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ECCE VENIT.

ECCE VENIT

2N)ofo tyt Cometfj

BY
A. J. GORDON, D.D.
AUTHOR OF "IN CHRIST,"' " THE TWOFOLD LIFE," ETC

Ecce venii cum. nubibus
16ov epxerai fiera. tup ee $c\mv
Rev. i. 7

Fleming- H. Revell Company
Niw York: 158 Fifth Ave. Chicago: 63 Washington St.
Toronto: 154 Yonge St.

Copyright, 1889,
By A. J. GORDON.

PREFACE.

The importance of a doctrine may be judged some
what by the proportionate space and prominence given
to it in the New Testament. Measured by this stand
ard, the theme of Christ's coming in glory is second to
none in Scripture, not even to the atonement itself, in
the claim which it makes upon our consideration. "A
real pearl of Christian truth and knowledge" a great
expositor calls it. And since the merchantmen who
seek this goodly pearl are too few, it becomes those
who have proved it, both by spiritual experience and
scriptural study, to be indeed a " pearl of great price,"
to do their utmost to set forth its excellency. If,
therefore, in what we have written we have reflected
one " purest ray serene " from this precious doctrine
and glorious hope of the Church, we shall count it a
high honor from the Lord.
Would that such a theme might be divested of all
controversial aspects ! But here, as everywhere, there
are schools of interpretation between which one finds
himself obliged, whether he will or not, to choose.
Pre - millennial or post -millennial advent — Christ's
coming before the millennium or after the millennium
— is the issue which divides two great parties of bib
lical students. We humbly but firmly hold with the
first school on this question. If we admit, with the
eminent theologian Van Oosterzee, — to whom we ac-

PREFACE.

knowledge great indebtedness, — that " some courage
is required to range one's self among the defenders of
Chiliasm," with him we profess that " we do so never
theless in obedience to faith in the Word, without
which we know nothing of the future." And yet here
the courage of conviction need not be greatly taxed
considering these two facts, viz., that the concession
of Church historians, led by such masters as Neander
and Harnack, is that pre-millennialism was the ortho
dox and accepted faith of the Church in the primitive
and purest ages ; and that the opinion of the most
eminent exegetes of our time, that this is the true doc
trine of Scripture, so strongly preponderates as to give
promise of an early practical consensus.
Pre-millenarians, again, are divided into two schools,
the Futurist and the Historical : the former of whom
hold that Antichrist is yet to appear, and that the
larger part of the Apocalypse remains to be fulfilled ;
while the latter maintains, with the reformers and the
expositors of the early post-Reformation era, that Anti
christ has already come in the bloody and blasphemous
system of the papacy, and that the Apocalypse has
been continuously fulfilling from our Lord's ascension
to the present time. If we turn away from the Futurist
interpretation — in which we were "nourished and
brought up " so far as our prophetic studies are con
cerned — and express our firm adherence to the His
torical, it is because we believe that the latter is more
scriptural, and rests upon the more obvious and sim
ple interpretation of the Word; and also because we
find that it has such verifications in fulfilled history
and chronology as to compel even some of its strong
est opponents to concede that it is a true interpreta-

PREFACE vu
tion if not the complete and final one. But we depre
cate controversy between these schools, since both
hold strongly to the hope of the Lord's imminent
return, and are vying with each other in earnest en
deavor to restore the doctrine to its true place in the
creed and in the consciousness of the Church. It
certainly becomes us all, while rejoicing in the light
we have, humbly to wait for greater light, assured that,
in the foregleams of the approaching advent, contra
dictions will more and more vanish, till in our gather
ing together unto Him " the watchmen shall lift up
the voice, with the voice together shall they sing, for
they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring
again Zion."
When Samuel Taylor Coleridge had finished read
ing that remarkable book, Ben Ezra's " Coming of
Messiah in Glory and Majesty," he indited the follow
ing prayer. With its devout aspirations in our hearts
and on our lips, let us come to the study of the ex
alted theme.
" O Almighty God, Absolute Good, Eternal I Am !
Ground of my being, Author of my existence, and its
ultimate end ! mercifully cleanse my heart, enlighten my
understanding, and strengthen my will; that if it be
needful orfurtherant to the preparation of my soul, and
of Thy Church, for the advent of Thy kingdom, that J
should be led into the right belief respecting the second
coming of the Son of man into the world, the eye of my
mind may be quickened into quietness and singleness of
sight. Amen."
Clarendon Street Church, Boston,
September I, 1889.

CONTENTS.

PART FIRST: FORETOLD.
PAGE
I. The Uplifted Gaze  i
II. Tarrying within the Veil  13
III. The Power of His Coming  30
IV. The Programme of Redemption .... 44
V. The Ends of the Ages  60
PART SECOND: FORFEITED.
I. Heavenly Citizenship  85
-4- II. The Fall of the Church  96
III. The Advent of Antichrist  108
IV. The Bride of Antichrist  132
V. The Mock Millennium  147
VI. The Eclipse of Hope  165
PART THIRD: FULFILLED.
I. Hope Revived  179
II. Foregleams of the Day  193
III. Behold He Cometh  20?
IV. The First Resurrection  218
V. The Translation of the Church . . . 236
VI. The Marriage of the Lamb  248
VII. The Judgment of Christendom .... 258
VIII. The Restoration of Israel  274
IX. The Millennial Kingdom , 290

PART I.
FORETOLD.

" This word He has in fact spoken, — ' Hereafter ye shall see the
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven? — but it is a word of
which there is no other example. Even the mad pride of Roman
emperors who demanded religious homage for their statues has never
gone so far as to conceive such an unheard-of thought, and here it
is the lowliest among men who speaks. The word must be truth ;
for there is here no mean term between truth and madness." —
LuTHARDT. "On aiirhs 'O Kipios iv KeAeiafiari, iv (puvy apx<»77SAJ>u, Kai iv
adKiriyyi flf oG KaTajS^ireTai air' obpavov. — Paul, I Thess. iv. 16.

ECCE VENIT.

THE UPLIFTED GAZE.
Have we thought how significant and full of
instruction is the earliest attitude of the Church
as presented in the opening chapter of the Acts :
" Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into
heaven ? " In a single graphic sentence is thus
indicated the primitive uplook of Christianity ;
and this question, with what immediately follows,
is uttered, not so much for rebuke as for interpre
tation. The great High Priest has just passed
within the veil, and the cloud-curtain has shut
Him out of sight. And, as the Hebrew congre
gation, upon the great day of atonement, looked
steadfastly upon the receding form of Aaron as
he disappeared within the veil, and continued
looking long after he was out of sight, waiting
for his reappearance ; so exactly did these men
of Galilee, though they knew not what they did.
And the angels were sent to declare to them the
meaning of their action : " This same Jesus,

ECCE VENIT.

which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so
come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into
heaven." This is the earliest post-ascension an
nouncement of that gospel of hope which, at the
first, began to be spoken by the Lord Himself, —
" Jf I go . . . I will come again," — which is now
confirmed unto us by His angels, and is hence
forth to be reiterated by apostle and seer till,
from the last page of Revelation, it shall be heard
sounding forth its " Surely I come quickly."
The second coming of Christ is the crowning
event of redemption ; and the belief of it consti
tutes the crowning article of an evangelical creed.
For we hold that the excellence of faith is ac
cording to the proportion of the Lord's redemp
tive work which that faith embraces. Some ac
cept merely the earthly life of Christ, knowing
Him only after the flesh ; and the religion of such
is rarely more than a cold, external morality.
Others receive His vicarious death and resurrec
tion, but seem not to have strength as yet to fol
low Him into the heavens; such may be able
to rejoice in their justification without knowing
much of walking in the glorified life of Christ.
Blessed are they who, believing all that has gone
before, — life, death, and resurrection, — can joy
fully add this confession also: " We have a great
High Priest who is passed through the heavens ; "

THE UPLIFTED GAZE.

and thrice blessed they who can join to this con
fession still another : " From whence also we look
for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." For it
is the essential part of our Redeemer's priesthood
that, having entered in, to make intercession for
His people, He shall again come forth to bless
them. How sweet was the sound of the golden
bells upon the high priest's garments, issuing
from the holy of holies, and telling the waiting
congregation of Israel that, though invisible, he
was still alive, bearing their names upon his
breast-plate, and offering up prayers for them be
fore God ! But, though they listened intently
to these reassuring sounds from within the veil,
they watched with steadfast gaze for his reappear
ing, and for the benediction of his uplifted hands
that should tell of their acceptance.1 This they
counted the crowning act of his ministration.
Therefore, says the Son of Sirach, " How glori
ous was he before the multitude of his people, in
his coming forth from within the veil ! He was
as the morning star in the midst of the cloud, or
as the moon when her days are full." If this
could be said of the typical high priest, how
much more of the true! Glorious beyond de-
1 " All their hopes depended on his life within the veil ; and
when at length he came forth alone, there was great joy, for
they thought they were accepted." — Gemara.

ECCE VENIT.

scription will be His reemergence from the veil ;
"the bright and morning Star," breaking forth
from behind the cloud that received Him out of
sight ; His once pierced hands lifted in benedic
tion above His Church, while that shall be ful
filled which is written in the Hebrews : " And
when He again bringeth in the Firstborn into
the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God
worship Him " (Heb. i. 6, r. v.).
This attitude of the men of Galilee became
the permanent attitude of the primitive Church ;
so that the apostle's description of the Thessa
lonian Christians — "Ye turned to God from
idols, to serve the living and true God, and to
wait for His Son from Heaven " — might apply
equally to all. Talk we of " the notes of a true
Church " ? Here is one of the most unquestion
able, — the uplifted gaze. As apostate Christi
anity, by a perverse instinct, is perpetually aping
the eastward posture of Paganism (Ezekiel viii.
1 6), so inevitably is apostolic Christianity con
stantly recurring to the upward posture of Primi-
tivism. What Tholuck says of Israel, that, " As
no other nation of antiquity, , it is a people of
expectation," is equally true of the Church of the
New Testament. It is anchored upward, not
downward ; its drawing is forward, not backward ;
" Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul,

THE UPLIFTED GAZE. 5

both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into
that within the veil, whither the forerunner is for
us entered, even Jesus." As the ancient An-
chorius bore the anchor into port, and fastened
it there, while as yet the ship could not enter,
because of the tide ; so has our Prodromos — our
Precursor — fixed the Church's hold within the
veil, that it may not drift away through adverse
winds or tides. But this anchoring is only a
preparation for that entering which He shall
effect for us when He shall come again to receive
us unto Himself.
What if those who are much occupied with
looking up, zealous to " come behind in no gift,
waiting for the coming of the Lord" should some
times be stigmatized as star-gazers and impracti
cable dreamers ? Let them rejoice that, in so
acting, they prove themselves, not only the sons
of primitive Christianity, but also the sons of
primitive humanity. For, in the beginning, God
made man upright, both physically and morally.
Some tell us that the derivation of HvOpumos —
man — makes the word signify an uplooker.1 Cer
tainly, this originally constituted his marked dis
tinction from the brutes that perish, that, while
1 "From this circumstance — man's elevated countenance —
the Greeks plainly derived the name HvBparros, because he looks
upward." — Lactantius, Inst. ii. 1.

ECCE VENIT.

they looked downwards towards the earth, which
is their goal, he looked upward toward the heaven
for which he was predestined. How significant
the question which Jehovah puts to the first sin
ner of Adam's sons : " Why is thy countenance
fallen?" The wages of sin is death, and the
goal of the sinner is the earth with its narrow
house. So we find the whole apostate race, from
the earliest transgressor onward, with counte
nance downcast and shadowed with mortality,
moving toward the tomb and unable to lift up the
eyes. But the sons of the second Adam appear
looking steadfastly up to heaven and saying:
"We see Jesus, who was made a little lower
than the angels, for the suffering of death,
crowned with glory and honor." His coronation
has restored their aspiration : it has lifted their
gaze upward once more to the throne.
The tabernacle imagery is still further sugges
tive touching the subject under consideration.
Ask the ritualist, clothed in his rich vestments,
and offering his eucharistic sacrifice upon the
altar, why he does thus ; and the answer is, that
the minister must repeat in the Church on earth
what our Great High Priest is doing in the true
tabernacle above. But if this principle were
faithfully carried out, it would prove the death-
warrant of ritualism. The great day of atone-

THE UPLIFTED GAZE.

ment is now passing; let all sacrifices and ser
vices cease without the veil. Oh, ye self -ordained
priests, why do ye " stand daily ministering and
offering, oftentimes, the same sacrifices which
can never take away sins ? " Behold, " this Man,
after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
sat down on the right hand of God, from hence
forth expecting till His foes be made His footstool."
They most literally reflect His ministry on earth
who, at the communion, sit down to remember
the sacrifice of Calvary, but not to repeat it ; who
listen to the " Till He come," which it whispers,
and so unite with Him in His " expecting." He
waits for the same event for which He bids us
wait, His triumphal return. And for the congre
gation before the veil, not worship, but work and
witnessing, are now the principal calling, — work
and witnessing with special reference to that glo
rious consummation which our Saviour is antici
pating. For, as He assigns us our service, this
is the language of His commission : " Occupy till
I come ; " and, as He appoints us our testimony,
this is the purport of it : " And this gospel of the
Kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a
witness to all nations ; and then shall the end
come." Indeed, let us observe that, since Christ took
His place of expectancy within the veil, and as-

8 ECCE VENIT.

signed us our place of expectancy without the
veil, all present duties and spiritual exercises have
henceforth an onward look ; an advent adjust
ment, like the needle to the pole. " The solemn
Maranatha resounds throughout the Scriptures,
and forms the key-note in all their exhortations,
consolations, warnings."1 Is holy living urged?
This is the inspiring motive thereto : " That,
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should
live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present
world, looking for that blessed hope and the glori
ous appearing of the great God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ" (Titus ii. 13). Is endurance un
der persecution and loss of goods enjoined ? This
is the language of the exhortation : " Cast not
away, therefore, your confidence, which hath
great recompense of reward. For yet a little
while and He that shall come will come and will
not tarry" (Heb. x. 35-37) Is patience under
trial encouraged in the Christian ? The admo
nition is : " Be ye also patient ; stablish your
hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh "
(James v. 8). Is sanctification set before us for
our diligent seeking ? The duties leading up to
it culminate in this : " And the very God of peace
sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God your whole
spirit and soui and body be preserved blameless
1 Van Oosterzee.

THE UPLIFTED GAZE.

at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ " (i Thess.
v. 23). Is diligence in caring for the flock of
God enjoined upon pastors ? This is the reward :
" Feed the flock of God which is among you, tak
ing the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but
willingly; . . . and when the Chief Shepherd shall
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that
fadeth not away" (1 Peter v. 4). Is fidelity to
the gospel trust charged upon the ministry ? This
is the end thereof : " That thou keep this com
mandment without spot, unrebukable, until the
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Tim. vi.
14). And again : "I charge thee in the sight of
God and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the
quick and the dead, and by His appearing and
His kingdom, preach the word " (2 Tim. iv. 1).
Space would fail us, indeed, to cite passages of
this purport ; they so abound that we may say
that the key to which the chief exhortations to
service and consecration are pitched in the New
Testament is : " To the end He may stablish your
hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even
our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
with all His saints" (1 Thess. iii. 13).
The reader of these and many other texts of
like import will observe how God has thus
marked His admonitions with the rising inflec
tion, as though to save our Christian living from

ECCE VENIT.

depression and monotony. Duty done for duty's
sake becomes commonplace ; activity inspired by
the possible nearness of death has a certain
downward emphasis unbecoming the children of
the kingdom. Therefore duty — that which is
due — is less insisted on in the gospel, as a
motive, than reward, — that which may be at
tained ; and as for the imminence of death as an
inspiration to devotedness, we never find it once
mentioned. It is the advent of the King of
glory, " Behold, I come quickly ; and My reward
is with Me to give to every man according as his
work shall be," and not the advent of the king of
terrors, that constitutes the incentive to Chris
tian earnestness. However low the note which
is struck in God's discipline of His people, it is
always keyed to a lofty pitch to which it is cer
tain to rise ; and if, as in one familiar instance,
the inspired discourse drops to the ground-tones
of death and doom, — " It is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment" — it is
only that it may mount immediately to the ex
alted strain to which the whole New Testament
is tuned, — " So Christ was once offered to bear
the sins of many, and unto them that look for
Him shall He appear a second time without sin
unto salvation" (Heb. ix. 28).
Never did a Christian age so greatly need to

THE UPLIFTED GAZE. II
have its attitude readjusted to the primitive stand
ard as our own, — commerce, so debased with
greed of gold ; science, preaching its doctrine
of " dust thou art ; " and Christian dogmatics,
often darkening hope with its eschatology of
death ! The face of present-day religion is to
such degree prone downward that, if some Joseph
appears, with his visions of the sun, moon, and
stars, men exclaim : " Behold, this dreamer com
eth." But they that say such things plainly de
clare that they do not "seek a country." There
is a tradition that Michael Angelo, by his pro
longed and unremitting toil upon the frescoed
domes which he wrought, acquired such a ha
bitual upturn of the countenance that, as he
walked the streets, strangers would observe his
bearing, and set him down as some visionary or
eccentric. It were well if we who profess to be
Christians of the apostolic school had our conver
sation so truly in heaven, and our faces so stead
fastly set thitherward, that sometimes the "man
with the muck-rake" should be led to wonder at
us, and to look up with questioning surprise from
his delving for earthly gold and glory. Massillon
declares that, " in the days of primitive Chris
tianity, it would have been deemed a kind of
apostasy not to sigh for the return of the Lord."
Then, certainly, it ought not now to be counted

12 ECCE VENIT.

an eccentricity to "love His appearing," and to
take up with new intensity of longing the prayer
which He has taught us : " Even so, come Lord
Jesus." Amid all the disheartenment induced
by the abounding iniquity of our times ; amid the
loss of faith and the waxing cold of love within
the Church ; and amid the outbreaking of law
lessness without, causing men's hearts to fail
them for fear, and for looking after those things
that are coming on the earth, — this is our Lord's
inspiring exhortation : " Look up and lift up your
heads, for your redemption draweth nigh."

II.
TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL.
Centuries have passed since our great High
Priest disappeared behind the cloud-curtain of
the heavenly sanctuary ; and His Church, like the
people of old who waited for Zacharias, has " mar
velled that He tarrieth so long in the temple."
Pondering the sacred promises of His return,
which are written for our hope, we find warnings
of startling immediateness, but also mysterious
suggestions of possible long delay. In the post-
ascension gospel of Revelation, the word is con
stantly sounding out, " Behold, I come quickly ; "
while in the parables of the kingdom, contained
in the closing chapters of the Gospel according
to Matthew, we read, " While the Bridegroom tar
ried ; " and "After a long time, the Lord of those
servants cometh and reckoneth with them." Yet
both of these gospels have the same key-note :
"Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day
nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh "
(Matt. xxv. 1 3) ; and " Blessed is he that watcheth
and keepeth his garments " (Rev. xvi. 1 5). Hence
we conclude that these texts are parts of a com-

14 ECCE VENIT.

plex system of prophecy, wherein incitements to
hope and checks to impatience are so perfectly
balanced as to keep the Church ever expectant,
while restraining her from being ever despond
ent. For nothing can be plainer to the unpre
judiced reader of the New Testament than that
it is the purpose of the ascended Bridegroom
to have his Bride constantly, soberly, and busily
waiting for His return, until the appointed time of
His detention in the heavens shall have expired.1
Hence " He has harmonized with consummate
skill every part of His revelation to produce this
general result ; now speaking as if a few seasons
more were to herald the new earth, now as if His
days were thousands of years ; at one moment
whispering into the ear of His disciple, at another
retreating into the depth of infinite ages. It is
His purpose thus to live in our faith and hope,
remote yet near, pledged to no moment, possible
at any ; worshipped, not with the consternation of
a near, or the indifference of a distant, certainty,
but with the anxious vigilance that awaits a con-
1 " The heaven that gives back Christ gives back all we have
loved and lost, solves all doubts, and ends all sorrows. His
coming looks in upon the whole life of His Church, as a lofty
mountain peak looks in upon every little valley and sequestered
home about its base, and belongs to them all alike. Every gen
eration lies under the shadow of it." — Rev. John Ker.

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 15
tingency ever at hand. This, the deep devotion of
watchfulness, humility, and awe, He who knows
us best knows to be the fittest posture of our
spirits ; therefore does He preserve the salutary
suspense that ensures it, and therefore will He
determine His advent to no definite day in the
calendar of eternity." 1
How could revelation be so adjusted as to se
cure this end — the perpetual watchfulness of the
Church for the Redeemer's second coming —
without, in the event of long delay, subjecting
I the Lord to the imputation of having deceived His
flock, or the inspired apostles to the charge of
being mistaken in the hopes which they cherished
for themselves, and which they nourished in those
to whom they wrote ? We shall find the true
answer to these questions by searching the Scrip
ture to learn how God has actually effected this
result. Observe, in the first place, the union of the
known and the unknown in this great problem of
the advent consummation ; a union exactly fitted
to inspire the Church with sacred curiosity to
search diligently and constantly for its solution.
For just as there is in revelation a dogmatic
certainty as to the fact of Christ's return, " The
Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a
1 Archer Butler.

16 ECCE VENIT.

shout" so there is a dogmatic uncertainty as to
the time of His return : " But of that day and that
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are
in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." By
this combination of the revealed and the unre-
vealed, perennial interest and inspiring search are
ensured, which were utterly impossible if either
one of these elements were wanting. Take away
the certainty as to the fact of Christ's coming,
and tell us that He may never return, and at once
the wing of hope is paralyzed, and the eye of vig
ilance closed ; take away the uncertainty as to
the time of Christ's coming, and tell us that
a definite thousand years of millennial blessedness
stands between us and the advent ; or have told
the early disciples that at least eighteen centuries
must elapse before their Lord should come hack,
— and looking for His immediate return were
utterly impossible, so that the watchman's vigil
must cease and the virgin's lamp be quenched.
Therefore, by a wise combining of the known
and the unknown factors in the construction of
prophecy, there have been secured the most
powerful stimulant to watchfulness, and the most
salutary check to presumption.
By the succession of prophetic fulfilments the
same result is promoted. It is a part of the divine
plan to give an onward look to all predestined

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 17
events ; prophecy no sooner becomes history
than history in turn becomes prophecy, accom
plished facts passing into foretypes of greater
facts to come. " A little while and ye shall not
see Me," said Jesus in His last discourse with His
disciples, " and again a little while and ye shall
see Me " (John xvi. 16). After two days of burial
they did see Him, coming forth from the grave,
and ending the " little while " of their lonely sep
aration in the joy of the resurrection fellowship.
But the forty days of risen earthly life soon ter
minated and He went to the Father, and again
they saw Him not. Yet after another "little
while " of waiting the day of Pentecost arrived ;
and then, as the Holy Ghost descended, they
beheld Him again spiritually, as He had promised,
— ouWtfe pi. Thus was His word fulfilled : " I will
not leave you orphans ; / will come to you." But
the end of the Master's gracious prediction had
not been reached : the expectation had rather
been lifted up and carried on, through what Stier
calls " the typico-prophetical perspective " of this
prediction, to that still further coming in which
these others were to find their consummation.
Therefore the writer of the Epistle to the He
brews, addressing those who had "tasted the
heavenly gift" and been made "partakers of the
Holy Ghost," takes up the promise yet once more,

1 8 ECCE VENIT.

and repeats it with exquisite pathos : " For yet a
little while — how little, how little — and He that
is coming shall come, and shall not tarry" (x. 37).
Can it be that nineteen centuries were to be in
cluded in our Lord's " little while," or has He
forgotten His word, we ask ? And the apostle
Peter answers : " But, beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day. The Lord is not slack concerning His prom
ise" (2 Pet. iii. 8, 9). If those to whom these
words were written could not comprehend them,
we can do so in the light of accomplished time.
Christ's resurrection is the miniature of that of
His Church, both in circumstance and in time. It
is written in the prophet Hosea : " After two days
will He revive us ; in the third day He will raise
ms up, and we shall live in His sight " (vi. 2). Our
iLord's two days in the tomb are but a brief of the
Church's two millenniums under humiliation and
mortality ; as also an epitome of Israel's two mil
lenniums of rejection and cutting-off. But with
Him we expect that, on the third. day, God will
raise us both up, and we shall live in His sight.
Thus the " little while " that covered the two days
of our Saviour's burial stretches across the two
millennial days of the Church's militant state.
But, measured on the scale of eternity, " how lit-

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 19
tie, how little," is the time of waiting until we
see Him again ! This is an illustration of the
prophetic perspective which belongs to many
portions of Scripture, and it shows how God has
provided for the raising and carrying forward of
our vision to the one coming in which all others
culminate. Other examples equally striking might be cited ;
as, for instance, that prediction and transaction :
" Verily I say unto you, There be some standing
here which shall not taste of death till they see
the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. And af
ter six days He was transfigured before them "
(Matt. xvi. 28). A miniature rehearsal of His
glorious coming was here exhibited, enacted upon
a miniature scale of chronology, — "after six days"
— and presenting in vivid epitome that sabbatic
glory which is to dawn when the world's weary
working days are over. And the scene remains
for all time, not as a type simply, but as an actual
first instalment, as St. Peter interprets it, "of
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ "
(2 Pet. i. 16).
If we note the events that were predicted to
precede and herald the second advent — the ap-
I pearance of Antichrist and the widespread preach-
1 ing of the gospel — we find the same successive
fulfilments, and the same consequent quickening

ECCE VENIT.

of expectation. " Little children," writes John,
" it is the last time : as we have heard that Anti
christ shall come, even now are there many anti
christs; whereby we know that it is the last
time " (i John ii. 18). These to which he refers
were but incipient antichrists, feeble prototypes
of that which was to follow ; but their presence
was enough to bring the end of the age and the
return of Christ into vivid expectation. A few
centuries later we find the Church, with St. Paul's
Thessalonian prediction in its hands, — " For that
day shall not come except there come a falling
away first, and that Man of Sin be revealed," —
watching the impending fall of the Roman Em
pire, and expecting to see that Wicked One
emerge from its ruins ; since it was an apostolic
tradition that the empire was the hindering power
that must be taken out of the way before he could
be revealed.1

l « We are now ;n the en(j an(j consummation of the world,
the fatal time of Antichrist is at hand." — Cyprian, 3d century.
" Who is he that letteth ? Who but the Roman Empire ? the
breaking up and dispersion of which among the ten kings shall
bring on Antichrist. And then shall be revealed that Wicked
One whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the Spirit of His
mouth." — Tertullian, 3d century. " This — the predicted An
tichrist — shall come when the time of the Roman Empire shall
be fulfilled and the consummation of the world approach." —
Lactantius, 4th century.

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 21

The anticipation cast a solemn gloom over the
imagination of Christians; but it touched and
kindled that gloom with the brightest hope, since
it was known that, however terrible the monster,
his appearance would be the precursor of the
appearing of Christ, who would destroy him by
the brightness of His coming. Thus was the
advent - consummation brought again into vivid
relief. The conception gathered from the pro
phetic Scriptures was that of a single man, the
incarnation of diabolical wickedness, raging and
reigning for three years and a half, and then
destroyed by the lightning-flash of the epiphany.
Such an idea was natural, and tended again to
draw the parousia into startling proximity to the
generation then living. But as centuries of ful
filling history began to throw their interpreta
tion into prophecy, another conception inevitably
emerged. Have we seen, over the shops, those
curious changeable signs that present one name
to the eye as we approach — which gradually dis
solves in passing — and another name as we look
back and read again ? So with this prediction of
Antichrist. To the early Church looking forward
it seemed to foretell an individual Man of Sin, of
three-years-and-six-months' reign. But when, out
of the gloom and blood of the Middle Ages, the
Students of prophecy looked backward, they be-

22 ECCE VENIT.

gan to see what the apostolic Church could have
hardly dreamed of, — a corporate Antichrist ; the
miniature Man of Sin, who had been expected,
now magnified into a monstxoais^Mu^aCJxristian
hierarchy ; the Apocalyptic beast bestriding the
' centuries, red in tooth and claw with the blood of
saints ; his twelve hundred and sixty days' do
minion expanded into as many years, constituting
for the Church an era of unparalleled suffering
and travail and tears ; and as they saw and bore
witness, once more there burst forth from the
Church, from her prophets and reformers, such
an advent-shout, "Behold He cometh," as cen
turies had not witnessed.1 To say that the ear
lier interpreters were more likely to be correct
in their conception of Antichrist than we, upon
whom the end of the age is dawning, is to say
that those who gathered from our Lord's myste
rious predictions — " This generation shall not
pass until" and "there be some standing here
who shall not taste of death till they see" — the
1 "Antichrist is already known throughout all the world.
Wherefore the day is not far off." — Latimer on 2 Thess. ii. 3,
1535. "O England, England, beware of Antichrist! Take
heed he doth not deceive thee." — " / trust our Redeemer's com
ing is at hand" — Bradford the Martyr, 1555. "I believe that
all the signs which are to precede the last day have already hap
pened. The gospel is preached throughout the world : the Son
of perdition is revealed." — Luther, 1517.

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 23
impression that the kingdom of God should im
mediately appear, more truly understood Him than
we who have for our assistance the exegesis of
providential events which eighteen centuries have
been drawing out. It is enough to observe that,
by a marvellous adjustment of prophecy and his
tory, the watchers in the early Church, and in the
modern Church alike, have found constant incite
ment to expectation.
To sum up our observations on this point : The
long interval of apostasy and trial which lay be
fore the Church ere the advent should arrive was
both revealed and concealed in prophecy, — re
vealed even to the minutest circumstance and
detail ; yet in such hieroglyphic symbols a and
chronology that it should remain graciously con-
1 The miniature symbols are such as these : A beast for
Antichrist, an enthroned harlot for the apostate Church ; an
exiled bride for the true Church, two candlesticks for faithful
witnessing Churches. The miniature chronology accompanying
these is the mystical number variously expressed, — " time, times
and half a time" "forty and two months" " a thousand two hun
dred and threescore days" etc. Since the symbols have been
proved to stand for age-long realities, it seems incontestable that
the chronology must stand for a correspondingly long period.
Hence, since it covers the watching-time of the Church's history,
it is always expressed enigmatically, that it might not be under
stood too early. The millennium, on the contrary, belonging to
the time beyond the Lord's advent and the Church's waiting, is
expressed in plain terms, — "a thousand years?'

24 ECCE VENIT.

cealed until history should furnish the Rosetta
Stone for its interpretation. The Apocalypse —
which was to be the Church's vade-mecum through
the long dark ages — was written in cipher, that
it might not be comprehended prematurely, and
thereby bring discouragement to the faithful;
but events were commissioned to yield up the
key to that cipher in due time, that the wise
might understand and look up. To the first
generation of Christians this guide-book seemed
to show the Lord's coming near at hand ; but
when His coming was delayed, later generations
could see that, according to the sure word of
prophecy, it must have been so ; and thus, in
stead of disappointment, there was a confirmation
of Scripture that only gave new vigor to hope.
Holding that the Book of Revelation is the
prophetic history of the Christian Church from
our Lord's ascension to His return to usher in the
millennium, we find that in itself it is a marvellous
symbol. As given into the hand of the glorified
Lamb to open, it is described as "a book written
within and on the back side, sealed with seven
seals" which seals represent the successive chap
ters of the Church's suffering and judgment
throughout this dispensation.
Now, if by a "book" were meant the same
thing which we describe by that word, the reader

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 25
could turn the leaves through, and look onward
at once to the last page to learn the issue. But
here is a roll, sealed with seven seals, and only
as history slowly unwinds that roll can its succes
sive chapters be read. Hence mark the won
drous plan by which the reader's expectation is
kept alert as it is unfolded. There are seven
seals ; under the seventh seal seven trumpets,
and under the seventh trumpet seven vials. Now,
the pondering and expectant Church reads chap
ter after chapter as the successive seals are
loosed ; and how anticipation kindles and glows
upon the opening of the seventh, which is known
to be the last ! But, lo ! under the seventh seal
appear seven trumpets, — seven sub-divisions of
the seventh chapter, — and so once more the
expectation is checked, and then lifted and borne
onward. But when angel after angel of judgment
has sounded, and the seventh trumpet is ready to
blow, what awed and solemn anticipation is once
more roused, since it was under this that "the
mystery of God should be finished, as he hath de
clared to His servants the prophets " (Rev. x. f).
But under the seventh trumpet again are seven
vials, — seven chapters still of judgment under
the last great chapter, — and once more the wait
ing Church looks onward ; not in disappointment,
but in hope, made stronger by experience, until

26 ECCE VENIT.

the seventh vial is poured out, and the voice from
heaven shall cry, "It is done" (Rev. xvi. 17).
As the Apocalypse is the Church's preor
dained history, so is this symbolic scroll the fac
simile of that history. It is written within and
without, just as the secular and sacred stand
related to each other in their accomplishment;
the history of the world and the history of the
Church being the obverse and the reverse sides
of the same transaction, the one permitted in the
providence of God to shape the other, and the
other to interpret the one ; and these two mov
ing together as time unwinds the scroll of pre
arranged events. But what chapters within chap
ters ! What fulfilment opening out of fulfilment,
all alluring and onleading the hope towards that
one divine event for which -the whole creation
groans ! We remember sailing over a beautiful
lake in Switzerland, journeying to the village that
lay at its opposite end. Again and again, as the
encircling hills shut in about us, the further shore
seemed close at hand, and our destination nearly
reached. But, rounding a projecting point, the
aspect would change, the mountains would part
once more, and another broad expanse of water
would lie stretched out before us. Thus, by a
singular peculiarity of the landscape, the jour
ney's end seemed always imminent, and yet con-

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 27
stantly receding. It was striking to observe how
this feature of the journey affected the voyagers.
Not a passenger was found at the ship's stern
gazing backward. Every one was on the look
out. All eyes were bent forward in eager expec
tation, till at last the destined harbor was reached.
Now all the commands and promises of Christ
put us on the outlook, and every great junc
ture of fulfilling history sets us watching to dis
cern whether the day-dawn is not approaching,
whether the eternal hills are not closing in to
bring the end of the age. The impulse which
inspires us to watch, to expect, to be ready to
disembark, however vain it may seem to men,
has both the authority of God's word and the
admonitions of all the history of the Church for
its support. And, more than this, while none
can know the day or the hour of the advent, we
carry with us a chart of the Church's history to
tell us approximately where in our stormy and
perilous voyage we are. Its weird, mysterious
pages contain the whole map and delineation of
the Church's career from the ascension to the
return of the Lord; but it was left for time to
break the seals of this book and to discover its
meaning. This it has been doing ; and as, cor
responding to this chart, headland after headland
of the prophetic history has been descried, these

28 ECCE VENIT.

have been recognized by the students who have
been searching diligently what and what manner
of time the Spirit did signify in penning this
prophecy; and, though they have read no an
nouncement of day or hour upon them, they have
found them displaying the same cautionary sig
nal with which the Church started: "Behold, I
come quickly : hold fast that which thou hast, that
no man take thy crown" (Rev. iii. n). It is a
warning startling enough to indicate that, though
we know not how near the end of the age we
may be, yet we are nearing it.
"Let your loins be girded about and your
lights burning," therefore. There is enough of
certainty in this subject to feed the lamp of our
faith ; and enough of uncertainty to make us
very careful and solicitous lest when the Bride
groom comes we be found among the foolish
virgins, saying, " Our lamps are gone out."
The chief point is, that this hope have a liv
ing and abiding place in our affections and our
thoughts. " Thought," says a Christian father,
" is the sleepless lamp of the soul." It is a lamp,
indeed, that burns with varying brightness, —
flaming up in moments of intense study and ut
terance, and dying down in sleep till there is only
the pale glimmer that remains in dreams. But it
is a lamp that is never really quenched ; for how-

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 29
ever profound the slumber, it only requires a word
to wake us, and to bring all our mental powers
into instant activity. Thus must it be with the
holy lamp of watchfulness, — always trimmed and
burning, but not of necessity always shining in
full strength. That is to say, we need not be
every moment thinking of Christ's return, talking
of it, and preaching it. There should be ever in
our hearts the calm certainty and the sober hope
that keep us ready for this event at any moment.
But this hope should rather minister to us than
be ministered to by us. Instead of perpetually
dwelling on it and reiterating it, we should be
lighted by it in our busy toil of gathering the
guests for the marriage feast, and doing the work
which our absent Lord has committed to us.
Ready always to give to every man that asketh
a reason for the hope that is in us, we should yet
show the value of our lamp by the holy service
into which it guides our feet, and the diligent
piety which it makes visible in our lives.

