" ' ^ -^ "" '" ^ s.
- - - -¦!.-,,j.,yY, .T
Wallace, David Duncan,
The historical background of
religion in South Carolina.

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THE "LITTLE WHILE"

THE SAVIOUE'S ABSENCE

|e l|rospat of ^is Spttbg |[ft«rn.

THREE LECTURES,
delivered in the scots church, Sydney, and the general
assembly's hall, melboubne.

JOHN DUNMOEE LANG, D.D., A.M.,
minister of the scots church, SYDNEY,
Honorary Member of the African Institute of Fiance, of the American Oriental Society,
and of the Literary Institute of the University ofOlinda in the Brazils.

SECOND THOUSAND.

1 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR.

MDCCOLXXII.

PRICE ONE SHILLING.

THE "LITTLE WHILE"

THE SATIOUR'S ABSENCE

%\t 1|r0sptt of pis ^pt^ llrfurn.

TBEREE LEOTURES,
delivered IN the scots church, SYDNEY, AND THE eENBEAL
assembly's HALL, MELBOURNE.

JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D., AM.,
MINISTBK OF THE SCOTS CHURCH, SYDNEY,
Honorary Me77iber of ilie African Institute of France, of tlie A inerican Oriental Society y
and of ills Literary Institute of the University ofOlinda in tJte Brazils.

SECOND THOUSAND.

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR.

MDCCOLXXII.

'LITTLE WHILE" of the SAVIOUR'S ABSENCE,
AND THE
PROSPECT OF HIS SPEEDY RETURN.

LECTURE I.
^' A Utile while, and ye sJmU not see Me : and again, a Httle while, and ye shall see
Me, because I go to the Father."— Joss xvi, 16.
Christian Friends and Brethren —
Although the way of salvation is so clearly revealed in the Holy
Scriptures that the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err
therein, it is nevertheless true and undeniable that the Bible is, in
many respects, a sealed book to those even who read it attentively;
while to the far greater number who ever read it at all, its most
important and spirit-stirring announcements fall upon the ear as a
tale that has oft been told them, in which they have no interest
and no concern.
The words I have just read, as the subject of lecture, strongly
illustrate these observations and prove their truth: — "A little
while, and ye shall not see Me: and again, a little while, and ye
shall see Me, because I go to the Father."
We learn from the context that when this mysterious announce
ment of our blessed Lord's was first made to His disciples, it j)ro-
duced the strongest sensation in their little company; exciting in
their minds an earnest desire to ascertain its meaning, and a vague
impression of its involving some deep and hidden mystery. " Then
said some of His disciples among themselves, What is this that
He saith unto us? A little whUe, and ye shall not see Me; and
again, a little while, and ye shall see Me : and because I go to the
Father? They said, therefore, What is this that He saith, A
little while? we cannnot tell what He saith" (verses 17, 18).
They could not understand what their blessed Lord and Master
meant by the "little whUe" of which He had spoken. They
asked eaich other for an explanation, but not one of them could tell
what He meant. They were exceedingly desirous, indeed, to
learn it from Himself; but their profound veneration for His
person and character prevented them from asking Him dii-ectly
what He meant by that " little while," of which He had spoken
so mysteriously.

Our blessed Lord well knew what was passing in the minds of
His disciples ; and, therefore, instead of waiting for their inquiries,
He explained to them His meaning spontaneously, illustrating it
at the same time by a very striking similitude. " Now, Jesus
knew that they were desirous to ask Him, and said unto them, Do
ye inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye
shall not see Me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me?
Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament,
but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your
sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in
travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she
is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish,
for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now, -there
fore, have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall
rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you" (verses 19, 22)...
Such then was the explanation, or rather illustration, of the
Saviour's meaning in the words of our text. It is quite evident,
however, as I shall show you presently, that notwithstanding this
authoritative explanation of our blessed Lord's, the professed
Christian Church has, in all its denominations, with only a few,
and these individual, exceptions, entirely mistaken our Saviour's.
meaning in these remarkable words.
I would observe, therefore, in the outset, before setting forth
what I conceive was our Lord's real meaning in the announce
ment of our text, that, if that announcement was so intensely
interesting as it evidently was to His disciples, it must be equally
interesting to us, if we could only understand it aright. If it had
a depth of meaning to them which their unassisted understandings-
could not fathom, be assured, my brethren, that it must have an
equal depth of meaning to us; and that meaning cannot lie upon
the surface, so as to render o\n blessed Lord's explanation unneces
sary to us any more than it was to them. If our Lord's expla
nation, moreover, was satisfactory to them, it ought surely to be-
equally satisfactory to us, when we come to imderstand it. In
short, we shall find in the sequel that this whole discourse of our-
blessed Lord's — from the 16th to the 22nd verse of this chapter,.
inclusive — is one of the deepest and most thrilling interest to us-
all. Do not suppose then, my brethren, that our inquiry into our
Lord's meaning in the mysterious language of our text is a mere
matter of curious speculation that can in no way influence our
individual practice; it is a matter on the contrary, as you will
find in the sequel, of the highest interest and of paramount import
ance to us all.
The commonly-received interpretation of our blessed Lord's
language in the text is, that it was a prediction of His approach.-
ing death and resurrection; the " little while" during which His
disciples were not to see Him being the time in which He should be
lying in the grave, and the event indicated by their seeing Him
again being His resurrection from the dead, and His repeated

appearances to His disciples before His ascension into heaven.
An eminent German commentator,* whose writings I occasionally
consult, professes to explain the language of our text as follows:
— ihey shall not see Him, when He is lying in the grave: they
-shall see Hun again, when He is risen from the dead, and shows
Himself to them alive." And our own commentators, at least in
so tar as my own inquiries extend, profess to explain the passage
in precisely the same way. Now I shall show you presently
that this cannot possibly be our Lord's meaning in the passao-e
¦ Defore us. r o
In the first place, the reason which our blessed Lord assigns in
¦the text, why His disciples should not see Him for a time, and should
-then see Him again, after a little while, was that He was goinff to
the Father. ^ ^
" A little while, and ye shall not see Me : and again, a little
while, and ye shall see Me : because I go to the Father." To the
same efi"ect we read in the I Sth chapter of this gospel and 1st
verse: — "Now, before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew
that His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world
unto the Father, &c." Surely this cannot signify His going to the
Father at His death and burial; for, in the 20th chapter of this
gospel, at the 17th verse, we find that Jesus saith unto Mary
Magdalene, when He appeared to her at the sepulchre, after He
had risen from the dead, "Touch Me not; for I am not yet
-ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren, and say unto
them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My
God and your God." He had, therefore, not gone to His Father
during the interval that had elapsed from His death to His
resurrection; and, it is quite evident, from His language on this
occasion, that His going to His Father, which was then still a
future event, was His visible ascension into heaven, from the
Mount of Olives, after He had risen from the dead? This, I
conceive, my brethren, is quite decisive of the point that our
blessed Lord had not gone to the Father before His resurrection,
and that the little while of His predicted absence from His disciples
was not the time that He was lying in the grave.
There are three passages in this gospel in which the very same
form of expression as that used in the text is employed by our
blessed Saviour on other occasions, and which may therefore be
supposed to throw much light on its meaning ia the passage before
us. The first of these is John vii. 33, 34, where it is written —
" Then said Jesus unto them. Yet a little while am I with you,
and then I go unto Him that sent Me. Ye shall seek Me, and
shall not find Me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come."
Now, it cannot be supposed that this passage can refer to the
* John David Michaelis, a distinguished professor in the University of
Gbttingen, in Hanover. His words in the original are as follows : — " Sie
•warden ihm nioht sehen, wenu er im Grabe liegt : sie werden ihm sehen,
¦ wenn er auf dem Grabe aufeistehet, nnd sich ihnen lebendig zeiget."

