interferences attempted, revolutions kindled among the subjects of this country ; false pretences spread before the world, war commenced in time of peace. Is all this right ? No ! No ! Has Europe a right to resist it ? Not a right only, but both right and duty — more still — a necessity.” “ A certain authority is attached by foreign politicians to the state- ments of the Morning Post, on account of its real or supposed connec- tion with Lord Palmerston. We mention this, because that journal brings to-day a charge of a very grave character against the Russian Government — nothing more nor less, in fact, than that the discontent of our Indian troops, which has now broken out into mutiny, is the work of 294 APPENDIX. Eussian agents, instructed and paid directly by the Foreign-Office at St. Petersburg. ‘ There is abundant evidence,’ says the Post, ‘ both in Fort William and Leadenhall-street, of the proceedings of these Muscovites, and we should not be at all surprised if some of the Oude nobles and functionaries, and some of the Brahmins, were under-agents in the pay of the paramount and superior practitioners who were immediately in- structed by the Russian Chancery.’ ” “ During the first moments of a great public calamity there is such indecent haste in the public mind to throw blame upon somebody that people are not very discriminating whom they select. The rule of the East India Company is, we all know, not perfection. But it by no means follows that the cause of this revolt is to be traced to any defects in the present system of government: It seems at least probable that the Sepoys, urged on by infamous Russian agents, intent only upon embar- rassing British rule, have been led to believe that they could easily make themselves masters of the country, and thus relieve themselves from all duty and discipline. The JVord may sneer as it will at The Daily Tel- egraph for holding these opinions — borrowed, as it says, from the Morn- ing Post and Times ; but, if I mistake not, they will meet with pretty general acceptance in England, and will not be held to be very wide of the truth even on the Continent .” — {Daily Telegraph.) “The prevailing passion of the Russian nation,” says the historian Alison, “is the love of conquest; and this ardent desire is the unseen spring which impels their accumulated force in ceaseless advance over all the adjoining States. Domestic grievances, how great soever, are over- looked in the thirst for foreign aggrandisement. In the conquest of the world the people hope to find a compensation, and more than a com- pensation, for all the evils of their interior administration. Every Russian is inspired with the conviction that his country is one day to conquer the world ; and the universal belief of this result is one of the chief causes of the rapid strides which Russia of late years has made towards its realisation. The meanest peasant in Russia is impressed with the belief that his country is destined to subdue the world.” “ The leading journal lately remarked in reference to the speculations afloat as to whether the sleepless agency of Russia was at work in Persia, China, and India — ‘ that it would be a much more pertinent inquiry APPENDIX. 295 whether the same agency was not in full activity in this country. ’ That there is need for such inquiry we need only point to the fact, that never at any former period were so many orders from Russia and its Govern- ment in the hands of our engineers, shipbuilders and founders. All the material to be thus supplied is either intended avowedly for the purposes of war, or can be made available in the hands of our late enemy for such. It is thus to be feared thaft the occurrence of a fresh misunderstanding, or the outbreak of a new quarrel, about the ‘ sick man’s ’ professions, will find Russia prepared to encounter, it may be, a ‘ world in arms.’ It is painful to think that the munitions of war on which she will then rely for vindicating the quarrel which she will only be too eager to pro- voke, have been forged in the workshops of Great Britain. It may be contrary to sound maxims of peace polity to interfere in this matter; but it is easy to fancy the surprise— -not unmixed with regret — which our brave soldiers and sailors will feel, when they discover that the guns of the battery which they have at the expense of so much blood succeeded in silencing, were fabricated by the hands of their own admiring coun- trymen ! Verily Russian agency is at work, and that at our own doors.” IV. ROME. I have also frequently referred to the rapid decadence of Romanism, and the probable approach of her final judgments. Let anybody take up the Roman correspondence of a daily paper, and he will be struck at the rapidity with which events rush to a crisis. The Times'" corres- pondent thus writes very lately : — “ At Rome, as I have shown in former letters, things are not so bad as this, but there are plenty of other grounds of complaint. The Romans, however, no longer condescend to details — they have long since made out their case to their own satisfaction and to that of all impartial per- sons who have taken the trouble to investigate and consider it. They comprise all their grievances under one head — that of clerical govern- ment. They regard it, and justly, as the source of all their sufierings, and the one great bar to the progress and improvement of their coun- 296 APPENDIX. try. To it they trace