III.
' THE POWER OF HIS COMING.
Christ is not only coming in power at the last
day, but the power of His coming is to be con
stantly operating in the present day. As God
has appointed the moon to lift the tide by its at
traction, that it may flood and fill all the inden
tures of the coast, so has He ordained this great
event of Christ's parousia to draw up the faith
and hope and love of the Church, when these have
' ebbed towards the world. If the philosopher is
counted to have embodied the highest practical
wisdom in his maxim, " Hitch your wagon to a
star," can we question the efficacy of the divine
method which has fastened all our hopes to " the
Bright and Morning Star" ? For, indisputably,
the chief motive by which duties, obligations, as
pirations, and attainments are determined in the
New Testament is this, the ever-imminent return
of the Lord from heaven. Therefore even the
highest commendation that could be put upon
a primitive church — "ye come behind in no gift"
— was not so hign that this crown could be
omitted from it, " waiting for the coming of our

THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 31
Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. i. 7). Such a tribute
sounds strange to the Church of to-day, because
she has so much accustomed herself to steer by
the compass of her creed, instead of by the star
of her hope ; and to measure her position by the
dead-reckoning of ecclesiastical history, instead of
determining it by observation of those heavenly
lights which God has given to rule the day and
to rule the night. Yet here is a motive so tran-
scendently powerful that, were it taken away, the
Church would lose her upward gravitation.1
It is easy to say that absorption in the state of
glory tends to render us careless concerning the
serious claims of the state of humiliation. But
we believe that quite the contrary is true. For
our present not only makes our future, but is
made by it ; and that Christian alone can live well
in the life that now is, who lives much in the life
that is to come. As one has well written : " Only
from the point of view of eschatology can we
understand aright the problems of the human
life ; for only when we recognize what is the. final
aim of life and being can we also set forth the
1 "All the Apostolic exhortations and consolations are so
closely connected with the prospect of the personal return of the
Lord, that whoever contradicts this last, thereby takes away the
roof and cornice from the structure of Apostolic Theology."—
Van Oosterzee.

32 ECCE VENIT.

goal to all the efforts of man. Therefore it has
been said from an early period, Respice finem."
Do we apprehend the total change of outlook
which Christ has effected for the believer by His
redemption, transforming a "fearful looking-for
of judgment " into a joyful " looking for that blessed
hope " ? A sinner cannot look upward if he real
izes his doom ; a saint cannot look downward if
he realizes his destiny. How deplorably, there
fore, do they lower the standard of redemption
{who, by substituting thanatology for eschatology,
[fix our anticipations upon our departure through
the gates of the grave, instead of lifting them to
Christ's return through the gates of glory. If we
make Death our hope, let us not be surprised if
others learn to make him their hero. 1
What, let us ask, are the attainments of the
Christian life most insisted on in Scripture, and
yet the most difficult to achieve, and how does
1 Professor Duncan, commenting on the famous book of Car-
lyle, exclaims : " Hero-worship 1 Ah, well ! he and I have to meet
a strange hero yet — @i varos — the greatest that I know of next
to Him who overcame him?' Let us look to it that by our death-
homage, expressed in such mortuary poetry as,
" Death is the crown of life, . . .
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost,
The King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace,"
we do not take the crown from the head of the greater and place
it on the head of the less.

THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 33

the hope of Christ's personal return affect
them ?
Unworldliness, in the midst of the present evil
world ! — there is nothing which so powerfully
promotes it as the realization that He whose ser
vants we are may appear at any moment to reckon
with us, and take us out of this world. Why is
it that so many Christians make Death their ex
ecutor, leaving thousands and millions to be dis
pensed by his bony fingers ? Because they are
exitists, rather than adventists ; their going, and
not Christ's coming, being the goal towards which
they calculate. Therefore, if they die their wealth
can stay behind : their covetousness can still sur
vive and reap post-mortem usury. Living men,
transporting their riches in daily installments into
the world to come ; or dead men remitting back
their fortunes into this world, and still fingering
the interest thereof in mortuary incomes, — here
are the two ideals : and our Lord has plainly in
dicated which should be the Christian's in His
saying, " Lay not up for yourselves treasures on
earth; but lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven." And can there be any doubt that, if
the position to which we have been called and
raised by Christ's enthronement were really occu
pied and exulted in by us, — " For our citizenship
is in heaven, from whence also we look for the

34 ECCE VENIT.

Saviour," — the achievement of making heavenly
investments would be easy and inevitable, and the
grip of avarice be unclasped from the purse-strings
of multitudes of Christians ? The old nature is
not sufficient for itself ; and as truly as " the ex
pulsive power of a new affection " is needed to
overcome the heart-contraction of self-love, so
truly is the uplifting power of a new hope required
to break that purse-contraction of self-enrichment
which is now the greatest obstacle to the evan
gelization of the world. The logic is inevitable ;
if we are citizens of heaven, we are "strangers
and pilgrims in the earth;" and every rational in
stinct will lead us to make our investments where
we hold our residence.
Not less difficult to overcome is that worldly-
mindedness which seeks a present reward and
a present glory. "But it shall not be so among
you" is the decisive rebuke of our Lord to such
aspirations. But how not ? By the vision of a
millennial crown and throne, the heart is recon
ciled to a present cross and humiliation; "We
have forsaken all and followed Thee ; what shall
we have, therefore ? " " Ye that have followed
Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall
sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit
upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel" (Matt. xix. 28). A dispensation of re-

THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 35
proach for the Church cannot be perpetual ;
neither can a dispensation of glory be premature.
The disciple must wait ; but, in waiting for the
reign of Immanuel, he is waiting for his own
reign as heir-apparent to a crown of glory. Let
us not, through a false humility, reject the doc
trine of rewards, which Scripture so strongly
emphasizes. But when and where? are the all-
important questions. Constantly do we hear it
said of one deceased, " He has gone to his re
ward." But, from the testimony of the Word,
tell us where the believer is directed to look for
his recompense at death ? He is taught to aspire
to a crown. But we are not to infer, because it
is said, " Be thou faithful unto death," — that is,
up to the point of suffering martyrdom for Me, —
"and I will give thee a crown of life," that our
dying day is our crowning day, and that St.
Sepulchre has' been especially commissioned to
preside at our coronation. To those who share
Christ's travail and sorrow in the present life, for
the rescuing of souls, a coronet of joy is promised.
And when ? " For what is our hope, or joy, or
crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?"
(i Thess. ii. 19.) To those who have chosen the
portion of suffering with Christ in this world, as
a little flock, it is written : "And when the Chief

36 ECCE VENIT.

Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of
glory that fadeth not away " (i Peter v. 4). To
the steadfast soldier, who has fought the good
fight, and finished his course, and kept the faith,
the assurance is : " Henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the
righteous judge shall give me at that day ; and not
to me only, but unto all them also that love His
appearing" (2 Tim. iv. 8). Of that other crown
— the fourth — the time of the bestowal is not
mentioned : " Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation ; for when he hath been approved he
shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord
promised to them that love Him " (James i.
12, r. v.). But since it is the corona vitce, it is
evident that it will be given at Christ's advent,
when forever " death is swallowed up in victory,"
and not at our decease, when for the time life
is swallowed up in defeat. Most inspiring is this
doctrine of an open and final award to Christian
fidelity. Martyrs have grasped it from afar, and
been upheld amid the flames ; and we, who are
not called to suffer like them, learn also to exult
in it as that which shall bring our vindication
against such as contemn us, because we run not
with them to the same excess of riot in world-
getting and gain-grasping. For there is a real
choice of recompense. Let no one say that this

THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 37
world has nothing to give the Christian ; it has.
Three times our Lord pronounces that solemn sen
tence concerning religious man-pleasers, "Verily
I say unto you, they have their reward." The
preeminent question is, whether there is power
enough in the Redeemer's proffer, "Behold, I
come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give
to every man according as his work shall be," to
disenchant the heart from this temporal and sor
did recompense ? Only when we realize our call
ing as the sons of God, " begotten again unto a
lively hope," and made heirs of a reserved inher
itance, can it be so. " The servant abideth not
in the house forever ; " and if we are only such,
we shall demand day-wages, even as " the hireling
looketh for the reward of his work." But "the
son abideth ever," and therefore can "both hope
and quietly wait " the final award of the inherit
ance. If we turn from the perils of worldly-minded
Christians to the trials of serious saints, we find
the advent-hope serving the same end. Unless
one is completely in the spell of a delusive op
timism, he must often be appalled in contem
plating the condition of the world. A thousand
millions of the race still strangers to any form of
Christianity ; two thirds of nominal Christendom
lapsed into an apostasy hardly better than pagan-

38 ECCE VENIT.

ism ; and of the remaining third, only a meagre
proportion really spiritual disciples ! Without,
the whole world lying in the Wicked One ; and
within, perpetual corruptions of doctrine, con
stant estrangements from the faith, daily repri
sals of the Prince of Darkness upon the domain
of light! A heart-swoon, like that which fell
upon holy Daniel at the river Ulai, must some
times seize the thoughtful Christian in view of all
this, from which only a vision of the Ancient of
Days, coming in the clouds of heaven, can rouse
him. As, amid the desperate corruptions of the
Catholic Church just previous to the Reforma
tion, we find some who, having abandoned all
hope from prelates and councils, took the name
of "Expectants," and simply waited, such must
we become, if we would be saved from dishear-
tenment. We must not only look forward to the
deliverance of the Coming One, but sometimes
take our seat with Him in His throne, and share
His attitude and anticipation as He sits there,
" expecting till His foes be made His footstool."
Then for that great overshadowing woe of mor
tality and corruption, what is the cure but the
coming of the Coming One? "Thou shalt be
recompensed at the resurrection of the just," said
our Lord, speaking concerning the good deed
done to the poor. But, in the light of other

THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 39
Scriptures, we may say that there is no promise
that has so general an application. If death be
the payment of the debt of nature, the first resur
rection, at our Lord's appearing, will be the full
repayment of the debt of grace. For this event
will give us back all that we have lost : our
friends in Christ, looking and speaking as they
were wont ; our inheritance in an earth renewed
and glorified ; and the temple of our body, no
longer a house divided against itself through the
conflict of sin, but raised up and re -dedicated
with surpassing glory. Christ's redemption is
not a compromise with Death, but a reimburse
ment for all of which he has robbed us, — a full
refunding, exacted by the lawsuit of the atone
ment, of our defrauded inheritance. " I shall go
to him, but he shall not return to me," was all
that the broken-hearted David could utter con
cerning his dead child. But we who look for a
Saviour can say more than this, since " them also
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."
What a beautiful, prophetic suggestion there is
for us in that record of the Bethany feast which
immediately follows the story of the raising of
Lazarus : " But Lazarus, which had been dead,
whom He raised from the dead, was one of them
that sat at the table with Him " (John xii. 1,
2). Often, in our advent anticipations, have we

40 ECCE VENIT.

dreamed of the arrival of the long-looked-for con
summation, and of our beloved dead suddenly re
appearing, taking the vacant chair at the table,
greeting us with the old familiar look, and speak
ing to us in the old familiar tones. If but a
dream, this certainly is true : that the parousia
will bring a real restoration, not simply a trans
fer into some strange society of shadows and
spirits. Many seem to take pride in death, since
they have learned to call it their dies natalis ;
but we confess that we are ashamed to die,
rather than proud, since we know that in this
event we shall have reached the pay-day of sin's
wages.1 Praised indeed be Immanuel, that dying
now means our departing to be with Christ ; but,
nevertheless, it is a return for which we now wait,
— His return, and our return with Him. There
fore has the Holy Ghost drawn for us that mag
nificent vision of the Lord Himself descending
from heaven with a shout ; and then, for the
Church of all ages, is added the injunction :
1 " For my own part, I must confess to you, that death, as
death, appeareth to me as an enemy, and my nature doth abhor
and fear it. But the thoughts of the coming of the Lord are
most sweet and joyful to me ; so that, if I were but sure that I
should live to see it, and that the trumpet should sound, and the
dead should rise, and the Lord appear before the period of my
age, it would be the joyfulest tidings to me in the world. Oh
that I might see His kingdom come ! " — Richard Baxter.

THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 41
"Wherefore comfort one another with these
words" (1 Thess. iv. 18).
" Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty :
ahey shall behold a land of far distances" (Isa.
Kxxiii. 1 7). Blessed is it if we are so long-sighted
as to catch glimpses of that better country, amid
the trial and turmoil of this ; but doubly blessed,
if we can look down upon this country through
the far-reaching vistas of that, viewing the pres
ent life from the exalted stand-point of our Re
deemer's throne. And this is permitted us.
For there are what we may call spiritual rehear
sals of the advent rapture, in which, like Paul,
we are " caught up into Paradise " and hear un
speakable words. Let those bear witness who
have proved it, — and there are such, — how
utterly the whole scene of life has been changed
in such moments. " Like Philip, I was caught
away by the Spirit," writes one, " and was found,
not at Azotus, but in the advent cloud, seated
with my Lord in the chariot of His descending
glory. A fire devoured before Him, and it was
very tempestuous round about Him. I heard
Him call to the heavens from above, and to the
earth, that He might judge His people, saying,
' Gather my saints together unto Me, those that
have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.' And
as His redeemed ones came flying to Him, ' as a

42 ECCE VENIT.

cloud, and as the doves to their windows,' from
every tribe and kindred of earth, I beheld such
as had been left behind. What wringing of hands
there was among those who had loved gold su
premely in a world which God so loved as to
give His only Son for its redemption ! What
blanched faces upon those who had fared sump
tuously and lived deliciously amid a starving and
perishing race ! Many of them who did so
seemed to have worn the name of Christians ;
for, as I listened, I could hear a mighty wail
borne up from them towards the descending
Judge : ' Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in
Thy name ? and in Thy name cast out devils ? and
in Thy name done many wonderful works ? ' But
He only answered them : ' I never knew you :
depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.' Whether
in the body or out of the body when this trans
port was upon me, I cannot tell. But never since
it occurred has the world been the same to me ;
nor can I think oi its wealth, its luxury, its ease,
its honors, without an instant prayer to be deliv
ered from making these my gods."
Such "instant prayer" we may all well learn
to offer, in the midst of our necessary work con
stantly sending up ejaculatory petitions that we
may be delivered from the present evil world,
so that, when our Lord appears in the clouds of

THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 43
heaven, we may bound towards Him by a resist
less attraction, and be forever with Him.1 Noth
ing can compensate for their loss who have elim
inated this advent-hope from their creed. One
love conquers another ; and only by tasting " the
powers of the world to come" can there be
wrought in us a radical and enduring distaste for
the vanities of the world that now is. Well,
therefore, has one written concerning this hope,
that, " of the life of watchfulness, patience, and
heavenly-mindedness, it is the soul and power;
and history makes abundantly manifest that,
where this prospect has temporarily receded in
the Christian consciousness, the spiritual life also
has declined. One may confidently say that to a
healthy Christian life ' etwas Apocalyptisches " —
something apocalyptical — also belongs ; and that
obligation to observe the signs of the times can
not possibly be fulfilled so long as the question
as to the final whither has not, at least in prin
ciple, received an answer."
1 " O Almighty God, grant that those necessary works wherein
we are engaged, whether in the affairs of Thy Church or of this
world, may not prevail to hinder us ; but that, at the appearing
and advent of Thy Son, we may hasten with joy to meet Him,
who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one
God, world without end. Amen"

IV.
THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION.
It is remarkable to observe that the first coun
cil of the Christian Church ever convened should
have outlined the whole scheme of redemption
from Pentecost to the consummation of the ages.
And whatever we may hold as to the binding
authority of later councils, we must accept the
deliverances of this at Jerusalem as final, since
from the testimony of inspired Scripture we
know that the Spirit so truly presided and guided
in the assembly that in publishing its decisions
it was written, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost
and to us "(Acts xv. 28). Jesus Christ is the
Architect of the ages. Not only " all things were
made by Him " — all worlds and systems of the
material universe — but all the dispensations were
planned and predestined by Him : " By whom
also He made the ages " (Heb. i. 2). His Church
was not set upon her course until a complete
programme of her mission had been placed in
her hands, the working -plan by which all her
operations were to be directed. "Known unto
God are all His works from the beginning of the

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 45

world" (Acts xv. 18) is the significant declara
tion which accompanies the publication of this
programme. And, instead of being day-laborers
working in ignorance, God would have us, as
laborers together with Him, to understand the
entire divine scheme by which our efforts are to
be directed, that we may be saved alike from pre
sumption and from despair.
" Simeon hath declared how God at the first did
visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for
His name " (Acts xv. 14). Here is the first act
of the great programme. Because of the citation
from the Old Testament which immediately fol
lows — " And to this agree the words of the
prophets, as it is written : After this I will return,
and will build again the tabernacle of David which
is fallen down " — it has been inferred that this
Gentile outgathering and the tabernacle upbuild
ing mean the same thing ; in other words, that
the rearing of the tabernacle of David is a figura
tive expression for the building of the Church of
Christ. By this superficial though not altogether
unnatural explanation of the passage, the whole
programme has been reduced to a single act, and
the inference drawn that the preaching of the
gospel in this dispensation is to issue in the con
version of "all the Gentiles."
But it is only necessary to observe three things

46 ECCE VENtf.

in order to correct this misapprehension : First,
that the citation here made from the closing
chapter of the Book of Amos is clearly a predic
tion of the literal restoration of literal Israel, and
their reinhabitance of their land ; for the words
quoted are part of a passage which ends with this
decisive language : " And I will plant them upon
their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out
of their land which I have given them, saith the
Lord thy God" (Amos ix. 15). Observe again
that in making this citation the Holy Ghost in
serts the words, not found in the original text,
"After this I will return" and will build again,
thus making the restoration of the Davidic tab
ernacle subsequent to the gathering out of the
Church from the Gentiles, and connecting it
directly with the personal return of the Lord.
And, lastly, we are to notice that in announcing
this election from among the Gentiles, it is not
added, "in this are fulfilled the words of the
prophets," but "with this harmonize — arv^wvovcra;,
symphonize — the words of the prophets." It is
but saying that the parts of the great oratorio of
redemption perfectly accord, though centuries lie
between its different measures ; and then, to show
us how they accord, the Holy Spirit sounds all
the octaves thereof with a single sweep, and lets
us listen to their grand unison. This, then, is the

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 47
programme of redemption by which we are to
work in evangelizing the world : —
"First, God did visit the Gentiles to take out
of them a people for His name. And to this agree
the words of the prophets, as it is written : —
"After this I will return and will build again the
tabernacle of David which is fallen down ; and I
will build again the ruins thereof and I will set
it up: " In order that the residue of men might seek
after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom
My name is called, saith the Lord who doeth all
these things."
The three great stages of redemption are thus
outlined in their order.
The gathering of the Church is the first act,
and this, having begun at Pentecost, is still go
ing on. All the descriptions of it contained in
Scripture mark it as elective. From the word of
Christ to His first disciples, " I have out-chosen
you out of the world," to the triumph-song of the
saved heard by the seer in Patmos, " Thou hast
redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every
kindred and tongue and people and nation," the
Bride of Christ is always the Ecclesia, the called
out. Nowhere is universal redemption predicted
as the result of preaching the Gospel in this dis
pensation. If in the minds of those who are

48 ECCE VENIT.

accustomed to speak of the world's conversion
there is a violent revulsion from this saying, we
remind them that we are simply affirming the
truth of the doctrine of election, and its applica
tion to this entire age. Most tenderly and rev
erently would we handle this solemn mystery of
the Sovereign Will. " Who has not known pas
sion, cross, and travail of death," says Luther,
"cannot treat of this theme without injury to
man or enmity to God." But it is written in
Scripture, and the verdict of the ages declares it
true. For after eighteen centuries of Christian
conquest the vast proportion of the world still
"lieth in the Wicked One," and Christ's true
Church is but a "little flock" in comparison.
Only with pathetic sympathy for our fallen race
in its ruin and helplessness can we contemplate
this fact. And yet we must be reminded that all
attempts to violate this decree by making the
Church a multitudinous collection, instead of a
gracious election, have only issued in apostasy.
i Sacramentarianism would take the world into the
! Church by instituting a baptized paganism instead
! of taking the Church out of the world by preach
ing spiritual regeneration ; and behold the result
in a half-heathenized Christendom. Latitudina-
rianism would make the Church coextensive with
the world by preaching the gospel of universal

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 49
salvation, — all men by nature the sons of God, —
and thus, by crowding the Lord's house with " the
children of the Wicked One," turn it into " the
synagogue of Satan." Though it be in mystery,
and sorrow and tears, we had best work on, there
fore, by the divine schedule, preaching the gospel
among all nations for a witness that we may
gather out for Christ a chosen and sanctified peo
ple, calmly answering those who say that God's
ways are partial with His own words : " When
that which is perfect is come, then that which is
in part shall be done away."
And yet, lest we should take too narrow a view
of this theme, other considerations should not be
overlooked. Christ is called " The Light of the
World." The beams of sunlight both elect and
irradiate ; taking out here and there from muddy
pool or acrid dead sea a pure, crystalline drop
and lifting it heavenward ; but also lighting and
warming all the atmosphere by their radiance.
So Christ, preached among the Gentiles, elects
from them a holy flock, a regenerate Church ; but
besides this, He changes the moral climate of the
world so that such noxious growths as cannibal
ism, slavery, polygamy, and infanticide disappear.
These two results inevitably attend the proclama
tion of the gospel ; regeneration saving some out
of the world, and civilization putting something

50 ECCE VENIT.

of Christianity into the world: but by neither
process as now going on is the millennium des
tined to be ushered in.
Moreover, let us reflect that an election is never
an end in itself; it is rather a means and prepara
tion for some vastly larger accomplishment. The
body of the elect is really Christ's army, gathered
by a divine conscription from every kindred and
people, that they may attend Him as He goes
forth to His final conquest of the world. " And
they that are with Him are called and elect and
faithful " (Rev. xvii. 14). Of this, however, we
shall speak later.
The second act of the divine programme now
comes into view. "After this I will return and
build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen
down." By Christ's personal coming in glory, the
conversion and restoration of Israel are to be
accomplished. The reader has only to compare
this order with the redemption schedule drawn
out in the eleventh of Romans to see how per
fectly they agree. St. Paul, indeed, begins with
the Jewish election, as St. James does with the
Gentile election. And we must remember that
the choosing out that is going on in this dispen
sation touches both : " not out of the Jews only,
but also out of the Gentiles " (Rom. ix. 24). But
each apostle takes up the same succession of

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 51
events ; first the Gentile outgathering, and then
the Hebrew regathering. The hardening of the
Jews which we now behold is declared by Paul
to continue " until the fulness of the Gentiles be
come in. And so all Israel shall be saved. As
it is written : There shall come out of Zion the
Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from
Jacob" (Rom. xi. 25, 26). By the "fulness of the
Gentiles" we understand the predestined num
ber, the elect company gathered through the
entire period of this dispensation to form the
Bride of Christ.1 When this number shall have
been accomplished, then the conversion of Israel
will occur and their national restoration to God's
favor. The two parts of the aged Simeon's proph
ecy are strictly consecutive : " A light to lighten
the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel "
(Luke ii. 31, 32). The sun is the light of the
earth, overspreading it with his beams and elect
ing and drawing up from it the pure water-drops
1 The word -itX^pafw. — fulness — is used to signify a limited
fulness as well as an unlimited : it may apply to the contents of
the brimming cup dipped from the ocean as well as to all the
waters of the ocean. " When the fulness of time was come, God
sent forth his Son" (Gal. iv. 4). Here is meant the completion
of a certain preordained period of time. So " the fulness of the
Gentiles " we hold to mean the entire number of those to be
gathered out of the Gentiles during the age. See use of the
ward also in Mark ii. 21.

52 ECCE VENIT.

which form the clouds ; but he is the glory of the
heavens, being their very central and most illus
trious orb. And so is Christ a light for revelation
to the nations, exhibiting God to them in Himself
who is " the brightness of His glory and the ex
press image of His person," in order to win from
them a chosen heritage. But He will be the su
preme glory of His people Israel, when He shall
at last be owned as their Messiah and reign in
the midst of them as King.
These two stages of redemption — the Gentile
election and the Hebrew restoration — are to be
accomplished "in order" to a third, namely,
"that the residue of men might seek after the
Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name
is called."
The old priority still holds, so far as world-wide
salvation is concerned : "To the Jew first and also
to the Gentile." This order was inverted for a
time by the rejection of Christ by His people ;
but when they shall turn unto Him and find
mercy, it will be taken up again. It stands writ
ten in Scripture that " all Israel shall be saved; "
and just as plainly, that through that consum
mation "all the Gentiles upon whom my name is
called." Without enlarging upon the thought,
what a profound hint of this does Paul give in the
words of the same chapter concerning his rejected

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 53
people : " Now if the fall of them be the riches
of the world, and the diminishing of them the
riches of the Gentiles, how much more their ful
ness." " For if the casting away of them be the
reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving
of them be but life from the dead?" (Rom. xi. 12,
15.) " It is clear," says Lange, "that the apostle
awaits a boundless effect of blessing on the world
from the future conversion of Israel." Then
shall ' the word of Joel concerning the effusion of
the Spirit have a complete fulfilment, as it had a
partial and prefigurative accomplishment on the
day of Pentecost. For if we turn to the prophet
we find it said : " And ye shall know that / am in
the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your
God and none else. And it shall come to pass
afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all
flesh" (Joel ii. 27, 28). And with this agree the
words of Isaiah where he predicts the desolation
of Zion as continuing " till the Spirit be poured
upon us from on high" (Is. xxxii. 15). When the
Lord shall shed forth the Holy Ghost abundantly
upon His covenant people, through them will come
unspeakable blessing to the Gentiles.1 The mod-
1 " A new life in the higher charismatic fulness of the Spirit
shall extend from God's people to the nations of the world com
pared with which the previous life of the nations must be con
sidered dead." — Auberlen.

54 ECCE VENIT.

ern post-millennial interpretation completely de
ranges the programme of prophecy at this point
by making redemption terminate with its first
scene. " The end of the age," brought in by the
second coming of Christ, misleadingly translated
" the end of the world " in our common version,
is supposed by many to close the probation of the
race, winding up the present earthly scene, and
bringing in the final judgment and the eternal
state, instead of opening into the triumphs of the
age to come. Is it possible that the first Chris
tians could have had this idea ? If so, how could
they have so ardently desired, and earnestly
looked for, the speedy return of the Lord, since
His coming would end the work of Gentile in
gathering, while as yet only a handful had been
saved ? On the contrary, take the words of Peter
to the Jewish rejectors of Christ, and observe how
clearly they teach the very opposite : " Repent ye
therefore and turn again, that your sins may be
blotted out, that so there may come seasons of
refreshing from the presence of the Lord ; and
that he may send the Christ who hath been ap
pointed for you, even Jesus whom the heaven
must receive until the times of the restoration of
all things " (Acts iii. 19-21, r. v.). Here we have,
as constantly throughout Scripture, the repent
ance of Israel directly connected with the return

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 55
of Christ from heaven, and their conversion and
the Lord's appearing resulting, not in their cut
ting off from the presence of the Lord, but in
times of " refreshing from the presence of the
Lord ; " not in the winding up of all things, but
in the " restoration of all things." Three acts of
the divine programme appear again in this decla
ration of Peter, — the coming of Christ, the con
version of Israel, and universal redemption, —
corresponding exactly with those revealed in the
texts from James and Paul already considered.
How clearly it is thus seen that the final re
demption of the world comes at last through the
conversion and restoration of Israel, and the
glorifying of the Church at our Lord's return !
If it be said that this is a Jewish conception, bor
rowed from the Old Testament,1 we will answer,
"Yes, and reiterated and more explicitly un
folded in the New Testament." For nowhere is
the order of events so distinctly revealed as in
the Acts and Epistles.
" Election, partial and opposed to universal
1 " It is certainly not without significance that the Old Testa
ment throughout binds the fulfilment of the Divine kingdom to
the land that was granted to Abraham, not by right of nature,
but by grace. The prophets know of no final completion of the
Divine promises without the confirmation of this old promise of
the eternal possession of the Holy Land." — Oehler, Old Testa.
ment Theology, i. p. 93.

56 ECCE VENIT.

redemption," has been the verdict of thousands
who have replied against God, knowing little of
the range of His eternal plan. " Election, gra
cious, and preparatory to universal redemption,"
is the discovery which a deep pondering of Holy
Scripture reveals. The chosen nation, Israel,
restored and made glorious on earth, with the
Lord dwelling in the midst of her, and the elect
Church transfigured with her risen Saviour, — these
are His appointed agents, trained by long dis
cipline and trial for bringing all peoples and
tribes into obedience to God. As to the Gentile
election, so to the Hebrew restoration, objectors
may be reconciled when it appears that this, too,
is instrumental and preparatory to world-wide
salvation. "Arise, shine, for thy light is come,
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee,"
is the summons which the long captive daughter
of Zion shall hear, and then the blessed result :
"And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and
kings to the brightness of thy rising" (Is. Ix.
3). No dream of the world's conversion, how
ever ardent, can surpass the glowing reality as
depicted in the prophecy just quoted, — " The
abundance of the sea," "The forces of the Gen
tiles," " The inhabitants of the isles," coming no
longer by ones and twos, but in clouds ! Only let
us observe the order of their coming, — through

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 57

restored and forgiven Israel, — that we may un
derstand the Messianic prayers which are taught
us in the Scripture to be the truest missionary
prayers. To plead for the speedy return of the
Lord is to plead for the speedy ingathering of the
heathen ; to pray for the peace of Jerusalem is to
pray for the conversion of the Gentiles. How
this comes out in the words of the sixty-seventh
Psalm ! — " God be merciful unto us and bless us,
and cause His face to shine upon us; that Thy
way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health
among all nations." The Jews have been in the
shadow of God's averted countenance ever since
they rejected His Anointed, and hid, as it were,
their faces from Him. But when they shall re
pent and return to Him, He will turn His face
again upon them in blessing. Then will redemp
tion go forth unhindered and without measure
upon the Gentiles.1 " Then shall the earth yield
her increase, and God, even our own God, shall
1 "Those beautiful questioning words of Isaiah about the
Gentiles often occur to me : ' Who are these who fly as doves to
their windows ? ' — a flock of doves speeding to their home, their
ark of refuge. Noah's one dove, like the solitary Jewish Church,
took refuge there from the wild waste of waters; but all kin
dreds, people, tongues, and nations shall fly to their stronghold in
later times, their feathers of gold and their wings covered with
silver, white and lovely though they have lain among the pots."
— Patience of Hope.

5§ ECCE VENIT.

bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear
Him." Blessed time, when God's patient seek
ing after the Gentiles shall give place to a uni
versal seeking of the Gentiles after God. " And
the inhabitants of one city shall go to another,
saying. Let us go speedily to pray before the
Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts. I will go
also, yea, many people and strong nations shall
come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem,
and to pray before the Lord" (Zech. viii. 21, 22).
To those, therefore, who would dishearten us by
declaring that missions to the heathen are a fail
ure, and that, at the end of nineteen centuries of
evangelization by the Church, there are a thou
sand million of earth's fourteen hundred millions
who have not even named the name of Christ,
— that " for every additional Christian, we have
every year a hundred and eighty additional
heathens or Moslems," — our answer is, An ex
hortation to redoubled diligence in preaching the
gospel to every creature, that we may thereby
" hasten the day of God ; " an invocation, " Even
so come Lord Jesus;" and a prayer which we
breathe out in the most fitting words of the old
English burial service : " That it may please Thee
shortly to accomplish the number of Thine elect and
to hasten Thy kingdom, that we, with all those

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 59
that are departed in the true faith of Thy holy
name, may have our perfect consummation and
bliss, both in body and soul, in Thy eternal and
everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen."

THE ENDS OF THE AGES.
Three consecutive ends of ages come into
yiew in the New Testament : First (Heb. ix. 26),
I' Once in the end of the ages hath he appeared to
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself," Christ's
Iirst coming, terminating the Jewish economy in
he judgment and rejection of the house of Israel,
nd opening the door of grace to the Gentiles ;
econd (Matt. xiii. 49), "At the end of the age the
ngels shall come forth and sever the wicked
from among the just," Christ's second coming,
attended by the first resurrection and the rap
ture of the Church, terminating the dispensation
of grace in the judgment of apostate Christen-
jdom, restoring Israel, and introducing the mil-
jlennium ; third (1 Cor. xv. 24, r. v.), " Then cometh
•the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom
| to God even the Father," the close of the millen
nium, the resurrection of the rest of the dead,
and the last judgment.
Observe with what dramatic solemnity each of
these successive ages is brought to a close. On
the cross of Golgotha, amid the rending of the

THE ENDS OF THE AGES.

temple veil, the shock of earthquake, and the
darkening of the sun, Christ ended the first with
that mighty cry: "It is finished" (John xix 30).
.Amid voices, and thunders and lightnings, and
an earthquake, and the outpouring of the sev-
lenth vial, the present age is closed, a great voice
'out of the temple of heaven, from the throne,
saying: "It is done" (Rev. xvi. 17). With the
passing away of the first heaven and the first
earth, and the abolishing of death and sorrow and
crying and pain, the millennial age is brought to
an end, He that sitteth on the throne saying :
" It is done, I am Alpha and Omega, the begin
ning and the end " (Rev. xxi. 6).
What is called the post-millennial theory —
the doctrine that Christ's return is at the end
of the millennium instead of the beginning —
maintains its position by telescoping the ages,
running the second and third together, and so
making their principal events to synchronize. It
is agreed that a resurrection takes place at the
advent of Christ. But pre-millennialists hold that
this is "the first resurrection," — the rising of
the just, — and that a chiliad will elapse between
it and the second resurrection, during which
period Christ will reign over the earth with His
glorified Church, and that therefore His coming
must be pre-millennial. This might not appear

62 ECCE VENIT.

to one whose eye is not trained by a diligent study
of the Word to apprehend the perspective of
prophecy. But will our readers follow us care
fully, and see whether the position is not justi-
tified by an appeal to Scripture.
The following text we regard as having to do
with three consecutive ages (i Cor. xv. 22-29 ) :
" In Christ shall all be made alive. But every
man in his own order : Christ the first-fruits" —
at the close of the Jewish dispensation, — " after
ward they that are Christ's at His coming" — at
the close of the present dispensation, — " then
cometh the end" — at the close of the millennial
dispensation. This last "end," however, is held
by post-millenarians to mean the time of Christ's
coming and the resurrection of all, both righteous
and wicked ; so that there is no considerable
period between the advent and the final consum
mation. But observe the significant adverbs " after
wards " and " then," — inura • dra} They are cor
relatives ; and as we know that one describes an
era of at least nearly nineteen hundred years, it
1 " By the words &r«Tii and etra, two separate epochs are dis
tinctly marked ; and it is a violation of all usage of terms to
construe them otherwise. The interval of the first is stretching
beyond 1,800 years ; how many ages will intervene between the
second and the third, who can tell ? " — Kling.