short period of the Saviour's absence, when He was lying in the
grave, whither it was so easy for His disciples to have followed
Him, if they had chosen to do so. It obviously refers to a far dif
ferent period of absence, and a far different place from the grave.
A passage of similar import occurs in John xiii. 33 — " Little
children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek Me;
and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye cannot come, so
now I say to you." It is equally evident from this passage that
the place whither He was going on this occasion was not the grave;
otherwise He could not have said, either to His disciples or to the
Jews, " Thither ye cannot come."
And in John xiv. 19, our Lord thus expresses Himself — "Yet
a little whUe, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me:
because I live ye shall live also.'' Now, it cannot be supposed
that this seeing Him no more could refer to any other period than
that commencing at His ascension into heaven from the Mount of
Olives. Again, our blessed Lord tells His disciples, both in this chapter
and in the one immediately preceding it, that, during the period
of His absence, they should be hated and persecuted of the world
— that this, in short, should be their normal condition during the
whole period of His absence. The passage I refer to particularly
is as follows — " They shall put you out of the synagogues : yea,
the time cometh that whosoever kUleth you will think that he
doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you,
because they have not known the Father, nor Me. But these
things have I told you, that when the time shaU come ye may
remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not
unto you at the beginning, because I was with you ; but now I go
My way to Him that sent Me" (John xvi. 2-5). It is abundantly
evident from this passage that " the little while" of the Saviour's
absence from His disciples was not the short period during which
He lay in the grave; for the reason given for His absence and for
their not seeing Him again was that He was going to His Father,
whereas the suffering and persecution that awaited them were not
to be experienced tUl He had actually gone.
The same conclusion ia manifestly deducible from the Saviour's
promise of the Holy Spirit, to comfort and to support His disciples
under the hatred and persecution they were thus to experience
during the absence of their Lord and Master. For the Holy Spirit,
the Comforter, did not come, till the Lord Jesus had risen fi-om
the dead, and ascended unto His Father. " It is expedient for
you" are His own words in verse 7 of this chapter — " it is
expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the
Comforter wUl not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send
Him unto you."
Finally, our blessed Lord tells His disciples that, although they
should weep and lament during His absence, their sorrow should ,
be turned into joy, when they should see Him again; adding, as;

we read in verses 21 and 22, "A woman when she is in travail
hath sorrow, because her hour is come : but as soon as she is
delivered of the chUd, she remembereth no more the anguish, for
joy that a man is bom into the world." Now, my brethren, this
condition of suffering and sorrow, of hatred and persecution, which
om- blessed Lord predicted for His church and people, has been
the uniform condition of the true Church of Christ ever since the
Lord Jesus ascended to His Heavenly Father; and the only
reason why this period of suffering and sorrow for the true Church
of Christ has not yet come to an end — has not yet been turned
into joy — is that His promise in the text to see His disciples
again is not yet fulfilled.
Know this, then, my brethren — this truth of thrUling interest to
us aU — that the little while during which His disciples were not to
see our blessed Lord, because He was going to the Father, repre
sents the whole period that has elapsed since He ascended visibly
into heaven from the Mount of Olives to the present hour. That
little while is still running on, and is not yet completed; and His
disciples, left as they are during its currency to mourn and lament
His absence, have not yet seen their Saviour again, because the set
time for His return has not yet come.
If it were possible to doubt that this is our Lord's meaning in
the text. His own words in the 28th verse of this chapter would
set all such doubts to rest — " I came forth from the Father, and
am come into the world: again, I leave the world and go to the
Father." Compare with this declaration of our blessed Lord's
what the evangelist states in the outset of his gospel, " In the
beginning," that is, from all eternity, " was the Word," or Son of
God, " and the Word was with God." From this state of incon
ceivable glory and blessedness our blessed Lord came forth into
the world, when He took upon Him the form of a servant, and
became incarnate in the nature of man. He was now about to
leave the world and go to the Father : and as He came to it in flesh
and blood, so in flesh and blood He was to leave it, as He actually
did when He ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives.
The predicted period, therefore, of the Saviour's absence — ^the
little while ¦ during which His disciples were not to see Him,
because He had gone to the Father — cannot possibly mean the brief
period that elapsed while He lay in the grave. On the contrary,
it had not then commenced; and it began to run its course only
when He had ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives.and
went to His Fatherj agreeably to His own declaration in the text.
And be assured, my brethren^ it will come to an end, when, in like
manner and in fulfilment of His own promise. He descends from
heaveny and His disciples shall see Him again. "Ye men of
GalUee," said the two heavenly visitants in white apparel, who
stood by His disciples, as they were looking steadfastly towards
heaven as Jesus went up—" Ye men of GalUee, why stand ye
o-azing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from

you into heaven, shaU so come in like manner as ye have seen
Him go into heaven" (Acts i. 2). Yes, brethren, "Every eye shall
see Him" then, "and they also which pierced Him." "For the Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God" (1 Thess. iv. 17).
Yes, brethren, as I have already observed, the subject is one of
thrilling interest to us all. These eighteen hundred years and
upwards since our blessed Lord ascended [into heaven, in the
sight of five hundred brethren assembled on the Mount of OKves,
are the "little whUe" of which He spake to His disciples in the
text, when He said, " A little while, and ye shall not see Me."
That little while has not yet elapsed : we are now in the midst of
it, or rather we are verging towards its close.
And think it not strange, my brethren, that so long a period as
has thus elapsed since our Lord's ascension into heaven should be
designated a little while : for with the Lord one day is as a thou
sand years, and a thousand years as one day. Besides, the very
same form of expression as is used in the text is used also in
various other passages of Scripture to designate very long periods
of time. Thus, in the prophecies of Haggai ii. 6, the whole
period that should elapse from the days of that prophet to the
coming of Christ — that is, a period of upwards of 400 years — is
designated a little while. "For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, It is
a little while and I wUl shake the heavens, and the earth, and the
sea, and the dry land ; and I will shake all nations, and the desire
of all nations shall come; and I wUl fill this house with glory,
saith the Lord of Hosts." This prediction received its primary
fulfilment when the Saviour came the first time, and was born in
the city of Bethlehem; but it, doubtless, awaits a much more
remarkable fulfilment when, amid the tremendous revolutions of
the future. He comes the second time without sin unto salvation.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews also, x. 37, the whole period that
should elapse from the days of the apostle to the second coining of
Christ is designated "a little while;" that is, the very meaning
that I insist on is given in the words of our text by the Apostle
Paul himself, "For yet a little whUe, and He that shall come will
come, and will not tarry." Nay, so entirely accordant is it with
the language of holy Scripture to designate a very long period of
time by this form of words, that in the 37th Psalm, at the tenth
and eleventh verses, the whole period of time that should elapse
from the era of David to the consummation of all things, is desig
nated "a little while." " For yet a little while and the wicked shall
not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not
be; but the meek shaU inherit the earth, and shall delight them
selves in the abundance of peace." That is, the ungodly and the
wicked have the present possession of the earth by permission of
its Almighty Proprietor; but the reversion — the noble inheritance
— is divinely guaranteed to the meek of the earth.
Having thus demonstrated (as I conceive I have) that the little

while of the Saviour's absence, during which His disciples should
not see Him because He was going to the Father, designates the
whole period that should elapse from His ascension into heaven
from the Mount of Olives tUl His second coming in the clouds of
heaven, I should now proceed to the second part of our text —
" Again, a little whUe, and ye shall see me." But I shall leave
the consideration of this part of our general subject for a future
opportunity. Permit me, however, to close this present lecture
with the two following observations, which the subject we have
been considering strongly suggests.
I observe, then, that it is evident from our blessed Lord's own
words that the normal condition of the church of Christ during
the little while of the Saviour's absence is one of suffering and
¦sorrow, and consequently that any other condition, such as that of
our own time, a condition of much worldly prosperity, must be
fraught with extreme peril to the church and people of God. It
was the saying of an eminent minister of the Presb5rterian Church
who flourished about a century ago — the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon,
of Paisley, afterwards President of New Jersey College in America,
and one of the signers of the famous American Declaration of
Independence — that from the times of the apostles downwards,
there was no instance of the Christian Church having ever enjoyed
so long a period of outward peace and worldly prosperity as it is
now doing, and has been doing for more than a century past,
without becoming either exceedingly heretical in doctrine or
corrupt in practice. Witness the strong tendency to Bomanism
developed in a large portion of the professed Protestant church in
our own time, and the equally strong tendency to rationalism and
infidelity, while over almost the whole of Christendom there is a
virtual amalgamation of the church and the world of the most
suspicious character imaginable. The outward or visible church
may have much worldly honour and worldly felicity, as is evidently
the case in our own day; but these are not the characteristics of
the Church of Christ in this present dispensation of God's grace
and mercy to man. The true Church of Christ will always bear
the mark of the cross — not the Popish sign of a material cross in
stone or marble, in silver or gold, but in suffering and sorrow, in
persecution and abasement. These are the true cross; and in
these, to use the motto of the Emperor Constantine, although
in a' very different sense from his, " The Christian man will
conquer." The other observation I would make in conclusion is, that there
will be no mUlennium tUl the little whUe of the Saviour's absence
comes to an end, and the Lord Christ returns. There is nothing
more generally looked for in the world than a mUlenium of one
kind or another. The politician for instance looks for his
millennium to certain improvements in the theory and practice of
government, and the gradual amelioration of political institutions.
The phUosophical speculator looks for his mUlennium to the progress

10
of science and the extension of education. The Christian philan
thropist looks for his mUlenium to the operations of Bible and
Missionary Societies, to the multiplication of churches and the
circulation o'f tracts. But He that sits in the heavens laughs at all
these vain imaginings of men. This, brethren, is the style of the
Lord's millennium : — " Yet have I set My king upon My holy
hill of Zion." For this blissful consummation of the future, the
true Church of Christ loohs, and waits, and prays. "Looking for
that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus ii. 13). " Waiting for the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. i. 7), and praying with
all prayer and supplication, " Thy kingdom come."
. Yes, brethren, when the Lord Jesus returns to Zion, and His
feet stand again on the Mount of Olives, whUe the firmament
rings with the joyful welcome of those who have so long rejected
Him, saying, " Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,"
then, but not tUl then, shall the millennium have come.