every evil they endure. It is against the rule of the priests that they have repeatedly risen in insurrection, that they continually tacitly protest, and that they constantly threaten a revolution, prevented only by Swiss mercenaries and foreign garrisons. It is not against the Pope personally that their dislike is directed ; the question can hardly be said to be that of his temporal sovereignty, still less that of his spiritual authority. I am far from saying that he is either loved or respected in his dominions. His weak and vascillating character is not calculated to command the latter feeling. When there was lately a talk (founded, I believe, in part, on a steam-corvette having been ordered in England) of his making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the wish was pretty generally expressed that he might never return to Rome or have a suc- cessor there. But he is, in fact, too insignificant a political character to be the object of very bitter hatred. With a secular Government, a lay Administration, he might be a fair enough Prince Regnent as times go. So feeble a character would probably always be more or less under the sway of his Prime Minister. What the Romans desire is to replace Cardinal Antonelli (the present real ruler of the Pontifical States), his clerical colleagues, and the whole battalion of official priests and prelates, by laymen. If it be laid down that a priest-sovereign can govern only by clerical IMinisters, then there can be no doubt what the Romans would demand. Their cry would be, ‘ Down with Pope, Cardinals, Priests and Prelates ! ’ The knotty question, which has never yet, I think, been frankly answered, is, whether the Papacy be incompatible with the civil institu- tions of the 19th century ? The Romans ask why, if it be not thus incom- patible, the suggestions contained in Louis Napoleon’s well-known letter to Edgar Ney be not adopted ? They ask for secularisation. They do not see why the Pontiff — a temporal as well as a spiritual potentate — should restrict his choice of Ministers and public functionaries to a hand- ful of ecclesiastics, to the exclusion of his 3,090,000 of lay subjects, ^ome of the upholders of the present system have asserted that the Roman j relates are laymen. It is certainly not necessary to have taken priest’s orders to be a prelate or even a cardinal; but it is idle to say that the peculiar class which in the Roman hierarchy are styled prelates do not form part of the ecclesiastical caste, sharing its interests, ideas, and pre- judices. If it be maintained, as I have somewhere seen it done, that they are the pick of the laity, specially adapted to administrative func- tions, it is easy to overthrow this assertion by notorious facts. The edu- cation of the prelates and the restrictions imposed upon them tend, on APPENDIX. 297 the contrary, to incapacitate them for rulers and adaiinistrators. The chief studies of young men destined to the prelacy are theology and canonical science. By the Canon Law they are forbidden to exercise any trade, to be bankers, manufacturers, or merchants. This can hardly be considered a good means of qualifying them to become Ministers of Fi- nance, Commerce, Public Works, or administrators of towns or prov- inces. Of medical science they are forbidden to know anything; they are not even permitted to be present at a surgical operation. Nevertheless, all the civil hospitals in the Roman States are under the direction of pre- lates; the care of the public health and sanitary establishments of all kinds are exclusively confided to them. They are forbidden to serve in the army, and it is therefore not to be wondered at if they have always displayed singular talent as military organizers, and if ‘ Soldat du Pape'' has become a byword of derision in European armies. Celibacy is strictly imposed upon them, as the most indispensable condition of their remain- ing members of the ecclesiastical caste. The ablest, the most dis- tinguished prelate, if he marries, ceases to be one, and is held no longer fit to share in the government of the country. It is hardly necessary to point out the effect of this last strictly-enforced condition. To say noth- ing of its leading to vice, even of the most shameless kind, it precludes those ties which most strongly attach men to their country. \\'ith regard to this point one of the most zealous supporters of the present Roman system defined, in few words, as follows, the arguments presented by the opponents of ecclesiastical government : — ‘ The priest, destined to defend the interests of Heaven, knows nothing of those of the earth ; having no family, the prosperity of the country is of little importance to him ; separated from society, he cannot know its true wants; with him the espi'tt de corps overrules the spirit of nationality.’ The late M. de Rayneval stated these arguments with the intention of refuting them, a purpose in which it is generally acknowledged that he signally failed. “ It will not be alleged, even by the bigoted, that there are not among those who profess the Catholic faith, and are sincerely attached to it, both in Italy and elsewhere, men of enlightened, honorable, liberal, and tolerant minds. Many of these have always desired, and they still desire more earnestly than ever, and in the interest of the faith to which they belong, that the Papacy should be disembarrassed of the onerous burden which temporal power imposes on it, and they are convinced that if it were so disengaged it would be much more respected and more inde- pendent. 