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 63
is quite impossible to suppose that the other indi
cates no considerable period of time. And this
is not all. Scripture is like a dissected map,
whose scattered parts we must fit together if we
would discover what is the divine pattern of the
ages. And, turning to the Apocalypse, we find
that it gives us the period and the events with
which to fill up this disputed space between the
resurrection of them that are Christ's at His com
ing and the end. For in its pages we have a
vision of " the first resurrection " — that which all
Scripture teaches us to connect with Christ's
second advent — and then the statement that "the
rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand
years were ended ; " and between these two, the
glorified saints reigning with Christ a thousand
years (Rev. xx. 4-6). If plain language may be
plainly interpreted, this gives us the filling up of
the outline revealed in Corinthians, and verifies
the schedule of the ages with which we begin this
chapter. Moreover, if we observe the events which are
connected with the "end" in the Corinthian
prophecy, we see how clearly they define it.
" Then cometh the end when He shall deliver up
the kingdom to God, even the Father" (1 Cor. xv.
24, r. v.). But on Christ's appearing at the close
of the present age, He takes the kingdom from

64 ECCE VENIT.

the Father. As Daniel sees One like unto the
Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, he
beholds Him invested with kingship by the " An
cient of Days : " "And there was given Him do
minion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples
and nations and languages should serve Him "
(Dan. vii. 13, 14). Can our Lord's receiving the
kingdom from the Father mean the same thing
as His delivering up the kingdom to the Father ? 1
In Revelation the representation is precisely the
same. As the seventh angel sounds — the angel
of the last trump under which the righteous dead
are raised (1 Cor. xv. 52) — there are great voices
in heaven saying : " The kingdom of this world
is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His
Christ ; " and the response from the four and
twenty elders is : " We give thee thanks, O Lord
God Almighty, which art and wast and art to
come," — this is the title of the glorified Christ
(i. 8), — " because Thou hast taken to Thyself
1 " Is the object of Christ's coming to surrender the kingdom
to the Father, or does He come first of all to rightly enter upon
it ? Undoubtedly the latter. The appearing of Christ is at the
same time the appearing of His Kingdom. This unquestioned,
then it is clear that the return of Christ is rather for the purpose
of assuming than assigning the kingdom, and therefore the pa-
rousia of Christ and the End of the World do not coincide, but
on the contrary are separated from each other." — Luthardt,
Lehre von den Letzten Dingen, p. 129.

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 65

Thy great power and hast reigned'' This cer
tainly is Christ's assumption of the kingdom
rather than His surrender of it. Not only does
He receive the kingdom at His advent, but, ac
cording to this same prophecy of Daniel, His
redeemed people share its reign and judgment
with Him : " And the time came that the saints
possessed the kingdom " (Daniel vii. 22). But this
time is shown in Revelation to extend from the
first resurrection to the second resurrection :
" Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection : on such the second death hath no
power ; but they shall be priests of God and of
Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand
years " (Rev. xx. 6). Observe, again, that the last
end which we are considering is "the end . . .
when He shall have put down all rule and author
ity and power." Does He not begin this work at
His advent, when He destroys Antichrist, and all
his vast array of allied wickedness, by the bright
ness of His coming ? "For He must reign till He
hath put all enemies under His feet." But at His
coming for the first resurrection, He finds His
enemies unsubdued, the nations angry, the apos
tasy ripe for judgment. This cannot be the time
of the completed subjection of His foes. " The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Yet
it is only at the end of the millennium, at the

66 ECCE VENIT.

termination of the thousand years' reign of the
saints, and after the white-throne judgment, that
the announcements are heard : " And death and
hell were cast into the lake of fire ; " " And there
shall be no more death " (Rev. xx. 14 ; xxi. 4).
We find, therefore, an entire era of the conquest
and reign of Immanuel and His saints between
the resurrection at His glorious appearing and
the end when He shall surrender His kingdom.
These considerations would seem to establish
conclusively the pre-millennial order of Christ's
coming ; but there are others.
The present age is everywhere set forth in
Scripture as one of mingled darkness and light,
towards the end of which the shadows rather
deepen into judgment than break away before a
triumphant millennial dawn. The parables of the
kingdom, contained in the thirteenth chapter of
Matthew, are decisive in their teaching. These
parables are seven ; and we hold that — like the
seven prophetic pictures of the Apocalyptic
churches — they portray the successive eras of
the history of Christendom from the beginning of
the dispensation to its close.1 In them we have
1 The Epistles to the Seven Churches, besides describing what
is undoubtedly historical, have so many allusions which are evi
dently figurative and mystical that there is the strongest reason
for accepting the view advanced by Mede, one of the earliest

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 67
a vivid delineation of the trials and resistance
which the kingdom of heaven was to encounter
from the Adversary, from its first introduction
into the world until the end of the age ; and if,
in their exposition, we are guided by the light
which other Scriptures throw upon them, we seem
to discover both a logical and a chronological
order in the teaching which they set forth.
In the first parable, the seed is " the word of
the kingdom." As it is sown, three parts fall
into unfruitful soil, and only one part into good
ground. Does not this harmonize with the uni
versal experience of the preachers of the ©ospel,
from the day of our Lord's ministry until this
present, that only the smaller fraction of their
hearers give fruitful heed to the Word ?
In the second parable, we take the field that is
really receptive, and into which good seed has
been cast, and, lo ! tares are found to have been
sown therein by the Adversary, which now appear
growing together with the wheat. This our Lord
explains to mean the mingling of " the children
of the Wicked One " with " the children of the

Protestant Apocalyptic commentators, and received by many
later expositors, that it was intended " that these seven churches
should prophetically sample unto us a sevenfold temper and
constitution of the whole Church according to the several ages
thereof, answering the pattern of the churches named here."

68 ECCE VENIT.

kingdom." And is not this exactly what came to
pass in the first stages of the apostasy, the bring
ing of unregenerated men into the Church of
Christ and mixing them with true saints ? With
this second parable of the kingdom harmonizes
most strikingly the second stage of prophetic
Christian history as exhibited in the Church of
Smyrna (Rev. ii. 9), — "I know the blasphemy of
them that say they are Jews and are not, but are
of the synagogue of Satan ; " false professors per
sonating the true, the children of the Wicked One
palming themselves off as children of the king
dom (see Rom. ii. 28).
The third parable shows the result. The king
dom of heaven becomes a lofty and overshadow
ing world - church.1 The mustard -seed springs
up, but not according to its kind ; from an herb
it grows into a great tree, and the birds of the
air that once sought to destroy the seed of the
kingdom now lodge in its branches ; the em
perors and kings who had striven to uproot the
pure Church find shelter in this secular Church,
which, in its changed condition, overspreads the
earth with marvellous rapidity. Let one read
this parable in the light of the same represen-
1 "As the mustard-seed even changes its species, passing
from an herb to a sort of tree, so does the kingdom of heaven pass
into the likeness of a great world-state?' — Lange.

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 69
tation as given by the prophets (Ezk. xxxi. 3-
14, and Dan. iv. 10-19), and he can hardly con
clude that our Lord intended herein to set forth
a true spiritual growth of His Church. It is
rather the Pergamos period of her development
which the prophetico-historic interpreters have
understood to be the era of the union of Church
and State, wherein what was originally "not of
this world" becomes a vast world-kingdom. The
prophetic prefigurement in the Apocalypse is
very striking, — Balaam conspiring with Balak,
the prophet with the king, to seduce the children
of Israel into idolatry (Rev. ii. 14), — even as, in
the history of the Church, the bishops and the
emperors by their ecclesiastical alliance pagan
ized Christianity.
The fourth parable gives the result of this rank
prosperity of the Church in the complete corrup
tion of her life and doctrine: "The kingdom of
heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took
and hid in three measures of meal till the whole
was leavened." Let those who affirm that this
parable signifies the gradual penetration and sav
ing transformation of the whole world by the
Gospel reflect that, in order to get this interpre
tation, they must give to leaven a directly oppo
site meaning from that which Scripture invariably
assigns to it, since it is always employed in the

70 ECCE VENIT.

Bible as a type of corruption, there being abso
lutely no exception to this asage in Old Testa
ment or New.1 Hear our Lord's admonition to
" take heed and beware of the leaven of the Phari
sees and of the Sadducees" meaning thereby their
false doctrines (Matt. xvi. 12). Listen to the
exhortations of the apostle against " the leaven of
malice and wickedness " (1 Cor. v. 8). Warning
the Galatians of the doctrine of the Judaizers, he
bids them remember that " a little leaven leaven-
eth the whole lump " (Gal. v. 9). Reproving the
Corinthian Church for harboring fornicators, he
uses the same phrase, and adds : " Purge out,
therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new
lump, as ye are " — according to your calling and
profession — "unleavened" (1 Cor. v. 7). Com
paring Scripture with Scripture, — the only
method of interpreting difficult texts, — it seems
clear that this parable of the leaven symbolizes
the apostate Church, " which did corrupt the earth
with her fornication " (Rev. xix. 2), and not the
true Christianity, which was to transform the
whole earth by the Gospel. The only instance
where the use of leaven was commanded in
1 Even the heathen attached this significance to it, as shown
by the following sentence of Plutarch, as cited by Wetstein*
" Now leaven is both generated itself from corruption, and it cor
rupts the mass with which it is mingled."

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 71
Jewish worship affords a striking confirmation
of this interpretation. Rigidly and repeatedly
was its employment forbidden in the Passover
service, because that service was foretypical of
Christ, who should be without spot or blemish.
But the wave-loaves of the feast of Pentecost
were commanded to be "baken with leaven"
(Lev. xxiii. 17) ; and Pentecost is believed to
have been foretypical of the Church, as the Pass
over was of Christ ; and its corruption by the
leaven of false doctrine was thus possibly fore
shadowed even in a Jewish rite and ceremony.
But could the kingdom of heaven be compared
with an evil or corrupt thing ? Not in its prim
itive and original condition certainly. But in its
deteriorated state it might. "Then shall the king
dom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins : . . .
five of them were wise and five were foolish "
(Matt. xxv. 1, 2). Here the kingdom of heaven,
as it will be immediately previous to the coming
of Christ, is compared with what is semi-apostate,
according to the invariable representation of the
mixed condition prevailing at that period. If, as
we believe, the parable of the leaven belongs to
the Middle Ages, when the Church was com
pletely apostate, it is clearly reasonable that the
kingdom should then be compared with leaven,
which is the synonym of corruption. And can

72 ECCE VENIT.

we fail to be struck with the exact correspond
ence between the fourth parable of the seven in
Matthew and the fourth prophecy of the seven
in the Apocalypse ? As in the one a woman is
seen hiding leaven in the meal, so in the other
is pictured "that woman Jezebel teaching and
seducing Christ 's servants to commit fornication,
and to eat things sacrificed to idols " (Rev. ii. 20) ;
that is, the papacy disseminating false doctrine in
the Church, and adulterating its worship with
pagan rites and ceremonies.
Such we believe to be the interpretation of
this much-disputed parable which Scripture com
pels, and we may add also, which history con
firms.1 For if one holds that here is a similitude
of the transformation of the whole world by the
Gospel, he can show no fulfilment in fact ; since,
after nearly twenty centuries, the vastly larger
part of the world is still pagan, unchristian or
antichristian. If the parable signifies the cor
ruption of the whole prophetic earth by the
leaven of paganized Christianity, history gives a
1 Some, who cannot admit that the parable of the leaven
refers to the corruption of the Church, concede that it may bear
this as a secondary meaning. Richter's House Bible says :
" The mixed degeneracy and sinfulness of the no longer apostoli-
cally pure Church which now extends itself is at the same time
meant."

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 73
perfect confirmation of it ; since, just before the
dawn of the Reformation, it was proudly boasted
by the Roman hierarchy that all opposition had
at last been silenced, and the entire Christian
world brought into acquiescence with the Apos
tate Church.
Having uttered these four parables in the pres
ence of the multitude, our Lord makes a signifi
cant break in His discourse and sends them away ;
then, entering into the house, He speaks the re
maining three to His disciples. What do these
last signify ? An eminent commentator, Dr.
Schaff, following a totally different exposition of
the earlier parables from that we have indicated,
when reaching the parable of the hid treasure
remarks on the striking historical likeness which
is presented to it in what occurred at the Refor
mation. We consider that this may be the in
tended prophetic reference. It is God's elect
people who are repeatedly called in Scripture His
" peculiar treasure " (Ex. xix. 5 ; Ps. cxxv. 4, etc.).
In " the field " where the kingdom of heaven has
been so resisted and thwarted by the Adversary
this treasure now lies hid out of sight. " The
kingdom of God is as it were buried beneath the
clods of false Christianity, — of superstition, hu
man ordinances and ceremonies " (Roos). Is not
this the Sardis period of the Church, nominal

74 ECCE VENIT.
Christianity alone visible ? " I know thy works,
that thou hast a name that livest and art dead."
But there is a hidden remnant : l "Afew names
even in Sardis that have not defiled their gar
ments." At what cost of martyr-blood and of the
selling of all — property, friends, and life — was
this hidden treasure recovered, and what bound
less joy resulted ! So likewise of the sixth par
able, that of the pearl. The sixth Church of the
Apocalypse, Philadelphia, which has been held to
be the Church of the Reformation, has this as its
distinctive honor : " Thou hast kept my Word''
By the hand of such as Wiclif, and Luther, and
Tyndal, who heard the command of God, " Buy
the truth and sell it not," the priceless pearl of
the Holy Scriptures, or, forsooth, that pearl of
pearls, the doctrine of justification by faith, —
long hidden from the people under the rubbish of
the apostasy, — was again brought to light and
held forth, at what countless cost of life and
substance, but also amid what exultant rejoicing !
1 "The kingdom of heaven is represented as having once
more become invisible in the visible Church ; as hid like a treas
ure, erst concealed in a most unlikely place, in the midst of
worldly things. It appears as a treasure-trove — a free gift of
grace — discovered by a person in a fortunate hour while he
was engaged in digging : true Christianity, when again dis
covered, a subject of great joy." — Lange on The Parable of the
Hid Treasure.

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 75
The seventh parable is most striking in its fore
casting of the times in which we live : " Again
the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was
cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind " —
t'/c 7ravTos yivov; — "out of every race." Here is the
draw-net of world-wide missions ; and the fact
that our Lord interprets the parable as applying
to the close of the dispensation shows how per
fectly its teaching accords with His own prophecy
that towards the end the Gospel of the kingdom
should be preached among all nations. It will be
seen thus that as the first parable, in which the
Son of man is the sower, touches our Lord's first
advent, so the seventh touches His second ad
vent. And it is certainly natural to conclude —
since seven is in Scripture the number of com
pleteness — that the others span the entire in
terim. The result of this net-casting is, accord
ing to the invariable teaching of Scripture, a
mixed gathering, in which righteous and unright
eous are found together at last, awaiting the sepa
ration of judgment. Is there any likeness here
to the seventh or Laodicean picture of the Church,
" Because thou art lukewarm " ? If we may credit
the quaint suggestion of an expositor that " luke-
warmness is the result of the mingling of ex
tremes of cold and heat in the same vessel,"
there is. At all events, this picture agrees with

76 ECCE VENIT.

the combined teaching of the Scriptures concern
ing the close of the dispensation. It will be an
age of mingled zeal and formalism ; evangelical
fervor carrying the servants of Christ to the ends
of the earth proclaiming the everlasting Gospel,
and abounding iniquity causing the love of many
to wax cold. The last period, however, does not
seem to be the period of the widest and com-
pletest apostasy of the Church, as some would
teach. That era is the middle era, when the
whole lump was leavened ; subsequently to this,
there is a partial and glorious recovery. This is
for our joy, amid all in the outlook which is for
our admonition. The sailors on the Southern
Sea sing, "Midnight is past, the cross begins to
bend." And we, as voyagers through these trou
bled ages, in which are the sea and the waves
roaring, and men's hearts failing them for fear,
may sing, "Midnight is past." Let not those
who are looking for the millennium instead of
Christ paint a future for the Church of untinged
brightness; let not those who are looking for
Antichrist instead of Christ picture a future for
the Church of unmitigated blackness : for neither
representation is true to prophecy. "Watchman,
what of the night ? The Watchman said, " The
morning cometh and also the night."
Trace through whatever line we will, we find

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 77
the same condition at the end of the dispensation.
If from the seed-time of the world we look on to
the reaping-time, we find the wheat and the tares,
the children of the kingdom and the children of
the Wicked One, growing together until the har
vest ; then separated each for his destiny : " So
shall it be at the end of the age " (Matt. xiii. 40).
If we watch with joy the ingatherings of the
Gospel net as it sweeps through the nations, we
find that, when it is full and drawn to the shore,
the good are gathered into vessels, but the bad
are cast away: "So shall it be at the end of the
age " (Matt. xiii. 49).
If we listen to our Lord's great eschatological
discourse, we hear prediction after prediction of
wars, and famines, and pestilences, persecutions,
and apostasies, and false christs, together with a
world-wide preaching of the Gospel for a witness ;
but instead of any gleam of millennial glory in
the solemn prophecy, we find it culminating in
such a time "as it was in the days of Noah."
And all this is our Saviour's answer to the ques
tion, " What shall be the sign of Thy coming and
of the end of the age ? " (Matt. xxiv. 3.)
If we question the Scriptures concerning the
characteristics of the last time as set forth by the
apostles, we are told that these shall be "perilous
times" (2 Tim. iii. 1), — times in which "some

78 ECCE VENIT.

shall depart from the faith, giving heed to sedu
cing spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies
in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with
a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding
to abstain from meats " (i Tim. iv. 1-3) ; that
whereas in primitive days Christians lived in
sober expectation of the Lord's return, " there
shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after
their own lusts, and saying, Where is the sign
of His coming ? " (2 Pet. iii. 3, 4.)
If we inquire concerning the dispensation as
a whole, we learn that the purpose of our Re
deemer's work was, not that He might transform
this into a present golden age, but "that He
might deliver us from this present evil age" (Gal.
i. 4) ; not that He might conform this age to us,
but that we should " be not conformed to this age "
(Rom. xii. 2). Such statements suggestively in
dicate that it is not the divine purpose to millen-
nialize the present dispensation, but rather to call
out from it a holy Church, a separated people.
For what, moreover, are the age-long character
istics as revealed in Scripture ? Paul, in teaching
the Thessalonians concerning the second coming
of Christ, admonishes them that, before that day
could arrive, there must first come a falling away
and a revelation of the man of sin. And he tells
them that this apostasy had even then begun, —

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 79
" the mystery of iniquity doth already work," —
and that out of it "that Wicked" would be re
vealed, " whom the Lord shall consume with the
spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of His coming." Here is a demon
stration from Scripture that the predicted apos
tasy would stretch across the entire age from the
days of Christ's immediate apostles to the day of
His second advent, when in its consummated
development it would confront the descending
Judge and meet its doom. Is it, then, a ripe mil
lennium that welcomes the returning Lord at His
epiphany, or a ripe apostasy ? Let him that read-
eth understand.
Again, since God's ancient people Israel are
everywhere represented in Scripture as having
a blessed share in the triumphs and joys of the
millennial glory, let us ask what their condition
is to be in this dispensation. In our Lord's great
prophecy concerning His second coming and the
end of the age, He answers this question con
clusively. He describes in graphic outlines the
destruction of Jerusalem, with the events preced
ing and portending it. After using language that
can only apply to that appalling event, — " Pray
ye that your flight be not in the winter," — He
adds, " For there shall be great tribulation, such as
was not since the beginning of the world to this

80 ECCE VENIT.

time, — no, nor ever shall be " (Matt. xxiv. 20, 21).
How long shall this tribulation continue ? Until
Christ's second coming. For our Lord declares
that " immediately after the tribulation of those
days " the signs of the advent shall be witnessed,
when " they shall see the Son of man coming in
the clouds of heaven with power and great glory "
(xxiv. 30). So closely are these two events con
nected in the prediction that some have argued
that Christ's advent must have actually occurred
at the destruction of Jerusalem, in a spiritual or
providential sense. But a careful examination of
the language employed proves beyond question
that it is a literal coming that is here described,
and that a literal immediateness after the great
tribulation is affirmed by the word el6ca><s, " imme
diately." If we turn to Luke's Gospel, however,
and read his parallel report of our Lord's words,
all becomes plain (Luke xxi. 23-27). For he
makes the tribulation to include the dispersion
of the Jews among all nations, and the treading
down of their Holy City by the Gentiles, "until
the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." In other
words, the great tribulation covers the entire age
from Zion's captivity to Messiah's coming. To
say that the millennium is to precede Christ's
advent, therefore, is to affirm the possibility of
putting that era of unparalleled blessing into the

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 81
same period which is occupied by this unequalled
tribulation ; in other words, it is to identify and
synchronize the golden age of Israel's triumph
with the gloomy age of Israel's trouble. This
cannot be. For we see in prophecy that the
great apostasy and the great tribulation so far pre
empt the present dispensation, that the Church's
millennium and Israel's millennium are alike
crowded out, and there is found no place for them,
till the Lord descends in glory to destroy Anti
christ and restore Israel

PART II.
FORFEITED

" Our looking at Christ's coming as at a distance is the cause of
all those irregularities which render the thought of it terrible to
us?' — Matthew Henry.
" Chiliasm disappeared in proportion as Roman Papal Catholi
cism advanced. The Papacy took to itself, as a robber, that glory
which is an object of hope, and can only be reached by the obedience
and humility of the cross. When the Church became a harlot she
ceased to be a Bride who goes forth to meet her Bridegroom, and
thus Chiliasm disappeared." — Auberlen.
" In plucking up the faith of Christ's coming Satan aims directly
at the throat of the Church. For to what end did Christ die and
rise again, but that along with Himself he might some day redeem
us from death, and gather us into eternal life I"— Calvin.

HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP.
A man's dwelling in one country, and holding
citizenship in another and far remote country, is
not an unknown circumstance. In such a case,
we may have the singular anomaly of one being
most a stranger in the land in which he is present,
and most at home in the land from which he is
absent. Our blessed Lord was the first perfectly
to realize this idea respecting the heavenly coun
try. For He speaks of Himself as " He that
came down from heaven, even the Son of man
who is in heaven." So truly a citizen of the
other world was He that even while walking with
men and talking with men He regarded Himself
as there, not here. And this saying of His occurs
in that discourse where, with an emphatic "verily,
verily," He declares that " except a man be born
from above he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Here is the key to the whole mystery. As
the only begotten of the Father, Christ's native
country was above ; and during all the days of
His flesh He neither relinquished His heavenly
citizenship nor acquired an earthly residence.

86 ECCE VENIT.

"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel : for He hath
visited and redeemed His people," is a significant
note in the prophecy of His birth. And four
times in the Gospels is our Lord's advent to earth
spoken of as a visit. But it was a visit which
never for a moment looked toward a permanent
abiding. At His birth He was laid in a borrowed
manger, because there was no room for Him in
the inn ; at His burial He was laid in a borrowed
tomb, because He owned no foot of earth ; and
between the cradle and the grave was a sojourn
in which " the Son of man had not where to lay
His head." The mountain top whither He con
stantly withdrew to commune with His Father
was the nearest to His home. And hence there
is a strange, pathetic meaning in that saying,
" And every man went unto his own house ; Jesus
went unto the Mount of Olives."
Now, as it was with the Lord, so it is to be
with His disciples. "For our citizenship is in
heaven," says the apostle. Herein is the saying
of Lady Powerscourt true : " The Christian is
not one who looks up from earth to heaven, but
one who looks down from heaven to earth." A
celestial nativity implies a celestial residence;
and with a certain divine condescension may the
Christian contemplate the sordid, self-seeking
children of this present evil age and say, with

HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 87
his Lord : " Ye are from beneath ; I am from
above : ye are of this world ; I am not of this
world." Let us be admonished, however, that
to say this truly and to live it really may subject
us to the experience indicated by the apostle :
"Therefore the world knoweth us not because
it knew Him not." There is a certain quaint
beauty in the apology which an old reformer
made for the hard treatment which he and his
friends received from the men of this world.
"Why, brethren," he would say, "they do not
understand court manners or the etiquette of
heaven, never having been in that country from
whence we come ; therefore it is that our ways
seem strange to them." Would that in the
Christians of to-day celestial traits were so con
spicuous as to occasion like remark ! Perhaps it
is because there are so few high saints in the
Church that there are so many low sinners out
side the Church, since the ungodly can never be
powerfully lifted up except by a Church that
reaches down from an exalted spiritual plane.
What means that lofty address of the apostle,
" Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the \
heavenly calling" ? (Heb. iii. 1.) The reference
is not merely to our final destiny as those who
are to be called up to heaven, but to our pres
ent service as those who have come down from

88 ECCE VENIT.

heaven; sons of God rejoicing in a celestial
birth, bringing the air and manners of glory
into a world that knows not God. As such we
are exhorted to " consider the Apostle and High
Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus ; " an apos
tle being one who comes forth from God, and an
high priest one who goes in unto God. And
Christ Jesus not only fulfils both these offices
in Himself, as he says, " I came forth from the
Father and am come into the world ; again I
leave the world and go to the Father," but He
makes us partakers with Him of the same hea
venly calling, sending us into the world, as the
Father hath sent Him, and permitting us "to
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,"
as He has entered in by His own blood.
Confessing that our citizenship is in heaven, it
should be easily determined what our conduct
and bearing towards the world must be. One
is expected to pay taxes and make investments
where he holds residence. Therefore all calls to
bountiful giving and all demands for rigid self-
denial are to be esteemed as reasonable assess
ments, not as gratuities. Christianity is no para
dox, in which believers are required to do pecu
liar things for the sake of being peculiar, and to
exhibit startling contradictions for the sake of
arousing the contradiction of sinners against

HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 89
themselves. When we are called to lay up trea
sures in heaven, it is because that is our country ;
when we are enjoined not to love the world, nei
ther the things that are in the world, it is be
cause this is not our country. Two practical er
rors spring from an earthly theology, viz., that
the world is the Christian's home, and the grave
the Christian's hope. On the contrary, one pos
sessed of a clear advent faith would choose for
himself such an epitaph as that which Dean Al-
ford composed for his tomb : " The inn of a trav
eller on his way to Jerusalem." Ah, yes, that is
it ! A pilgrim's portion, food and raiment and
contentment therewith ; the mansion which for
tune has provided, or the cabin which penury
has reared, each alike counted a hospice where
one lodges as "a pilgrim and stranger in the
earth ; " and the grave a narrow inn whose win
dows look towards the sunrising, where the so
journer sleeps till break of day, — this, without
question, is the ideal of the Christian life as out
lined in the Gospel.
An impracticable ideal, it will be said. But it
was not so in the beginning. To say nothing
of apostolic Christianity, let us ask what it was
that gave the Christianity of the first two centu
ries such extraordinary vigor in its conflict with
heathenism. An eminent writer, Gerhard Uhl-

9° ECCE VENIT.

horn, has shown with a graphic hand that it was
just this quality of absolute unworidliness which
constituted the secret of its power.1 The men
who conquered the Roman Empire for Christ
bore the aspect of invaders from another world,
who absolutely refused to be naturalized to this
world. Their conduct filled their heathen neigh
bors with the strangest perplexity : they were so
careless of life, so careful of conscience, so prodi
gal of their own blood, so confident of the over
coming power of the blood of the Lamb, so un
subdued to the customs of the country in which
they sojourned, so mindful of the manners of
"that country from whence they came out."
The help of the world, the patronage of its rul
ers, the loan of its resources, the use of its meth
ods, they utterly refused, lest by employing these
they might compromise their King. An invad
ing army maintained from an invisible base, and
placing more confidence in the leadership of an
unseen Commander than in all imperial help that
might be proffered, — this was what so bewil
dered and angered the heathen, who often de
sired to make friends with the Christians with
out abandoning their own gods. But there can
be no reasonable doubt that that age in which
the Church was most completely separated from
1 Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism.

HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 91
the world was the age in which Christianity was
most victorious in the world.1
It was also the era of undimmed hope of the
Lord's imminent return from glory, so that it
illustrated and enforced both clauses of the great
text : " For our citizenship is in heaven, from
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord
Jesus" (Phil. iii. 20).
Our Lord set forth His departure from the
world under the parable of " a certain nobleman
who went into a far country to receive for him
self a kingdom, and to return" (Luke xix. 12).
As a Roman, living in Judea, on appointment to
the governorship of that province, would go to
Rome to be invested with office, and then return
to rule, so Christ has gone to heaven to be in
vested with the kingship of the world, and now
He and His watchful servants are eagerly wait
ing for the same thing; He sitting at God's
1 These few sentences from a writer of the second century
give a graphic portrait of the Christians of that period : " They
inhabit their own country, but as strangers ; they bear their part
in all things as citizens, and endure all things as aliens. Every
foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland a
foreign country. . . . They live in the flesh, but walk not after
the flesh. . . . They dwell on earth, but are citizens of heaven.
They are poor, and make many rich ; they are in want of all
things, and they have all things in abundance ; they are dis
honored, and in dishonor glorified." — Epistle to Diognetus V.

92 ECCE VENIT.

right hand " expecting till His enemies be made
His footstool," and they expecting till He shall
return to reign over the earth. Of the kingdom,
the King and His kinsmen, the same avowal of
unearthly origin is made by Christ : " My king
dom is not of this world; " "They are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world." The
kingdom is the "kingdom of God," the "king
dom of heaven ; " its constituency are those who
are "begotten of God," and "born from above."
True, this kingdom is now in the world in its
rudiments and principles, in its citizens and rep
resentatives : those who, like their Lord, have
been sent hither to accomplish the work of gath
ering out a people for His name. But, lest we
fall into fatal error, let us not imagine that we
are now reigning with Christ on the earth, or
that the kingdom of God has been set up in the
world. The Church's earthly career during the
present age is the exact fac-simile of her Lord's,
— a career of exile rather than of exaltation; of
rejection rather than of rule; of cross-bearing
rather than of sceptre - bearing. Grasping at
earthly sovereignty for the Church while the
Sovereign himself is still absent has proved, as
we shall show hereafter, the most fruitful root
of apostasy. It may be said that this picture
of the Church, as despised and rejected in the

HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 93
world, suffering, outcast, and in exile, does not
correspond to the facts. Not to the facts of our
own generation, we admit, wherein the world is
on such excellent terms with Christians. But
that it represents the character of the dispensa
tion as a whole cannot be questioned, when we
recall the dark ages and martyr ages of the Chris
tian era; the prisons, and racks, and dungeons,
and stakes, which stretch on through so large a
portion of this age. And the pictures of proph
ecy are composite pictures, gathering up the main
features of the entire dispensation and presenting
them in one. Viewed thus, prediction and his
tory perfectly accord.
"The kingdom is now here in mystery, and
to be here hereafter in manifestation," one has
tersely put it. And to this the predicted destiny
of believers corresponds. " Your life is hid with
Christ in God ; when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him
in glory " (Col. iii. 4). " Sons of God, therefore
the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him
not" (1 John iii. 1). "The earnest expectation
of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of
the sons of God" (Rom. viii. 19). "If we suffer,
we shall reign with Him " (2 Tim. ii. 12). Ob
scurity, rejection, exile, and trial in the world
now; manifestation, vindication, enthronement,

94 ECCE VENIT.

when the King comes, — this is the foretold call
ing of the children of the kingdom. The un
precedented exemption of the Church from per
secution, and the extraordinary triumphs of the
Gospel which have characterized this nineteenth
century, may tend to seduce us into the notion
that the kingdom has already come, though the
nobleman who had gone into a far country has
not yet returned. That we may think truly on
this subject, let us hear our Lord's voice, say
ing : " Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's
good pleasure 'to give you the kingdom " (Luke xii.
32). In spite of widespread conquests of the
Gospel the Church is still " a little flock," amid
the vast populations of Pagans, Mohammedans,
Infidels, and Apostates. This flock in every age
has been branded with opprobrium, and torn by
persecution, and beaten by hireling shepherds,
and the end is not yet ; for, as good Samuel
Rutherford says, "So long as any portion of
Christ's mystical body is out of heaven, Satan
will strike at it." However favored in our times,
this flock is not the kingdom ; but it has the
promise of the kingdom, in which rejection shall
give place to rule, and crucifixion to coronation.
When ? " And when the Chief Shepherd shall
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that
fadeth not away " (1 Pet. v. 4). Whatever tem-

HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 95
porary respite from persecution we may enjoy, so
that for the time it may be said as of old, " then
had the Churches rest," no permanent peace is
guaranteed until the Lord's return. "And to
you who are troubled, rest with us when the
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven"
(2 Thess. i. 7).

II.
THE FALL OF THE CHURCH.
When the Church under Constantine became
enthroned in the world, she began to be de
throned from her seat " in the heavenly places in
Christ Jesus." For then did she forget her high
calling, and become enamored of earthly rule and
dominion. This, let us not forget, was the fatal
temptation through which the Church lost her
primitive purity, and brought upon herself all
manner of dishonor and apostasy. What a ten
der prophetic warning of such temptation is con
tained in that saying of Paul to the Corinthian
Christians : " I have espoused you to one hus
band that I may present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ. But I fear lest by any means, as the ser
pent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your
minds should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ " (2 Cor. xi. 2). In the world,
but not of it, the Church, the Bride of Christ,
was to await the return of her Betrothed Hus
band from heaven, that, arrayed in fine linen,
clean and white, which is the righteousness of
saints, she might be presented to Him " a glo-

THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 97

rious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing." If, during the time of her espousal,
Satan could only alienate her affections by get
ting her enamored with the kings of the earth,
so that she should accept their dowries instead of
her heavenly inheritance, and put on their royal
purple instead of her virgin white, his triumph
would be assured. And this is literally what he
did. Observe how the temptation was presented
first to the Lord Himself by Satan, to seduce
Him from His love for the Church, that He
should not redeem her with His own blood.
"All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of
them," was the alluring prize which the Tempter
set before our Bridegroom. "All these things
will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and wor
ship me " (Matt. iv. 9), was the alluring promise
held out to Him. Have we understood the deep
reality and significance of this temptation in the
wilderness ?
Precisely what Satan, "the Prince of this
world," proffered — all the kingdoms of the
earth — had long ago been pledged to Christ by
the Father. But before this inheritance could
be realized, He must be despised and rejected of
men, crucified and buried, and then raised up to
wait an unknown time upon His Father's throne

98 ECCE VENIT.

"till His enemies be made His footstool." The
Tempter would say, " Why not take the kingdoms
of the world at once, foregoing the humiliation
and the cross and the long rejection by the
world?" But the Saviour's resistance of the
temptation was prompt and final : " Get thee be
hind Me, Satan." And when, afterwards, Simon
Peter, preoccupied no doubt with the idea of an
immediate temporal kingdom for his Lord, re
pelled Christ's announcement of His approach
ing crucifixion, saying, "Far be it from Thee,
Lord ; this shall not be unto thee," Jesus recog
nized it as the old wilderness temptation reap
pearing, and met it with the same rebuke : " Get
thee behind Me, Satan " (Matt. xvi. 23). Thus the
Son of God, true to His Father's commission and
to His plighted affection for His Bride, whom
He must purchase with His own blood, stood
firm against this great temptation, accepting a
present cross and rejection, instead of a present
crown and dominion ; choosing to be cast out by
a world that knew Him not, until after "the
times or seasons which the Father hath put in
His own power" should be fulfilled, and the
announcement be made, " The kingdoms of this
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and
of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and
ever."

THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 99
The second Adam had thus steadfastly resisted
the solicitations of the old serpent. Would the
second Eve, His Bride, do likewise ? For more
than two hundred years the Church did remain
true to her heavenly citizenship, counting herself
a stranger in the earth and looking for her Lord
from Heaven. Her uplifted gaze and unworldly
attitude were such conspicuous features of the
early Church that even unbelieving historians
like Gibbon have noted them, and dwelt upon
them with a kind of suppressed admiration, that
author conceding that, while the hope of Christ's
imminent return remained universal, " it was pro
ductive of the most salutary effects on the faith
and practice of Christians, who lived in the awful
expectation of that moment when the globe itself
and all the various races of mankind should trem
ble at the appearance of their divine Judge."
The bloody persecutions which reigned from
Nero to Diocletian only confirmed this hope, —
earthly disenfranchisement making heavenly citi
zenship more real and dear.
But now the perilous trial of peace was to be
encountered. Will the Church endure the test
I of imperial patronage as she has borne the test
of imperial persecution ? O Bride of Immanuel,
made "dead to the law by the body of Christ
that ye should be married to another, even to Him

ECCE VENIT.

who was raised from the dead" (Rom. vii. 4),
alas for the day when thou didst receive the kings
of the earth for thy lovers, and, forgetful of thy
Lord's promise, " I appoint unto you a kingdom
as My Father hath appointed unto Me," didst
accept a throne from the princes of this world !
Earth's sovereignty had long since been pledged
to the Church as well as to Christ : " And the
kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the
kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given
to the people of the saints of the Most High "
(Dan. vii. 27). But the time for its acquisition
was definitely fixed at the coming of the Son of
man in the clouds of heaven. For the Church to
accept it in the present age was to fall before the
very temptation where her Lord had stood firm.
If we look upon that famous assembly, the
Council of Nicea, a. d. 325, what a clear dividing
line does it present between the old and the new,
between the Church heavenly that had been, and
the Church earthly that was to be ! Here on the
one hand were the true successors of the apos
tles, bearing in their bodies the marks of the
Lord Jesus ; their maimed limbs, and sightless
eyes, and marred visages telling most expres
sively how, up to this time, the servants of Jesus
had been " filling up that which is behind of the
afflictions of Christ in the flesh for His body's
sake, which is the Church."

THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 101

But here, on the other hand, in strange con
trast with these, was that central figure, arrayed
in rich robes and seated on a golden chair in the
midst of the assembly, — Constantine, the head
of the Church. " What gain to our cause," whis
pered ambitious bishops, "that now we have a
Christian emperor who will throw over us the
shield of his protection and defend the orthodox
faith with the sword ! " "Alas, what loss ! " might
have sighed the angels, as they witnessed the
nuptials of the Bride of Christ with the kings of
the earth. But did not Constantine have a su
pernatural seal set upon his imperial patronage
of the Church in that vision of the flaming cross
displayed in the heavens with its motto, in this
sign conquer? Considering the real character
of the emperor, as afterwards unfolded, a faith
which should credit the alleged vision as from
God would be far more difficult than a credulity
which should ascribe it to the arch-tempter. For
what was that cross by which the Church was
henceforth to seek her conquests ? An eminent
historian has described the startling impression
made upon his mind by the sight of a crucifix
which was shown him in Italy, — a crucifix ex
quisitely carved, and studded with the rarest
jewels, but which at the touch of a secret spring
flew open, and proved itself to be a case for hold
ing a keen-edged and glittering Roman dagger.

102 ECCE VENIT.

There is a cross in which an apostle was wont
to glory as that whereby the world was cruci
fied unto him, and he unto -the world ; there is
a cross concerning which our Lord spake, say
ing : " If any man will come after Me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross and follow
Me." But how utterly remote from these that
cross which began to sway the Church from the
age of Constantine, — that cross which carried
the dagger of persecution in the crucifix of super
stition, thus supplanting "the sword of the
Spirit" by "the sword of the magistrate," in
order to further the gospel of peace !
This fall from heavenly to earthly citizenship
was accompanied, moreover, by a gradual ex
change of spiritual worship for carnal supersti
tions. Worse than carnal, indeed ! Satan, who
had tempted the Church into accepting earthly
dominion from his hands, now seduced her into
mixing his own ritual with her simple, primitive
services. For we must not forget that, accord
ing to the explicit teaching of Scripture, pagan
ism is really demonism. " The things which the
Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and
not to God" (i Cor. x. 20), says the apostle.
Whether the deluded votaries of Jupiter and
Mars knew it or not, it was really true that de
mons were the instigators and recipients of their

THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 103
worship. Idolatry is always and everywhere the
religion of Satan, ordained for stealing from God
the homage of human hearts and turning it to
himself. And so, little by little, the elements of
paganism began to mingle with the worship of
Christ, — holy water, candles, the wafer, images,
processions, the adoration of saints and relics,
the idolatry of the cross, and much more, — of
all which we may assert confidently what Car
dinal Newman concedes concerning the first, that
they were originally "the very instruments and
appendages of demon-worship." 1
But though the Church has thus been cor
rupted, out of it a faithful number has been pre
served to constitute the hidden Bride of Christ.
Observe how graphically this is shown in the seal
ing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand
in the seventh chapter of Revelation, — a passage
not hard to understand if we bear in mind, as
always in studying the Apocalypse, that Scrip
ture explains Scripture, and that history repeats
history. In the eighth chapter of Ezekiel we find God <
denouncing the heathen abominations which have
been mixed with the worship of His sanctuary,
— "the image of jealousy," the "weeping for
Tammuz," and the eastward posture in which
1 Development, pp. 359, 360.

104 ECCE VENIT.

men "worshipped the sun towards the East."
On account of these pollutions the Lord com
mands fearful judgments upon His people. But,
before these judgments commence, He bids His
messengers : " Go through the midst of the city,
through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark
upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry
for all the abominations that be done in the midst
thereof." As the destroyers go forth the injunc
tion is : "But come not near any man upon whom
is the mark." Here is a sealed and spared rem
nant in the midst of the prevailing Jewish apos
tasy. Turn now to the corresponding story in
the Apocalypse (Rev. vii.). The prophetic drama
opens with the Church in her primitive exalta
tion, seated with Christ in heavenly places ; then
the seals are unloosed, unfolding the successive
chapters of Christian history, — conquest, conflict,
famine, and pestilence ; the " Come ! " " Come ! "
" Come ! " " Come ! " is heard breaking in before
each opening era, answering in majestic anti-
phon the Lord's " Behold, I come quickly," and
showing the Church still true to her ancient
hope ; the martyrs, " slain for the word of God
and the testimony which they held," invoke their
Redeemer, " How long, O Lord ? " Then comes
the crash of falling paganism, with the affrighted
cry of the heathen before "the wrath of the

THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 105
Lamb," and Christianity, that was so long upon
the scaffold and at the stake, is now upon the
throne of the Caesars.
But, alas, as we have seen, the Church, that
has been " more than conqueror " through defeat,
is now more than vanquished- through victory !
For, having overthrown paganism, she became
herself gradually paganized, and her worship cor
rupted with mixtures of heathen religion which
the Scriptures call the worship of demons, — the
employment of images and pictures, which of old
provoked the Lord to jealousy; the turning to
wards the east, after the manner of the Babylo
nish sun-worshippers ; the signing with the cross,1
which was long connected with the sensual wor
ship of Tammuz. In fine, the identical abomina
tions which God had denounced in the Jewish
sanctuary were now found in the Christian
Church. And once more avenging scourges are
let loose on Christendom — Saracen and Turkish
invasions — to punish its inhabitants, " that they
should not worship demons, and idols of gold, and
silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood" (Rev.
ix. 20).
1 Julian, the emperor (361 A. D.), taunts the Christians with
their idolatry, saying, " Ye worship the wood of the cross, mak
ing shadowy figures of it in the forehead, and painting it at the
entrance of your houses." — See Note B.

106 ECCE VENIT.

But before judgment begins, God's sealing and
separation again take place : " And I saw another
angel ascending from the east, having the seal of
the living God, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither
the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed 'the ser
vants of God in their foreheads." 1 The sealed
company whose description follows is an elect
company out of the tribes of spiritual Israel ; a
small company compared with the great mass of
nominal Christians; a perfect company," one hun
dred and forty-four thousand." It is the four
square multitude, identical with the four-square
city, which appears in the twentieth chapter,
coming down from God out of Heaven, and which
is explained to be " the Bride, the Lamb's wife."
It is a company " sealed with the Holy Spirit of
promise," in contrast with the vast throngs of
unconverted heathen who have been sealed with
the sign of the cross ; and as chosen and faithful,
1 Rev. vii. 2, 3. In the Apocalypse, where Jewish people,
Jewish temple, and Jewish rites stand for corresponding Chris
tian facts, we have no doubt that this sealed company represents
spiritual Israel, — real Christians out of the great multitude of
nominal Christians. Dean Alford's challenge, to those who
hold that literal Israel is here meant, is decisive. He asks
whether " the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from
God " (Rev. xxi. 10), must be taken to be the residence of literal
Jews, because it bears the names of " the twelve tribes of the
children of Israel." Few would admit this inference, we believe.

THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 107
it exhibits the twofold signature of the seal of
God, — " The Lord knoweth them that are His"
and " Let every one that nameth the name of Christ
depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. ii. 19). This true
and unseduced Bride of Christ we meet through
out the Apocalypse, as we do throughout the
whole course of Christian history. Whether as
Waldensian, or Huguenot, or Lollard, she is ever
hated by the apostate Church. But she preserves
her virginity unstained, keeps herself undefiled
from the harlot Church and her daughters, and
when all Christendom has become earthly she
maintains her heavenly citizenship ; now hidden
out of sight, and now seen standing with the
Lamb upon Mount Ziqn. So that to the end, as
in the beginning, we greet her with the divine
salutation, " But ye are come unto Mount Zion,
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem." We shall meet her again in her final presenta
tion to the Bridegroom ; but for the present we
must further trace the fortunes of her fallen
sister.

III.
THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST.
Out of the apostasy comes the Antichrist. To
look for him without the Church in latter-day
Judaism, or against the Church in latter-day infi
delity, is equally to miss the clear marks of iden
tification which have been set for our warning
in "the sure word of prophecy."
Exhorting the Thessalonian Christians " by
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our
gathering together unto Him," the Apostle ad
monishes them not to be deceived : " For it will
not be, except the falling away come first, and the
man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that
opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is
called God or that is worshipped ; so that he sitteth
in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God"
(2 Thess. ii. 3, r. v.). Here is the great Pauline
prediction of Antichrist ; and how rigidly does its
language bind us to the conception of a dreadful
enemy of God, springing up within the Christian
Church! "Except the apostasy come first" the
words read exactly. It can be "no political or
politico-religious falling away " that is here indi-

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 109
cated, as Ellicott truly says ; but, according to the
scriptural use of the term, "that religious and
spiritual apostasy, that falling away from faith in
Christ, of which the revelation of Antichrist shall
be the concluding and most appalling phenom
enon." And looking backward over the history
of the Church for eighteen hundred years, we ask
how the prediction could be more literally fulfilled
than in the astonishing eclipse of pagan and idol
atrous superstition under whose shadow two
thirds of nominal Christendom now rests. So we
may premise that we shall find the answer to this
mysterious prophecy in the line of popes having
their seat of authority in Rome, and extending
their rule through more than twelve centuries of
the Christian era.
In examining this prediction we begin with
that expression which is most central and sug
gestive : " He sitteth in the temple of God, setting
himself forth as God." The interpretation which
applies these words to the material temple rebuilt
in Jerusalem is lacking both in accuracy and sig
nificance, — in accuracy, since there is no un
disputed instance in the New Testament where
the phrase, 6 vaos tov 6eov, the temple of God, is
applied to the Jewish temple ; and in significance,
since it would be a matter of indifferent interest
to Gentile Christians that some distant pretender

ECCE VENIT.

was to arise who should win the acceptance and
homage of the Jews.1 Scripture interprets Scrip
ture ; and when we hear false witnesses accusing
Christ of saying, " I am able to destroy the tem
ple of God and to build it in three days," we have
only to turn to another text to find that in what
he said, "He spake of the temple of His body"
(John ii. 21). So when a Judaizing interpretation
would lead us, from this phrase of the Apostle, to
imagine a future temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, en
throning an infidel Antichrist, we have only to
collate the passages in which the expression oc-
1 For the significance of this phrase, o va6s rod Beov, see the
following texts, the only ones where it occurs: i Cor. iii. 16;
i Cor. iii. 17; 1 Cor. iii. 17; 11 Cor. vi. 16; 11 Cor. vi. 16;
Rev. iii. 12; Rev. xi. 1-19. Of the word va6s alone, we beg it
to be noticed that after the institution of the Christian Church
it is never once applied to the temple in Jerusalem. Twenty-five
times in the Acts the Jewish temple is spoken of, but the word
Up6v is used in every instance, never va6s. Neither is the latter
word once employed in any epistle to designate the Hebrew
temple. How could God call that His temple (va6s) when He
had ceased to dwell therein (via), — " Behold, your house is left
unto you desolate " ? How surely must the word apply to the
Christian Church after that God by the Holy Ghost had taken
up His abode in itl — "An holy temple (va6s) in the Lord, in
whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through
the Spirit?' We believe that a candid exegesis of this phrase —
6va6s toS 8co5 — fixes the seat of the man of sin within the sphere
of the Christian Church, as certainly as the designation of the
seven hills fixes the seat of the woman of sin in the city of Rome.

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. Ill
curs to find how invariably it stands for Christ's
mystical body, the Church, considered as a whole
or in its members : " Know ye not that ye are the
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you?" (i Cor. iii. 16.)
Here is wisdom ; for why is the Church called
the temple of God ? Because indwelt by the
Spirit, presided in by the Holy Ghost. When
this temple — the redeemed Church of Christ —
was dedicated on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit
descended in the semblance of tongues of fire,
and it " sat — lKa.6i.o-ev — upon each one of them"
Henceforth the body of believers, sanctified and
sealed, is the true Cathedra, where the Spirit
sits ; the real " Holy See," or seat of the Holy
One. Sanctity or sacrilege, therefore, is indi
cated by this word " sit," according as it is ap
plied to God presiding in His own house, or to
man thrusting himself into God's place. Observe
how reverently the apostle Peter recognkes the
Spirit's presence and primacy in the Church so
soon as He is come. Rebuking the sin of Ana
nias, he says : " Why hath Satan filled thy heart
to lie to the Holy Ghost ? " "Thou hast not lied
unto men, but unto God" (Acts v. 3). No thought
of His own primacy here ! Mark with wonder,
also, the holy deference which the ascended Lord
Himself yields to the Spirit, now that, as the

112 ECCE VENIT.

promised Paraclete, He has taken His place in
the Church. Seven times in his post-ascension
gospel — the epistles to the seven churches —
we hear Him say : " He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches ; " as
though to teach us that, while the Spirit is in
office as President and Teacher, even the glori
fied Christ will not intrude into His seat ; but
will commend us to His guidance, even as while
He was on earth the Father commended His
disciples to Him, saying, "This is My beloved
Son, hear ye Him."
We are prepared thus to comprehend the pre
sumption and blasphemy which it would imply
for a man to sit in the Spirit's seat in the Temple
of God. And we know that one of the most con
spicuous traits of the early apostasy was clerisy,
the thrusting of man into the place of rule and
authority which belong to the Spirit ; that this
tendency constantly strengthened till the bish
ops, instead of humbly heeding the apostolic in
junction to feed the flock over which the Holy
Ghost had made them overseers, began to lord
it over that flock, rearing a primacy out of the
pastorate, and a papacy out of the primacy, till
the evil culminated in the sovereign pontiff usurp
ing the place of the Holy Ghost. For since the
Holy Ghost is Christ's true and only Vicar on

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 113
earth, — "another Paraclete" sent to take the
place of the ascended Lord, — what is he who
should claim to be the Vicar of Christ but a
usurper of the Spirit's seat in the temple of God ?
All the dark outlines of Paul's prophetic pic
ture of the Antichrist harmonize with this inter
pretation. He is called " The man of sin" as
though to mark his utter contrast to the true pas
tor, whom the Scriptures name " The man of
God" But could the long succession of popes be
designated by this individual name, "The man ?"
Yes ; the elect Church, extending through all
ages, is called in Scripture "one new man " (Eph.
ii. 15). The true line of spiritual ministers is
evidently intended by "the man of God thor
oughly furnished," named in the Epistle to Tim
othy. So with other terms in which the singular
is used for the plural : the succession of the
Jewish priesthood is certainly meant in the state
ment in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " Into the
second went the high priest alone once every
year." Indeed, if it be urged that the name Anti
christ — 6 dvTtxpto-Tos — must mean an individual
man, we find that this is not necessary, since the
whole body of believers throughout the dispensa
tion is called by its counterpart "The Christ,"
6 Xpio-ros (1 Cor. xii. 12). Thus Scripture, as well
as the common usage, in which we speak of the

H4 ECCE VENIT.

royal or of the ecclesiastical succession as " the
king," or " the bishop," justify us in interpreting
" the man of sin " to mean the line of pontiffs.
As to the character indicated by the words, must
we not admit its fulfilment to the uttermost in
the pontificate? Whatever virtue or mildness
may have appeared in single instances, we are to
remember that the pictures of prophecy are com
posite photographs, giving the main features com
bined as revealed throughout the age. Who can
deny that many of the popes have been mon
sters of iniquity, or that the great majority have
stained their hands with the blood of saints ? If
so, does not this language sufficiently express
their blended likeness ?
Yet deeper and more dreadful grow the shad
ows with which inspiration paints the portrait :
"The man of sin, the son of perdition." Only one
has borne this latter name, Judas Iscariot, who
with a kiss betrayed his Lord, and, with a " Hail,
Master ! " on his lips, delivered Him to His ene
mies. And who was Judas, that his significant
name should be thrown forward upon the coming
Antichrist ? He was an apostate bishop, — " His
bishopric let another take " (Acts i. 20). He was
a thief who had the bag, and who, in order to en
rich himself, sold his Lord for thirty pieces of
silver. Oh appalling counter-reality which we

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 115
see emerging from the shadows of history ! the
pontifical bag-bearer, rich with untold treasures
purloined from his poor flock, delivering up the
Body of Christ evermore to death, as the first
betrayer did the Head, till the enthroned Re
deemer must have groaned again and again, as of
old : " Why persecutest thou Me ? " Revolting
as it is to our. Christian charity to dwell upon
these things, we are compelled, in a time when
a speculative interpretation is joining hands with
a sacramental apostasy, to veil the face of Anti
christ. Yet, if only once in the ages, — after
Waldensian slaughter or St. Bartholomew's mas
sacre, — we could see this vicar of Iscariot fling
ing down his silver and crying, " I have betrayed
the innocent blood," what haste would we make
to throw the mantle of forgetfulness over his
ghastly deeds !
The marks of correspondence between this
counter-Christ and the true are most striking at
every point. He has his Parousia and his Apoca
lypse — his coming and his revelation — as does
the Christ. The Son of God enters His earthly
career through incarnation, — " Great is the mys
tery of godliness, He who was manifested in the
flesh," — and the son of perdition does the same :
" The mystery of iniquity doth already work."
As it was said of the Lord's betrayer, "Then

"6 ECCE VENIT.

entered Satan into Judas Iscariot," so the begin
ning of this enemy is through a dark, mysterious
entering in of the Evil One for corrupting the
Church. The mystery of godliness is God hum
bling Himself to become man ; the mystery of
iniquity is man exalting himself to become God,
— " Ye shall be as gods." The mystery of god
liness is loyalty; the Son of God, through the
Holy Spirit, rendering perfect obedience to the
will and word of the Father : the mystery of in
iquity is lawlessness, avojua ; the son of perdition,
through "the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience," subverting God's law,
and rule, and order in the Church. In the one
we see Christ emptying Himself of His glory ;
in the other we see Antichrist filling himself with
his glory, so that he " opposeth and exalteth him
self above every one called God or an object of
worship," and " sitteth in the temple of God, set
ting himself forth as God." 1 How marvellously
1 "'As God, showing Himself that He is God? For many hun
dred years, to this day, the Roman pontiffs have literally fulfilled
this prophecy of St. Paul. When Cornelius, the centurion, fell
down at Peter's feet and worshipped him, St. Peter forbade him,
saying, ' Stand up ! I myself also am a man? But the self-
called successors of St. Peter sit in the temple of God as God.
For many centuries each of them, at his inauguration, has taken
his seat in God's Church, upon God's altar, and, so sitting, has
been adored by men falling down before him and kissing his
feet." — Bishop Wordsworth on the Apocalypse, p. 394.

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 117

has this latter prediction been realized ! " Do-
mine Deus /" If but once we heard these words
addressed to the pope by his allowance, it should
lead us, as the students of this prophecy, to
ask, "Art thou he that should come ? " What if
employed repeatedly, and with every variety of
adoration ? Alexander VI., the Nero of the Pon
tificate, as he has been called, moving to his con
secration, passes under a triumphal arch, on
which is inscribed : " Caesar was a man ; Alexan
der is a God." Marcellus, in an address to Pope
Leo X. at the fifth Lateran Council, exclaims,
"Thou art another God on earth" — tu denique
alter Deus in terris. Gregory II. boasts to the
Greek emperor : "All the kings of the West rev
erence the pope as a God on earth." Pope
Nicholas writes : " Wherefore if those things
which I do be said to be done, not of man, but of
God, what can you make me but God? Again, if
the prelates of the Church be called and counted
of Constantine for gods, I, then, being above all
prelates, seem by this reason to be above all
gods." These instances of deification, if there
were no more, would fill out every line and speci
fication of this Pauline prediction ; while that cul
minating act of 1870 — the placing of the crown
of infallibility upon the head of the pope by the
Ecumenical Council — would set the attesting

Il8 ECCE VENIT.

seal of literal history to this astonishing word of
literal prophecy.
We know how some, at this point, have started
on an adventurous hunt into the future for an
Antichrist who is at once a God-denier and a God-
pretender; since the apostle John has declared
concerning this terrible personage that he " de-
nieth the Father and the Son." But the candid
reader has only to compare this word " deny " as
employed by John with its use by Paul, and Peter,
and Jude, in their predictions of the falling away,
to see that the reference is beyond question to
the denial of apostasy, and not to the denial of
infidelity; to such as "profess that they know
God, but in works deny Him," and not to such
as are avowedly and openly atheistic.1 The anom
aly of bald infidel worship, exacted by one who at
once deifies and undeifies, has no place, we are
persuaded, in this prophecy. Nor has that other
conception of a Napoleonic demigod drunk with
the infatuation of world-rule, — a conception which

1 See Titus i. 16, 2 Peter ii. 1, Jude 4. The latest dictionary
of the Greek New Testament — the Grimm, edited by Thayer
— gives this as the second definition of kpviajuu, to deny:
"'Apvio/Mi, God and Christ, is used of those who, by cherishing
and disseminating pernicious opinions and immorality, are ad
judged to have apostatized from God and Christ." 1 John ii. 22
(cf. iv. a; 2 John vii. 11) ; Jude 4 ; 2 Pet. ii. 1.

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 119
has greatly colored the imaginations of many ex
positors. That the man of sin is identical with
the "little horn" of Daniel, and the "beast" of
the Apocalypse, is clear enough ; and that as such
he is a temporal ruler, no one doubts. And so
has he proved ; for when has the world seen a line
of world-sovereigns like the popes ? But can we
imagine such a blending, in any single infidel
man, of secular and spiritual imperialism as is
foreshadowed in this compound prediction of
Scripture, and as is fulfilled in this double-headed
ruler in the Vatican ? The pontiffs are the lineal
successors of the Caesars, as they claim to be of
the apostles. Mr. Pember, in describing this
combination of office, gives a perfect description
of the sovereign pontiff, though he did not intend
it as such : —
" At length, however, Julius Caesar, who had
previously accepted the office of Pontifex Maxi
mus, solved the difficulty by constituting himself
emperor. He thus became the first Roman in
whom the powers of the Pontifex and the Impe-
rator were combined, and was probably the first
to be recognized as the head of the Oriental
priesthood, — the Roman pontificate having pre
viously been distinct from and inferior to the
Chaldean, with which it was thenceforth identi
fied. He was consequently declared to be divine,

ECCE VENIT.

and exercised a wonderful influence over his
army and the people, even going to the length of
openly prescribing to the latter for whom they
should vote. And lastly he corrected the calendar
and changed times by inserting two additional
months, in accordance with the pontifical preroga
tive, which gave him his title of King of the
Ages. The power which he had acquired de
scended to his successors ; so that in the statues
of the emperors, the ring is always engraved with
the figure of a lituus, or crosier, to indicate the
highest quality of imperatorial rank, — that of
Pontifex Maximus." 1 And the popes are the
successors of these successors.
Such is the figure which history presents as its
answer to prophecy. Is it only the eye of bigotry
that can detect a likeness between the two ?
The germs of this evil system were growing in
the apostle's day, — " The mystery of iniquity
doth already work." Is it credible that it should
have continued operating through eighteen cen
turies, in order to bring forth some yet future
short-lived, infidel Antichrist, so transcendently
wicked that all which has gone before, with its
unspeakable record of blood and blasphemy, is
only an indifferent prototype of him ? If charity
could bias our interpretation at all, which it must
1 Antichrist, Babylon, and the Coming Kingdom, p. 81.

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 121
not, how little mercy have they who, in order to
relieve the papacy of this stigma, darken our
future with such an appalling apparition ! More
over, such a conception puts a strain upon our
credulity greater than it can bear. For when we
study Satan's career in Scripture and in history,
we find that open infidelity is little in his line.
His way has ever been to masquerade in the
symbols and sacraments of the Church ; to manip
ulate the machinery of spurious miracles ; to
put on a sad countenance as the hypocrites do,
that behind it he may mock at God. Therefore
the epiphany of " that Wicked One" should be
looked for in a feigned religiousness rather than
in a blatant atheism ; as it is tersely said in the
Noble Lesson of the Waldensians : " Antichrist is
the falsehood of eternal damnation covered with
\he appearance of truth and righteousness of
Christ and his Spouse." 1
For this reason we are not surprised at the
prediction of startling wonder-working as signal
izing the advent of this pseudo-Christ, "whose
coming is after the working of Satan in all power,
and signs, and wonders of falsehood." One who
is at all acquainted with the history of the Middle
1 " Antichrist es falseta de damnation aterna cuberta de specie
de la verita e de la justitia de Christ e de la soa sposa?' — Des
Eglises Vaudoises, chap. xiv.

122 ECCE VENIT.

Ages need not be told how exactly the papal
reality fits this prediction ; how the chaste and
artless miracles of the primitive Church were
travestied by those of the mediaeval Church in
the grotesque signs and wonders alleged to have
been wrought at saints' tombs, and through the
agency of martyrs' bones and sacred relics. Thus
was the man of sin to authenticate his ministry
" in all deceit of unrighteousness for them that are
perishing; " and the issue would be that God
should " send them a working of delusion that they
should believe the lie, that they may all of them be
judged who believed not the truth." x And so has
it come to pass ; the assumptions of the priest
hood culminating in a deified man, and the work
ing of delusion culminating in a deified wafer.
A devout minister in the Church of England,
crying out in pain at the apostasy now repeating
itself in his own communion, boldly says, con
cerning the miracle of transubstantiation : " The
crowning error into which the visible Church was
by degrees led — the process of Satanic inspira
tion extending from the eighth to the thirteenth
century — was, that the priesthood possessed a
divine power to locate the Lord Jesus Christ on
an earthly altar, and to lift him up, under the veils
of bread and wine, to the adoration of the people.
l 2 Thess. ii. 9, io (Ellicott's translation).

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 123
It is in this blasphemous fraud that the apostle
Paul's prophecy finds its accurate fulfilment. Of
the apostasy forerunning the second coming of
Christ he says, that the deluded followers of the
Lawless One should believe 'the lie,' — to fevSos.
Of all the impostures that the Father of Lies ever
palmed upon a credulous world, this doctrine,
which both logically and theologically repeats
millions of times the humiliation of the Blessed
Redeemer, necessarily transcends all ! Hence it
is that the definite article is placed by the Holy
Ghost before this word 'lie.' " 1
Of " the mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies," ascribed to this being both in
Daniel and Revelation, we have only to inquire
what mouth-assumption could surpass that con
tained in the well-known Bull Unam Sanctam of
i Boniface VIII. : "It is essential for salvation for
every human creature to be subject to the Roman
pontiff." Blasphemy means usurpation of the
prerogatives of the Deity rather than profane
denial. When the Jews accused Jesus of this
sin, this was the ground : " Why does this man
speak blasphemies ? Who can forgive sins but
God alone ? " Again : " For a good work we
stone Thee not ; but for blasphemy, and because
Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God." Does
1 Ormiston, Satan of Scripture, p. 126.

124 ECCE VENIT.

not the man of Rome stand openly convicted on
both these grounds ?
In the expression, "He who now letteth," we
have one of the most significant touches in the
whole picture. What hindered the manifestation
of Antichrist ? " And now ye know what with-
holdeth," says the apostle. If they did know,
and passed the secret from lip to lip, tradition on
this point is valuable. Hence when we find that
it was the well-nigh unanimous understanding
among the Christian fathers, from those who
touched hands with the apostles onward, that it
was the Roman Empire that must be taken out
of the way before the man of sin could be re
vealed, we have strong reason to credit this
opinion. And mark how the reserve of the apos
tle, in not mentioning this hindering power,
bears out this interpretation. If, as some now
say, it was the Holy Spirit that was intended,
we can see no reason why He should not have
been distinctly named ; but if it was the Roman
Empire, there is every ground for the apostle's
withholding the fact from his epistle, and com
mitting it only to oral tradition. For the epistle
would be publicly read in the churches, and its
contents reported, perhaps, to the ears of the
rulers. To say that the empire, which was held
to be eternal, was about to pass away, would

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 125

savor of treason, and would form a just ground
for persecution. And therefore, it would seem,
the apostle gave it out as a whispered secret:
"Remember ye not that when I was yet with
you I told you these things ? And now ye know
what withholdeth that he might be revealed in
his time " (2 Thes. ii. 6). For once tradition has
authority, since in this chapter the apostle not
only enjoins that those addressed " obey our word
by this epistle," but also " hold to the traditions
which ye have been taught, whether by word or
our epistle." And we know on the fullest testi
mony that the opinion named was held as a tra
dition apostolical in the early Church ; and as
such it has come down to us. If, then, the Thes
salonians knew, and that which they knew has
been, with reasonable certainty, reported to us, is
it presumptuous that we should strongly believe ?
If we are right at this point, a strong light is
thrown upon the question raised in the early part
of the chapter, whether a singular noun can stand
for a succession of individuals. This hindering
power is "he that letteth" which antiquity inter
preted to mean the succession of emperors. On
which Bishop Wordsworth remarks, " As he that
letteth is a public person or series of persons, so
is he that sitteth also ; " the one being the suc
cession of emperors, and the other being the
succession of popes.

126 ECCE VENIT.

And here comes in the most weighty consider
ation that so it was, that the papacy did actually
emerge upon the subsidence of the empire. Car-
dinal Manning, who certainly has no preposses
sion in favor of the view we are advocating,
writes thus : " The possession of the pontiffs com
mences with the abandonment of Rome by the
emperors. . . . No sovereign has ever reigned in
Rome since, except the Vicar of Jesus Christ." x
Singular coincidence ! does the reader exclaim ?
No, not singular ; it was bound to be so, on ac
count of certain words which an apostle wrote
centuries before under the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost. Prophecy is the mould in which
history is cast ; and uo violence of man, no con
vulsions of nations, can either break that mould
or constrain the course of history, that the one
should not answer to the other point by point,
feature by feature. It is for the Christian in
terpreter to note such correspondences as they
occur, counting each conformation as a confirma
tion for establishing the sure word of prophecy.
1 " By a singular arrangement of Divine Providence, as we
have said on a former occasion, it happened that the Roman
Empire, having fallen, and being divided into many kingdoms
and divers states, the Roman pontiff, in the midst of such great
variety of kingdoms, and in the actual state of human society,
was invested with his civil authority." — The Pope's Allocution,
1866.

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 127
A system of exposition which withdraws our at
tention from these coincidences, and sets us to
gazing into blank space for something to emerge,
of which not even the shadow is in sight, we can
not think profitable. There are things to come
which ought powerfully to attract our attention,
but our eyes should not be so holden thereby
that we cannot see what is passing and what has
already come to pass upon the earth. Such cor
respondences of history with prophecy, of fact
with prediction, as these that we have pointed
out, cannot occur by chance. And in view of
them we may as certainly hold the papacy to be
the fulfilment of Paul's prediction of the Anti
christ as we hold the face of a coin to be the ful
filment of the die in which it was struck.1
1 It is coming to be admitted even by futurist interpreters
that the word "Antichrist " signifies a vice-Christ, rather than an
open opponent of Christ. Andrew Jukes says : " I am satisfied
that, according to the derivation of the word, Antichrist means
primarily ' in the place of Christ? rather than ' against Christ?
'Ayrl — in Latin, vice, whence we get the word Vicar, the very
title claimed in reference to Christ by the Pope of Rome — is
literally ' in the place of? " He cites, among others, the follow
ing examples: 'Ai/fltWros (Acts xiii. 7), the deputy, or procon
sul, not " against the consul," but " in the place of the consul ; "
'AvTeirlcritonos (Gregor. Naz.), a vice-bishop, one acting for the
bishop. That this is not a merely modern and Protestant inter
pretation will appear from the fact that Lactantius (260-330)
speaks thus of this personage : " Now this is he who is called

128 ECCE VENIT.

We end where we began, — with the temple of
God. The dreadful prediction of the destiny of
the man of sin is in the words : " Whom the
Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth,
and shall destroy with the brightness of His com
ing." Behold how the consuming has been going
on within the last few centuries, especially during
our own time ; so that an eminent writer has
declared that in the downfall of the temporal
power the papacy met with the heaviest loss
which has befallen her in a thousand years. But
of the rest how can we speak but with an un
utterable awe and pity : " Whom He shall destroy
with the brightness of His appearing." For what ?
" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If
any man defile the temple of God, him will God
destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which
temple are ye" (i Cor. iii. 17). What language
can tell how this temple has been defiled ? The
heathen rites and ceremonies corrupting the wor
ship of Christ ; the idols and the sacrilege ; the
worship of the queen of heaven ; the blood of
God's saints staining His own courts ; the blas
phemy of a man professing to forgive sin ; of a
Antichrist ; but he shall falsely call himself Christ, and shall
fight against the truth." — The Divine Institutes, lib. vii., cap.
xix.

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 129
man snatching the attribute of Divine infalli
bility ; of a man receiving worship from his fel
lows ; in fine, of a man sitting in the seat of the
Holy Ghost, shutting the mouth of God's Spirit,
— the Holy Scriptures, — and bidding the Church
hear only his own "mouth speaking great things."
Idolatry of Mary ; idolatry of the mass ; idolatry
of the cross ! How solemnly sounds God's word
in view of it all ! "And what agreement hath a
temple of God with idols?" (2 Cor. vi. 16, r. v.)
Do we not know, if we have read the Scriptures,
that it is such desecration of His house, and such
defiling of His worship, which have ever called
down the severest judgments of God? Let us
recall the fact, not that we may redouble our
denunciation of an apostate Church, but that we
may search our own sanctuaries, with a lighted
candle, to see if aught of the corrupting leaven
be found among us.
What our eyes see is, again, an astonishing seal
set to the truth of this great prediction. Who
has not heard the oft-quoted saying that the con
dition of the Jews in the present dispensation is
the most striking verification of the truth of the
Scripture? Just as was predicted, they have
been scattered, peeled, and subjected to daily
death ; and yet here they are preserved as a dis
tinct people, a burning bush ever aflame with
persecuting fires, but not consumed.