LECTURE II.

" A little while, and ye sliall not see Me; aifid again, a little while, and ye shall see
Me, because I go to the Father."— 3ows xvi. 16.
Christian Friends and Brethren —
You are all, doubtless, aware that the usual interpretation of this
very remarkable passage of Scripture is that the little whUe,
during which His disciples were not to see their blessed Lord,
designates the short period duruig which He should be lying in
the grave; and that the little while during which they were to see
Him designates the period during which He appeared to them
repeatedly after He had risen from the dead. I showed you,
however, in my former lecture on these words of oui" blessed
Lord's — -and ib is not my intention to repeat the arguments I
then ' advanced^that this interpretation of their meaning is
altogether irreconcileable with various other portions of the Word
6i God, and that the little while during which His disciples were
not to see Him, because He was going to the Father, represents
the whole period since He ascended into heaven from the Mount
of Olives tothe present hour. The little whUe is stUl running
on,! and is not yet completed; and our Lord's disciples, left as they
are ' duiing its currency to mourn and lament His aljsence, have
not yet seen their Saviour again, because the set time for His
return has not yet come.
, In one word — and it is a word of thrilling interest to us all, my
brethren-^these eighteen hundred years and upwards that have

11
elapsed since our blessed Lord ascended into heaven in the sight
of. the five hundred brethren assembled on the Mount of Olives
are the little while of which He spake to His disciples when He
said— "4 httle while, and ye shall not see Me; and again, a little
while, and ye shall see Me, because I go to the Father:'
I now proceed to the consideration of the second branch of our
subject — "A little while, and ye sliall see Me." From what I have
stated on the first branch of our subject, these words must neces
sarily refer to the second coming of Christ. In discoursing,
therefore, on this branch of our subject, let us consider— I. The
fact or reality of the second coming of Christ. II. The circum
stances or manner of His coming. III. The time--in so far as it
can be ascertained from the Word of God— the particular time of
His coming; and, IV. The attendance with which He wiU be
accompanied when He comes.
I. Of the fact or reality of the second coming of Christ there can
be doubt whatever. It is asserted in express terms by our blessed
Lord himself in the text, "A little while, and ye shall not see Me:
and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me, because I go to the
Father." Now, this language of the text, my brethren, is in per
fect accordance with numberless other declarations of Holy Scrip
ture, both in the Old Testament and in the New — both by our
blessed Lord himself, and by His holy prophets and apostles.
Thus, in John xiv. 23 — "In My Father' shouse are many mansions ;
if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again,
and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also."
Nay, in addressing the whole Jewish people collectively, as he does
Matt, xxiii. 38,39, He thus speaks, "Behold, your house is left
unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me hence
forth, till ye shall .lay. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the
Lord." Besides, the structure of several of our Lord's parables
conveys and presupposes the same idea-— that of the second coming
of our Lord. For example, the kingdom of heaven is likened in
one of the parables to a man that went into a far country to
receive a kingdom and to return. Now, the man who went into a
far country is the man Christ Jesus. He is now about receiving
the kingdom, and He will shortly return. Yes, brethren, that
return is certain, and I shall show you in the sequel that it wiU
also be speedy. For " He tliat shall come will come and will not
tarry" (Heb. x. 37).
. ,,. The second coming of Christ was the faith of the ancient or patri^
archal church from the earliest time. '* / Imow that my Redeemer
liveth," saiththe patriarch Job, ^i and that He shall stand [or abide]
at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin, worms
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall
see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another" (Job xix.
25-27)." The prophet Zachariah also foretells the national con-
¦(fersion of the Jews at the second coming of Christ, declaring that

12
" Tliey shall look upcm Me wlwm they have pierced; they shall mourn
for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness
for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn" (Zech. xu. 10).
Nay, he adds, chap. xiv. 4, " And His feet shall stand in that day
on the Mount of Olives."
Now it is unquestionably of the human nature, or the humanity
of Christ that the prophet speaks in these passages. It was in
flesh and blood that He came to our world, for God was manifest
in the flesh ; it was in flesh and blood that He left it when He
ascended into heaven; it will be in flesh and blood — in His
glorified humanity, in that glorious body in which He appeared to
His disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration^ — ^that He will
return. " For we have not followed cunningly devised fables," says
the apostle Peter, "when we made known unto you the power and
coining of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His
majesty. For He received from God the Father honour and glory,
when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is
m,y beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which
came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him in the holy
mount" (2 Pet. i. 16-18).
The belief in the second coming of Christ, in fulfilment of His
promise in the text, was so much the faith of the primitive church
in the days of the apostles, that there seems to have been a general
expectation, in the churches planted by the apostle Paul, that His
second coming would take place — that He would return to His
church and people — ere that very generation should have passed
away. And the apostle had to warn the Thessalonians against
this erroneous idea, telling them in his second epistle ii. 1, 2, that
before the day of Christ should come there would be a great faUing
away, or apostacy, in the professed Christian church, and a great and
fearful manifestation of iniquity, such as the nations have beheld
for many centuries past in the monstrous system of Popery. "Now
we beseech you, brethren, by," or concerning, "the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him, That ye he
not soon shalcen in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word,
nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at -hand. Let
no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except
there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the
son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is
called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the
temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not
that, when I was yet with ybu, I told you these things? And now ye
know what withholdeth that He might he revealed in His time. For
the m/ystery of iniquity doth already work: only lie who now letteth
will let, until lie he taken out of the way. And then shall that
Wicked be revealed, wlwm the Lord shall consume with the spirit of
His moi/ith, and .sliall destroy with the brightness of His coming" (2
Thess. ii. 1-9). In one word, the doctrine of the second coming
^of Christ is one of the grand doctrines of Christianity. It has

13
been the hope and the consolation of the church and people of God
in all ages._ It is the grand event which both the wise and the
foolish virgins of the professed Christian church alike anticipate.
It is the grand event for which "the whole creation," in aU its
continents and in all its isles, "groaneth and travaUeth in pain
together until now." "For the earnest expectation of the crea
ture," that is, of the whole physical creation, " waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God" (Rom. viu. 22, 19).
II. Our second point of inquiry respects the circumstances or
manner in which our blessed Lord will come again. Now, this is
sufficiently indicated by the two angels who appeared to the
assembled disciples when our blessed Lord ascended into heaven
from Mount Olivet. " While they looked steadfastly toward heaven
as He went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel. Which
also said. Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven T
this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so
come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts i. 10,
11). In perfect accordance with this prediction is that by the
Apostle John the Divine, in Rev. i. 7 : — "Behold, He cometh with
clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him:
and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so.
Amen. To the same effect we read as follows in the prophet
Daniel : — " I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of
Man came with the clouds of lieaven, and came to the Ancient of Days,
and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him
dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and
languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which
shall not he destroyed" (Daniel vu. 13, 14). In like manner, we read
in the Gospel according to Matthew xxiv. 30, 31, our blessed
Lord's own prediction of the circumstances and the manner of His
second coming : — " And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man
in heaven : and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power
and great glory."
But while the second coming of Christ wUl thus be trans-
cendently glorious, it wUl also be sudden and unexpected : — "But of
that day and hour knoweth no man," says our blessed Lord, "no, not
the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah
were, so shall also tlie coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days
that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying
and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the
ark, and knew not, until the flood came and took them all away, so-
shall also the coming of tlie Son of Man be" (Matt. xxiv. 36-39). To
the same effect the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Thess. v. 2, 3—" For
yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a
thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety,
then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travaU upon a
woman with chUd, and they shall not escape."