13 298 APPENDIX. “ That opinion is, I find, making some way even among ecclestastics. It is perhaps a bold opinion for a priest to advocate publicly; one, how- ever, has been found to do so. A French ecclesiastic, the Abbe J. H. Michon, has just published a pamphlet of 62 pages on the subject, enti- tled La Papaute a Jerusalem, and he supports the proposition implied in that title with much good reasoning, and at the same time with the greatest respect for the Holy See. He thinks that the influence of mod- ern ideas having produced no eifect on the Roman administration, the progressive element of the nation has become a formidable enemy to the stationary element of the Pontifical Government ; that the old machine may, it is true, go on well or ill, so long as it is aided by foreign diplo- macy or foreign occupation; but that the moment these are withdrawn the Papacy will be exposed, helpless, to revolution, and that the danger is imminent. The solution of that difficult question is not to be found, the Abbe Michon thinks, in political, administrative, or civil reform, nor in the secularization of power, which would encounter innumerable ob- stacles in the clerical organization and the prejudices which control the Papacy. It is to be found only in the abdication of temporal power. He is not of opinion, that in such a case, the capital of what may be termed the Spiritual Papacy could be Rome. It would lose in dignity, and would still suffer from political complications. He believes that there is but one city, which out of Italy, and indeed out of Europe, pre- sents conditions indispensable to its independence and grandeur, and where a new era for the mission of a true apostle would open, and that city is Jerusalem. The Abbe is aware that the project would not be over-pleas- ing to the political world of Rome, who would not willingly exchange a grand and splendid seat for the lowly but hallowed residence of Jerusa- lem, though he assures us that the plan has gained the acquiescence of several political personages in Europe. At Jerusalem the Pope would cease to be a foreign Sovereign, and would become, what he was in the commencement, the spiritual and inviolable head of Catholicity. There no Government Could exercise an undue influence over his acts. As the Sultan is now protected by the whole of the Powers for the benefit of Europe at large, so, but in a still greater measure, would the ii^depen- dence of the Pope be guaranteed by all Catholic countries, while the prestige his spiritual authority would gain by its exercise in the Holy City, where the stupendous events on which Christianity itself reposes were accomplished, is incalculable. In its material interests the Papacy would be better off than it is at present; its resources would be multi- APPENDIX. 299 plied, as tlicre is not a Catholic Power that would hesitate to contribute to them. Rome would receive from Spain not less than 3,000,000 francs annually; and, as a purely spiritual power, the Pope would be spared the expense of a political status. The Abbe Michon concludes as follows ; — ‘ May Rome not refuse to recognize before it be too late who are her true friends; may she distinguish between those impetuous and indiscreet writers who urge her to extreme measures in order to exercise dominion over her, and to make use of her, and the modest and moderate men who have undertaken the ungrateful task of saying what they believe to be the truth, and who would blush to have recourse, even to please her, to a system of adulation which is an insult to the holy cause they defend.’ . . . The chief feature in the social state of Roipe is decidedly an abhorrence of Papal government, and, possibly, it might be added, an increasing indifference to religion. Of the latter point, however, I can- not speak with certainty ; only I do know that the day before yesterday (the Feast of the Annunciation), when the Pope performed mass in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, there were not above 200 persons in the building, besides officials, and very few in the streets to see the dis- play of military and state carriages, and receive his Holiness’s blessing as he passed. I am told, indeed, that it is not unusual for the people of Rome to run up side streets or into houses as they see the Pope’s carriage coming along, in order that they may not be obliged to do him rever- ence.’ This, surely, is a sad falling off from the days when a Gregory, an Innocent, a Julius, or a Leo thundered forth his decrees from the Vatican as ‘ the servant of the servants,’ and yet the Omnipotent Lord here below! “ In England we find the Papal system modified according to the exi- gencies of an heretical land and an unbelieving race. Would you know what that system is in its full development, go to Rome. You will not at first be conscious of the horrors with which you are surrounded. A certain season must be given to day dreams in the Forum and to night dreams in the Coliseunu The artist’s enthusiasm must be allowed to satiate itself on the marvellous marbles which ancient art has bequeathed to us, and among those wonderM pictures which seem to prescribe the limits of the painter’s skill. There comes a time, however, when the feeling for these things passes by. Man was not sent into the world to