130 ECCE VENIT.

So has the line of pontiffs continued.1 Taking
its rise in the beginnings of the age, gradually
strengthening and maturing till fully developed,
with temporal and spiritual sovereignty centring
in one head, it has lived on for more than twelve
hundred years, and there it sits to-day on its seat
in Rome, in spite of every likelihood that it would
long ago have passed away, the longest line of
rulers the Western world has ever seen. As the
Jewish succession remains unbroken, that the last
generation of cast-off Israel may confront the
descending Lord at His advent, looking on Him
whom they pierced, and mourning because of
Him with saving penitence that "so all Israel
shall be saved ; " so likewise the long succession
1 " And power was given unto him to continue forty and two
months" (Rev. xiii. 5). This period of Antichrist's duration we
hold to be, according to the " year-day theory," twelve hundred
and sixty years. To those who deride such interpretation as
strained, and insist that the words mean three years and a half,
we reply : What expositor has interpreted the ten days' tribula
tion in Rev. ii. 10 to be ten literal days ? But if the Holy Spirit
meant years, in the Apocalypse, why did He not say years ? it is
replied. Why, when He meant churches and ministers, and
kingdoms and kings and epochs, did He say candle-sticks, and
stars, and beasts, and horns, and trumpets ? Yet, having used
these miniature symbols of greater things, how fitting that the
accompanying time should also be in miniature I To use literal
dates would distort the imagery, as though you should put a
life-sized eye in a small-sized photograph.

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 131
of hierarchs continues, that the last Pontifex
Maximus may stand face to face with the Lord at
His appearing, and receive his doom, in the cut
ting off of his usurping line forever. As we
read all this, let it be with bowed heads and with
weeping eyes, while we ponder the lesson, once
more, of the terrible consequences of pride, and
ambition, and worldliness, when permitted to run
their course in the Church of God.

IV.
THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST.
Among the presumptuous titles ascribed to the
Papal Antichrist is that of "True Lord and Hus
band of the Church." If he is such, we must find
in Scripture the portraiture of his bride, that we
may carefully distinguish her from the wife of the
Lamb. As the most complete and graphic pic
ture of the " man of sin " is found in the second
chapter of Thessalonians, so the most vivid por
trayal of the woman of sin with whom he is allied
is found in the seventeenth chapter of Revelation.
Here we behold her introduced under the name
of " The great harlot that sitteth upon many
waters" and she is pictured as riding upon a beast
with "seven heads and ten horns." These sym
bols are interpreted for us by the Spirit of God,
so that in our study of this mystery we have a
divinely revealed clue with which to begin. " The
waters which thou sawest where the harlot sitteth
are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and
tongues." Wide dominion and far-reaching sway
over the inhabitants of earth are here indicated.
" The seven heads are the seven mountains on

THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 133
which the woman sitteth." In poetry and in his
tory, on monuments and on coins, Rome is known
as "the seven -hilled city." Propertius thus
speaks of her : —
The city high on seven hills
That rules the boundless earth."
The designation is so exact that there is a well-
nigh unanimous consent among Romanist and
Protestant interpreters alike, that the ancient
imperial city on the Tiber is hereby pointed out,
though the former contend that the prophecy
relates to pagan Rome. "The great harlot " is a
term equally clear in its significance ; it being the
representation of a fallen and apostatized Church.
"How is the faithful city become an harlot I"
(Isa. i. 21) exclaims Jehovah in His lament over
backsliding Jerusalem. " Thou hast played the
harlot with many lovers" (Jer. iii. 1) he cries
again. And once more : " Though Israel play the
harlot, let not Judah offend" (Hos. iv. 15). Thus
in the Scripture's own light we discern this mis
tress to be the faithless Church who, having vio
lated her betrothment, and having ceased to look
for the return of her affianced Husband, has ad
mitted others into his place and become the par
amour of the kings of the earth. Most distinctly,
then, are the character, and dominion, and resi
dence of this ecclesiastical woman defined.

134 ECCE VENIT.

If we turn now to the prophetic description of
the woman's dress, we are almost startled by its
realistic character: "And the woman was arrayed
in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold
and precious stones and pearls." Who does not
know that scarlet and purple are as truly " the
colors " of the papacy as the red, white and blue
are of the United States ? In the Ceremoniale
Romanum — an ancient book of directions, — the
dress and adornments with which the pope must
be clad on assuming his office are minutely de
scribed. Of the different articles of attire speci
fied, five are scarlet. A vest covered with pearls,
and a mitre adorned with gold and precious stones
are also named in the prescribed apparel. Nor
need we go back to so early authority on this
point. Our own eyes bear witness to these mis
tress-marks as they appear to-day. What a pro
fusion still of purple robes and costly jewels!
When the first American Cardinal was created,
the infection of " cardinal red " seized on fashion
able circles throughout the land, far and wide,
ladies' bonnets and dresses fairly blushing with it,
till society seemed streaked through and through
with the hues of the scarlet woman, as when a
blood-clot falls into an urn of water and is diffused
abroad. If any say that it is only a narrow and
fanciful sectarianism that can detect such minute

THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 135
identity between the prophetic picture and the
papal reality, they have but to be reminded that
so honored a Catholic saint as Beneventura con
densed this whole apocalyptic prediction into a
single pungent sentence, and applied it to the
papacy of his day, when he designated her as " a
wanton clad in scarlet."
And how striking it is to note that true in
stinct which leads the ritualists of our time to
copy the dress-marks of Rome, just as they are
reviving her pagan ceremonial and doctrine, — so
strongly is the prophetic negative bound to re
produce itself in every photograph of history ! x
1 How the Anglican Church is " resuming the decorations of
the harlot " appears from the following : In the services con
nected with the recent consecration of the Cathedral of Truro,
the red vestments, which were abolished in the reign of Eliza
beth, were again so conspicuous that Punch photographed the
scene under the heading of " Outbreak of Scarlatina at Truro?'
Join with this the following Church news : " Last Sunday the
rector of St. Paul's Church wore a white stole embroidered in
three shades of blue, the same done in monograms and flowers
set with carbuncles and bugles ; with Maltese crosses set with
sapphires and diamonds ; with lilies set with garnets, — the
whole number of diamonds numbering forty, and of precious
stones one hundred and thirty-five : estimated cost of this me
morial gift, ;£ 1,000. A visitor describes the Bishop of Lincoln as
' adorned with mitre and cloth of gold, his orphreys so lavishly
decorated with amethysts, pearls, topazes, and chrysolites set in
silver as fairly to dazzle the beholder.' How repulsive is all
this to such as seek to maintain the simplicity that is in
Christ ! "

136 ECCE VENIT.

What is that chalice which the woman lifts
aloft ? " Having a golden cup in her hand, full
of abominations and filthiness of her fornication."
Idolatry and spiritual apostasy are clearly sym
bolized here. Concerning ancient Babylon the
prophet wrote: "Babylon hath been a golden
cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth
drunken ; the nations are drunken with her wine,
therefore the nations are mad " (Jer. li. 7).
Euphratean Babylon was the prolific mother of
idolatry, — that idolatry which Scripture clearly
shows to be the liturgy of demons, — and with
this she seduced God's ancient people into spir
itual fornication. And now the Church, having
become paganized by absorbing into herself the
literal elements of this ancient heathenism, is
photographed as mystical Babylon, in her turn
enticing to idolatry and spiritual unchastity.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Eucharis-
tic cup which Rome now puts to the lips of her
communicants, with its mixture of miracle and
magic, resembles more nearly the chalice of the
ancient Chaldean "Mysteries" than it does the
chaste and simple memorial cup which Christ left
in the hands of His Bride, the Church ; and, in
view of the transformation which has taken place,
what startling significance is there for Roman-
izers in the apostle's saying : " Ye cannot drink

THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 137
the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Ye
cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the
table of demons" ! (1 Cor. x. 21), — startling, if
indeed it be true, that the Bride of Christ, who in
the beginning is described as having " turned to
God from idols to serve the living and true God,
and wait for His Son from heaven," is become
such that she is now turning men from God to
serve idols, seducing them to make an image of
the sacrament, before which they fall down in
worship.1 "And His name shall be in their foreheads," is
the promise given to the Bride of the Lamb.
And Antichrist's bride must maintain this par
ody, so, as the spouse of him who is " the mys
tery of iniquity," this woman of the Apocalypse is
thus presented to us : "And upon her forehead a
name written," "mystery, babylon the great,
the mother of harlots and abominations of
the earth." Need we ask who it is that arro
gates to herself the title, "Rome, Mother and
Mistress ? " Striking as are the parallels, even
more so are the contrasts. "Jerusalem which is
above, who is the mother of us all" confesses the
1 " If any man shall say that this holy sacrament should not
be adored, nor carried about in processions, nor held up publicly
to the people to adore it, or that its worshippers are idolaters,
let him be accursed." — Council of Trent.

138 ECCE VENIT.

Holy Church whose citizenship is in heaven ;
the Church which has become earthly and idola
trous is characterized as " Babylon the great, the
mother of harlots." The Bride is " arrayed in fine
linen, clean and white," which is the " righteous
ness of saints." The Harlot is " arrayed in pur
ple and scarlet color" which is the vesture of
kings. The union of the true Church with Christ
in Heaven is a "great mystery;" the union of
the false Church with the rulers of this world is
the counter "mystery."
As for that other cup with which the Harlot
has intoxicated herself, — " / saw the woman
drunken with the blood of saints and with the
blood of martyrs," — what language shall we bor
row to describe it ? It has been estimated that
the papacy has directly or indirectly slain fifty
millions of martyrs on account of their faith, the
vast majority of these being sincere Christians,
whose only crime was that they would not own
allegiance to Antichrist. Let charity discount
the number by one half, if it were possible, and
let her suggest every conceivable palliation for
the murder of the rest, and we still have the
most ghastly chapter which the volume of history
contains. Would that we might mingle our weep
ing with floods of repentant tears from the eyes
vf this cruel mother, if, forsooth, we could thereby

THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 139
mitigate the wrath treasured up against the day
of wrath which her crimes have earned. But,
alas! we find "Te Deums" sung over Huguenot
slaughters, but not one papal Miserere can we
discover. Commemorative medals are still ex
tant signalizing the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
but not one monumentum lacrimarum over that
event is to be found in all the archives of the
seven-hilled city. " And when I saw her / won
dered with great wonder" writes the Seer; and
now that history has filled in every detail of the
crimson outline of prophecy, we wonder with
even profounder amazement that such a demoni
acal tragedy could ever have been enacted in the
name of Christianity. But we remember that
the woman who did these things was " drunken."
And there is no intoxication so profound as that
induced by pagan superstition tinctured with
Christian blood. Even Martin Luther, while yet
in the delirium tremens of popery, raged with
,this blood-thirst. "So intoxicated was I, and
drenched in papal dogmas," are his words, " that
I would have been most ready to murder, or as
sist others in murdering, any person who should
have uttered a syllable against the duty of obe
dience to the Pope." Nay, even those who
have been sobered by generations of Protestant
abstinence from persecution, if they once return

I4<> ECCE VENIT.

to the cups of the Harlot, speedily exhibit symp
toms of the old appetite, as witnessed, for exam
ple, in the oft-quoted saying of Dr. Manning,
now cardinal, when urging Romish aggression in
England : " It is yours, right reverend fathers, to
subjugate and subdue, to bend and to break the
will of an imperial race."
This mystical name of "Babylon the Great " is
marvellously apt on many grounds. It was lit
eral Babylon that was the most constant and
inveterate persecutor of ancient Israel. So was
this typical Babylon to be the most malignant
persecutor of spiritual Israel, the true and uncor-
rupted Church of Christ. This were enough to
justify the analogy. But we believe that there
is even a profounder significance in the name.
Papal Babylon, as we have said above, was to re-
enact the idolatries of Chaldean Babylon to such
an extent that she would be the restored image
and counterpart of her. How the Babylonian
cultus was diffused abroad among surrounding
nations, and how it reappeared in the Roman
Empire, and was in turn copied and reproduced
by the papacy, is a matter of history. It is too
great a subject to be discussed in a single chap
ter. The most that we can do now' is to note
some marks of identification between the idola
try of the mystical city and that of the literal

THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 141
city. Read in Jeremiah xliv. Jehovah's terrible
denunciation of the Jews in Egypt for their ob
stinate worship of "The Queen of Heaven." This
was Semiramis, or Astarte, the great Babylonian
goddess. She was called "the mother of the
gods," and was "most worshipped of all the
divinities." In the corruptions of Christianity,
the Virgin Mary, astonishing to tell, was gradu
ally lifted into her place, and adored under the
identical titles, till to-day the voice of the pa
pacy is exactly that of apostate Israel : " But we
will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth
out of our own mouth to burn incense unto the
queen of heaven" (Jer. xliv. 17). Not only in
cense, but, these same Jews confessed, "we did
make our cakes to worship her" (v. 19). Here
the pedigree of the wafer is suggested ; and
if one will candidly trace back the descent, we
challenge him to resist the conclusion that the
wafer comes from the Babylonish cake, its round
ness being due to the fact that it was originally
an image of the sun, and worshipped as such.
Consider, also, the use, in worship, of candles,
which the ritualists are now so sedulously employ
ing to light themselves back into the Dark Ages.
In the apocryphal book of Baruch there is a
minute and extended description of the Babylo
nish worship, with all its dark and abominable

142 ECCE VENIT.

accessories. Of the gods which they set up in
their temples, it is said that their " eyes be full
of dust through the feet of them that come in."
And then it is added that the worshippers " light
for them candles, yea, more than for themselves,
whereof they cannot see one." In the pagan wor
ship at Rome, which was confessedly borrowed
largely from Assyria and Egypt, we have ac
counts of processionals, in which surpliced priests
marched with wax candles in their hands, carry
ing the images of their gods ; and we find a
Christian writer, Lactantius, a. d. 260-330, ridi
culing the heathen custom of lighting candles to
their gods, " because they are of the earth, and
stand in need of lights that they may not be in
darkness," which he certainly would not have
done had the practice formed any part of prim
itive Christian worship.1 And time would fail
to tell of the confessional, so closely reprodu
cing that imposed on the initiates in the ancient
mysteries ; and of holy water, of the eastward pos
ture, of the signing with the cross, and of cere
monies and vestments, nameless and incompre
hensible. Granting, for the sake of charity, that
1 Divine Institutes, b. vi. 2. Bishop Coxe, the High Church
editor of the American edition of the Fathers, gives this note on
this passage: "The ritual use of lights was unknown to the
primitive Christians, however harmless it may be."

THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 1 43
altars and incense were borrowed from Jewish
worship, — which things, indeed, were done away
in Christ, — it still remains true that the great
bulk of the papal ceremonies were originally part
and portion of primitive idol-worship, of which
idol-worship Babylon was the chief mother and
nurse.1 The complete image, as presented in this vis
ion, is one of the most striking in all prophecy.
" And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored
beast" — the apostate Church riding upon the
state, supported by it, and yet controlling it.
Who does not know how exactly this harmonizes
with the facts ; how the Church, upon her fall,
saddled herself upon the empire, till, acquiring
complete control, she became able to hold it in
by bit and bridle of bull and concordat, compel
ling it to bear her weight and to do her will?
Blasphemy and apostasy are counterparts. Anti
christ, a world-king, sitteth in the temple of God,
showing himself as God. Antichurch, forfeiting
her citizenship in heaven, now sitteth in the seat
of kings. " Simeon and Levi are brethren : in
struments of cruelty are in their habitations. O
my soul ! come not into their secret." " Upon a

1 For a profound and learned exhibition of this whole subject
see Hislop's " Two Babylons," London, S. W. Partridge & Co.

144 ECCE VENIT.

scarlet-colored beast" — predictive of blood-guilti
ness, a foreview which history has amply verified.
" Grind enough of the red," used to be the ghastly
phrase of the painter David, one of the French
revolutionists, as he urged on the bloody work of
the guillotine. Rome secular has never been
sparing of the red in carrying out the orders of
Rome spiritual, whom she has faithfully served
as public executioner; she has painted true to
the prophetic pattern. Hence the "names of
blasphemy " which cover her. With heaven-de
fying self-exaltation she has assumed to sit in the
judgment-seat of God, and to condemn His saints
by millions to death, so that whereas Jehovah
was wont to reprove kings for their sakes, saying,
" Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no
harm," these — the . jiariot^ndjthe^llierarch —
have "taken counsel together against the Lord
and against His anointed," to burn them at the
stake and rend them in the Inquisition. And
yet, after all, the longing is irresistible, that this
fallen daughter of God — the harlot Church —
might be reformed, and like that other Magdalene
be found bathing the Saviour's feet with her pen
itent tears. Nothing in history is more pathetic
than that yearning of pious Catholics of the Mid
dle Ages which found expression in the prophecy
of a " Papa Angelicus," about to appear, an An-

THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 145

gel-Pope, who should restore the defiled Church
to her primitive purity, and invest her once more
with the white robes of spiritual chastity. But
such a conception is as contrary to possibility as
it is counter to Scripture. That which has been
the curse of the Church can never be its cure.
An angelic man in the papal chair, if such an one
could be found to sit there, would be as abhorrent
in his office as he might be lovely in his person,
for papacy is the essence of Antichrist, and as
such can never help Christ in reforming His
Church. If any demur at this, and contend that
with all her errors Rome still holds enough of
truth to constitute her a true Church, we must
reply that she cannot be both the bride and the
harlot ; and to this her most eminent prelates
assent, compelling us to choose between the two
alternatives. Cardinal Manning says : " The
Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan
or the Kingdom of the Son of God."1 We solemnly
deny that she is the latter. Cardinal Newman
declares : "Either the Church of Rome is the house
of God or the house of Satan : there is no -middle
ground between them" a We solemnly affirm that
she is not the former.
1 Lectures on the Fourfold Sovereignty of God, London, 1871,
p. 171.
8 Essays, ii. p. 116.

146 , ECCE VENIT.

And yet the cup of the Roman sorceress, let
us remember, is once more put to the lips of
Protestants, who are solicited to drink it, and
forget their estrangement from their "Mother
Church." How many have been drugged into
communion, or at least into wanton dalliance,
with her, we need not say. It is enough to utter
the warning, that here fellowship is fornication.
If, by the regenerating and sanctifying grace of
the Spirit, we belong to the true body of Christ,
we are bound to meet every overture for commu
nion with Rome with the inspired question and
inspired answer of the apostle : " Shall I, then,
take the members of Christ, and make them
members of a harlot ? God forbid " (1 Cor. vi.
IS)-

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM.
Antichrist and Antichurch, — these two reign
ing together have brought on an anti-millennium,
the dazzling caricature of that which is promised
to appear at the second coming of Christ and the
marriage of the Lamb. An eminent exegete, in
a recent symposium on the pre-millennial advent,
replies to those who query whether the present
may not after all be the long-predicted millen
nium, that it might be more correctly called " the
millennium of Satan." This saying sounds ex
tremely harsh and pessimistic, but it has the ad
vantage of conforming to Scripture. " The age
to come" — o almv ptXXtov — has its unmistakable
characteristics as set forth in Scripture : it will
be the age of the resurrection of the just (Luke
xx. 35), with all the glorious triumphs and rewards
which belong to that consummation ; and it will
be ushered in by the visible appearing of the
Lord from heaven (Matt. xiii. 39) ; it will be
Christ's millennium, during which Satan shall be
bound and shut up so that he can tempt the na
tions no more (Rev. xx. 1-5).

148 ECCE VENIT.

The present age, — 6 vw alwv, — spanning the
entire distance from the first to the second advent,
has also its distinctive characteristics : it is called
the " present evil age " (Gal. i. 4) ; Christians are
exhorted to " live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present age" (Titus ii. 12), to "be not
conformed to this age " (Rom. xii. 2), and they
are admonished that Christ "gave Himself for
our sins, that He might deliver us from this pres
ent evil age " (Gal. i. 4). So far from Christ being
Lord of this age, as He should be were it His
millennium, we are distinctly told that Satan is
" the god of this age," — 6 fods toS allovos tovtov (2
Cor. iv. 4). Till this dispensation ends, therefore,
and the sway of its god is broken, there can he
no millennium of universal righteousness in which
Christ shall reign with His saints upon the earth.
Multitudes will be taken out of this age to form
the Ecclesia, the called out, the Bride of Christ,
to be presented to Him at His coming ; but the
Church wjH,nevex30_-lran.sfoxm. the ..dispensation
as to turn it into a blissfuL miltenjiium. The
clock of the ages runs true to the eternal order,
and however impatient the Church may be for
the consummation of all things, she cannot move
forward the hands of that clock a single hour to
bring in the Sabbatic rest before the fulness of
time be come. But this was really what was at-

THE "MOCK MILLENNIUM. 149
tempted by the Church after her elevation to an
earthly throne under Constantine. She grasped
for her glory in the time appointed for her humil
iation, and vainly thought to reign in the earth
while her King is still absent in heaven.
With the historical school of interpreters we
find in the twelfth chapter of Revelation a graphic
portraiture of this critical era. The sun-clothed
woman figures the Church in her investiture
with rule and authority under Constantine ; her
travailing and bringing forth the man child who
was "to rule all nations with a rod of iron," ex
hibits her compassing earthly dominion and sov
ereignty, which dominion and sovereignty are,
however, caught away from the true Church,
whose portion is for the present the wilderness
and rejection, and reserved with Jesus Christ on
the throne where He is " expecting till His foes
be made His footstool," when the promise shall
be fulfilled to Him and to His reigning Bride :
" I will give thee nations for thine inheritance,
and for thy possession the ends of the earth.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, like
a potter's vessel shalt thou dash them in pieces."
But in the conflict between paganism and Chris
tianity, in which the former is overthrown, as
symbolized by the casting out of the dragon, the
deluded Church imagines that her millennial

150 ECCE VENIT.

triumph has arrived, and the cry is heard : " Now
is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom
of our God and the power of His Christ" (Rev.
xii. 10). Mr. Pember, though not following this
interpretation of the Apocalypse, has most ad
mirably sketched its historical counterpart. He
says : " When the Christians were relieved from
persecution by the policy of Constantine, and
came into honor after having been so long reck
oned as the filth of the world and the offscour-
ing of all things, the cry was straightway raised
that the kingdom had come. But the result of
this vain Lo here ! was the introduction of two
pernicious doctrines, that the kingdom is possi
ble without the personal presence of the King,
and that the Church can become mistress of the
world during her widowhood and while Satan is
still reigning prince. Further mischief followed,
for there being nothing to support such views in
the New Testament, those who entertained them
were compelled to have recourse to the Old, and
to cite from thence the prophecies of Israel's fu
ture glory, in order that by a false application of
them to the Church they might justify the pros
perity which had accrued to her through her alli
ance with the pagan world." J
Satan, who is the god of this age, is an anti-
1 Antichrist, Babylon, and the Coming Kingdom, p. 145.

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 151
god, and as such he is the great caricaturist of all
holy persons and things, that he may the more
effectually delude and destroy. And having seen
the counter Christ and the counter Church which
he created for leading men astray, we shall now
consider how through these two he brought in a
counter millennium, an astonishing parody of the
true Sabbatic era and the real kingdom of God
on earth which are promised in connection with
Christ's second advent.
Everything which belongs to that blessed age
has been, and is still, claimed by the apostate
Church as already here. Was not Christ to usher
in the millennium by His personal coming ? " Qn
thee, most blessed Leo. Wp have fixed. QiirJwyes
as the.Sayic^r J^a^was^QJloniej" — " Salvatorem
venturum." 1 So spake an adoring bishop to the
pope at the fifth Lateran council. In his sover
eign vicar, Christ has already appeared and is
already ruling, says Rome. "In the person of
Pius IX.,, Jesus reigns on earth," exclaims Car
dinal Manning, "and he must reign till He hath
put all enemies under His feet ! " 2

1 Harduin, 1651.
2 See closing pages of Vatican Council, by Henry Edward,
Archbishop of Westminster, 187 1. It is an exaltation of the
pope as "the supreme judge and infallible teacher of men," end
ing with a warning to his enemies that " whosoever shall fall on

)

152 ECCE VENIT.

But was it not appointed to the Church to
suffer with Christ during this dispensation, that
she might reign with Him in the age to come ?
" Nay, but now is come salvation and the king
dom of our God," replies the harlot bride. Hear
the Bishop of Medrusium at the fifth Lateran
council again : " But weep not, daughter of Zion,
for God hath raised up a Saviour for thee ; the
Lion of the tribe of Judah (alluding to Pope Leo),
the root of David hath come, and shall save thee
from all thy enemies."1 A "little flock" wait
ing for "the Chief Shepherd" to appear; an es
poused bride looking for the Bridegroom's re
turn, — such we had supposed to be the character
of the Church in this present time. But the un
faithful spouse has found her Chief Shepherd and
Bridegroom in the pope. Marcellus, in behalf of
the Church, speaks thus to Leo X. : "I come to
thee as my true Lord and Husband, beseeching
thee to look to it that thy bride may be renewed
in her beauty ; and see to it that the flock com
mitted to thee be nourished with the best and
spiritual aliment, the fold united in one which is
now divided, and the sickness healed which has

this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will
grind him to powder." It is an amazing exhibition of eloquent
blasphemy. 1 Harduin, 1687,

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 153
afflicted the whole world : for thou art our Shep
herd, our Physician, our Governor, in fine, a sec
ond God on earth." 1
Christ foretold the condition of his true Church
— " the children of the bride-chamber " — during
His absence thus : " But the days will come when
the Bridegroom shall be taken from them, and
then shall they fast." The Church of this false
kingdom, this pseudo-millennium, is thus pictured
in the Apocalypse : " For she saith in her heart, I
sit as queen and am no widow, and shall see no
sorrow" (Rev. xviii. 7). How literally was this
prediction translated into history when the in
fatuated Eusebius, glorying over the triumphs
of Christianity in his day, exclaimed : " Whereas
the Church was widowed and desolate, her chil
dren have now to exclaim to her : ' Make room !
Enlarge thy borders ! the place is too strait for
us.' The promise is fulfilling in her: 'In right
eousness shalt thou be established ; all thy chil
dren shall be taught of God, and great shall be
the peace of thy children.' " Nay, more : so far
from fasting, and waiting the time when they
should sit down with the Lord at His table in
His kingdom, this historian rejoices that after
the enthronement of Christianity under Constan
tine, when "the bishops sat down at the emper-
1 Harduin, 1687.

154 ECCE VENIT.

or's table, and the rest all around him, it looked
like the image of the very kingdom of God." 1
Though "a name above every name" is given
to Immanuel, He still waits for every knee to
bow to Him ; He still waits for His promised
throne, "the throne of His father, David." He
still waits for His royal title, "King of kings
and Lord of lords," which title, as the Scripture
shows, belongs only to the day of His glorious
coming. But not so with Antichrist. " There is
but one name in the world," he declares, "and
that is the pope ; he only can use the ornaments
of empire ; all princes ought to kiss his feet ; he
alone can nominate and displace bishops, and as
semble and dissolve councils. Nobody can judge
him ; his mere election constitutes him a saint ;
he has never erred, and never shall err in time to
come ; he can depose princes, andj relieve sub
jects from their oaths of fidelity." 2
What wonder that with such assumptions all
the sublime promises of the millennial glory
should have been counted as now fulfilled ! So
it was ; and we read of the ambassadors of the
Portuguese king bowing down to Pope Leo, and,
after addressing him as "Supreme Lord of all,"
blasphemously adapting to him the words of
prophecy : " Thou shalt rule from sea to sea, and

1 V. C iii. 15. 2 Diet. Papa, Greg. VII.

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 155

from the river Tiber to the ends of the earth ;
the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts to
thee ; yea, all princes shall worship thee, all na
tions shall serve thee."
At no point has the Messianic glory been more
brilliantly mimicked than here. The profusion
of offerings which have poured in upon the royal
priest of Rome from the kings of the earth is
astonishing to recount. No monarch that ever
reigned has been the recipient of such sumptuous
gifts from the princes of this world. And the
spell of fascination which has ever evoked such
tributes, although long weakened, seems to be
again reviving, as indicated by the published list
of royal presents to the pope on his recent ju
bilee. The soft adulation toward Rome, which
many Protestant clergymen have learned to culti
vate during the last half century, is now being
matched by a renewed subserviency on the part
of kings. Bishop Cox, one of the compilers of
the Liturgy of the Anglican Church, writing from
England to friends on the Continent in 1559,
while Elizabeth was reigning, said : " We are
thundering forth in our pulpits, and especially
before our Queen Elizabeth, that the Roman
Pontiff is truly Antichrist." Such thunder has
so far subsided among those employing this lit
urgy that now a great company of priests are

156 ECCE VENIT.

laboring to bring about organic union with Rome,
jand the present successor to Elizabeth on the
(English throne sends one of the most princely of
Ithe anniversary gifts to Leo XIII. Luther, after
his eyes, long holden of superstition, were opened
to discern the Scriptures, looked at prophecy and
then at the papacy and exclaimed : " It is most
manifest, and without any doubt true, that the
Roman Pontiff, with his whole order and king
dom, is the very Antichrist." But instead of
Luther's mitre of malediction upon the head of
this usurper of Christ's millennial throne, Ger
many now sends, as the tribute of King William
to the Roman Pontiff, "a jewelled mitre costing
four thousand dollars." So the masquerade goes
on before the eyes of men and angels, that the
unwary may still longer be deceived, and made to
believe that this is He of whom the Psalmist
wrote, "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles
shall bring presents ; . . . yea, all kings shall fall
down before Him ; all nations shall serve Him."
Only those can unmask these pretensions who
read the Scriptures diligently, and find that He
of whom this is written has this honor, which the
pope has never known : " For He shall deliver
the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and
him that hath no helper. He shall spare the
poor and the needy and shall save the souls of

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 157
the needy ; He shall redeem their souls from
deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood
be in His sight" (Psalm lxxii. 12-14).
Not merely the millennial reign, but the mil
lennial splendors, have been snatched by the
faithless bride. Sober dress becomes the widow
hood of the Church ; gaudy attire and jewelled
fingers convict her of wantoning with earthly
lovers; majestic cathedrals, hoarding boundless
wealth and adorned with costly furniture, imply
that she has forgotten that here she has no con
tinuing city, but that her citizenship is in heaven,
from whence she looks for her Lord. Cardinal
Newman, in defending these lavish splendors of
the papacy, declares that their presence " as little
proves that the Church is Antichrist as that any
king's court is Antichrist," and then cites the
following passages in their justification : " I will
lay thy stones with fair colors, and thy founda
tions with sapphires, and I will make thy windows
of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy
borders of precious stones." "The glory of Leb
anon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine
tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of
my sanctuary." x But this is only a piracy of
Messianic prophecies, all these texts being de
scriptive of the age of glory yet to come. To
. l Essays, ii. 184.

I58 ECCE VENIT.

quote them in this connection is simply to justify
our charge that the apostasy has ravished the
Church millennial to get building materials for
the Church militant. It should be soon enough
to walk on golden streets when the New Jerusa
lem descends from heaven " as a Bride adorned
for her Husband;" but the harlot must needs
seize the paving-stones of the Holy City to beau
tify the streets of " that great city which is spir
itually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our
Lord was crucified " (Rev. xi. 8).
Let it not be implied that we should be so shut
up to sackcloth and ashes in the dispensation
that now is, that we can have no happy glimpses
of that which is to follow. Most expressively
does the apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
speak of Christians as those who have " tasted the
powers of the age to come" (Heb. vi. 5). Fore
tastes are graciously permitted, but immediate
and full appropriation is forbidden. " Be not con
formed to this age, but be ye transfigured by the
renewing of your mind," says the Scripture. The
transfiguration was a prelibation of the age to
come ; the cup of glory tasted for a moment by
our Lord to strengthen Him to drink the cup of
His vicarious anguish. But it could be only a
taste as yet, not a complete fruition. Yet Simon
Peter, whose mistakes are always significant as

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 159
foretypical of the permanent errors of his self-
styled successors, exclaims, "Let us make three
tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and
one for Elias, not knowing what he said" (Matt.
xvii. 4). As though a momentary visitation of
the coming glory could now be prolonged into a
residence ! As though this foretaste of the mil
lennium could be made a permanent repast ! In
his epistles, however, the same apostle three
times speaks of " the sufferings of Christ and the
glory that should follow," showing how clearly-
now the succession and characteristics of the ages
had been revealed to him by the Spirit. We are
still in the dispensation of Christ's sufferings ;
and if we have the patience of the waiting bride
we shall covet no richly adorned dwellings until
the dispensation of glory shall be ushered in and
the word of prophecy be fulfilled : " Behold the
tabernacle of God is with men " (Rev. xxi. 3).
Not only did the Church preempt the glories
of the age to come, but also its retributions. And
in this her presumption exceeded all bounds.
" Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the
world ? " asks the apostle. Well might the lowly
disciple of Christ be startled and staggered at
such a suggestion ! But it is only an illustration
of the reversals which will be effected at the set
ting up of the kingdom of Christ. They whose

160 ECCE VENIT.

portion it was to stand before the judgment-seat
of kings will now sit in the judgment-seat with
the King. of kings, "to execute upon them the
judgment written : This honor have all his saints "
(Ps. cxlix. 9). But this exercise of judicial honor
is limited most rigidly to the age to come. " Ye
which have followed me, in the regeneration," —
"in the renovation, iraAiyyewo-ta, being the res
toration of this world of ours on the appearance
of the new aeon" (Lange), — "when the Son of
man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel" (Matt. xix. 28). It is only in
association with the glorified Lord, present in the
body to judge men according to the deeds done
in the body, that this office can be exercised by
the redeemed. Therefore the Scripture is very
explicit, and saith : " Judge nothing before the
time until the Lord come " (1 Cor. iv. 5).
But see what the Church was left to do so
soon as she began to glorify herself and live deli
riously, and to commit fornication with the kings
of the earth. She snatched both the throne and
the sceptre of God, and began to deal out con
demnation to His saints. The centuries of Anti
christ's career have constituted one long judg
ment day, in which justice has been outraged as
never before in the history of the ages ; one pro-

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 161
longed assize, in which popes, and cardinals, and
bishops have sat in the bench with Chief Justice
Apollyon, and administered sentence according to
the statutes of the Prince of Darkness.
How visibly can the form of this black magis
trate be seen behind this mock tribunal ; how
almost audibly does the chuckle of his infernal
laughter break forth over this monstrous parody
of the court of God which he has seduced the
apostate Church to set up !' With unfathomable
ingenuity he has opened, before the time, the
lake of fire to which he is doomed, and made a
channel for it from the apostate Church ; and thus
to the astonished " world-rulers of this darkness "
he has shown a lurid river of the water of death
proceeding out of the throne of the Beast and
the Harlot, with millions of Christ's true saints
writhing in its flames on account of the testi
mony which they bore to the faith of Jesus :
fantastic cruelties burlesquing the calm justice
of God ; the throne of iniquity supplanting the
throne of grace, and impanelling the princes of
this world, who crucified the Lord of Glory, to
sit in judgment upon His faithful witnesses ! If
we knew of no other age than this, we might
verily believe that the Father of Lies had outwit
ted the Father of Mercies. It was the contem
plation of just what we are describing that is said

162 ECCE VENIT.

to have drawn forth from Voltaire the bitter re
mark : " If this is the best the Almighty Author
can do, He deserves to be hissed rather than
worshiped." No, philosopher! and we may add,
no, theologian ! This is not the best that God
can do ; this is not Christ's millennium : it is
Satan's mock millennium. For some inscruta
ble reason, the Lord has permitted a demon
stration to the principalities and powers in the
heavenly places of the worst which His arch
enemy can do. Wait a little and the Lord shall
descend from heaven to usher in the real millen
nium, the true Sabbatic consummation for which
the ages have sighed, and for which the whole
creation, until now, is groaning and travailing
in pain ; then our Immanuel will show us the
best He can do.
It is regretted that our Protestant Christianity,
in its separation from Rome, never passed en
tirely out of the baleful shadow of this pseudo-
millennium. For many to this day confound the
Church with the kingdom, and apply the prom
ises of the glory of the age to come to the
present triumphs of the gospel. God forbid that
in the slightest degree we should undervalue the
missionary and evangelical victories which have
so signally marked this century ; but if we are
tempted to predict the speedy conquest of the

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 163

whole world to Christ through these successes,
we need to be admonished to speak according to
the Word. The present is the dispensation of
election ; the declared purpose of preaching the
gospel to the Gentiles in this age is, " to take out
of them a people for His name" (Acts xv. 14),
and it is a premature grasping of the kingdom to
apply to this period those glorious predictions of
universal righteousness in the age to come, with
which Scripture abounds. If it be said that
this conception of preaching the gospel "for a
witness," and "to gather out," is a narrow and
disheartening one, we reply that it is in harmony
with the universal testimony of Scripture ; and
we shall be far safer and more successful to work
according to God's schedule of the ages than
according to man's time-table. Indeed, if we
would be intelligent laborers for Christ, we must
not fail to discriminate rigidly between the sphere
of the militant Church and the sphere of the
millennial Church. There is an ancient saying
of great significance : " Distinguite tempora et
concordabunt scriptures : " " Distinguish the pe
riods and the Scriptures will harmonize." Fail
ure at this point has worked vast misconcep
tion. The theories of Christ's parousia having
already occurred, of the resurrection already ac
complished, and of judgment already going on

164 ECCE VENIT.

in the unseen world, all rest upon that confusion
of the dispensations which makes " the world to
come" signify the present time or the disem
bodied state. Here, again, is a premature snatch
ing of the coming glory; and to effect it the
ages have been telescoped, and their distinguish
ing events huddled together in one promiscuous
jumble. The result is, prophecy without perspec
tive ; dispensations without distances intervening ;
the divine vision of things to come blended with
the present scene ; and the whole turned into a
Chinese picture, with all the objects in the fore
ground. Cross - bearing, patient endurance, diligent ser
vice, — this is our present calling, while we ever
pray our absent Lord " that it may please Thee
shortly to accomplish the number of Thine elect
and to hasten Thy kingdom." Meanwhile we
are "to live soberly, righteously, and godly in
this present age" if by any means we may be
" counted worthy to obtain that age and the res
urrection from the dead."