14
III. Our third point of inquiry in this branch of our subject is
the time — in so far as it can be ascertained from the word of God
— the particular time of the second coming of Christ. Now,
although it may be stated in general terms,' and in our- Lord's own
language, "It is not for you to know the' times or the seasons
which the Father hath put in His own power" (Acts i 7), there
are still certain divinely-appointed signs, from the presence or
occurrence of which we are warranted to conclude that "the little
while" of the Saviour's absence is now well-nigh exhausted, that
His second coming is drawing nigh.
1. The first of these signs is the present aspect and condition of
the world, indicated and foretold, as follows, by Daniel the prophet :
— "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book even to
the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge
shall be increased" (Daniel xii. 1). That is, the meaning of these
mysterious predictions respecting the consummation of all things
shall not be disclosed tUl the time of the end, the time of their
approaching fulfilment; but there shall then be a wonderful
increase of knowledge on the one hand, and of the means of
communication between different regions of the earth on the
other. And are not these — the extraordinary diffusion of knowledge
through schools and colleges and other educational institutions in aU
parts of the civilised world, combined as it is with an extraordinary
and unprecedented development of the means of communication,
enabling multitudes to run to and fro and to traverse with facility
all parts of the earth — are not these the characteristics, and at the
same time the wonder and the boast of our age, contra-distin^
guished, as it is, from any other that has ever preceded it from the
foundation of the world ? It is quite unnecessary for me to say a
single syllable on so universally admitted a subject as the wonder
ful increase of knowledge by the diffusion of education in our time.
Permit me, then, to say a word or two about the extraordinary
development in our age of the means of communication between
all parts of the earth.
Exactly sixty years ago, in going home to Ayrshire from the
University of Glasgow during the Christmas holidays of the year
1812, I made a voyage on the river Clyde from Glasgow to
Greenock ; and through a dense fog on the river which rendered it
impossible to proceed with safety and obliged us to cast our anchor
about ha,lf-way down, I spent a whole night on that voyage in the
first steam-vessel, the "Comet," of Dumbarton*, that ever floated
* She had then been running on the .Clyde at the rate of tliree miles an hour
from the month of August (if I recollect aright) ; and as she was advertised
to sail from Glasgow at three p.m. on Christmas Day, wliioh is not observed
as a day of religious service in Scotland, I resolved to make a trial of the
strange mode of conveyance ; and such a,s I state was the result. Within
thirty years thereafter, in the year 1840, I crossed the Atlantic Ocean in
fifteen days from New York to London, in the magnificent steamship
"British Queen," of 2000 tons. What a contrast as compared with the
microscopic "Comet" on the Clyde in 1812 I ¦ Both the art of printing .and

15
on British waters; and about forty years ago I also travelled
along the line of the first British railway, from Manchester to
LiverpooL Now, who could have imagined at either of these
periods_ that ere the generation then living should have passed
away, it should come to pass, as we know it has, through the
wonderful extension and development of these means of communica
tion, tUl then unknown in the world, that the one would, in addition
to its manifold achievements in the old world, scale the Rocky
Mountains and traverse the whole continent of America, while the
other would span the vast Pacific and bring into closest communi
cation with each other the remotest regions of the earth. And as
a fitting complement to these mighty achievements of human art
and science, telegraphic communication is now virtually annihi
lating both space and time over all parts of the earth. In short,
it would be difficult to express in fewer or more appropriate words
than those of the prophet — "Many shall run to and fro, and know
ledge shall be increased" — the whole series of extraordinary dis
coveries and inventions that characterise the present age, as contra
distinguished from every other in the past history of man.
Perhaps, indeed, there cannot be a more convincing proof that
the present time is the time divinely appointed for the fulfilment
of the prophecy of Daniel, which I have already quoted, than the
state of things which these Australian colonies, in common with
certain other parts of the earth, now present. It is now abun
dantly evident at aU events that the great God, the Creator of the
heavens and the earth, had from all eternity fixed His banks of
deposit for gold in the golden lands of Australia and California;
and had placed His chest of jewels — the diamond, the emerald,
and the ruby, and all manner of precious stones innumerable— in
Central Africa, to be opened at this set time in the history of the
Church and the world, and issued to the nations of mankind, that
His own words by the prophet might be fulfilled, " Many shall run
to and fro" and multitudes be attracted to these remote shores, that
the waste places of the earth might be inhabited and the solitary
places of the wUderness covered with cities, before the great day
of Christ should come. There cannot possibly be a more remark
able fulfilment of prophecy than this city and these golden lands
thus present.
2. The preaching of the everlasting gospel, among so many of
the nations of the earth that had never previously heard its bliss
ful sound, and the remarkable preparation evidently in progress
for its still more extensive dissemination, is another of the divinely
pre-appointed signs of the near approach of the second coming of
Christ. For our blessed Lord himself tells us in Matt. xxiv. 14,
" This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for
a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." There
that of steam navigation seem to have come into the world, like Minerva
from the head of Jupiter, in heathen fable, full grown and full armed.

16
was, doubtless, a preliminary fulfilment of this prediction in the
times of the apostles; for ecclesiastical historians inform us that
before the close of the first century of our era, the gospel had
been preached, not only in every province of the Roman Empire,
which then included the whole civilised world, but in regions
inaccessible to the Roman arms. But we look for a further
and far more extensive preaching of the gospel — to every
kindred and tongue, and people and nation — -before the consum
mation of all things. We are nowhere, indeed, warranted in
Holy Scripture, and certainly not in this prophecy of our Lord's,
to expect the universal reception of the gospel by the nations of
the earth, as many professed Christians seem to anticipate. On
the contrary, our blessed Saviour himself asks, " When the Son
of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" (Luke xviii. 8.)
The gospel wUl assuredly continue to be rejected by the great
majority of those who shall hear it in future, just as it has been in
all times past. But this is what our Saviour's words proclaim to
us on this subject: — When the last preacher of the gospel shall
have gone forth to the last of the heathen nations — when he shall
have delivered his message to the last of the families of man —
whether they hear or whether they forbear, then shall the end
come — then shall the sign of the Son of Man be seen in the
heavens, and the Lord appear in His glory. Now, when we see
how much has been done within the last few years, through the
remarkable political and other changes that have occurred, or are
now in progress, over the face of the earth, for the opening up of
extensive tracts of the earth's surface to the preaching of the
gospel — in India, Cliina and Japan, for instance, in the islands of
the vast Pacific Ocean, and in Central Africa — we are constrained
to conclude that the time must be rapidly approaching when this
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, and the
end come.
3. The third of the signs of the near approach of the second
coming of Christ is the termination of the famous Papal period of
1260 years. In the passage I have already quoted from the
second epistle to the Thessalonians, it is predicted by the great
apostle of the GentUes that the day of Christ should not come
" until there should come a falling away first, and the man of sin
be revealed, the son of perdition." That falling away or apostacy
was at length fully developed in the enormous system of the
Papacy- — that masterpiece, as all genuine Protestants regard it, of
the inventions of Satan in this present world. There was some
thing, however, evidently well known to the first Christians,
doubtless through the apostle himself, which letted or hindered
the development of this enormous system for a time; and that
something, we learn from ecclesiastical history, was the existence
of the Roman Empire. That empire, however — the Roman
Empire of the West — fell at length in the year 476, and we are
therefore to look for the commencement of the Papal period, of

17
which the duration was to be 1260 years, sooner or later, some
time thereafter.
There is no remarkable event, however, in the record of Scrip-
i.ure prophecy connected either with the commencement or the close
of this Papal period; and we can only ascertain the point by com
paring the testimony of Scripture with the voice of history and
the signs of the times. There is but little difficulty, however,
in coming to something like certainty on the point in question.
In the year 533, that is, within sixty years after the fall of the
Roman Empire in the west, the Emperor Justinian, who reigned
in_ Constantinople over the eastern portion of that empire, and
.-stUl held dominion over certain provinces in the west, having
granted the Pope, or Bishop of Rome, certain rights and privileges
which established a certain ecclesiastical supremacy in his favour,
many students of prophecy, including my very eminent friend, the
late Rev. Edward Irving,* had persuaded themselves that the
Papal period — the famous period of twelve hundred and sixty
years of Papal domination — must have commenced at that era,
that is, in the reign of the Emperor Justinian. For, in the year
1793, exactly twelve hundred and sixty years from and after the
date of the Emperor Justinian's gift to the Papacy, the first
French Revolution occurred, in the course of which the Pope was
•driven from His throne in Rome, and reduced to the condition of
a helpless captive in France. But the deadly wound which the
Papacy then received having been subsequently healed, the students
of prophecy are now of opinion that the Papal period did not
commence tUl the year 606, or some time in the reign of the
Emperor Phocas, who confirmed the previous grant of Justinian to
the Pope, and created, or rather pretended to create, him universal
bishop. In conformity with this idea the Papal period must have
terminated, as I believe it did, although I should not wish to
speak on the subject dictatorially, either in the year 1866 or
shortly thereafter. We cannot, indeed, fix upon any particular
* As there is always something peculiarly interesting in our reminiscences
¦of the eminent men of a past generation, I may state that having been a
member, as a student of divinity, of the Rev. Dr. Chalmers' congregation in
Glasgow, when Mr. Irving was his helper or assistant, I became personally
acquainted with him shortly after he came to London, in the year 1821.
Having afterwards gone to England myself, for the second time, from New
South Wales, in the year 1830, 1 happened to meet Mr. Irving in the month
- of December of that year, somewhere near Charing Cross, when the streets
cf London were covered with snow. And when he asked how I was and
what I was doing. I told him that I had just come home from New South
Wales on an Educational Mission ; and having been strongly recommended
by our eminent fellow-countryman, the late Joseph Hume, M.P., with whom
I had also some previous acquaintance, to go myself and state my object to
.the Secretary of State in order to obtain assistance from our Colonial
Treasury, I was then on my way to Downing-street to do so. " The Lord be
with you," said Mr. Irving, and passed on. I confess I was much encouraged
.at the time by the good man's prayer, and I was not unsuccessful in my
object. B