dream away life among ruins, nor to practice dilettantism in any of its alluring forms. Mix, then, gradually — but with exceeding caution — with the Italians who inhabit this holy town, and learn from them the meaning of their lives. You will doubtless meet with exaggeration 300 APPENDIX. enough — ^possibly with Msehood, — ^but on the whole there will be such a concurrence of testimony in proof of the unutterable turpitude and atr(>- cious tyranny of the Papal Government that no indifferent person could refuse acquiescence in the testimony produced. But, if words will not convince your mind, look around you ! What you see — th vt scene of ruin and desolation — that hotbed of fever, with its stenches avid miasmas , was once the capital of the world. When heathens held it, and the high-priest, with the silent virgin by his side, ascended the Capitol in honor of Jupiter, Borne was supreme among the nations. In the hands of ( hristians, and when the self-styled Prince of the Faithful on each returning Easter-day ascends the balcony of St. Peter’s to bless the Holy City, what has not Borne become ! If it be the case , as all history ap- pears to suggest, that nations and kingdoms, even as men do, perish and decay from the effect of their own vices and corruptions, surely the sen- tence of condemnation has been branded deeply enough upon the brow of Pontifical Borne. But the ruin, and the sickness, and the poverty, and the desolation above ground are as nothing compared with what passes in the interior of those Boman houses and in the dungeons, the dark secrets of which are but occasionally revealed by the few prisoners who ever escape from their chains to tell the tale. We have not space nor time just now to enter upon the subject, but it has been well ascer- tained that within the last few years horrors have been enacted in the Boman prisons for which parallels must be sought in the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition when that tribunal was at its worst. But the phys- ical torture — no! nor the imprisonment of hundreds and thousands of innocent men — is not all. Worse, far worse, than this is the unutterable moral pollution which overflows upon every wretched cottage and mis- erable lodging in this Papal land. Get some Boman who has accorded you his tardy confidence to sit by your side under an old archway, when the hot air and bright sun of Central Italy drive you to some cool shelter, and there hear what he has to say of the doings of yonder sablc-stoled priests, who sweep past you in silence and in gloom. Hear his story of what priests do at Borne, where they are omnipotent, and you will see reasons to be thankful that your lot was not cast among the pollutions to which every Boman born is subject — he and his family. Civis Roma- nus sum! How pathetic a complaint do the words now imply; hov/ much misery is involved in that brief phrase ! “We, of coui-se, can only concern ourselves with the story of modern Borne as a political question. The Pope of Borne to us is but a temporal APPENDIX. 801 Prince, who grievously oppresses his miserable subjects, and whoso mis- deeds are likely to hurry on that explosion in Central Italy which sooner or later must come. The French garrison has been reduced, and the Pope, in a fright, has sent off for another Swiss regiment to guard him from the consequences of the too enthusiastic loyalty of his subjects. The police espionage of Rome has been screwed up to the level of that of Naples. The project for withdrawing the paper currency has proved a failure. Every obstacle is thrown in the way of those who would carry out the projected railroads; for the Cardinals have come to the conclusion that the instant their wretched serfs begin to travel and mix with their fellow-creatures there is an end of their dominion. Only think of what the condition of that population must be, which may become too enlightened by contact with the lazzaroni of Naples! He would be a bold man who should venture to predict with absolute cer- tainty the moment when that power which has held the human race in thraldom for so many centuries shall fall to rise no more; but certainly the foundations of the Papacy, as a temporal power, appear sadly shaken just now. AVere the French garrison withdrawn to-morrow, the next day Pio None might reckon himself fortunate if he escaped the ven- geance of his subjects in the most cunning disguise which the craft of his advisers could suggest.” V. EARTHQUAKES. I have alluded to our Lord’s prediction of earthquakes as premonitory of the eve of this dispensation. I have observed that, within the last ten years, more earthquakes have occurred than in the pirevious century. I instance one, and add to it the remarkable article in the Times : — “A letter from Naples of the 18th inst., gives the following fuller particulars of the shocks of this frightful earthquake : — Naples has just been visited by several shocks of earthquakes. No great damage occurred in Naples, as the buildings are strong, but no doubt the fright and the night air will cause many of the sick w^ho were brought out in the slight covering of night, to die of cold. The follow- 302 APPENDIX. ing is the news which reached us last night from surrounding parts : — In Sala there have been some shocks. In Atene half the houses have fallen down. In Padula more than a hundred houses have fallen, and many lives lost. In Polla the disaster is great, and among the many victims the whole of the brigade of gendarmes. In Auletta, Petrosa, and Caggiono, the deaths and destruction of property are great. In Sa- lerno many edifices are rent in and out; two churches and the barracks severely injured. A despatch from the intendente of Banlicata has just reached, stating that in Potenza the earthquake was most severe, and has caused much damage ; many buildings have fallen, burying a great many families. From Bari the telegram is incomplete, merely stating, ‘The inhabitants in great numbers have — .’ Vesuvius is now in full activity, but for some days previous to the earthquake no fire issued from the crater. Whenever the mountain emits fire or lava we feel quite safe, and you may well suppose how gratifying is the present ap- pearance of our safety-valve. Whatever accounts you may read of the state of this city at the time of the shocks, it will fall short of the reality. Women were seen carying their children — men helping some old father or mother, or some sick person wrapped up in the first covering avail- able. Women screaming; tearing their hair, praying and calling on their patron saint and the Madonna Immaculata, all passing frantically in densely-crowded streets. The King, on hearing of these disasters, ordered the public functionaries not to spare anything in the shape of assistance. His Majesty directed the intendant to proceed to the scene of the catastrophe, and authorised him to make use of the communal and provincial funds to aid the sufferers. “ A shock of earthquake was felt in the night of the 18th in the val- ley and on the mountains near Libenzall (Wurtemburg), as well as in that town itself. The oscillation appeared to be from north to south. The vibration was so strong that many of the houses were felt to tremble, and the windows rattled. “ The occurrence of an earthquake in Europe, were it even slight in character and partial in its effect, would be a phenomenon well worthy of notice amid our political difficulties and commercial embarrassments. We are so accustomed in these temperate regions to the regular play of those great laws of nature which are in accordance with human security, Uiat when we hear that for many thousands of our fellow-creatures the Dies ircB — such as Dante would have conceived it — has dawned without warning, we cannot but pause amid the usual routine of life, and mark APPENDIX. 303 tlie Instability of our own position. The sun rises and sets, day follows night, to-day is as yesteixiay^and to-morrow will be the same; our own calculations are ma^ile, and we assume that all will go on as usual while we are playing out the parts assigned to us upon this world’s stage. The thought that the stage itself is undermined, that the slightest change in the chymical elements beneath our feet would hurry us all off to a swift destruction, and that our normal condition is that of men sep- arated but by a hair’s breadth from a catastrophe which would sweep away this earth and all things on it like a parched scroll, is not one which frequently presses itself upon the consideration of the digging, spinning, scheming lUth century. Let us admit that, according to all observed phenomena, the British islands would appear to be tolerably safe from the consequences of volcanic action, and that as yet there ar e no signs abroad to suggest the conclusion that the sequence of human beings upon this planet is at an end. We may be caught, and we have been caught in other ways. The blight of a single esculent root has swept away mil- lions of our fellow-countrymen within the last few years, and in a manner infinitely more terrible than that in which many thousands of the Neapolitan population have just been destroyed. The incidence of ^ such calamities is not confined to any particular quarter of the globe. They fall within the tropics in one form, upon the temperate zones in another, and even amid the long-continued gloom of the Polar winters the poor Esquimaux are periodically cleared off into eternity by villages and tribes. In reading, then, this account of the earthquake which has just torn up the soil of the kingdom of Naples, we should not think that the dealings of Providence with human beings are unequal or unjust, nor lull ourselves into false security, as though the Neapolitan peasants were exposed to sufferings from the equivalent of which the luxurious Londoner is free. In the year which has just expired we have had our Indian mutiny and our commercial crisis, as they have had their earth- quake and their own especial forms of calamity. “ The catastrophe of the South of Italy seems even by the accounts we have as yet received to have been of a very fatal character. The popular estimate places the loss of human life at about 20,000 persons — the Gov- ernment computes it at a lesser estimate. If there be exaggeration in the first calculation, as is probable enough, it is certain, on the other hand, that owing to the rupture of the electric wires and the suspension of communication the Government cannot have received full accounts of the extent of the loss from many of the outlying districts. It is also in 304 APPENDIX. accordance with all we know of the policy of Southern Governments rather to underrate the amount of destruction in such cases, lest the natural alarm of the population should degenerate into wild and unman- ageable panic. The immediate destruction of human