VI.
THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE.
It would be inevitable that, in the condition
of things described in the previous chapter, the
primitive hope of Christ's second coming in glory
should pass into utter eclipse. If the Messianic
reign had begun, and the kingdom had really
been set up, why should Christians longer look
for the Lord from heaven to establish His millen
nial throne ? The cry, " Behold the kingdom ! "
now filled all mouths ; the lavish splendors of the
papal court dazzled all eyes ; and there was little
occasion for that other cry to be longer sounded,
— Behold, He cometh!" — the cry which was
first uttered by that " brother and companion in
tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of
Jesus Christ," and which was continued for two
hundred years by his faithful fellow - sufferers.
So it was that Satan's counterfeit drove the gen
uine coin out of circulation, till the early advent
hope of the Church passed into almost complete
oblivion. Harnack, in his masterly article on the Millen
nium, shows that Augustine was the first theolo
gian " to grasp and elaborate the idea that the

166 ECCE VENIT.
Church is the kingdom of Christ and the city of
God ; . . . that the millennial kingdom had com
menced with the appearing of Christ, and was,
therefore, an accomplished fact." And he adds
that, "by this doctrine of Augustine's, the old
millenarianism, though not completely extirpated,
was at least banished from the realm of the dog
matic.1 Of course, as the papacy developed more and
more subsequent to Augustine's, day, more and
more was the millennial hope of the Church ob
scured. For that hope stands in direct antago
nism to every principle of the Hierarchy. As a
learned writer has said : " It never pleased, but
always gave offense to, the Church of Rome, be
cause it did not suit that scheme of Christianity
which they have drawn. The Apocalypse of John
supposed the true Church under hardships and
persecutions ; but the Church of Rome, suppos
ing Christ reigns already by His vicar the pope,
hath been in prosperity and greatness, and the
commanding Church in Christendom for a long

1 The article, "Millennium," by Prof. Adolph Harnack, of
Berlin, to which we constantly refer in this chapter, is in the last
edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is the ablest exhibi
tion, in brief compass, of the primitive and historical claims of
pre-millenarianism, and of the causes of the Church's decline
therefrom, with which we are acquainted.

THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 167

time. This has made the Church of Rome al
ways have an ill eye upon this doctrine, because
it seemed to have an ill eye upon her; and, as
she grew in splendor and greatness, she eclipsed
and obscured it more and more, so that it would
have been lost out of the world as an obsolete
error if it had not been revived by some at the
Reformation." 1
It is most striking to observe how, as the apos
tasy went on, not only the teaching on this sub
ject ceased, but the symbols, and worship, and
ordinances of the Church became so changed as
to silence their testimony to Christ's second com
ing, and to throw that doctrine into eclipse.
The seduction of the Church from its primitive
simplicity was accomplished mainly by these two
influences : pagan philosophy corrupting her doc
trine, and pagan ceremonies corrupting her wor
ship. Both of these were inherently hostile to
the chaste and artless Chiliasm of the apostolic
age. The primitive hope was intolerable to ra
tional theology, because it could not be surveyed
and mapped out upon its logic charts. Hence,
no sooner had philosophy been installed in the
apostle's chair than it began to wage war upon
the apostle's doctrine.
As the Apocalypse was regarded as the strong-
1 Thomas Burnet, 1635-1700.

1 68 ECCE VENIT.

hold of millenarianism, determined siege was
made against this book : its authority was ques
tioned, its value discounted, till it was finally
driven from the canon ; and, so far as the Greek
Church was concerned, it was denied a place in
Holy Scripture for centuries, and consequently
" Chiliasm remained in its grave." 1
Nor was this the worst injury emanating from
this source. Pagan philosophy infused its own
notions of a future life into ecclesiastical theol
ogy. It deftly substituted the Platonic doctrine
of the immortality of the soul for the Christian
J doctrine of the resurrection of the body. In har
mony with this change came in the notion of
judgment being administered immediately after
death in the disembodied state, instead of being
reserved till the coming of the Lord and the
raising of the dead, — a conception as charac
teristic of all heathen religions as it is foreign

1 Professor Harnack, avowing that millenarianism "was in
former times associated — to all appearance inseparably associ
ated — with the gospel itself," adds that " it can only exist along
with the unsophisticated faith of the early Christians ; " that " the
millenarians of the ancient Church, just because they were mil-
lenarians, despised dogmatic in the sense of philosophic theol
ogy." Professor Van Oosterzee also observes that there is an
irreconcilable " inner discrepancy between the modern theolog
ical philosophy and the prophetic and apostolical Scriptures."
— Person and Work of the Redeemer, p. 450.

THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 169
to the teaching of both the Old Testament and
the New. This eschatology of the under-world,
which even to this day so deeply colors our the
ology, could not fail to make strongly against
the original advent faith of the Church. For it
changed the up-look of primitive Christianity to
the down-look of pagan mythology, by making
death the object of consideration instead of the
coming of Christ. This was the master-stroke of
Satanic art, — the substitution of death for life,
of mortality for resurrection, in the hopes of the
Church. It is a perversion so radical and subtle
that to this day many Christians are blinded by
it, so that they imagine that their dying means
the same thing as Christ's coming. Twin coun
terfeits of paganism are these two ; ritualism-cor
rupting^ the- litu^gy-ef- the Church with- demon-
worship, and . Platonism corrupting the eschatol
ogy of the Church with death-worship. Instead
of the expectation being fixed upon Christ's ad
vent, it became fixed upon the soul's exit ; death
was glorified into a good angel ; and thus mor
tality, Satan's masterpiece, supplanted resurrec
tion, Christ's masterpiece, and the " Terrible
Captain Sepulchre and his Standard-bearer Cor
ruption " were crowned and throned in the place
of the Coming Christ, who is " the Resurrection
and the Life." In the gospel, death is made

170 ECCE VENIT.

neither the terminus ad quern nor the terminus a
quo ; that towards which we look for the consum
mation of our hopes, or from which we enter upon
our complete sanctification and final perfection.
" Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of
life," is the inspired confession of the believer.
And nothing will so completely quench the can
dle of our true hope as the opposite idea that
death is the supreme deliverer to be waited for.
The ceremonies which gradually grew up in
the Church tended to the same result. For as
worship more and more took the place of the
Word in the Christian assembly, the contem
plation was withdrawn from the glories of the
age to come. Purgatory was substituted for
Paradise ; masses for the disembodied souls in
the former supplanted scriptural exhortations to
the attainment of the rewards and glories of the
latter. The lamp of prophecy, which the Lord
left in the hands of his waiting Bride, had at last
been exchanged for the tapers of heathenism.
"We almost see the ceremonial of the Gentiles
introduced into the Church under pretense of re
ligion," exclaims Jerome, "piles of candles lighted
while yet the sun is shining. Great honor do
such persons render to the blessed martyrs, think
ing with miserable tapers to illuminate those

THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 171
whom the Lamb in the midst of the throne shines
upon with the splendor of His majesty." x It will
be seen from this saying which way the candle
of paganism throws its beams, as compared with
the true light which Christ gave to His Church.
" We have also a more sure word of prophecy,"
writes Peter, " whereunto ye do well that ye take
heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place,
until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your
hearts." Here is the lamp which amid earth's
night was to shed its rays far on towards the
coming King, to meet and mingle with the light
of His returning glory, " until the day break and
the shadows flee away." What a blow was it to
the bridal hopes of the Church when ceremony
took the place of scriptural preaching and expo
sition in the assemblies of Christians !
Observe the same suppression of primitive
teaching in the Christian ordinances. Baptism,
as instituted by our Lord, bore graphic witness
to the first resurrection, and hence at every ad
ministration it uttered a visible " Behold he com
eth ! " Hear the apostolic exposition of this
ordinance : " Know ye not that so many of us as
were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into His death ? Therefore we are buried with
Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ
1 Adv. Vigilantium, c. ii.

172 ECCE VENIT.
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of
life (Rom. vi. 4) : a text which shows, says Canon
Westcott, that the very entrance of the primitive
Christians into the Church "was apprehended
under the form of a resurrection." But as the
rite became mutilated in the Western Church,
the tongue with which it once proclaimed our
advent hope was plucked out, and its testimony
silenced, so that, as now widely practiced, the
ordinance gives no suggestion of resurrection.1
The Lord's Supper, also, was not only robbed
of its millennial witness, but made to express a
completely contrary idea. For gradually the doc
trine of "the real presence" became associated
with the communion. Originally the eucharist
1 Dean Stanley declares that the change from the primitive
form of immersion to sprinkling has " set aside the larger part
of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and altered the very
meaning thereof" (Essay on Baptism). Dean Goulburn, regret
ting that immersion, which is the rule of his church, has been
discontinued, says that, were it still practiced, " The water clos
ing over the entire person would then preach of the grave which
yawns for every child of Adam, and which one day will engulf
us all in its drear abyss. But that abyss will be the womb and
ieed-plot of a new life. Animation having been for one instant
suspended beneath the water, — a type this of the interruption of
man's energies by death, — the body is lifted up again into the
air by way of expressing emblematically the new birth of resur
rection." — Bampton Lectures, 1850, Oxford Edition, p. 18.

THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 173
proclaimed the real absence of the Lord. — " This
do in remembrance of Me" was its voice. We do
not remember a present friend, but one who is
absent. " For as often as ye eat this bread and
drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death until
He come." — We do not wait the coming of one
who is with us, but of one who is away from us.
The Jews to this day keep a vacant seat for Eli
jah at their paschal meal, remembering the word
of the Lord, " Behold I will send you Elijah the
prophet before the coming of the great and dread
ful day of the Lord," thus making the feast an-
ticipative as well as commemorative. And while
the Bridegroom tarries, there is ever a vacant seat
at the Lord's table, left empty for the Lord Him
self, who distinctly said at the beginning that He
would not henceforth participate in the cup with
His disciples till He should drink it new with
them in the Father's kingdom. Of course, in the
person of the unseen Holy Spirit, Christ is ever
with His Church. But visibly and corporeally
He is not present ; and the communion was or
dained to proclaim this fact through all the in
terim from His departure to His return. Alas !
it was a sad blow to the Church's advent hope
when these two sacramental witnesses to our
Lord's return were brought into a conspiracy of
silence concerning that blessed event, while one

174 ECCE VENIT.

of them was made to bear false testimony, pro
claiming a literal presence of the Lord in body
and blood, thus hushing into silence the " until
He come" which the ordinance was originally
commissioned to utter.
Thus was Christ's prophecy literally fulfilled :
" While the Bridegroom tarried they all slumbered
and slept." And it was fulfilled exactly as the
language signifies. For the word translated
"slumbered" is vuo-to&o, to nod. At first there
were faithful witnesses, such as Nepos, Methodius,
Apollinaris, and Lactantius, who sought to rouse
the lethargic Church, but there was only a mo
mentary awakening, followed by a deeper relapse
into slumber. The Church drowsed and nodded,
then fell into a profound sleep ; and during the
long period of the Dark Ages the advent faith dis
appeared. Not utterly, indeed, for in Harnack's
expressive phrase, " It still lived on in the lower
strata of Christian society ; and in certain under
currents of tradition it was transmitted from
century to century." That is, while the harlot
Church, including the great body of nominal
Christians, became completely dead to this truth,
the true Bride, the woman in the wilderness,
obscure, despised, and persecuted, still cherished
it in secret. Hence all through the ages we find
glimmering rays from the Virgin's lamp falling

THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 175
here and there in the surrounding darkness. The
Waldensian candlestick, with its motto, " Lux in
tenebris" threw stray beams of advent light into
the encircling gloom. Read the following from
the Noble Lesson, a famous treatise originating
in that body about a. d. 1200 : " O brethren, hear
a noble lesson : we ought often to watch and be
in prayer ; for we see that this world is near its
fall. We ought to be very careful to do good
works, for we see that the end of the world is
approaching." That other band of sackcloth witnesses, the
Paulicians, gave similar testimony. For while
the great body of Christendom had settled down
into a contented earthly citizenship, these hunted
and hated Protestants saluted each other as
<rwiK8r)fJi.oi, — " Fellow-exiles ; " and while the blind
virgin - worshipers adored the Mother of God,
these spoke of the Jerusalem above, the Mother
of us all, as that from whence Christ, the " Fore
runner, having for us entered," would surely
come again. Even from within the Catholic
communion came stray testimonies, like that of
Bernard of Cluny in the twelfth century : —
" The world is very evil.
The times are waxing late.
Be sober and keep vigil.
The Judge is at the gate."

176 ECCE VENIT.

But these were only broken rays, feeble heart-
reflections from those who had kept sight of
"The Bright and Morning Star," in the mid
night of the Church's apostasy. We do not for
get that there were powerful outbreaks of expec
tation of Christ's return, like that which marked
the dawn of the thousandth year of the Christian
era. But the conception which characterized
these was that of a Judge coming in terror, not
of a Bridegroom returning to bring joy to his
waiting Bride. The patience of hope revived
only in a panic of fear. The forebodings of this
period having passed, Christendom relapsed once
more into profound slumber concerning her prim
itive hope, — a slumber disturbed only here and
there by the dreams of those whom she counted
visionaries and fanatics. So it continued till the
dawn of the Reformation.

PART III.
FULFILLED.

'¦ With the Lord's second advent will begin the real reign of
God upon earth — a kingdom of righteousness, holiness, and peace,
consisting of saints, with exemption from the Evil One and his
enticements, and under a mighty influence of celestial power. It
is called the reign of a thousand years. Modern times have again
paid attention to this doctrine of the Millennium, thus coinciding
with the ancient Fathers. It is resounding, as it were, a new call:
' The Lord cometh ! ' Among believers, this doctrine, far removed
from carnal conceptions, should no more be considered an error?'
— John Frederick Meyer.

HOPE REVIVED.
The Reformation was virtually a republication
of the gospel ; it was the Christian era begin
ning anew, and repeating in substance the primi
tive features of the religion of Jesus.
The historical school of interpreters have found
in the tenth chapter of Revelation a graphic and
powerful prefigurement of this event : "And I
saw another mighty angel come down from heaven
clothed with a cloud ; and a rainbow was upon
his head, and his face was as it were the sun,
and his feet as pillars of fire ; and he had in his
hand a little book open." From the description
of this mighty angel we can hardly fail to iden
tify him with the glorified Christ, the Angel of
the Covenant, as already pictured in this book
(i. 13-16). There is the same countenance "as
of the sun shining in his strength," the same
mighty voice, and the same burning feet. The
conception seems to be that of Christ appear
ing in history to reaffirm His testament. But
that which identifies this representation most
certainly to our mind is its likeness to a similar
scene in the Old Testament, a point hitherto

180 ECCE VENIT.

overlooked, so far as we are aware. For the keys
to the Revelation are generally found in the Bible
itself, events of its history being so paralleled or
reproduced in the Apocalyptic imagery as to ren
der the meaning apparent.
Now the scene of the second giving of the law,
as described in Exodus, seems to be substantially
rehearsed in this chapter of the Apocalypse in
order to figure the second giving of the gospel.
The circumstances were identical. As the tables
of the law had been destroyed on account of the
idolatry of Israel, so now the statutes of the gos
pel had been annulled by the gross idolatry of the
papacy. But, God having commanded Moses to
hew two tables of stone, like unto the first that
were broken, the servant of God stands upon
Mount Sinai holding the tables in his hand.
"And the Lord descended in the cloud" (Ex.
xxxiv. 5). So in the second giving of the gos
pel we behold " a mighty angel come down from
heaven clothed with a cloud." There is the same
"proclaiming" with a loud voice in either in
stance. "The pillars of fire" to which the an
gel's feet are likened complete the identification,
so that we have the pillar and the cloud in both
scenes. "Behold I make a covenant before all
thy people," says Jehovah on the mountain-top.
In the Apocalypse this renewed covenant is

HOPE REVIVED. 181

graphically symbolized by the bow overarching
the angel : "And the rainbow was upon his head."
Moses, with the two tables of testimony in his
hand received anew from Jehovah, and the one
addressed in the Apocalypse with " the little book
open," received from the hand of the angel, — this
completes the parallel. And if we may conclude,
with many commentators, that the " little book
open " is the gospel restored after its long sup
pression by the idolatrous Church, then the veri
similitude is most striking between the resto
ration of the law and the restoration of the
gospel. How such truths as justification by faith blazed
out anew from the reopened Testament at the
Reformation is well known ; and the long-lost
doctrine of Christ's glorious appearing as'1 the
hope of the Church could not fail in like manner
to be revived so soon as the Scriptures were un
chained. We do not say that primitive Chiliasm
was restored in its entireness to the creed of
the Reformed Church. Attention was so much
occupied with the saving truths of the gospel
that its sanctifying hopes were not duly empha
sized. Beside there were gross and repulsive
caricatures of ancient millenarianism appearing
here and there to create revulsion from the true.
Satan's tares were not only sown in Christ's

182 ECCE VENIT.

newly-ploughed field, but they were so rank and
forward in their growth as to forestall attention,
and prevent the real wheat from being recognized
when it should appear. But this fact is very
noticeable, that, as the features of Antichrist be
gan to be descried in the papacy by the Re-
' formers, the mind inevitably went forward to
Him who was to destroy this Man of Sin "by
the brightness of His coming." So ripe was the
apostasy, so near seemed the epiphany ; so devel
oped was Antichrist, so imminent seemed the
coming of Christ. Clear and intelligent were the
voices that began to break forth from among
the disenthralled subjects of the pontiff. " The
world, without doubt, — this I do believe, and
therefore say it, — draws to a close. Let us,
with John, the servant of God, say in our hearts
to our Saviour Christ : Come, Lord Jesus,
come."1 So spoke Ridley in 1554; and his
fellow-martyr for the truth, Cranmer, said like
wise : " We ask that His kingdom come, for that
as yet we see not all things put under Jesus
Christ. ... As yet Antichrist is not slain.
Whence it is, we desire and pray, that at length
it may come to pass and be fulfilled ; and that
Christ alone may reign with His saints, accord
ing to the divine promise, and live and have
1 Lamentation for the Change of Religion.

HOPE REVIVED. 183
dominion in the world according to the decrees
of the Holy Gospel, and not according to the
traditions and laws of men, and the will of the
tyrants of this world." x And Hugh Latimer
spoke to the same intent : " Let us therefore have
a desire that this day may come quickly ; let us
hasten God forward; let us cry unto Him day
and night, 'Most merciful Father, Thy kingdom
come.' St. Paul says : ' The Lord will not come
till the swerving from the faith cometh ' (2 Thess.
ii. 3), which thing is already done and past.
Antichrist is already known throughout all the
world : wherefore the day is not far off. Let us
observe, for it will one day fall on our heads." 2
These are testimonies which gleam with the
light of martyr-fires already kindling upon their
confessors, — fires which were sent to purify that
hope which is itself the purifier of the saints.
As an old coin stamped with the image of some
forgotten king, but so worn by use that the royal
countenance has disappeared, yet being subjected
to a powerful heat gives back the obliterated face
again to the beholder, so the image and super
scription of the coming Christ, our advent Re
deemer, long effaced from the gospel by idolatry
and vain philosophy, reemerged in the martyr-fires
1 Catechism of Edward VI., 1553.
2 Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.

1 84 ECCE VENIT.

of the Reformation ; and once more men read
and repeated the words thereon : "Behold, I
come quickly."
As to the other reformers, Martensen, the emi
nent Danish theologian, has expressed his regret
that when Luther and his coadjutors, under God,
set their hands to recover the primitive faith,
they should not have restored apostolic mille
narianism, and given it a place in the reformed
creed. But Luther did not reject it, though this
has been alleged. " The Jewish • opinions " so
pointedly condemned in the Augsburg Confession,
which he assisted in drafting, really had reference
to the notion of a millennium in the flesh, or the
setting up of the kingdom of God in this present
evil age and before the advent. Some extreme
Anabaptists had exhibited this travesty of a
sacred truth, and in carrying out the idea had
stirred up sedition and brought scandal upon the
Protestant movement. At these the disavowal
was aimed.1 The article in question really con
demns the post - millenarianism now so greatly
in vogue among us. It reads : " They condemn
1 " And as at the time, among other calumnies, this blame was
also cast upon us, as if the gospel taught and encouraged rebel
lion and undutifulness toward authorities, we had, by these words
of the Confession, to free ourselves of such imputations." — Me-
lancthon's Works, vol. xxvi., p. 366.

HOPE REVIVED. 185
others also, which spread abroad Jewish opinions,
that before the resurrection of the dead, the godly
shall get the sovereignty in the world, and the
wicked be brought under in every place." That
the godly will not get the sovereignty of the
world, and subdue the wicked before the resur
rection at Christ's coming, is what true Chiliasm
has always avowed.
How strongly the principal reformers empha
sized this view, as against the notion of world-
conversion and regeneration before the advent,
now so widely accepted among religious teach
ers, will appear from two or three quotations.
"Some say," writes Luther, "that before the
latter day the whole world shall become Chris
tians. This is a falsehood forged by Satan that
he might darken sound doctrine. Beware, there
fore, of this delusion." x And John Knox, the
intrepid Scotch reformer, likewise declares : " To
reform the whole earth, which never was, nor
yet shall be, till that righteous King and Judge
appear for the restoration of all things." 2 Of the
unfitness of the conception of the kingdom ap
pearing before the King, of the triumph of the
saints before the triumph of the Saviour, John
Calvin thus speaks : " Christ is our Head, whose
kingdom and glory have not yet appeared. If
1 Com. on John, x. 11-16. a Treatise on Fasting.

1 86 ECCE VENIT.

the members were to go before the Head, the
order of things would be inverted and preposter
ous ; but we shall follow our Prince then when
He shall come in the glory of His Father and sit
upon the throne of His majesty." x These selec
tions sufficiently indicate how strongly the nega
tive aspects of Chiliasm were maintained by the
Reformers. When we hear their positive avow
als of the certainty and imminence of the Lord's
second advent, their position becomes even more
clearly defined. Hear Knox in his letter to the
faithful in London, in 1554 : " Has not the Lord
Jesus, in spite of Satan's malice, carried up our
flesh into heaven? And shall He not return?
We know that He shall return, and that with ex
pedition." Luther in his weariness of the Refor
mation battle, cries out aff ectingly : " There is no
more help or counsel upon earth except in the
last day. I hope, too, that it will not be much
longer before it comes ; I believe that the gospel
will become so despised that the last day cannot
be far off, not over a hundred years. God's Word
will again wax less and fall off, and great dark
ness will come for want of true and faithful min
isters of the Word. Then will the whole world
run wild, sensual, and live in all security without
reflecting. Then shall the voice come and sound,

1 Psyckopannychia, p. 55.

HOPE REVIVED. 187
'Behold, the Bridegroom cometh,' for God will
not be able longer to endure it." J
If the excesses of certain Anabaptists preju
diced Luther and his associates so that they did
not give millenarianism that recognition in the
reformed theology which it deserved, the fidelity
of others of this sect — " many of whom," says
Harnack, "need not shun comparison with the
Christians of the apostolic and post - apostolic
ages" — had much to do with keeping it alive in
Christendom. This, Harnack distinctly recog
nizes, declaring that, while the Reformers fol
lowed too much the teachings on this subject
which had prevailed in the Catholic Church since
the time of Augustine, "millenarianism neverthe
less found its way, with the help of Apocalyptic
mysticism and Anabaptist influences, into the
churches of the Reformation, chiefly among the
reformed sects, but afterwards also into the Lu
theran Church." Of these reformed sects we can
only speak briefly. The lineal descendants of the
Anabaptists — John Bunyan's spiritual kinsmen
and fellow - sufferers in England — presented a
confession to Charles II. which embodies "the
purest early Patristic millenarian doctrine of any
creed in modern times." There .were apostolic
names among the more than twenty thousand
1 Table Talk.

188 ECCE VENIT.

Baptists who, in giving their adhesion to this
document, declare : " We are not only resolved to
suffer persecution to the loss of our goods, but
also life itself, rather than decline from the same."
The confession contains a touching avowal of the
pilgrim condition of Christ's disciples until His
advent, on which event their hopes are placed :
" Though now, alas ! many men be scarce content
that the saints should have so much as a being
among them, but when Christ shall appear, then
shall be their day : then shall be given them power
over the nations to rule them with a rod of iron ;
then shall they receive a crown of life which no
man taketh from them." If the Westminster Con
fession was less explicit so far as giving any formal
expression of Chiliasm, it at least sets the hope
of our Lord's ever imminent return into conspic
uous prominence, declaring : " Christ will have
that day unknown to men, that they may shake
off all carnal security and be always watchful,
because they know not at what hour the Lord
will come." With the Evangelical party in the
Episcopal Church this has been so strong a con
viction and article of faith as to render them its
most conspicuous champions in modern times.
Among the. fathers.^ of Congregationalism, es
pecially those who planted the gospel in Amer
ica, the ancient doctrine was strongly held and

HOPE REVIVED. 189
ardently preached. New England theology was
in the beginning as deeply colored with millena-
rian hopes as primitive Christianity itself. The
Mather^-who preached in the city in which we
write, and whose sepulchres are with us to this
day, were bold confessors of apostolic Chiliasm;
anci considering how strongly other eminent men
of their day echoed their sentiments, Davenport,
Spaulding, and Walley, we must conclude that
this precious faith had found another blooming
period in connection with this eventful planting
of the gospel. But, alas ! as in the beginning
this doctrine was wrecked on the philosophy of
Augustine, so now it disappeared before the
mighty logic of Jonathan Edwards. For, in his
" History of Redemption," though he speaks
clearly of the literal advent and resurrection, the
millennial hope of God's Church is so spiritual
ized and attenuated as to be utterly unrecogniz-
I able ; and from his day the Church, of which he
I was so eminent a light, has drifted more and more
; toward that post-millenarianism which may have
had not a little influence in producing the baleful
fruits of eschatology now ripening among us.
All that we can give in our brief space is only
the merest outline of the renaissance of millena
rianism. The clearest traces of the revived hope
of the Church, however, appear in the noble line

19° ECCE VENIT.

of Apocalyptic expositors — a true apostolic suc
cession — beginning with Joseph Mede, born in
the same half century in which Luther died,
and coming down to Elliott in our own century.
Their way is like the path of the just that shin-
eth more and more unto the perfect day ; in their
hands the prophet's lamp glows with ever-bright
ening beam towards the millennial dawn. In
deed, whenever men have turned from dogmatics
to Scripture, a revival of millennial views has
been inevitable. So it was that when the great
evangelical exegete Bengel appeared, and began
to unchain the Word of God and allow it to speak
for itself, such an impulse was given to advent
truth that, according to Hengstenberg, " Chiliasm
obtained an almost universal diffusion through
the Church."1 And yet, as ever, there were
many adversaries. Of Bengel, Dorner says : " His
works were the first cock -crowing of the new
kind of exegesis the Church so greatly needed."
But before the cock -crowing was fairly heard,
the advent faith was thrice denied by the incred
ulous question : " Where is the sign of His com-
1 " To whom else do we owe it that the Orthodox Church of
the present time does not brand the Chiliastic view of the last
times as a heterodoxy, as is done in almost all the manuals of
dogmatics, so that there is scarcely a believing Christian now
who does not take this view f " — Delitzsch.

HOPE REVIVED. 191
ing ? " For in the same century with Bengel
wrote Whitby the Arian,the author of that "New
\ Hypothesis " in eschatology called post - millen-
inialism, which now rules so largely in the theo
logical schools of this country, — a spiritualizing
system whose ultimate tendency has been to ob
scure the doctrine of a literal advent, a literal
resurrection, and a literal kingdom, and to put far
off the day of the Lord. Just as Judaizing con
ceptions brought the doctrine of the millennium
into disrepute in the early ages by carnalizing it,
so this interpretation has tended to discount it in
our times by spiritualizing it. Once more, how
ever, has come a reaction towards the ancient
teaching. For in our own generation has been
witnessed such a flaming-up of the torch of prim
itive adventism as has not been known since the
first century. The learned exegete and the hum
ble Bible - reader — the one searching with the
critical eye of scholarship, and the other with the
single eye of faith — have reached the same con
clusion, and joined to sound out together the cry,
" Behold, He cometh ! " What eminent exposi
tors are to-day standing forth to give their bold
adhesion to this much-maligned doctrine ! What
eloquent preachers have risen up to sound out
the cry, " Behold, the Bridegroom cometh ! "
What ardent evangelists are going through the

192 ECCE VENIT.

land bearing in their hands the relighted lamp of
prophecy, opening and alleging that " this same
Jesus, who was received up into heaven, shall so
come in like manner as He went up ! " What
gifted poets have tuned their lyres to this exalted
theme, so that now, "with their garlands and
singing - robes about them," they are heralding
with Milton, their choir-leader, "the eternal and
shortly expected King J '" What crowded assem
blies are gathering for conference and mutual
encouragement concerning this lofty theme ! All
these things constitute an undisputed sign of that
greater sign, "the sign of the Son of man in
heaven," coming to heed at last the sigh of
groaning and travailing creation, to renew the
face of the earth, that it may be to the Lord
"for a name, for an everlasting sign, that shall
not be cut off."

II.
FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY.
" Eudia ! " " Fair weather ! " Such is the excla
mation which our Lord puts into the mouth of the
watchers of the evening-red upon the western
horizon ; and then He chides His hearers that,
discerning the face of the sky, they cannot dis
cern the signs of the times (Matt. xvi. 2, 3). After
the long, wild storm of the ages, the " hail and
fire mingled with blood " devastating the earth, is
it strange that we should watch eagerly for the
tokens of the fair day of God which the coming
of the Son of man shall usher in ? Some say
that signs are not for the Church, since she is
heavenly, and has her home on high. But just
for that reason they are for the Church, for the
"strangers and pilgrims on the earth" who "de
sire a better country, even a heavenly."
The budding fig-tree is certainly a token for
us, — a Jewish sign for the Christian Church;
and if, as we believe, this phenomenon is now
appearing, it should be to the waiting Bride of
Immanuel as the song of her Beloved, " Rise up,
my love, my fair one, and come away : for, lo ! the
winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; the

194 ECCE VENIT.

flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the
singing of birds is come, and the voice of the
turtle is heard in the land. The fig tree putteth
forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender
grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair
one, and come away." The cursing of the fig
tree we believe, with many expositors, to be an
enacted parable. If our Lord had pointed to the
green and spreading branches and said, " This is
Israel," His meaning had hardly been plainer.
" Leaves only," — abundant professions, luxuriant
outward religious display, — such was the char
acter of the Hebrew Church as it appeared to the
Saviour's eyes. "And he said unto it, Let no
fruit grow on thee henceforward forever; and
presently the fig tree withered away " (Matt.
xxi. 19). Yet not forever. Why not translate
the words literally, ets tov alS>va, "for the age " ?
Then, in miniature symbol, we have the magni
fied fact to which the centuries have been bear
ing solemn witness, namely, that for the entire
age, for the whole dispensation following their
rejection of Christ, the Jewish people would be
dry, and unfruitful, and dead.
But subsequently we hear our Lord saying :
" Now from the fig tree learn her parable ; while
her branch is now become tender and putteth
forth leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh."

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 195
" As in its judicial unfruitfulness it emblematized
the Jewish people, so here the putting forth of
the fig tree from its winter dryness symbolizes
the future reviviscence of that race which the Lord
declares shall not pass away till all be fulfilled "
(Alford, Matt. xxiv. 33). As the blight and barren
ness were for the age, so the budding and bloom
ing will be a joyful sign of the termination of the
age. Thus our Lord has given one answer to
the question with which ' this chapter opens :
" What shall be the sign of Thy coming and of
the end of the age ? "
Are there any swelling buds of promise now
visible on the long-withered Jewish stock ? We
name these, whose presence only the densest
prejudice can fail to recognize as significant :
The civil emancipation of Israel during the pres
ent century where in all lands she has been op
pressed, as though the word of the Lord were
already fulfilling, " Loose thyself from the bands
of thy neck, oh, captive daughter of Zion ; " the
tide of emigration setting toward Palestine, accel
erated of late by the persecutions in many coun
tries, as though the Israelites were being driven
out in order to be driven home ; the extraordinary
conquests of the gospel in later years among this
people, so that it is estimated that more Jews
have been converted to Christianity in the nine-

196 ECCE VENIT.

teenth century than during the whole period of
the Christian era ; and last, the wonderful Christ-
believing movement headed by Joseph Rabin-
owitch of Russia — a movement within the Jew
ish Church for confessing Jesus as the Messiah —
having this for its watchword : " The key of the
Holy Land lies in the hand of our brother Jesus."
This remarkable revival, though but five years in
progress, is said to have already won to itself
some fifty thousand adherents ; and Professor
Delitzsch, the eminent Hebraist, having studied it
, in the light of the prophetic Scriptures, expresses
the conviction that it " marks the beginning of
the end ; " and with him several thoughtful Jew
ish Christians join in publishing their judgment,
that "this movement may develop into the prom
ised restoration of Israel."
The world-wide proclamation of the gospel is
also a significant token of the approaching end
of the age. " And this gospel of the kingdom,"
our Lord declares, " shall be preached in all the
world for a witness unto all nations, and then
shall come the end." Prophecy unfolds itself in
concentric circles of fulfillment, each circle tak
ing in a wider sweep of history than its prede
cessor, till the whole circumference of the divine
prediction has been filled up. This principle is
illustrated in the Saviour's saying: "Verily, I

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 197
say unto you, This generation shall not pass away
till all be fulfilled " (Matt. xxiv. 34). The gen
eration then living did not pass away until the
destruction of Jerusalem, — that ending of the
Jewish age which was a vivid foretype of the
greater event, the termination of the Christian
age ; but the generation in its larger sense —
the Hebrew race — survived that catastrophe,
and still endures, as a standing memorial of the
truth of this saying of our Lord; its budding
and revival to be the sure foretoken of the end
of this dispensation, as its cursing and withering
were of the end of the former. We may draw a
figure at this point from a beautiful expression in
Paul's sermon on Mars Hill, where, according to
the original, he says that God hath " horizoned
the times appointed." x In prophecy there are
1 It is evident, comparing St. Luke with the other synoptists,
that Jesus turned the thoughts of the disciples to two horizons,
one near and one far off, as He suffered them to see one brief ,
glimpse of the landscape of the future. The boundary line of
either horizon marked the winding up of a ceon, the owreAem
ai&vos ; each was a great t&os, or ending ; of each it was true
that the then existing yev4a — first in its literal sense of " gener
ation," then in its wider sense of " race " — should not pass away
till all had been fulfilled. And the one was the type of the
other : the judgment upon Jerusalem, followed by the establish
ment of the visible Church upon earth, foreshadowed the judg
ment of the world and the establishment of Christ's kingdom at
His second coming. — Farrar's Life of Christ, ii. 259.