18
year in this decade as the one in which the Papal period came to-
its close ; but as its commencement could not have been later than
the reign of the Emperor Phocas, or some time between the years
606 and 610, its termination must have taken place some time
between the years 1866 and 1870, inclusive, that is, exactly
twelve hundred and sixty years from its supposed commencement.
At all events, never in the history of mankind have we had such
a series of remarkable events as have happened during these
years — all bearing upon one point, the humiliation of the Papacy,
and all culminating at length in the extinction of the temporal
power of the Popedom in the year 1870.*
In particular, we have had the Italian war, and the great
Prussian battle of Sadowa, both of which effectually humbled and
greatly diminished the power of Austria, one of the limbs of the
Papacy; and the very remarkable circumstance in the case is that
that humiliation was effected in great measure through the agency
of France, another of its limbs. Again, we have had the Franco-
Prussian war, which virtually annUiUated the power of France
itself as one of the principal supports of the Papacy. We have
also had the recent Revolution, and the establishment of civil and
religious liberty in Spain, a country so long unhappUy distinguished
for its Papal superstition and intolerance, and its infamous and
blood-stained Inquisition; and we have likewise had a whole series
of events issuing in the breaking of the Papal yoke from off the
neck of Italy; the Pope himself being reduced the meanwhUe
to the rank of a subject where he had reigned as a sovereign for
upwards of a thousand years. And, as I have already observed,
as there is no single event indicated in the roll of Scripture
prophecy as contemporaneous with the commencement of the
Papal period, I am strongly of opinion that we are fuUy warranted
in regarding this very remarkable series of events and the consum
mation to which they have led — I mean the extinction of the
temporal power of the Popedom — as a sufficient proof that that
famous period has actually come to an end.
What, then, are we authorised to expect from the sure word of
prophecy when the Papal period of twelve hundred and sixty years
has come to its close, as we suppose it has? " Tlien," says the
apostle Paul, in that remarkable sketch which he gives us of the
character and history of the Papacy, in his second Epistle to the
Thessalonians, " Then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord
shall cotisume with the Spirit of His mouth, and destroy with the
brightness of His coming." We have surely had a fresh revelation
of the impotent wickedness of the Papal apostacy within the last
""It is possible, indeed, and not without Scripture warrant, as in our
Lord's prediction of the final destruction of Jerusalem, that there may have
been a double fulfilment divinely intended of the prophecies predicting the
existence and duration of the Papal period ; the earlier, on the supposition
that it commenced in the reign of Justinian, and the latter, on that of its
having commenced in the reign of the Emperor Phocas.

19
few years in the attempt to palm upon the professed Christian
world the monstrous doctrine of the immaculate conception of the
Virgin Mary on the one hand, and the blasphemous pretensions
of the Papacy to the divme attribute of infaUibUity on the other
btill, 1 repeat it, there is nothing in the record of Scripture prophecv
to warrant our expectation of the immediate extinction of the
Papacy when the famous Papal period shaU have run its course
mucb less to warrant our surprise that the Papacy stiU subsists A
new era, however, in the dispensations of God's grace and mercy to
mankind has evidently commenced the meanwhUe, as the Papal
period has come to its close, and a new method of treatment of the
great apostacy has been divinely inaugurated. For what is the
remarkable phenomenon with which we are now greeted in aU the
recently Papal kingdoms and states of Europe? Why, it is the
Lord consuming that Wicked with the spirit of His mouth, in the
preaching of the everlasting Gospel throughout all the' recent
preserves of the Papacy, and even in the city of Rome itself For
although another and another of our English aristocrats have
during the last few years been going back to the Papacy, and
identifying themselves once more with its superstitions and abomi
nations, what are these few miserable instances of perversion and
apostacy in England, compared with the glorious fact that every
stronghold of the Papacy on the continent of Europe is now
levelled with the ground — that every great city of Papal Europe,
Rome itself included, is now opened to the preaching of the
gospel ? This, my brethren, is the way in which the Lord is now
" consuming with the spirit of His mouth that Wicked whom He
will at length destroy with, the brightness of His coming."
The Mahometan power in the east arose simultaneously with the
development of the Papal apostacy in the west; and as these two
Antichristian systems were thus coeval in their birth, they would
seem to be so also in their waning and decline. The gradual
extinction of the Mahometan power, which we have all seen in
remarkable progress for nearly half-a-century past, is beautifully
svmboUsed in Holy Scripture by the drying-up of the great river
Euphrates (on the banks of which the Turkish or Mahometan
power of later times had its original settlements), " that the way
of i the kings of the east might be prepared" (Rev. xvi. 12). The
gradual extinction of the Mahometan power — in Turkey, in
Persia, in Bockhara, for I do not attach any importance to the
Wahabee movement in Arabia and India — is therefore only another
of those divinely-appointed signs that "the little whUe" of the
Saviour's absence is now well-nigh exhausted, and that the day
of Christ is at hand. But I merely allude to this phase of the
argument in passing, as I should not wish to occupy your time, or
to trespass on your forbearance, with its more lengthened illustra
tion. 4. The fourth of the divinely-appointed signs of the speedy
return of the Saviour, agreeably to His own promise, " again, a
B 2

20
little while and ye shall see Me," is " a time of trouble such as
never was since there was a nation even to that same time "
(Daniel xii. 1). "For nation," says our blessed Saviour himself, in
confirmation of this prediction of the ancient prophet — " nation
shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there
shall be famines, and pestUences, and earthquakes," or political
revolutions, "in divers places. All these are the beginning of
sorrows" (Matt. xxiv. 7, 8). " For there shall be great tribulation,
such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no
nor ever shall be" (verse 21). "And there shall be signs in the
sun, and in the moon, and in the stars," or the ruling powers of
the world; " and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplex
ity, the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts faUing them
for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on
the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken" (Luke xxi.
23-26). Now, whether the political firmanent does not foreshadow
such a time as is thus described as being both certain and imminent,
judge ye. The Right Honourable the Premier of England has
recently informed us, somewhat exultingly indeed, that the
Imperial Government is now in a state of profound peace with
all the world; and doubtless there is no immediate prospect of
war for the mother-country from any of the nations of Chris
tendom. But in the estimation of those who can discern the
signs of the times, there are principles in rapid development in all
the great nations of Europe, that wUl infallibly lead, at no distant
period, to the very state of things which the prophet predicts, and
which our blessed Lord so fully confirms — " a time of trouble such
as there never was since there was a nation until that same time."
The International Society on the one hand, and the Land League
on the other, are now assuming formidable proportions in Europe,
announcing and carrying into effect, with constantly-increasing
multitudes of adherents, principles that wUl ere long revolutionise
every country in Christendom, and in aU probability give rise to a
period of " distress of nations," unexampled in the previous history
of man.
The recent and tremendous conflict in the city of Paris was, in
all probability, only the first in that series of woes of which the
International Society is now hastening the consummation in all
the great cities and states of Europe; and the Land League, ia,
calling authoritatively, as it is now doing, for a resumption and
a re-distribution of the entire national domain in all the great
states of Europe, is virtually ushermg in a perfect chaos throughout
the civilised world — a period of deadliest strife, of civil war in its
most frightful forms, and of unheard-of calamities. The process
now in rapid development is thus characterised in holy Scripture —
"And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth
of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth
of the false prophet : for they are the spirits of devils working
miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the

21
whole world; to gather them to the battle of that great day of God
Almighty" (Rev. xvi. 13, 14).
Now, it is precisely in such circumstances, and especially when
there will be no expectation of such a consummation, that the
second coming of Christ wUl surprise both the Church and the
world; for "As the days of Noe were, so shall the coming of the
Son of Man be; for as in the days that were before the flood, they
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until
the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the
flood came and took them all away; so shaU also the coming of the
Son of Man be" (Matth. xxiv. 37-39).
On one of my voyages from Australia to Europe, about forty
years since, I had the honour, along with another Presbyterian
clergyman (the Rev. Mr. Buchan, of Hamilton, if I recollect aright),
long since deceased, of breakfasting one morning with the illus
trious Dr. Chalmers, who was then Professor of Divinity in the
University of Edinburgh. After breakfast, we both accompanied
the doctor, from his residence in the New Town, to the University,
where we understood he had to deliver a lecture on Scripture
prophecy to the students of his class in the Divinity Hall. In
the course of his lecture, he observed that there were two different
opinions entertained respectively by eminent divines as to the way
in which that period of millennial blessedness foretold in Scripture
was to be introduced. The one of these opinions was that in the
future history of the church, there would be a gradual lifting up of
society tothe millennial level, through the agencies thatareatpresent
in operation in the Christian church — -the progress of education, the
preaching of the gospel, and the operations of Bible and Missionary
Societies — accompanied, as there was reason to believe these
agencies would be, with an abundant outpouring of the Holy
Spirit. The other of the opinions he referred to was, that the
period of blessedness foretold in Scripture would be preceded and
ushered in with a tremendous convulsion or rather series of con
vulsions, implying the breaking up and subversion of every insti
tution, whether civU or ecclesiastical, throughout the habitable
world. And Dr. Chalmers sufficiently indicated his own belief
and conviction that the latter of these opinions was the most
accordant with the Word of God.*
In connection with the prediction of a time of trouble awaiting
the Church and the world, is the predicted restoration of the Jews
to their own land, which the psalmist assures us will not be
accomplished without fierce warfare and immense bloodshed.