life, however, will constitute in the long run but a slender portion of the sufferings conse- quent upon this great calamity. Towns and villages are destroyed or half destroyed in every direction. The daily labor of the population is paralyzed, and even in those fertile regions the great masses of the pop- ulation only exist by hard and daily exertion. The most ruinous vio- lence of the earthquake seems to have spent itself mainly upon two prov- inces, but in a lesser degree the area of its action was far more extensive. Some idea of its violence may be formed from the brief notes of intelli- gence which have as yet reached us. In Polla there was so great a loss of life that 300 bodies have been already dug out of the ruins, and the ruins have not yet been fully explored. In Castelsano, which has been levelled with the ground, four hundred persons have perished. In Lagonegro the inhabitants had timely warning, and made good their escape, but the town experienced three shocks in seven hours. Almost all the buildings inclusive of the church, and the telegraph station, were cracked. Nothing was solid enough to resist the action of the mighty subterranean agencies at work. We will take but another instance, which shall be that of Potenza, the capital of Basilicata. This is a town of 12,000 inhabitants. Not a single house is there left fit for human habitation. ‘ The palace of the prefecture, the military and civil hospital, the barracks of the gendarmes and of the reserve, the college of Jesuits, the churches, and especially the cathedi al, are all rendered useless, and no one can without danger cross his own doorway. They were continu- ing to disinter the numerous victims, the number of whom was un- known. The whole population who had been in the open air were be- ginning to take shelter in wooden barracks, which had been erected for the purpose.’ We give this example as one which will show to what sufferings these poor people have been subjected, independently of their dead and of their sorrow for their dead. It would be impossible, we are told by those who have witnessed these terrible Scenes, to exagger- ate the terror and desolation which universally prevail. The inhabi- tants of the districts which have been ‘so severely visited know what they have suffered, but they know not what they may suffer next. We published on Thursday a fearful list of towns which had all been com- pletely or partially destroyed, but there are others concerning which the APPENDIX. 305 Government has not as yet furnished particulars, and the worst inferen- ces are drawn from this official silence. All that could be done at the first outbreak of such a dire calamity seems to have been done or at- tempted. Beds, medicine, lint, food, nurses, and wood for barracks have been forwarded with all speed to the scenes of this disaster. In one particular, however, the benevolent action of the Government has been checked in a manner which can scarcely afford matter for sur- prise, when we remember what the character for peculation cf the Nea- politan officials has notoriously been, and how the Government itself has misappropriated such funds. Orders were issued from Naples that the communal treasuries should be opened for the relief of the sufferers, but the money had disappeared. “ The capital itself does not seem to have actually suffered any disaster. There, as elsewhere, the action of the subterranean agencies was felt to such a degree as might have justified apprehension even in firm and sober minds; but, not very unnaturally, the wildest terror seems to have seized upon the inhabitants. They rushed out of their houses as soon as the awful cry of ‘ The earthquake ! the earthquake !’ was raised, and they felt the first shocks. For nights they encamped in the open squares. That hideous horde of ruffians which may be found in every great city, but which is only seen when revolution, or pestilence, or when, as here, an earthquake is at work, pervaded the streets in all directions, but chiefly directed their energies upon the Toledo, where the principal and wealth- iest shopkeepers carry on their business. Strange to say, even in the midst of this agony of apprehension, the Neapolitans thronged to the lottery- offices, eager to secure favorable numbers, and muttering all the while a jangle of invocations to all the saints in the Roman Calendar, but chiefly to St. Januarius, their chosen protector. What we are about to write seems scarcely credible in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but our correspondent from Naples informs us that — ‘ The blood of St. Jan- uarius is said to have been boiled, and a procession was thereupon formed, in which an image was carried; so I have been told this morn- ing.’ The shocks of the earthquake were frequent at Naples, although not very intense nor of any great duration; but yet sufficiently so to inspire the inhabitants with the belief that the end of all things was at hand.” THE END. ' ^ ^ W:^ ,' ^ . ^'k ^..'^ '. ^‘' ' J^'i i) .. • -.-. ,.vc^ ^ ’) - ■ r - ■ :.. ; ; : '; / .-/ ■' . • ^ ^ ‘ - f. ^Yi. ' .i; -r--; '■ '• . . - ' ' , ■ , ■'>. ■:■. .. •■, ■; . , M.Y-f, f' ^ - ■_ -•- •••Yt: vv!j' ^ *■:•?■' ■ '• Vi 5 >7^ -. Y;'- -Yv. .' ^ >/•■'•<<• -■. ', Y ‘ ' . . ■ ■ ^ ^ . ■ _■ ^ . . V .• • : ' ■ ’■'''■‘V'''<;. - _* ‘, / ■ •'./•^'N • -- . , ■ ' , , /•;' t‘'-;i>B ,, ■;v»:t r ' • •' - t„-: : ■ . 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