198 ECCE VENIT.

near and distant horizons, their outline so blend
ing to the eye that they can with difficulty be
distinguished. Thus do the bounds of the suc
cessive ages mingle in the outlook of the future ;
and, in our Lord's great eschatological discourse,
so complete is the mingling that it is quite im
possible entirely to separate them. Keep in mind
this fact in interpreting our Saviour's prophecy
of the preaching of the gospel among all nations.
It was fulfilled within the narrower circle of the
Roman world, before the fall of the Jewish city
and the termination of the Hebrew economy.
Paul, writing to the Colossians, speaks of " the
gospel which is come unto you, as it is in all the
world" and again, of "the hope of the gospel
which ye have heard, and which was preached
unto every creature which is under heaven " (Col.
i. 6, 23). The inner circle of this prediction was
thus filled up ; and now we wait for the outer
circumference to be reached, when, in the largest
sense, "all nations" shall be visited by the gos
pel, that the end of this dispensation may come.
Need it be said that our own generation, and
especially our own century, is witnessing the un
questionable marks of the fulfillment of this pre
diction ? The century opened with almost every
heathen country in gross darkness concerning
the gospel ; it is about to close with every nation

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 199
holding up luminous points of evangelized do
main to witness to God that it has received the
witness of God in the gospel of His Son.
The closing words of Daniel contain another
sign for us: "But the wise shall understand."
The book of prophecy, which was sealed "till
the time of the end," was to be revealed to God's
searching servants as the time of the end drew
near. Therefore such uncovering of the pro
phetic mysteries, such inquiry and demonstration
concerning the " what, and what manner of time,"
as our generation has witnessed, is a most strik
ing token of the nearing termination of the age.
The same Spirit who is in the Word is in the
Church ; and as " the testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy," so the witnesses of Jesus will
be the expositors of prophecy. Errors and mis
calculations they will make, no doubt ; but the
general consensus of their opinion will be shaped,
we believe, to the teaching of the inspired page.
Therefore the deepening search is a sign of on
coming dawn. " It is not to be denied that our
own age enters, with an earnestness and inten
sity such as no earlier one has shown, into the
eschatological examination, and presses forward
in the complete development of this doctrine, one
sign among many that we are hastening towards
the great decision." x 1 Kling.

200 ECCE VENIT.

And yet this is only half a sign, the bright side
of an omen of hope, whose other hemisphere is
in shadow. Peter gives us the dark counterpart.
" Knowing this first, that there shall come in the
last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
and saying, Where is the sign of His coming ?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things con
tinue as they were from the beginning of the cre
ation " (2 Pet. iii. 3).1 Language could not de
scribe more accurately the attitude of a large sec
tion of the nominal Church respecting the future.
" Evolution, not catastrophe," is the cry. By the
transforming power of Christian civilization, the
world is to be gradually subdued to God, and the
present good age, with its beneficent endowment
of steam, and electricity, and printers' type, is
to terminate in a Christo-scientific millennium.
Darwin, the apostle of evolution, echoes back the
1 Never did the Church witness such a constellation of signs
of the near coming of Christ as now. " The branches of the fig
tree are full of sap, and the summer is at hand." Assuredly I
am not ignorant that a portion of the Church has become grad
ually weary of the long-tarrying, and has fallen into doubt. You
also shake your head, and are of the opinion that we have long
talked of " the last time." Well, use this language, and increase
the number of the existing signs by this new one. Add that of
the foolish virgins, who, shortly before the midnight hour, main
tained " the Lord would not come for a long time." — F. W.
Krummacher.

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 201
words of Peter, the apostle of judgment, saying :
"All things continue as they were since the be
ginning of creation ; there is no need for miracu
lous intervention, no room for supernatural ac
tion ; as it was in the beginning, so it is now, and
so it shall ever be, as regards the succession of
physical phenomena." In this saying he speaks
for multitudes within the Christian Church. Man
is the microcosm of creation ; and as the doctrine
of salvation by development has with many su
perseded that of salvation by regeneration, so has
the theory of a millennium through evolution
taken the place ol that of a millennium, through
crisis. We should be reminded, at this point, that the
signs of the approaching end of the age are both
bright and dark. The gloomy pessimism which
looks only for deepening apostasy is quite as
wrong as the placid optimism which expects the
world to glide peacefully into the golden age of
glory. The brighter the light the deeper the
shadow. The world-wide evangelization which
our generation is witnessing ; the translation of
the Scriptures into innumerable tongues; the
unparalleled study of the Bible, through Sunday
school and lay instruction ; the revivalism pro
moted by such bands of earnest workers of every
grade and order, — these facts indicate that a

202 ECCE VENIT.

light is falling upon our lost humanity such as
never was before. But the shadows are "the
blackness of darkness" itself. Avarice within
the Church, threatening to throttle the gospel
just when the promise is greatest for its triumph ;
anarchy without, menacing all order and stability
with its angry growl ; the ruin which Christian
nations are sowing, in the path of the mission
ary's blessing, by their opium and strong drink ;
the ingenious vice and elaborate debauchery which
our higher civilization is begetting ; the restrained
anger of the nations, who await only the slightest
provocation to fly at each other's throats with
their terrific armaments, — this outlook is so dis
mal as to be utterly appalling, were we not confi
dent that even the shadows point to the dawn.
"Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and
worse, deceiving and being deceived." Present
history gives its emphatic Amen ! to this sure
word of prophecy. But " the path of the just is
a shining light, that shineth more and more unto
the perfect day ; " and, God be praised ! a great
company are walking that path to-day, with their
faces brightening with a keener radiance as they
behold their redemption drawing nigh. Hemi
spheres of hope are both, to those who .know the
Scriptures, — the darkness of abounding deprav
ity, and the brightness of saintly consecration.

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 203
For the energy of Satan is evermore a tribute
to the zeal of God appearing in the Church. If
Christians are rising up to, extraordinary service
for God, because they know that " the time is
short," what wonder if Satan should " come down
with great wrath because he knoweth he hath
but a short, time ? "
As for chronological signs, we believe that
these are_given_ to enable_us„to approximate, not
to caJjailaiejJtheJJiiLeja£iJie_eiid. Those compu
tations by which some have presumed to deter
mine the day and the hour of the Lord's return
have brought great discredit upon Apocalyptic
study. Only as the prophet's lamp shines upon
the prophet's calendar can we read it aright ; and
while we examine the inspired dates of the latter,
we must give heed to the divine admonition of
the former : " But of that day and hour knoweth
no man ; no, not the angels of heaven, but my
Father only " (Matt. xxiv. 36).
In saying this, however, we are far from dispar
aging the study of divine chronology. That oft-
repeated interval, — " time, and times, and a half
a time," "forty and two months," "a thousand two
hundred and threescore days" — we hold to sig
nify always the same thing, according to the year-
day interpretation, twelve hundred and sixty years, i
Now, as this is the period of the domination of

204 ECCE VENIT.

the beast (Rev. xiii. 6), and of the witnesses
prophesying in sackcloth (xi. 3), of the career of
the "little horn" (Dan. vii. 24), and of the so
journ of the woman in the wilderness (Rev. xii.
6), it gives us several lines of measurement that
verify each other. By general consent, the "little
horn" and "the beast" signify the Antichrist.
This mysterious power holds dominion for "forty
and two months," the same period as that of the
woman's sojourn in the wilderness. But the
exile of the Bride, the woman in white, mast cor
respond in duration with the enthronement of the
Harlot, the woman in purple, for these are the
obverse and reverse sides of the same prophetic
fact. Now, as we know from history that the
Harlot has been sitting as queen on the seven
hills for more than twelve hundred years, and as
we know from prophecy that her opposite, the
Bride, was to be in exile for "a thousand two
hundred and threescore days," we conclude that
these days signify years, for the Beast, and for
the Bride, and for the Harlot alike, all these
having the same period for their allotted career.
Therefore it is not true, as some assert, that An
tichrist arises only after the apostate Church has
run her course, to hold sway for a literal three
years and a half ; but he is contemporaneous with
her. Now, since Antichrist's destruction is ef-

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 20J
fected by Christ's coming, the career of the for
mer, as predicted in prophecy and confirmed by
history, must furnish one of the plainest meas
ures by which to approximate the time of the end.
If the rise of the papacy could be fixed as to the
exact day and year, we might not err in seeking
by computation for the day and year of its fall,
and so approximate closely the date of the coming
of the Lord. But as its beginning was in several
epoch-marking events, so, applying our measuring
line, we must look for its decline in corresponding
crises of decadence, each crisis being an alarm
bell for admonishing us to watchfulness. From
several initial dates in history, corresponding ter
minal periods have been correctly anticipated by
students of prophecy for the last three hundred
years. It is impossible to enter with detail into
the subject. Nearly two hundred years ago,
Apocalyptic scholars forecast the years 1790 and
1848 as critical years in the commencing of the
downfall of the papacy, — the first of which, as
events proved, brought her under the bloody
judgments of the French Revolution, and the
second into that other political convulsion which
drove the pope into exile. So, likewise, many
expositors concurred in looking for some marked
calamity to Rome in 1868-70, — the latter year,
as history was to prove, being that of the down-

206 ECCE VENIT.

fall of the temporal power of the pope, the sever
est blow, in the estimation of many, which has
fallen upon Rome in a thousand years. These
are illustrations of correct chronological compu
tation which might be greatly multiplied. They
suffice to indicate that they err not who, like
the prophets, search "what manner of time" the
Spirit in the Word has signified by the chronol
ogy therein given ; as they suffice, also, to indi
cate that our century is solemnly marked as the
era of expiring dates, and therefore of startling
admonitions to watchful expectation.
One black, portentous cloud of warning hangs
upon the horizon, to which we refer in closing.
The Apocalyptic picture of the three unclean
spirits like frogs, out of the mouth of the dragon,
and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the
mouth of the false prophet, has been generally
taken as predictive of an outbreak of sorcery.
And here, as frequently, we have the divine in
terpretation accompanying the divine prediction :
"For they are the spirits of demons, working mir
acles " (Rev. xvi. 14). It is a sign of the times
not to be mistaken. The abominations of witch
craft, which God so constantly condemns in Scrip
ture, with threat of the sorest penalties, have
once more broken upon the world, under the
name of Spiritualism. A great cloud of black
spirits have darkened the air ; millions have been

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 207
seduced into lending their ears to their whisper
ings, and, among these, multitudes of nominal
Christians. That it is "the spirits of demons"
who are personating kindred and friends, and giv
ing their soul-destroying " revelations of the un
seen world," we have no question. Their fantas
tic miracles, their grotesque tricks of infernalism,
— who has not heard of them ? This we count
the blackest cloud on the horizon. But observe
the silver with which it is lighted up : " Behold, I
come as a thief ! " is the startling warning which
breaks out in the very next sentence of Revela
tion, as though it had been said, " When you see
this come to pass, then look up." And not only
a warning, but an exhortation: "Blessed is he
that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he
walk naked and they see his shame." All night
long the Temple watchmen made their rounds of
duty, never knowing at what hour their overseer
would come in upon them to learn if they were
vigilant and faithful. If, coming unawares, he
found any watchman sleeping at his post, the
penalty was that the offender should be stripped
of his garments and turned out naked of his uni
form, to his shame and confusion. " Blessed are
those servants whom the Lord, when He com
eth, shall find watching. And if He come in the
second watch, or come in the third watch, and
find them so, blessed are those servants."

III.
BEHOLD HE COMETH!
It is such a momentous event, — the coming of
the Son of man in the clouds of heaven, — and the
contemplation of it so overpowers the imagination,
that we can easily understand why, in this age so
averse to the supernatural, attempts to explain
away its literalness should multiply on every hand.
But, as though anticipating these evasions and
refinings of latter-day philosophy, the Holy Ghost
has guarded this great hope of the Church by the
utmost accuracy of definition (Acts i. 1 1). " This
same Jesus who is taken up from you " fixes the
corporeal identity of the coming Lord with Him
whom we have known of the wounded hands and
pierced feet ; and " shall so come in like manner
as ye have seen Him go into Heaven" determines
His literal, visible, and bodily return to earth.
So, also, with the Thessalonian prediction (i
Thess. iv. 16). In the words, "The Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout," there
is a kind of underscoring of Holy Writ, that we
may be particularly reminded that it is no spir
itual apparition of Christ for which we look, but
" His own august personal presence."

BEHOLD HE COMETH. 209
And yet His parousia, of which the Scripture
so constantly speaks, is said to signify His pres
ence ; and therefore elaborate volumes have been
written to prove that " the coming — parousia —
of the Son of man " means His abiding invisible
dwelling in the Church through the Holy Spirit.
" Presence " the word undoubtedly means, but not
omnipresence. The everywhereness of Christ in
the person of the Comforter is the peculiar bless
ing of this dispensation. In this sense He can
say to every member of His mystical body, the
Church, in every place on earth and at every
moment of time : " Lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the age. ' It was in order
to give place for this world-wide, or rather Church-
wide, indwelling that it was expedient for our
Lord to go away ; that so the Paraclete might
come to abide with His people perpetually. But
this everywhere-presence of Christ by the Holy
Ghost is never once spoken of in Scripture as
His parousia. This term applies only to His
bodily and visible presence, a being with us, which
can only be effected by a corporeal return to us.
Therefore is His advent comprehensively called
His parousia, or coming ; it is that " for which
we look," and which " every eye shall see," and
not that which has already come to pass spirit
ually, and which, therefore, no eye can see.

210 ECCE VENIT.

The second coming of Christ is the axis of a
true eschatology ; that in which all its doctrines
and all its hopes stand together. Rightly are
some insisting on what they name a Christo-cen-
tric theology ; only let them consistently apply
their principle to the doctrine of last things,
making all our ultimate hopes and attainments to
concentre in the coming Christ. Then shall we
cease to hear in orthodox dogmatics that " sancti
fication ends at death," when the New Testament
everywhere binds its consummation to the second
advent of Christ ; then, also, except in liberal
theology, may we no longer listen to the affirma
tion that resurrection is attained for each one
separately in an instant, in the shutting of an
eye, at the last breath of the body, when Scripture
declares that " we shall all be changed, in a mo-
ment,in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump "
(i Cor. xv. 51, 52). Any doctrine of the resur
rection dissociated from the advent must be
false, — false because eccentric, and without rela
tion to the axis of redemption, the parousia. No
atonement apart from the cross ; no resurrection
apart from the coming ! The morning star of the
Church is the glorious appearing ; but this star,
at least, has satellites, — the resurrection, the rap
ture, the glory, — and not one of these will be
visible "until the day dawn, and the day star
arise."

BEHOLD HE COMETH. 21 1
What deep questions suggest themselves as
soon as we begin to meditate on this theme !
How can it be, if His coming is personal and
bodily, that " every eye shall see Him " ? Will
His parousia be prolonged, or, as some hold, will
it elapse in a moment, " as the lightning cometh
out of the east, and shineth even unto the west,"
leaving the great world to wonder what has be
come of the saints ? In other words, will He be
visible to His Church alone at His parousia, man
ifesting Himself unto them, but not to the world
until a later epiphany, when He shall appear in
glory with His saints ? Already there has been
too much of dogmatizing on these points ; there
fore we prefer to leave them for the day to reveal.
The attitude of the Church towards this sub
lime event is the all - important consideration.
That should be one of joyful hope, and not of
dread expectation. We cannot think that true
and watchful believers will share in that advent
wail which is so graphically pictured in the Rev
elation (Rev. i. 7) : " All the tribes of the land
shall mourn over Him," indeed, they who pierced
Him reading their condemnation in His wounds
and smiting on their breasts ; but they who own
those wounds as the credentials of their peace
with God will lift up their heads and rejoice,
saying : " Lo, this is our God ; we have waited

212 ECCE VENIT.

for Him and He will save us : this is the Lord ;
we have waited for Him ; we will be glad and re
joice in His salvation " (Is. xxv. 9). Eagerly do
we summon parable and poetry to picture the
exultant scene as we gather it from Scripture.
One who stands among us, as the venerable Sim
eon of our generation, "just and devout, waiting
for the consolation of Israel," x has, in a recent
utterance, made the advent scene so real by the
use of a historical incident, that we are con
strained herewith to reproduce the picture en
tire : —
"When those that upheld the banner of truth
had almost lost heart, and Protestantism seemed
failing, John Knox accepted the invitation from
the true-hearted ones, and left Geneva for Scot
land. When he landed, quick as lightning the
news spread abroad. The cry arose everywhere,
' John Knox has come ! ' Edinburgh came rush
ing into the streets ; the old and the young, the
lordly and the low, were seen mingling together
in delighted expectation. All business, all com
mon pursuits, were forsaken. The priests and
friars abandoned their altars and their masses
and looked out alarmed, or were seen standing
by themselves, shunned like lepers. Studious
men were roused from their books ; mothers set

1 Dr. Andrew Bonar.

BEHOLD HE COMETH. 213
down their infants and ran to inquire what had
come to pass. Travelers suddenly mounted and
sped into the country with the tidings, 'John
Knox has come.' At every cottage door the in
mates stood and clustered, wondering, as horse
man after horseman cried, ' Knox has come.'
Barks departing from the harbor bore up to
each other at sea to tell the news. Shepherds
heard the tidings as they watched their flocks
upon the hills. The warders in the castle chal
lenged the sound of quick feet approaching, and
the challenge was answered, 'John Knox has
come ! ' The whole land was moved ; the whole
country was stirred with a new inspiration, and
the hearts of enemies withered." Oh, if that was
the effect of the sudden presence of a man like
ourselves, — a man whom we will rejoice to meet
in the kingdom, but only a man, — what will the
land feel, what will earth feel, when the news
comes, " The Son of man ! The Son of man !
His sign has been seen in the heaven ! O wise
virgins, with what joy will you go out to meet
Him ! "
Some admonish us not to. take too literally the
words, " And at midnight there was a cry made,
Behold the Bridegroom cometh ! " since, sudden
as the advent surprise will be, it cannot really be
in the night for all the world, as one side of the

214 ECCE VENIT.

globe is dark and the other light at the same
moment. True ; and yet how perfectly our Lord's
picture of His coming answers to this fact, since
it brings into the same instantaneous photograph
a day-scene, and a night-scene, and a twilight-
scene : " I tell you in that night there shall be
two men in one bed," — the midnight surprise ;
" the one shall be taken and the other shall be
left." "Two women shall be grinding together,"
— the twilight surprise ; " the one shall be taken
and the other left." "Then shall two be in the
field," — the mid-day surprise ; " the one shall be
taken and the other left " (Matt. xxiv. 40 ; Luke
xvii. 34-36). It would seem thus as though the
lightning-flash of His parousia would encircle the
world in an instant. Realistic in the highest
degree is the picture : no halt in the hurried
march of our humanity for burnishing the armor
for the grand review ; no pause in life's drama
for shifting the scenery before the final act is
introducedj Instant transition of the Church
from busy toil and tired sleep into the beatific
vision and the awakening immortality, and as
instant a lapse of the ungodly from the day of
grace into the day of doom. The event will evi
dently be utterly unexpected except for the faith
ful few who have kept their watch.
Morally, or rather dispensationally, Christ's

BEHOLD HE COMETH.

coming will be in the night. For such, according
to Scripture, is the whole period of our Lord's
absence. When He was yet with His Church
He said : " I must work the works of Him that
sent me while it is day : the night cometh." It
was His presence that made the day, — "As long
as I am in the world, I am the light of the world "
(John ix. 5), — and His removal that would bring
the night. Hence we find Paul saying, — in the
time of the Lord's absence and in view of His
return, — " The night is far spent, the day is at
hand" (Rom. xiii. 12). Here is an exact inversion
of the order from that of Christ, suggesting that
it is the absence or the presence of our Lord
which determines the question. " They that sleep,
sleep in the night" (1 Thess. v. 6). The words
are true dispensationally as well as literally. So
long as "they that sleep in Jesus" are still in
their graves, the world's morning will not have
come : "And they that are drunken are drunken
in the night." So long as the riot of unrestrained
sin goes on over all the earth, and the mass of
humanity is held in the mad intoxication of the
god of this world, the day-dawn will not yet be I
visible. But what an exquisite parable there is
for us — an enacted parable — in that story of
Christ's walking on Tiberias ! He has " gone up
unto the mountain apart to pray;" and the

216 ECCE VENIT.

Church which He launched is "now in the midst
of the sea, tossed with waves and the wind con
trary." But "in the fourth watch of the night"
He comes to her, walking upon the sea; and
they, who for a moment feared and were troubled
at the startling apparition, will hear His voice
saying, " Be of good cheer : it is I ; be not afraid."
These words will bring an end to all sorrow, a
calm for all storms.
" And they shall see the Son of man coming
in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory." Himself has said this concerning Him
self, and to attempt to heighten the effect of His
words by any imaginative description of the scene
predicted were certainly to lower the impression
which the inspired declaration itself makes upon
the mind. So great is this saying that it alone
befits the incarnate Word who spoke it. " Only
a Jesus could forge a Jesus," it has been said ;
and only the Coming One whom we have known,
" whose goings forth have been of old from ever
lasting" could predict for Himself such a coming
as this. And the hope of it has reversed the
current of humanity. " Man goeth to his long
home, and the mourners go about the streets,"
was the plaintive strain of the old dispensation.
But since Jesus ascended and put the exultant
"Ecce Venit" into the mouth of His redeemed,

BEHOLD HE COMETH. 217
" Man cometh " is now their song. The proces
sion of mortality is about to halt, and then to
move forward ; but forward shall now signify
from death to life : from the pilgrim's inn of the
grave to the long home of "Forever with the
Lord."

IV.
THE FIRST RESURRECTION.
The announcement of two resurrections, sepa
rated in time by a thousand years, and distin
guished in character as unto immortality and
unto mortality, seems to be one of the very plain
est in all Scripture : "And I saw the souls of them
that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus
and for the Word of God : and such as worshiped
not the beast, neither his image, and received not
his mark upon their forehead and upon their
hand: and they lived and reigned with Christ a
thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not
until the thousand years should be finished. This
is the first resurrection" (Rev. xx. 4, 5, r. v.).
Here is first a vision of disembodied souls, then
of their reanimation. This reanimation must
mean a literal rising from the dead ; for two
words employed in the passage put the matter
beyond dispute: "They lived" — H£yo-av — is lan
guage which is never, in the New Testament,
applied to the soul disembodied, but to man in
his complete condition of body and spirit united ;
and "This is the first resurrection " — dvaorao-is —

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 219
defines this living to be bodily reanimation, since
the word in the New Testament, with perhaps a
single exception, always signifies corporeal resur
rection. So that the phraseology employed seems
to render it impossible to apply the vision either
to the condition of disembodied existence or to
the quickening of spiritual regeneration.
But how is it that we have never met this
startling doctrine of two distinct resurrections,
with a millennium between, till we reach the last
book of the Bible ? We have met it without be
ing able to define it. As in Daniel, we have a con
densed prophecy of the great tribulation which,
by our Lord's interpretation in the twenty-fourth
of Matthew, is expanded into an age-long period
of Jewish trial ; so in John's Gospel (v. 28), we
have a miniature prediction of the resurrection :
"For the hour is coming in which all that are in
their tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of
God, and shall come forth, they that have done
good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that
have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment,"
— which hour, in the Apocalypse of John, is in
terpreted as covering the entire millennial era in
its fulfillment. This is according to the common
method of prophecy.
Holding that the last presentation of the resur
rection — this in the Apocalypse — is the com-

220 ECCE VENIT.

pletest and most comprehensive, the important
question is, whether the statements of the doc
trine in other parts of Scripture harmonize with
this. Not only do they harmonize, but in several
instances they find their only solution in it.
In the first place, we call attention to a class of
passages which are marked by this peculiarity,
that they seem to represent the resurrection of
believers as eclectic and special. It is plain, if
the scheme which we have drawn out from Rev.
xx. is correct, that the subjects of the first resur
rection are called out from the general mass of
the dead ; or, in other words, that a prior resur
rection would involve the idea of an elect resur
rection. And this conception would seem to
explain at once our Lord's allusion (Luke xx. 35)
to those who shall be " accounted worthy to ob
tain that age, and the resurrection out from the
dead,' — r»js avaoTorreois t})s «k vcicpwv. If there be
a first resurrection, at the opening of the millen
nial age, in which only the righteous share, the
significance of this text is apparent at once.
Even more striking are the words of Paul (Phil.
iii. 11): "I count all things but loss ... if by any
means I might attain unto the out - resurrection
from the dead" — Trpr igavdorcunv -rijv ix veKplov. The
words are very strong in the Greek. We do not
see how they can possibly refer to anything else

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 221
than an eclectic resurrection, a separation and
quickening to life out from among the dead.
Especially would this seem to be so when, in ad
dition to the very emphatic language describing
the resurrection itself, there is the expression of
intense desire and vehement striving to attain it.
Why should one strive to attain what is inevi
table, as Paul's resurrection must have certainly
appeared to be, had he held that all men will be
raised together ? And what can our Lord's words
— " They which shall be accounted worthy to ob
tain that age and the resurrection from the dead "
— mean on any other view than that which we
are defending, — the view, namely, that there is
a prior age in which the rising of the saints will
take place, and a distinct, and special, and privi
leged dispensation of bodily redemption which
belongs to them ? And this phase of our argu
ment is set in very strong light by the additional
fact that this expression, " resurrection from the
dead," — dvdorao-is Ik veitpwv, — is so invariable
throughout the New Testament in its applica
tion to Christ as well as to His saints. There is
only one instance where the other phrase, dva-
o-Tao-ts veKputv, — the general expression for the
resurrection of the dead, — is applied to our Lord,
and that seems to be on account of a special
requirement of the context (Rom. i. 4.) He,

ECCE VENIT.

coming forth from the dead, and opening the
doors for all believers to come forth with Him
in the resurrection unto life, is described just as
they are, as rising U v^ptov. Hence, very sig
nificantly, we find it said in the Acts that the
apostles "preached through Jesus the resurrec
tion from the dead," not the resurrection of the
dead (iv. 2). Now we will not dwell on the ques
tion whether the eclectic conception is contained
in the words to the extent that we have claimed.
We find it admitted even by some who oppose
the doctrine we are advocating. Olshausen even
goes so far as to declare that " the phrase would
be inexplicable if it were not derived from the idea
that out of the mass of the dead some would rise
first." x
And what if it be affirmed that even in the
Old Testament we find distinct traces of the idea
of an eclectic and precedent resurrection of the
just ? The passage in Daniel xii. 2, translated in
our common version, " And many of them that
1 " What special meaning," asks Professor Stuart, " can this
language have unless it implies that there is a resurrection where
the just only, and not the unjust, shall be raised ? " This ex
pression, as well as the " every man in his own order," and the
evident " plain prose " character of the passage in Rev. xx., com
pels this learned man, though a strong post-millenarian, to con
cede most fully the doctrine of the first resurrection. — Stuart
on Apocalypse, i. pp. 175, 178, 379> 499, and ii. 356, 474, 562.

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 223
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and ever
lasting contempt," is undoubtedly a Messianic
prediction concerning the time of the end. Tre-
gelles translates the passage as follows, giving us
not only the authority of his own accurate schol
arship for the rendering, but that of two eminent
rabbis, Saadia Haggion and Eben Ezra, whose
explanations are quoted at length : " And many
from among the sleepers of the dust of the earth
shall awake, these — that awake — shall be unto
everlasting life ; but those — the rest of the
sleepers who do not awake at this time — shall
be unto shame and everlasting contempt." Here
again, if our authorities are correct, we have the
idea of the first resurrection with its eclectic and
separate character, and its distinct issue in life,
most emphatically set forth. And how solemnly
applicable to the literal as well as to the spiritual
quickening of men are the words of our Lord :
"The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God, and they that hear shall live." One event
awaits mankind : " Like sheep they are laid in
the grave ; death shall feed upon them." But all
will not hear the great first resurrection call. As
now, so then, the words of Jesus will be true :
" My sheep hear my voice." As now, so then,
only those that have received the spirit of adop-

224 ECCE VENIT.

tion will cry, " Abba, Father ! " as the great God
shall call to the dead by the mouth of His Son.
" If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from
the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ
from the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies
by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." That Spirit
is the bond of life between Christ and all that
sleep in Him, and the pledge of their redemption
from the grave. The witness, now, of our son-
ship, He is the witness that then we shall be
children of the resurrection ; responding and
waking instantly at the sound of the trumpet, —
"Thou shalt call and I will answer;" while in
"that silence that terrifies thought," the rest of
the dead shall sleep on, waiting only in their con
scious loss for the Day of Judgment to consum
mate and manifest their doom.1
1 As indicating how far this idea is from being novel or
modern, we offer these striking testimonies : Chrysostom says :
" The just shall rise before the wicked, that they may be first in
the resurrection, not only in dignity, but in time " (Comment on
I Thess. iv. 15). Jeremy Taylor says: " The resurrection shall
be universal : good and bad shall rise, yet not all together, but
first Christ, then they that are Christ's ; and then there is an
other resurrection," etc. (Sermon on 1 Cor. xv. 23). Toplady
says : " I am one of those old-fashioned people who believe the
doctrine of the millennium, and that there will be two distinct
resurrections of the dead : first of the just, and second of the
unjust ; which last resurrection of the reprobate will not com
mence till a thousand years after the resurrection of the elect"
— Works, vol. iii. p. 470.

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 225
Had we time to take up all the texts bearing
on the question, we should wish to notice some
passages which represent the resurrection as di
rectly conditioned on faith and regeneration and
union with Christ ; all of which would go to show
that the redemption of the body is a distinct in
heritance of believers in some sense, and cer
tainly not unlikely in the sense we are claiming.
We wish now to refer to two texts which have
been cited as distinctly and unquestionably con
tradicting the theory we are advocating. The
first is in 2 Timothy iv. 1, reading, according to
the common version : " I charge thee, therefore,
before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall
judge the quick and the dead at His appearing
and His kingdom." It is said that we have here
the living and the dead, without distinction or
separation, brought together at the coming of
Christ. All that need be said in regard to this
passage is that, according to the revised version,
the words read : " and by His appearing and
kingdom." This change not only relieves the
passage of any seeming contradiction of the doc
trine which we are advocating, but makes it bear
emphatic support to it.
The other text is John v. 28, r. v. : " Marvel
not at this ; for the hour cometh in which all that
are in the tombs shall hear His voice and shall

226 ECCE VENIT.

come forth, they that have done good, unto the
resurrection of life ; and they that have done ill,
unto the resurrection of judgment." This, it is
said, teaches a simultaneous resurrection, since it
declares that in the hour that is coming both
classes will come forth to their respective re
wards. We answer that, in the first place, we
think it is clear that the word " hour " (<bpa), as
here employed, refers to an era or lengthened
period of time. This we know is not an unusual
meaning of the word, as appears by referring to
such examples as i John ii. 18, Rom. xiii. 1 1 ; and,
what is more directly to the point, our Lord had
just used the term in this sense in verse twenty-
fifth : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is
coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall
live." This is generally taken to refer to that
spiritual quickening, under the preaching of the
gospel, which began with the time of Christ, and
is going on to-day. Therefore the hour referred
to must have continued for at least nearly two
thousand years. This is the time for the quicken
ing of the living who are dead in sins. It is evi
dently synchronous with i John ii. 18, — "It is
the last time " (topa), — and covers the whole gos
pel dispensation. Next follows, in our Lord's
discourse, a statement in regard to the time of

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 227
the dead. The two periods are set in contrast,
as it would seem. The first — the hour of spirit
ual quickening — has already begun. Hence it
is described thus : " The hour is coming and now
is." The second had not yet begun ; hence only
the words, " The hour is coming," are used with
reference to it. Is it not fair to presume that
the second era, like the first, is a prolonged one ?
We think no one can reasonably deny this. This
is the way we take it : At the appearing of the
Lord from heaven, the age will open in which all
that are in their graves will come forth, but some
at the beginning and some at the end of the age.
If it be said that it is a strained and unnatural
construction to bring events which are so far
apart into such immediate juxtaposition, with no
intimation of any time lying between them, we
reply that it is not at all uncommon in prophecy.
Who, for instance, in reading Isaiah's words con
cerning the Messiah, — " to proclaim the accept
able year of the Lord and the day of vengeance
of our God," — would have imagined that in this
single sentence two grand and distinct eras were
brought together and spoken of in a breath, —
the era of grace and the era of judgment ? But
the Lord, by His penetrating exegesis, cleft the
passage asunder, we remember, as He expounded
it in the synagogue, and, breaking off in the mid

228 ECCE VENIT.

die of the sentence, — " to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord," — He closed the book and sat
down, saying: "This day is this Scripture ful
filled in your ears" (Luke iv. 21). We take it
that, in this prophetic passage of His own, there
is a similar conjoining of distinct and widely
separated acts of the same resurrection drama
And we are confirmed in this impression by
noting how exactly this passage, with its expres
sions "resurrection of life" and "resurrection
of judgment," corresponds to the passage in
Revelation, these being common points in the
two texts, — the latter seeming to fill out in de
tail what is here presented in outline. And this
leads us to remark that there is perhaps no doc
trine of Scripture the references to which are at
once so fragmentary and so complemental of each
other as this doctrine of two resurrections. Ex
cept in the passage in the Revelation, it is no
where presented in a formal and complete state
ment. But what is very striking is, that almost
every scattered allusion to it fits into this passage
at some point, confirming its literal significance,
and being confirmed by it. For example: All
are agreed that John v. 28, 29, and Luke xx 36,
have reference to the literal rising of the body
from the grave. Apply these texts to Revela
tion xx. 1-6, and note how perfectly they fit it :

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 229

" They that have done good unto the resurrection
of life ;" " They lived and reigned with Christ :
this is resurrection the first " (Rev.) ; " They
that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that
world and the resurrection from the dead neither
marry nor are joined in marriage, neither can they
die anymore" (Luke); "On such the second death
hath no power " (Rev.). " They that shall be ac
counted worthy to obtain the resurrection from
the dead " (Luke) ; "Blessed and holy is he that
hath part in the first resurrection ; " " They that
have done evil to the resurrection of judgment "
[koiW] (John) ; "And they were judged [tKpi6n-
o-av] every man according to their works " (Rev.).
We do not see how any candid critic can fail to
identify these passages as referring to the same
event, the literal resurrection of the body. And
putting all these texts together, we find that one
supplies what another omits ; the gospels and
epistles teaching the privilege and preeminence
attaching to the believer's resurrection, and the
Apocalypse teaching its priority and separateness
in time.
Let us observe that the saints' resurrection is
" first " in several senses.
It is first in time, as we have already seen.
How shall we state it ? That the death sentence
has been shortened by a thousand years for the

230 ECCE VENIT.

martyrs who have won their reprieve by their
faithful sufferings for Christ ; for the overcomers
who have gained a seat with Christ in His mil
lennial throne by their victory over the world.
We seem to hear these sainted ones saying to
grim Death, as he exacts sin's wages : " Take thy
bill and sit down quickly and write fifty," for, as
partners with our suffering and victorious Lord,
the half of your sentence has been remitted. Of
Immanuel it is written : " Whom God hath raised
up, having loosed the pains of death ; because it
was not possible that He should be holden of it."
He was no prison-breaker who burst the gates of
death and "tore the bars away." He had served
His appointed time in the grave, and therefore
could not be longer detained ; and hence, after
His two days' burial had expired, He received
His righteous discharge. So we believe that His
mystical dead body — " those that have been laid
to sleep through Jesus" — cannot be holden of
the tomb a single hour after it shall have begun
to dawn towards the first day of the millennial
week, because then their sentence will have ter
minated. This is the overcomer's hope, — the
reward so much earlier, as well as more glorious,
than we have dreamed of ! the crown so much
sooner, as well as brighter, than we have imag
ined! The devout Lavater, meditating on this

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 23 1
point, exclaims : " How inexpressibly animating
to the best exercise of our moral powers must
this idea be, — to be a thousand years sooner in
the enjoyment of the full fruition of the blessed !
So much earlier — a thousand years earlier — to
enjoy personal fellowship with the lovely Saviour
and the noblest of the human family, and, along
with Jesus, the prophets and apostles, to super
intend the immediate concerns of the Godhead."
First in character also will be this pre-millen-
nial resurrection ; its preeminent glory being
that upon those who attain to it "the second
death hath no power." Here is the true harvest
of which Christ is " the First-fruits." How can
that Scripture be true which declares that Christ
is first born from the dead" (Coloss. i. 19) ? Had
not several returned from death before Christ
rose, — the Shunamite's son at the prayer of
the prophet, and Lazarus and the widow's son at
the call of Jesus ? How, then, was He " the first
begotten of the dead" (Rev. i. 5) ? The answer
seems obvious. These were raised to die again.
Wondrous as was the transaction which restored
them to life, it was only this mortal putting on
mortality, and this corruptible putting on corrup
tion. But "Christ being raised from the dead
dieth no more ; death hath no more dominion over
Him" (Rom. vi. 6). The gospel of the resurrec-

232 ECCE VENIT.

tion which we preach, therefore, has no peer or
rival in that which nature presents to us. Beau
tiful and oft-recurring as is the latter, it whispers
no hint of immortality. Of a mortal resurrection
which the Scriptures foretell for some, we see
tokens and similitudes all about us in nature — in
the flower springing up from the seed which has
fallen into the earth and died ; in the morning
opening the vast grave of night, and summoning
a sleeping world to rise and meet the sun " as he
cometh forth as a bridegroom from his chamber ; "
in the springtide calling the earth from the tomb
of winter, loosing her shroud of snow, and cloth
ing her with renewed life and beauty : in all these
there are joyful parables and pledges of a resur
rection. . But the flower fades and dies, the
morning sinks again into the embrace of night,
and the earth lies down once more in the sepul
chre of winter ; and so, alas ! these symbols only
mock the hope they have kindled in the soul.
But while we are asking sorrowfully, "Is there
no resurrection that is exempt from death ? " this
great text breaks upon our ears : " Blessed and
holy is He that hath part in the first resurrection ;
on such the second death hath no power'' Christ's
resurrection is the epitome of His Church's. As
He rose only after a definite and divinely ap
pointed time of resting in the grave, so will

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 233
His people. That unseemly snatching for the
crown of life which characterizes the latest im
proved eschatology — the theory that every man
rises from the dead as soon as the breath is out
of the body — has no foundation in Scripture.1
Indeed, it has none in reason, unless we can admit
that death is equivalent to life ; elimination to
resurrection ; the falling down of this tabernacle
of clay to its standing up. This is the revived
error of Hymeneus and Philetus which makes
the resurrection to be past already ; it places our
hope in what is death's victory over us rather
than our victory over death ; it promises us a
bodiless spirit in place of that " spiritual body "
which is our redemption-birthright. " This im
mortal spirit shall put off its mortal coil " is the
doctrine of philosophy; "This mortal shall put
on immortality " is the doctrine of Scripture.
Do we not see what transcendent honor is thus
put upon the body in its promotion to incorrupt
ibility ? This in which we dwell — " the temple
of the Holy Ghost " — is not our "vile body," as
1 Professor Christlieb well says : " Whoever denies the bodily
resurrection should be honest enough no longer to speak of res
urrection at all. Resurrection does not refer to the spirit, the con
tinued existence of which the Scripture takes as a matter of
course, but only to the body, and its issuing forth alive from the
grave. Only that can rise again which has been laid down in
the grave, and that is only the body, not the spirit." — Modern
Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 449.