*As anything connected with the illustrious man I have just men
tioned, the late Rev. Dr. Chalmers, will, doubtless, be interesting to
the reader, I may mention an incident of the occasion referred to m
illustration of his enthusiastic admiration of natural scenery. When
walking along Prince's-street, from his house in the New Town of Edin
burgh to the' University, Dr. Chalmers in the middle, and the other
clergyman and myself at his elbows, he was suddenly struck with the

22
The Lord hath said, and will fulfil
" Even as of old, from Bashan's hill,
I'll bring thee back in triumph yet,
0 Jacob, to thine ancient seat.
And as thou marchedst through the flood.
So shalt thou march through seas of blood ;
And o'er the red and gory plain
Thy dogs shall revel on the slain." *
(Psalm Ixviii. 22, 23.)
Now, it is in that death struggle that is destined to ensue
between the restored of Israel and the nations arrayed against
them that the Son of Man will suddenly appear in His glory.
" Behold," says the prophet Zechariah, "the day of the Lord
cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For
I wUl gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city
shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished;
and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue
of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the
Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought
in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon
the Mount of Olives" (Zech. xiv. 1-4).
5. Finally, the fifth and last of the signs I shall mention of the
speedy return of the Lord Jesus is the state of the professed
Christian Church in all its denominations in the period immedi
ately preceding the second coming of our Lord. " Then," says our
blessed Lord in the twenty-fifth chapter of the gospel according to
Matthew — " Then shall the Kingdom of Heaven," or the professed
Christian church, " be likened unto ten virgins, which took their
lamps, and went forth to meet the Bridegroom. And five of them
were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took
their lamps, and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in
their vessels with their lamps. While the Bridegroom tarried" —
sight of Arthur's Seat, or the lion covch,a7it, as it is often styled, which he
had doubtless seen overtopping the old town a thousand times before ; and
stopping abruptly on the pavement, to the evident surprise and wonder
ment of people passing at the time, he raised his stafi, and slowly describing
with it the outline of the mountain, he exclaimed, " What a glorious out
line 1" I may add that it was Dr. Chalmers who admitted me, when a
student at the University of Glasgow, where he was then minister of the
Tron Church, to the communion of the Christian Church. And when
spending a day with him at the house of a mutual friend at Fairlie, near
Largs, on the Frith of Clyde, on one of my earlier visits to Scotland from
New South Wales, in the year 1831, one of his humorous observations, with
which I could not help sympathising at the time, especially after twice
circumnavigating the globe as I had then done, was — "What a pity it is
that we have not got a bore to Sydney through the centre of the earth !"
It would have been much more rapid travelling in that case than even that
of the railway, could one have only contrived to stop at the other extremity
of the bore. That would have been the difficulty.
* From specimens of an improved metrical translation of the Psalms of
David, intended for the use of the Presbyterian Church in Australia and
New Zealand. (By the author). Philadelphia, 1810.

23
mark this, my brethren — " they all slumbered and slept" (Matt.
XXV. 1-5). Now, we, the professed members of the Christian
Church of the present day, are unquestionably the ten virgms of
this parable; for as our blessed Lord commences the parable with
the word then. He does so to indicate that its fulfilment is refer
able particularly to the time of which He has just been speaking —
the time immediately preceding His second advent. Some of us
— these ten virgins— are wise, it may be, and some are foolish;
but is it not the case — is it not the remarkable fact — ^that now
that the Bridegroom tarrieth, we are all slumbering and asleep ?
Or are we not rather saying with the scoffer and the infidel,
" Where is the promi,se of His coming? For since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation" (2 Peter ui. 4). Alas ! brethren, this, in my humble
opinion, is the most lamentable of all the signs of these last times.
The Church of Christ throughout all her denominations is un
questionably in a deep sleep, and has forgotten to watch for the
coining of her Lord. And nothing, I fear, will ever arouse her
from this state of sleep, of insensibility, of death, till the cry is
heard at midnight — " Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out
to meet Him" (verse 6).

LECTURE III.

"A little wliile, and ye sliall not see Me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see
Me, because J go to the Father.''— Josa xvi. 16.
Christian Friends and Brethekn —
The students of prophecy are generally of opinion that the epistles
to the seven apostoUc churches of Asia Minor, contained m the
second and third chapters of the book of the Revelation, are not
only an exact picture or representation of the actual state of things
in these churches in the apostolic age, but a panoramic view or
exhibition of the condition and fortunes of the church in aU the
successive stages of its existence from the days of the apostles tiU
the second coming of Christ. And they are also of opinion that we
are now in " the last time" of the Christian Church;^ that we have-
reached, and are actually in the Laodicean, or concluding age ot its.
development-the age in which the Lord Christ is actually announc
ing His own speedy appearing, saying-" Behold, I stand at the
door, and knock." . .
The church of the Laodiceans in the apostolic age is unquestion->
ably the type of the outward and visible church in all its denomina-

24
tions in the present day.* Listen, then, to what the Spirit saith-
unto the church of the Laodiceans, " These things saith the Amen,
the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God,
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou
wert cold or hot : so, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither
cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest,
I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing ; and
knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and
blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the
fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest
be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and
anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see" (Rev. iii.
14-18). Thfere could not possibly be a more appropriate exhortation
addressed to the Christian Church in our day than this, which was
addressed to the church of the Laodiceans in the apostolic age.
Indifferentism, neither cold nor hot, is alike the character and the
curse of both. In short, the Laodicean state of the church visible^
in the present day is only another of the signs and indications, pre
appointed by the Spirit of God, that the little while of the Saviour's

* There cannot be a more convincing proof of the present being the
Laodicean age of the church, in these colonies at least — an age in which the
highest professions of sanctity are too often conjoined with the lowest scale
of morals — than a very flagrant case which has recently occurred in the
Presbyterian Church of New South Wales, in connection with the appoint
ment of a principal for St. Andrew's, or the Presbyterian College of Sydney.
That institution had originated exclusively with the author of these
Lectures. He had laboured zealously and successfully, and with great per
sonal sacrifices, for its establishment, for a series of years ; fighting all its
battles when the case was before Parliament, while his family and imme
diate relations had contributed for it more than all the other subscribers
put together. In order, however, to exclude him from the office of principal
of the College, and to get a rabid Free Churchman of no standing in the-
colony appointed in his stead, a prominent but pretentious and unscrupulous
minister of our colonial church, with the help of two subordinate clerical
coadjutors, actually organised a regular conspiracy to vitiate and to destroy
the freedom and the purity of the election of college councillors, by virtually
disfranchising a large proportion of the subscribers, and thereby getting-
into his own hands, for the accomplishment of his o-wn sectarian and
sinister ends, the entir-e control of the ballot-box, as Louis Napoleon did of
those of France under the late empire.
Not only was there a flagrant violation, in the case in question, of the
divine rule of Christian morals — " All things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do you even so to them" — but acts were done by the con-
spirators, of precisely the same moral character as that of the unprincipled
jockey who privily drugs his rival's horse by night, that he may ensure his.
defeat in the forthcoming race of the following day. Now, surely the doing-
of such things by men of the highest pretensions among the clergy, and
their tacit allowance and virtual approval by their people, are a sufficient
and satisfactory proof that this is really the Laodicean age of the church —
the age immediately preceding the grand consummation.
The case referred to in these paragraphs will be found detailed at length
in a pamphlet by the author of these Lectures, entitled " St. Andrew's, or
the Presbyterian College ; and How it has fallen into its present Anomalous .
and Discreditable Condition." See advertisement on the wrapper.

25
absence is now well-nigh exhausted, and that the period of His
return draweth nigh.
In discoursing in my last lecture on the second part of our general
subject — " Again, a little whUe, and ye sliall see Me" — I proposed
to direct your attention to the four following points successively : —
First, to the fact or reality of the second coming of Christ; secondly,
to the circumstances or manner of His coming; thirdly, to the time-
in so far as it can be ascertained from the Word of God — the particu
lar time of His coming; and fourthly, to the attendance with which
He will be accompanied when He comes. Having, therefore, directed
your attention to the first three of these points, I now proceed to the
consideration of the fourth and last — viz., the attendance with which
the Saviour will be accompanied when He comes the second time.
I observe, then, that it is a doctrine of unquestionable revelation
that when our blessed Lord comes the second time, agreeably to His
own promise in the text — Again, a little while, and ye shall see Me —
He will be accompanied by all who have ever dieji in the Lord, or,
in other words, by all His saints. "I would not have you to be
ignorant, brethren," says the Apostle Paul to the Christians of
Thessalonica, when mourning over the death of certain of their
number, who, it is supposed, had been cut off in the infancy of the
church — " 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 wiU God bring with Him" (1 Thess.
iv. 13, 14). To the same effect the apostle speaks in 1 Thess. in. 12, 13
 " The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward
another, and toward aU men, even as we do toward you : to the end
He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God,
even our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all
His saints." It is evident also that the Apostle John contemplated
the same glorious company when he thus addresses his fellow-
Christians — " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not
yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall
appear we shall be Uke Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1
John iii. 2). „, ^ i-
But not only shaU all the saints of the New Testament dispensa
tion form this glorious attendance of our blessed Lord's, when He
comes the second time without sin unto salvation; but all the saints
also of the Old Testament dispensation shall mmgle in and form
part of the mighty throng. The prospect of this blissful consumma
tion of the future appears indeed to have gladdened the hearts of
the grey forefathers of our race, from the very earhest times m the
antedUuvian worid; for we read in the book of J"de that Enoch
?he seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold the Lord
coLeth with ten thousand of His saints" (Jude v. 14). The patriarch
Tob also exults in the prospect of this vast assemblage of the saints
nf God around the glorified Redeemer, when He comes the second
time to be glorified of His saints, and to be admired of all them.

26
that believe — " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall
stand" or abide " at the latter day upon the earth : and though after
my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God :
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not
another" (Job xix. 25-27). Finally, the prophet Zechariah bears
testimony to the same glorious event of the future, when predicting
the second coming of Christ — " His feet shall stand in that day
upon the Mount of Olives. . . . and the Lord my God shall
come, and all the saints with Him" (Zech. xiv. 4, 5).
It is evident, my brethren, from these passages of Scripture, that
when the Lord Jesus comes the second time, there will be a resur
rection of the saints to meet Him — both of those who have died in
the Lord since the coming of Christ, and of those who, like Enoch
and Abraham of the earlier dispensations, rejoiced when they saw
His day afar off. And they even of the saints of God who are
alive and remain upon the earth till the coming of the Lord — tliey
upon whom an instantaneous change, equivalent to that of death,
shall pass at the last trump — even they shall have no precedence or
advantage over those who have lain in their graves for thousands of
years. " For this we say unto you," says the Apostle Paul, " by
the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the
coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For
the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead
in Christ shall ¦n.&Q first. Then we which are alive and remain shall
be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in
the air; and so shallwe ever be with the Lord" (1 The„ss. iv. 15-17).
The same mysterious and spirit-thrilling doctrine is taught by the
same holy apostle in his first epistle to the Corinthians — " For as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made aUve. But every
man in his own order: Christ the firstfndts, afterward tliey tliat
are Christ's at His coming" (1 Cor. xv. 22, 23), — that is, both they
who are alive and remain at His second coming, and they who have
died in the Lord many ages before.
From these passages of Scripture — from the epistles of Paul, you
will observe, and not from the book of the Revelation, where they,
would, doubtless, be more liable to misconception and misrepresen
tation — from these passages of Scripture it is evident that the
resurrection of the just and of the unjust will not be simultaneous,
as is commonly supposed, but that an interval of time — whether
long or short who can tell ? — will intervene between the first and
succeeding acts of this mighty event of the future, the resurrection
of the dead. The apostle expressly states in the passage we have
just quoted from his first epistle to the Thessalonians that the dead
in Christ shall rise first. This, then, the resurrection of the dead
in Christ, is the first act in the series of events to be realised in the
mysterious future; and in perfect accordance with this declaration,
of the apostle is his saying in the passage I have just quoted from
his first epistle to the Corinthians, " Christ the first-fruits; after-

27
ward they that are Christ's at His coming." Nay, the apostle tells
us expressly that this resurrection of the dead in Christ shall
precede that change of the living of which he speaks in his first
epistle to the Corinthians xv. 51, 52, "Behold, I show you a
mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall aU be changed. In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and
we shaU be changed." For in 1 Thessalonians iv. 16, after teUing us
that the dead in Christ shaU xkq first, the apostle adds, " Then we
which are alive and remain shaU be caught up together with them
m the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be
with the Lord."
We are apt to overlook such statements as these in reading the
Word of God, and to make that word bend to our own precon
ceived theories ; for the Bible is unfortunately, as I have had occa
sion to observe already in these lectures, a sealed book to most of
us, and we too often peruse its most spirit-thrilling announcements
without the slightest conception of their meaning. . Observe, then,
how this idea, which the Apostle Paul states so briefly in the
passages we have just quoted from his epistles to the Corinthians
and Thessalonians, is expanded and placed before us in a new and
striking light by the Apostle John in the Book of the Revelation : —
" And 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, which is the devil and Satan,
and bound him a thousand years. And cast him into the bottom
less pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he .should
deceive the nations no more till the thousand 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 which had not
worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his
mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; and they lived and
reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead
lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the
first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they
shaU be priests of God and of Christ, and shaU reign with him a
thousand years "(Rev. xx. 1-6).
What then is the spirit-stirring conclusion to which we are led in
this passage of Scripture, compared with those we have already cited
from the epistles of Paul 1 Why, it is simply this— that when the
little while of our blessed Saviour's predicted absence shall have come
to its close. He wiU come again, as He said, in the clouds of heaven,
and aU His saints with Him; the dead in Christ being raised in
corruptible, and the living being changed to their likeness in the
twinkling of an eye — Adam and Enoch, Methuselah and Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David and, his iUustrious house, with aU

28
the patriarchs and saints and martyrs of both dispensations re
appearing on this earth in bodily form, to live and reign with Christ
a thousand years !
The glorious scene that was enacted on the Mount of Transfigura
tion, when our blessed Lord was transfigured in the presence of his
three chosen disciples — summoning down as He did from heaven two
of His old-testament saints to converse with Him on the subject of
His approaching decease at Jerusalem — this glorious scene, I say, is
itself proof positive that the manifestation of that glory with which
both the Lord Jesus and all His risen saints shall be invested at the
second coming of Christ is not inconsistent with an earthly state of
being and an earthly abode. It was on the summit of one of the earth's
mountains that the glorious scene of the transfiguration, when Jesus
stood forth in the glory of His Father and conversed with His risen
saints, was enacted. And if such a scene was exhibited in one part
of the earth, why may it not in another i If our blessed Lord dis
played that glory for a short period, why may He not for the long
period of a thousand years ? If it was then exhibited only to a few
chosen disciples, why may it not to the whole company of believers ?
And if only Moses and Elias conversed with Him on the Mount of
Transfiguration, why may not that high distinction and blessed
privilege be enjoyed at His second coming by all the saints of God ?
But I shall be told, perhaps, that it would be degrading for our
blessed Lord to suppose that He would abide and reign, for a
lengthened period, upon this earth we inhabit. Degradation ! didst
thou say, O man ? Rather say. Why tarrieth my Lord ? Why tarry
the wheels of His chariot? For where Jesus lives and reigns, that
is heaven.Such, then, my brethren, is what the Bible tells us of the millen
nium. It is not a mere educational millennium which it fore
shadows, such as enthusiasts conceive of, when, through the univer
sal diffusion of knowledge, the golden age of the poets shaU have
returned. It is not a mere political millennium which it predicts,
when through many and much-needed reforms in the science and
practice of government, a much better system for the kingdoms of
this earth shall be introduced, and happiness be universally diffused
among the tribes of men. It is not even a religions millennium, to
ensue from an abundant outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the
outward and visible church in some future age of its existence, when
we and the present generation shall have passed away. The millen
nium of holy Scripture is a period of blessedness designed for all
the people of God, from the first of time to the consummation of all
things. The honour and dignity which it implies are to be shared
alike by all the saints of God, whether those who lived under the
law, or those who live under the gospel. The multitude of the
redeemed is a multitude which no man can number, out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. And they are repre
sented in the book of the Revelation as singing " a new song,
saying. Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals-

29
thereof; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed as to God by Thy
blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.
And hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall
reign on the earth" (Rev. v. 9, 10).
There is reason to believe also that this period of blessedness
which awaits the righteous when they shall reign with Christ upon
the earth, shall not only be a thousand, but, aUowing a day for a
year, as is the rule in Scripture prophecy, three hundred and sixty
thousand years. It is in reference, doubtless, to this state and
period of blessedness that awaits the righteous on earth, that our
blessed Lord pronounces these beatitudes in His sermon on the
Mount : — " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God.
Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. v.
8, 5). Now, " no man hath seen God at any time;" for God is a
Spirit, invisible to mortal eyes, whether on earth or in heaven. "The
only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath
declared Him" (John i. 18) — or made Him visible in his own person
to mankind, for " He is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the
express image of His person" (Heb. i. 3). But the apostle tells us,
moreover, that " when He," that is Christ, " shall appear, we shaU
be like Him : for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John in. 2). The
admiration with which His risen saints shall regard the glorified
Son of God, when He comes the second time without sin unto sal
vation, wUl exert a transforming influence upon themselves, and
" change them into the same image from glory to glory, even as by
the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. iU. 18).
Again, under the present dispensation of God's grace and mercy,
the earth He hath given to the children of men, that is for the most
part, to the ungodly and the wicked. But their period of possession
is drawing to a close. The reversion of the rich inheritance remains
for the people of God; for "the meek shall inherit the earth."
" We look," says the Apostle Peter, " for new heavens and a new
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter ui. 13). In short,
as I have already stated, there wiU be no millennium tiU Christ
come again. His coming wiU create the mUlennium, and His risen
saints shall reign with Him on the earth for a thousand years.
There are many things concerningthis miUennial state of blessedness
which awaits the righteous when they shall reign with Christ upon
the earth which we should greatly desire to know. We should like,
for instance, to know the manner of the kingdom, its constitution
and its laws. We should like to know the circumstances and con
dition of its blessed inhabitants, and how they live and hold inter
course together in that holy society they shaU form. But all such
things God has been pleased to conceal from us, and to shroud in
impenetrable night. AU we can know on the subject is, that a king
shaU reign in righteousness, and princes decree judgment; that the
people shaU be all righteous, and be all taught of God_; that the
least in that kingdom shall be superior in knowledge, and m all that
can dignify humanity, to John the Baptist; and that there shall be

30
nothing left to hurt or to destroy in all God's holy mountain : "For
the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters
cover the sea" (Isaiah xi. 9).
It is added, in the passage I have already quoted from the twentieth
¦chapter of the book of the Revelation, " the rest of the dead lived
not again untU the thousand years were finished. This is the first
resurrection" (Rev. xx. 5). This, my brethren, is an express decla
ration of Scripture, which it is impossible either to mistake or to
explain away. Its meaning is simply this, that during the period
of mUlennial blessedness, when the righteous shall reign with Christ
upon the earth for a thousand years, " the wicked shall be sUent in
the grave" (Psalm xxxi. 17). This seems to throw much light upon
various passages of Scripture that would otherwise be dark and
unintelligible. The 37th Psalm for example contains a sort of
survey of the millennial earth, when the wicked and the ungodly shall
have been swept from its surface, and its blessed inhabitants shall
be all righteous. " Cease from anger," says the Psalmist, " and
forsake wrath ; fret not thyself in anywise to do evU. For e-vU-doers
shall be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall
inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not
be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shaU not be.
But the meek shall inherit the earth ; and shall delight themselves
in the abundance of peace" (xxxvii. 8-11). The renovated earth,
we are thus informed, will retain sufficient evidences and remains
of its present physical character to enable its future inhabitants to
point to those regions where cruel tyrants reigned, and monsters
in wickedness defiled the creation of God; but no trace of their
existence will then be left in the land of blessedness and peace. " I
have seen the wicked in great power," says the Psalmist, "and
spreading himself like a green bay-tree ; but he passed away, and lo,
he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found" (Psalm
xxxvii. 35-36).
" Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection;
on such the second death hath no power; but they shaU be priests
of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years"
(Rev. XX. 6) . This apparently implies that there shaU be a second
resurrection — a resurrection of all mankind — of the unjust as well as
of the just, of the wicked as weU as of the righteous. But this
general resurrection will not precede — like the first — it will follow the
millennium. And whether that period of blessedness, during which
the saints shall reign with Christ upon the earth, shall be a thousand
OF three hundred and sixty thousand years, it will still be but a
little while in the reckoning of eternity.
It would seem, indeed, to be in accordance with the analogy of
nature, that those epochs of vast duration which the science of
geology reveals to us in the records of creation, should have corre
sponding epochs of similar duration in the future history of redemp
tion. The very series of epochs which the apostles give us would
nduce this conclusion. For example — " Christ, the first-fruits" of

31
the resurrection; this is the first term of the series. "Afterward
tney tHat are Christ's at His coming;" this is the second, with an
interval. However, between the two terms of at least eighteen hundred
years. 1 hen cometh the end," after the miUennial period shall have
come to Its close, and ushering in as it wUl the general resurrection
ana the final judgment; this is the third.
Agam,^ we read as foUows in continuation of the apocalyptic
vision—" And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be
loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which
are m the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them
together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
And they went up, on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the
camp of the saints about, and the beloved city : and fire came down
from_ God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that
deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where
the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and
night for ever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and Him
that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away;
and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small
and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and
another book was opened, which is the book of life : and the dead
were judged out of those things which were written in the books,
according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which
were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in
them; and they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and heU were cast into the lake of fire. This is the
second death" (Rev. xx. 7-14). " Then cometh the end, when He,"
that is Christ, " shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even
the Father; when He shall have put down all rule, and all authority
and power" (1 Cor. xv. 24).
The result therefore of our inquiries in these lectures is that the
little while of the Saviour's absence, during which His disciples
should not see Him, was not, as is commonly supposed, the short
period that He lay in the grave after His crucifixion and death and
burial, but the whole period that should elapse from His ascension
into heaven from the Mount of Olives, till He comes the second
time in the clouds ,of heaven with power and great glory. We have
also ascertained that all the remarkable indications that are given us
in Holy Scripture of the near approach of the day of Christ are con
centrated upon this present period of the history of the church and
of the world; all the great lines of Scripture prophecy converging, so
to speak, upon this present time. And we have also ascertained
that the trump of the archangel that shall announce the second
coming of our Lord will also awaken the dead in Christ, how long
soever they may have lain in their graves, to form the glorious
retinue of their glorified Redeemer; while they who remain alive
upon the earth till this great consummation shall be changed instan-
staneously, as if death had passed upon them also, to mingle with
this mighty throng — thereby forming a multitude which no man

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32
can number out of every kingdom and nation, and people and
tongue. Then shall the reign of blessedness, or the miUennium,
begin. " Then shall the earth," delivered at length from the curse
to which it was subjected at the fall, " yield her increase, and God,
even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; and all the
ends of the earth shall fear Him'' (Psalm Ixvii. 6, 7). We have
ascertained, moreover, that during this reign of blessedness for the
righteous on the renovated earth, the wicked and the ungodly shaU
be silent in the grave; and it will only be when that period of
blessedness shall have come to an end, that the gates of death and of
hell shall be burst open, and the sinner and the ungodly be sum
moned into the presence of their Judge. There are, doubtless, difficul
ties, many and great, which we cannot solve, in endeavouring to fix
the order of events revealed to us in the roll of prophecy in the dark
and mysterious future. There are apparent contradictions which we
cannot reconcile; there are mysteries of which we cannot fathom the
depths. But sufficient for us, my brethren, and for our children, are
the things that are clearly revealed. Seeing then that these things
are so, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conver
sation and godliness? "Looking for and hasting unto the coming
of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be
dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Neverthe
less we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter iii. 11-13).
But what, I shall be asked, in conclusion, what is the practical
utility of all this great argument ? What possible effect can it have
on our character and conduct, on our lives and conversation, whether
Christ comes the second time to build up Zion or no ? Brethren,
ask not me this question of worldly-mindedness, of unbelief, of abso
lute infidelity. Ask the Word of God. To the Law and to the Testi
mony for your answer, and let them reply. What then is the
response from the Oracle of God ? Why, it is in such language as
this — "The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to
all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we
should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;
looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the
great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus ii. 11-13). Is there
no practical effect indicated here ? Is this second coming of Christ
to which the apostle exhorts us to look with such intense earnestness
a doctrine according to godliness or no ? Again, " Behold what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should
be called the sons of God ; therefore the world knoweth us not, be
cause it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sous of God, and
it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He
shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is ;
and every one tliat hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as
he is pure" (1 John iii. 1-3).

i MASON, PIKTH, AND M'OUTOHEON, PEINTEKS, MELBOUIINE,

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