234 ECCE VENIT.
it is misleadingly called in the common version ;
though, because of the shadow of the curse which
rests upon it, it is that in which " we groan being
burdened." But itself shall be changed by the
coming Lord, the very fabric and substance of it
transformed and glorified. And because restora
tion rather than evolution is so distinctly taught
in Scripture, we are certified of our continued
physical identity, as it is written : " From whence
also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,
\who shall fashion anew the body of our humilia
tion, that it may be conformed to the body of His
\glory " (Phil. iv. 21, r. v.). The charcoal and the
diamond are the same substance ; only that one
is carbon in its humiliation, and the other carbon
in its glory. So is this tabernacle in which we
now dwell, in comparison with our house which
is from heaven. The one is mortal flesh shad
owed by the curse, and doomed to be " sown in
dishonor ; " the other is that flesh made immortal
and marvelously transfigured. This house of clay,
endeared to us by so many associations, is, there
fore, only to be untenanted for a brief while, that
we may move into it again wondrously refitted
and beautified by its divine Fashioner. This
thought, if cherished, may heal the homesickness
which so often comes over us in the thought of
death. For observe the exquisite balancing of
Chose two household words — evSij/iowres and

THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 235
6kS7//*ovvt« — in Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians :
" Knowing that while we are at home in the body,
we are from home from the Lord, . . . and willing
rather to be from home from the body, and at
home with the Lord" (2 Cor. v. 6). But this
home-dwelling with our Redeemer, as the connec
tion shows, is not attained by our being unclothed,
but clothed upon, with our house which ii from
heaven, that mortality may be swallowed up of
life. It is when we become immortal residents
in an immortal body that we are forever at home :
" So shall we be ever with the Lord : wherefore
comfort one another with these words." Having
these promises, therefore, we should eagerly look
upward, in patient waiting for our house from
heaven, seeking the consummation of our hope,
not in the putting off of this our tabernacle, but
in the putting on of that. After his ardent prayer
that he " might attain unto the resurrection from
the dead," the apostle adds : " I press towards
the mark for the prize of the up - calling " —
tt}s avm kAijo-cws — " of God in Christ Jesus." Lei
who will fasten their hope upon the down-calling
of mortality : " Return unto dust, ye children of
men ; " we will listen patiently and joyfully for
the up-calling of immortality : " Awake and sing,
ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the
dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her
dead " (Is. xxvi. 19).

THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH.
The most startling, and except for the testi
mony of the " sure word of prophecy " the most
incredible, transaction of which we can conceive,
is that set forth in the words, " caught up to meet
the Lord in the air." The lightning-flash of the
advent, dazzling and blinding for a moment ; the
swift transition of the cloud-chariot, and then
"forever with the Lord," — this is the brief de
scription of the ecstatic scene which we call the
Church's translation (i Thess. iv. 15-18).
It is a twofold event, affecting the sainted dead
and the saints that are living at the time of the
parousia, and bringing both into one condition.
" The dead in Christ shall rise first ; then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them." This order and distinction
are revealed in several passages where the casual
reader might not discover them. In the story of
the raising of Lazarus — that enacted prophecy
of the first resurrection — they are distinctly
marked (John xi.). Beautiful miniature of the
Church is that home in Bethany, whose crown-

THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 237
ing honor is this, that " Jesus loved Martha and
her sister and Lazarus." Like the body of Christ
to-day, a part living and a part dead, — " our
friend Lazarus sleepeth," — this household was
waiting the coming of the Lord. But notwith
standing the sickness and dying that were rav
aging that home, Jesus " abode two days still in
the same place where He was" just as He has
already remained away from His Church nearly
two millenniums — " one day is with the Lord as
a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day " — while sickness and mourning and death
have been holding sway. Then the advent an
nouncement, for which we also wait, was heard,
" Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but I go that I
may awake him out of sleep." Such will be the
blessed errand on which our Lord will come when
the time of His return arrives. "Then Martha,
as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went
and met Him," even as the wise virgins will do
when He shall come again; "but Mary sat still
in the house," like those of the other company,
the unwatchful and ungirded ones.
Then hear the Lord's great advent exposition :
" I am the Resurrection and the Life : he that be-
lieveth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he
live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me
shall never die." It is no mere rhetorical ampli-

238 ECCE VENIT.

fication which we find here. This double office
of Christ, and the corresponding twofold work,
exactly match the declaration in the First Epistle
jto the Thessalonians (iv. 17). He is "the Resur-
j rection " to those who shall be in their graves at
the time of His coming; He is "the Life" to
those who shall then be on the earth. To the first
' class He alludes when He says, "though he were
dead, yet shall he live ; " to the second He refers
in the saying : " Whosoever liveth and believeth
in Me shall never die." But both, in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, shall be brought into
the same condition of "glorified corporeity" at
the sound of the last trumpet.1
Need we say that the transfiguration — that
vivid tableau of the glorious appearing of our
Lord — exhibits the same truth in unmistakable
outline : "And, behold, there talked with Him
two men, which were Moses and Elias, who
appeared in glory." These two men were the
representatives of the two classes just named.
Moses, coming up from his unknown sepulchre
in the valley of Moab, as the forerunner of the
1 Let it be noticed that the second company named by Christ
and the second company named by Paul are described by pre
cisely the same form of speech, the timeless present participle :
irSs i (Hv Kal iriOTeiwv, " all the living and believing" (John xi.
25) ; jj/ueii 01 C&vres ol irepiXemifievoi, " we the living, the remain-
ing" (1 Thess. iv. 17).

THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 239
dead who shall be raised at the advent of Christ ;
and Elias, returning from the presence of the
Lord, as the representative of those who taste
not of death, but are translated, — these, stand
ing together with the Lord in transfiguration
glory on the Mount, present to us a radiant re
hearsal, a glowing epitome, of the coming and
kingdom of Jesus Christ.
If we turn to the great resurrection discourse
of Paul in the fifteenth of 1 Corinthians, we find
at the culmination of the argument the same
double reference : " For the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed." Here are the two parties to
the final transfiguration ; and they are in an in
stant brought into the company of One for whom
they both had been waiting.
Incomparably beautiful are the prophet's in
spired words, when freed from the translator's
interpolated words : " Thy dead shall live, my
dead body shall they arise " (Isaiah xxvi. 19). The
sainted sleepers, though under the deep humili
ation of corruption, he disdains not still to call
" my body." Strangers and pilgrims in the
earth, they have pitched their tents in the grave
for a night, saying with their Lord : " Moreover,
my flesh shall tabernacle in hope'' And the first
incident in the advent consummation will be the

240 ECCE VENIT.

summons for these sojourners in the tomb to
strike their tents, and, with the living, to take
up their march to meet the coming Bridegroom
in the air. " For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immor
tality." Here we must believe in no mere skillful
balancing of inspired rhetoric, but a double desig
nation to distinguish a double company, — those
that are dead and those that are alive at the com
ing of Christ. For whether or not the first mem
ber of the sentence describes those whose flesh
has seen corruption, the second member unques
tionably applies to the living and their change :
" So when this corruptible shall have put on in
corruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory." x For then those upon the earth under
sentence of death, and those in the earth under
1 Lange's Commentary criticises Bengel's view of this passage,
that "the epithets 'corruptible' and 'mortal' (i Cor. xv. 53)
are to be distinguished as though the former applied to the dead
and the latter to the living." But though the first word, tpBapris,
— corruptible, — may refer to the living, its cognate forms, em
ployed in verses 42 and 52, apply to the dead. And we thence
infer that " this corruptible " designates the same class. " This
mortal?' — 6vtit6s, — on the contrary, is defined in the Thayer-
Grimm Greek Lexicon to mean " subject to death, and so still liv
ing" (cf. Rom. vi. 12; viii. 2; 2 Cor. iv. 2; v. 4). We think
Bengel's view is reasonable, and not fanciful.

THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 241

the dominion of death, will shout together their
triumph over the last enemy.
As the daily watchers for the Lord's return, it
is our dear hope that we may be in the company
who shall not see death. This was the aspiration
of Paul, expressed in the words : " Not for that
we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that
mortality -might be swallowed up of life." He
speaks not here of resurrection, but of transfigu
ration ; not of death swallowed up in victory, but
of the swifter and more immediate transition of
mortality swallowed up of life. With the secret
wherewith he comforted others — " Behold, I
show you a mystery : we shall not all sleep, but
we shall all be changed " — he now comforts him
self, while groaning and burdened in this taber
nacle. It is the most thrilling thought conceiv
able for those who are all their lifetime subject
to bondage through fear of death, that, instead of
being unclothed by the ghastly hands of death,
they may be clothed upon by the transfiguring
touch of life ; that, instead of the winding-sheet
of the grave, there may be the immediate en-
swathement of the garments of glory. But to
whichever company we may belong, the shout of
triumph will be ours : " O Death, where is thy
sting ? O Grave, where is thy victory ? "
Reunion with the descending Saviour is the

242 ECCE VENIT.

first experience in the great transaction. " Caught
up to meet the Lord in the air," — these words
are crowded with suggestion, since they always
signify to meet and return with. As the dis
ciples in Rome went out to meet Paul when they
heard of his approach, and accompanied him to
the city ; as the wise virgins are pictured as go
ing forth to meet the bridegroom and attending
him to the house of the bride, — so by the same
form of speech it is here implied that the Church
will be raptured away to join the Lord on His
advancing way, and escort Him back to the
earth.1 It is not true, as some have judged from
this passage, either that the Lord comes no fur
ther than the upper air, or that believers depart
forever from this lower world. This is rather
the Redeemer's royal return to the earth. We
remember how, on the visit of a great general
to our city, — after he had conquered peace and
saved the country, — a delegation of our most
honored citizens went out a few miles beyond the
borders of the town to welcome and conduct him
to the metropolis. Thus will God's elect, the
1 Acts xx viii. 15 ; Matt. xxv. 6. The phrase of our text — eij
bnt&vrt\aai — is used in both these other. instances, and nowhere
else in the New Testament. The circumstances in each case
define its meaning, showing it to signify, as Alf ord says, " meet
ing one who is approaching, not merely meeting with a person."

THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 243
transfigured Bride of Christ, go forth at the
sound of the trumpet to meet the Bridegroom
upon the suburbs of our globe, to attend Him
earthward. Triumphal entry, indeed! Earth, that once
rejected her Lord, and sent Him back alone to
heaven with five wounds upon His person, will
furnish a majestic convoy for His return. " The
glorious company of the apostles, the noble army
of martyrs, the Holy Church throughout all the
world," — these, whom the world knew not, even
as it knew Him not, now raised and transfig
ured, will constitute an innumerable white-robed
retinue to attend Him onward as He comes at
last to accomplish the restitution of all things.
And yet, so far as we can read the outlines of
prophecy, we infer that there will be a pause in
the march of this descending procession, — how
long we do not conjecture, — while the advent
judgments are visited upon Christendom. For
observe in the prophet Isaiah that, following the
summons of the dead, "Awake and sing, ye that
dwell in the dust," there is the gracious call :
"Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers,
and shut thy doors about thee ; hide thyself, as it
were, for a little moment, until the indignation be
overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of His
place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their

244 ECCE VENIT.

iniquity : the earth also shall disclose her blood,
and shall no more cover her slain " (Isaiah xxvi.
20, 21). As Noah was hidden in the ark when
the judgment of the flood came upon the earth ;
as the disciples, being forewarned by Christ, were
sheltered in the hill-top of Pella, beyond Jordan,
during the bloody siege in which Jerusalem per-
ished, — so shall it be with those who are ac
counted worthy to escape the judgments poured
out upon apostate Christendom. They shall be
wrapped away in a sheltering pavilion of cloud,
and hidden in some angel - guarded retreat on
high, where the apostle's word shall be fulfilled to
them : "And to you who are troubled, rest with
us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from
heaven, with His mighty angels, in flaming fire,
taking vengeance on them that know not God
and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ " (2 Thess. i. 7, 8).
As to the deep questions of when ? and how ?
connected with this transporting theme, we must
not speak dogmatically. We get suggestive hints,
however, from type and parallel, as well as from
literal prophecy. " Enoch, the seventh from Adam,
prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord
cometh with ten thousand of His saints " (Jude
14). He not only prophesied, but was himself a
prophecy, — a literal prototype of those who shall

THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 245
be translated and not see death. As he was the
" seventh from Adam," these raptured ones, we
expect, will belong to the seventh millennium
from creation ; and as the history of his change
is condensed into these brief words, " And he was
not, for God took him" so will theirs be. Un
heralded and unnoted by the great busy world,
so far as we can judge, will be this transaction.
" Behold, I come as a thief ! " says our Lord.
Not one of the sleeping household saw the mid
night robber as he crept in and snatched the jew
els, and silently stole away. " And they shall be
mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when
I make up my jewels" (Mal. iii. 17). But the
world will not know its loss until they are gone,
the wheat gathered in and the tares left ; the
jewels snatched away and the casket remaining.
Then, at last, will they "discern between the
righteous and the wicked, between him that serv-
eth God and him that serveth Him not," as the
day has now come that burns as an oven, "in
which all that do wickedly shall be stubble," and
the Lord sits "as a refiner and purifier of sil
ver." True, it is written that "the trumpet shall
sound " at the ushering in of this great transac
tion ; but as the outer world has not heard the
Apocalyptic trumpets as they have successively
sounded, they may not hear " the sound of the

246 ECCE VENIT.

last trump." True, it is said also, that "the
Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout ; " but this Kekevo-p,a, or summons, may be
only for the ears of the faithful, who, like a re
treating army, shall now be silently withdrawn
from a judgment-doomed Christendom.
And yet, upon this whole question of a secret
rapture, we would speak with reserve, knowing
that there are scriptures which give a different
impression. But the event itself, hidden or man
ifest, is a most inspiring one in the influence
which it carries. "The translation of Enoch,"
says Dr. Owen, "is a divine testimony that the
body itself is capable of eternal life." And this
transaction, like Peter's vision, has been thrice
repeated, — in the PatriarchaL age by. Enoch ; in
the Prophetic age by Elijah ; and in the Gospel
age by Christ, — that we might not forget the
lesson which it teaches.1 With such a vision
before our eyes, we should cease talking of the
immortality of the soul, as though we knew not
1 " Not infrequently we substitute for the fullness of the Chris
tian creed the purely philosophical conception of an immortality
of the soul, which destroys, as we shall see hereafter, the idea
of the continuance of our distinct personal existence. Nothing
is more common than to hear it assumed that the soul is the
whole self. Yet nothing can be more clear upon reflection than
that the only self of which we are conscious is made up of soul
and body?' — Westcott, Gospel of the Resurrection, pp. 6, 138.

THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 247
that God had provided some better thing for us.
It is a lamentable apostasy from Paulism to Pla-
tonism to substitute the hope of being " un
clothed " for that of being "clothed upon."
Let philosophers dream of a naked immortality
as man's highest estate in the life to come, but
we will be content with nothing less than God's
full provision of this mortal putting on immortal
ity. Therefore the conception of the body as the
spirit's clog and prison-house should find no place
in a Christian eschatology. It may, indeed, some
times be so in our present fallen and disordered
condition. But the transfiguration will forever
abolish such an anomaly, giving us a winged body
in the place of a weighted spirit. If heathen
moralism spoke the best it knew in the famous
saying of Plotinus, that " he was thankful he was
not tied to an immortal body" let not Christianity
fail to speak the best it knows in the rejoicing of
its disciples that they shall be untied, indeed,
from this mortal, but only to be translated in an
immortal body : " They shall mount up with wings
as eagles ; they shall run and not be weary ; they
shall walk and not faint."

VI.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB.
The bridal relationship of the Church to her
Lord is so profound an idea that we are not sur
prised to find its roots deeply embedded in the
history and prophecy and poetry of the Old Tes
tament. Not to dwell upon the typical fore-
shadowings of this truth contained in the story of
Abraham's servant seeking a bride for Isaac, and
of Jacob's seven years' service for Rachel ; and
not to enlarge upon the gracious words of Jehovah
to His people, " I will betroth them unto Me for
ever ; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee," — we
find in the Canticles the most complete and vivid
setting forth of this conception. The central idea
of the Song of Solomon is the same as that of the
Apocalypse. According to Ewald, the commen
tator, who has given the most subtle analysis of
this exquisite poem, the plot is this : " On the
one hand, a king in all the splendors of his glory,
transported with admiration, overflowing with
passion ; on the other, the poor and simple shep
herd to whom the Shulamite has plighted her

THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 249
faith ; the former present, the latter absent ; the
maiden called to decide freely between these two
rivals. Such is the conflict in all its moral
grandeur." Translating Oriental poetry into Apocalyptic
symbolism, the Book of Revelation yields us the
same conception.1 Immanuel, the Shepherd
Bridegroom, feeding His flock in Paradise, is ever
sending word to His espoused Church on earth,
"Behold, I come quickly." But she, in her long
waiting, is constantly solicited and wooed by
royal suitors — purple and gold and precious
stones being offered her — to withdraw her heart
from her heavenly Consort, and to accept a
throne with the kings of the earth. The harlot
bride, a fallen daughter of God, clothed with
scarlet and decked with jewels, and living in for
nication with the rulers of this world, appears
upon the scene, hating and hunting this unsullied
spouse of Christ and driving her into exile. But
in spite of all these trials of her faith on the one
hand, and all these solicitations of kings and
these proffers of Solomonic wealth and splendor
on the other, her heart is still true to her absent
1 " The Seer
That, ere he died, saw all the grievous times
Of the fair Bride — who with the lance and nails
Was won. " — Dante.

250 ECCE VENIT.

Lord, and her noble answer is, "Many waters
cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown
it; if a man would give all the substance of his
house for love it would be utterly contemned"
(Cant. viii. 7).
And yet the trial is one of intense and pro
tracted severity. Her Lord delays His return
long beyond her expectation ; and the world
mocks at her bridal hope, incredulously asking,
"Where is the sign of His coming?" Beside, it
is an invisible and far-off Lover to whom her
heart is plighted, one who appears only in visions
of hope, and "who in His sublime austerity
scorns to use any sensuous means for attracting
His people to Himself." In a word, her choice
must be between an earthly Solomon, crowned
with present glory and honor, and the Beloved
whom the world has rejected, and who now stands
without, knocking, His head wet with the dews
of the night. " Sometimes He comes down and
manifests Himself to the eyes of her faith. She
sees Him as in a dream ; she delights herself
spiritually with His presence, — then suddenly
He vanishes. And then once more she is alone,
carrying on the contest with Solomon, who draws
near in all his pomp, and tries to cast his spell
upon her. But she remains faithful to Him who
is invisible ; she sees the moment approaching in

THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 251
which, the true love of her God having won the
victory in her heart over all the arts of the se
ducer, she will be fetched away by Him, and —
more fortunate in this respect than the Shulamite
herself — will be able to follow Him to those
spiced mountains where He pastures His flock
amongst the lilies." x
That moment has now come ; the Bridegroom
appears in the clouds of heaven to take His be
trothed one to Himself; and this is "the mar
riage of the Lamb."
For mark the significant fact, that the Church
is only affianced to Christ as yet, not married.
" / have espoused you to one husband that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ" writes
Paul to the Corinthians, speaking by the Holy
Ghost. All through the time of His absence
"the Spirit and the Bride say, Come." But not
until He appears in glory, and translates the
Church, does the Bride become the wife : " Come
hither and I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb's
wife." The convent language, therefore, in which
the veiled nun is declared to be "wedded to
Christ," is entirely foreign to the teaching of
Scripture. For these holy nuptials are not with
the individual, but with the whole Church, and
therefore they cannot be consummated till all the
1 Godet, Studies on the Old Testament, p. 329.

252 ECCE VENIT.

faithful — the quick and the dead — are brought
into one company. As long as the Saviour is
still absent from His people, it is the Church's
fast-day, not her feast-day. "Can the children
of the bride-chamber fast while the Bridegroom
is with them ? As long as they have the Bride
groom with them they cannot fast. But the days
will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken
away from them ; then shall they fast, in those
days" (Mark ii. 19, 20). This describes the pres
ent attitude of the Church, — one of patient
waiting and chastened sobriety "till He come."
As often as she breaks the bread and drinks
the cup, she may say to her Lord : " Thou pre-
parest a table before me in the presence of mine
enemies." But not yet are His words fulfilled to
her : " That ye may eat and drink at My table, in
My kingdom." All attempts at premature wed
lock with Christ, by making the communion a
feast of His "real presence," instead of a fast for
His real absence, does violence to that virgin-
instinct of the Church which knows that there
can be no true nuptials until the Bridegroom
comes, as there can be no real reign of the saints
until the King appears.
For where is the true Bride of Christ at this
time? Before the face of her enemy she has
" fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place

THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 253
prepared of God, that they should feed her there,
a thousand two hundred and threescore days"
(Rev. xii. 6). The time of the Harlot's enthrone
ment is the time of the Bride's exile ; while the
one is sharing a crown with the princes of this
world, who crucified the Lord of glory, the other
is sharing rejection with Him whom the world
knew not. What pathetic sorrows are hers dur
ing all this wilderness period ! Because she will
not be seduced from her bridal affection, all man
ner of opprobrium is heaped upon her. Even
the watchmen, when they find her, smite her
and wound her, and the keepers of the walls take
away her veil from her. But in spite of all vio
lence and scorn of men, her heart is with the
absent Bridegroom, saying : " I charge you, O
daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my Beloved,
that ye tell Him that I am sick of love."
" My heart is with Him on the throne,
And ill can brook delay ;
Each moment listening for His voice :
' Rise up and come away.' "
But now the long hoped-for consummation has
arrived. The cry, " Behold, the Bridegroom com
eth, go ye out to meet Him," sounds upon the
air. She who kept her garments unspotted from
the world is ready to be married, and stands
clothed in her wedding vesture : she, also, who

254 ECCE VENIT.

lived wantonly with the kings of the earth, is
ready to be condemned, and stands "arrayed in
purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold
and precious stones." Hardly has the "Alleluia"
over the judgment of "the great Harlot which
did corrupt the earth with her fornication " died
away, before another is heard : "Alleluia, for the
Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad,
and rejoice, and give honor to Him : for the
marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath
made herself ready " (Rev. xix. 6, 7). It is the
hour of blissful fruition for the waiting Bride :
" Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness
leaning upon her beloved?" (Cant. viii. 5.) Who,
indeed, but she whose countenance was often
bedewed with tears, whose feet were often torn
with the thorns of the desert through which her
enemies pursued her ? But now the reproach of
her widowhood is taken away, the bridal veil is
upon her face, and the nuptial joy is in her
heart. The end of the Redeemer's spousal love is at
last made manifest : " Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ also loved the Church and gave
Himself for it," writes the apostle. And to what
purpose was this divine affection ? " That He
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
of water by the word : " this is what he is now

THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 255

accomplishing by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
"That He might present it to Himself, a glorious
Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such
thing, but that it should be holy and without
blemish " (Eph. v. 25-27) : this is what He is
yet to accomplish by the ministry of His second
coming. How striking the language ! " Himself
to Himself," — avrds iaw<3, — " Christ permits
neither attendants nor paranymphs to present
the Bride; He alone presents, He receives."1
And He gives her to Himself in completed sanc
tification and transfigured beauty. St. Paul was
jealous over the Corinthian Christians, that he
" might present them as a chaste virgin to Christ."
But Immanuel receives this virgin not only as
chaste, but as chastened ; not only as sanctified
through trial, but as at last glorified through rap
ture. Often she may have been tempted to mur
mur at the hardship of her lot, and the severity
of her wilderness portion. But all this is not
worthy to be compared with the glory that is
now revealed in her as she stands at the Bride
groom's side, and hears Him saying to her : " I
remember for thee the kindness of thy youth,
the love of thine espousal, when thou wentest
after me in the wilderness, in a land that is not
sown " (Jer. ii. 2, R. v.). 1 Ellicott

256 ECCE VENIT.

And there is not only a presentation, but a
manifestation, in which obscurity and obloquy
give place to glory and honor.
It has happened within our knowledge that a
wealthy and cultivated gentleman became affi
anced to a maiden of the lowest and poorest con
dition. Because he had set his love upon her, he
took her out of her poverty and ignorance, and
sent her to a distant school to be educated and
fitted for her appointed sphere. After years of
discipline and preparation, he withdrew her from
her retreat and brought her to his home, where
a splendid reception was given her, and she was
publicly introduced into the society in which she
was henceforth to move as his wife. Precisely
thus has Christ dealt with His Church, — sending
her into long wilderness discipline to be trained
for her heavenly associations. But now that the
time of her humiliation is ended, He brings her
forth to receive her visible manifestation and
royal dowry. Whereas she has "esteemed the
reproach of Christ as greater riches than the
treasures of Egypt," now is manifested in her
" what is the riches of the glory of His inheri
tance in the saints ; " and whereas she has been
counted "the offscouring of all things" for His
sake, she is now exalted before the eyes of men
and angels with Him who has come " to be glori-

THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 257
fied in His saints, and to be admired in all them
that believe." In a word, the Bride who has
shared her Lord's rejection now shares His
throne as the wife of the Lamb, the Queen-con
sort of the King of kings. Here is the crown
ing joy of the redeemed. He and His are no
more twain, but one; the "little while" of their
separation is at last swallowed up in the " forever
with the Lord." They see His face ; His name
is in their foreheads ; they hear His voice : " Eat,
0 friends : drink, yea, drink abundantly, O be
loved." " Blessed are they which are called unto
the marriage supper of the Lamb."

VII.
THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM.
The first resurrection and the rapture of the
saints have carried our contemplation heaven
ward ; but it is now recalled to what is passing
on the earth. The one transaction is the exact
reverse of the other. The Virgin Bride is called
upward to the marriage supper of the Lamb ; the
apostate Spouse of Christ is now cast down and
publicly divorced by her long dishonored Lord.
The punishment meted out to her — " These
shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate
and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her
with fire" (Rev. xvii. 16) — is according to a very
ancient law : " And the daughter of any priest,
if she profane herself by playing the whore, she
profaneth her father : she shall be burnt with fire"
(Lev. xxi. 9). This fallen daughter of God has
persisted in her fornication with the kings of the
earth for centuries ; and they with whom she has
glorified herself and lived deliriously now turn
against her and become the providential instru
ments of her destruction, saying to the Almighty :

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 259
"Thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot:
bring her forth and let her be burnt" (Gen.
xxxviii. 24). Graphic and lifelike to the highest
degree are the delineations of the papal apostasy.
As the true Church of Christ is set forth under
the double similitude of a bride and of a city, so
is the false. And one has only closely to compare
the details of the harlot's photograph in Rev. xvii.
with the lurid painting of Babylon the Great in
Rev. xviii. to perceive that the subject is the same
in each. The scarlet and purple, the gold and
precious stones and pearls, are found in both de
scriptions : the same sin of wantonness with the
kings of the earth ; the same indictment of per
secuting God's saints ; and the same doom of
being " utterly burned with fire " belong to each.
Only in the first portrayal the kings of the earth
are seen executing the divine vengeance upon
the apostate bride ; while in the second they are
represented as bewailing and lamenting her
doom, even as a profligate will sometimes weep
and mourn over his murdered paramour.
This judgment seems to be executed in two
stages, gradual and sudden, harmonizing with the
two stages of the judgment of the Man of Sin as
foretold in Thessalonians : "Whom the Lord shall
consume with the breath of His mouth, and destroy
with the brightness of His coming."

260 ECCE VENIT.

The first process is described thus : " And the
ten horns which thou sawest and the beast, these
shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate
and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn
her with fire " (Rev. xvii. 16). The beast here
must be the same which carries the harlot ; it
cannot be an individual Antichrist, therefore, else
we should have the grotesque figure of the woman
riding upon a man, a symbolical monstrosity of
which revelation could not be guilty. Besides,
there is no precedent in Scripture for making a
beast signify an individual man. If Daniel gives
the key to Revelation, as is generally admitted,
a beast means a dynasty or civil government. It
is the body of the beast, the Papal Empire, with
its ten kingdoms, including rulers, people, terri
tory, and dominion, that is here evidently meant.
These that have long supported the harlot church
now turn and rend her. It is useless to say that
by identifying the papacy with the beast, this
verse would compel the conclusion that the
Roman Pope finally destroys the Roman Church.
There is a Head and a Body of the true Church ;
the Head is called The Christ, 6 Xpiords (i Cor.
xi. 13), and the Body is called The Christ, o Xpioros
(1 Cor. xii. 12) ; but it does not follow, therefore,
that when it is said that " Christ loved the Church
and gave Himself for it," we must conclude that

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 261
He loved Himself and gave Himself for Him
self ; for though Christ and the Church are mys
tically one, their actions and offices are separable.
So the papacy, as head of the Roman Empire in
its ten-kingdomed condition, is called the beast
(Rev. xiii. 4, 5, 6) ; and the empire itself, as the
body, is called the beast (Rev. xvii. 3). But
though symbolically one, their actions and career
are distinguishable. It is clearly the body of the
beast that is figured as carrying and supporting
the harlot, — the Roman Empire under the sway
of the Roman Church, the empire supporting the
Church, and the Church ruling the empire. But
when the consuming judgments begin, this is
changed. Just what was predicted, we have lived
to see, — the kingdoms once subject to the papacy
snapping their concordats and alliances, till the
woman's bit and bridle are utterly broken ; those
kingdoms turning upon her and stripping her of
her endowments, rejecting her authority, and
tearing away her territory. So we have beheld
it wonderfully come to pass in these latter days.
Events often constitute an indisputable exegesis.
So long ago as a. d. 1607, Brightman, the com
mentator, "searching what and what manner of
time " the Spirit signified by this prophecy, con
cluded that about a. d. 1800 the dismantlement
of the Roman Church would begin. In August,

262 ECCE VENIT.

1797, the French ambassador in Rome wrote to
Napoleon : " Discontent is at its height in the
papal states ; the government will fall to pieces
of itself. We are making it consume by a slow
fire. It will soon crumble into dust." The next
year the papal government was overthrown, and
an infidel democracy reared on its ruins. " The
churches and convents," says Alison, " the
palaces of the cardinals and nobility, were laid
waste. The spoliation exceeded all that the
Goths and Vandals had effected." x A further
exhibition of the same process of consumption we
have witnessed, especially in Italy and in France,
since the recent loss of the pope's temporal
power. Then follows a subsequent stage in the retribu
tion, when the awful cry breaks upon our ears :
"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great!" It is
history repeating itself. Every age has ended in
judgment, and so shall the present dispensation
close. As apostate Judaism met its doom in the
destruction of Jerusalem ; so apostate Christen
dom expiates its sentence in the overthrow of
mystical Babylon. This destruction will fall, we
believe, upon the literal city of seven hills, as the
visible centre and capital of the apostasy. What
other systems beside the papal may be involved
1 Closing Days of Christendom, Wale, p. 362.

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 263
in the judgment is a most solemn question to be
pondered. It is plainly intimated that the mother
has daughters, and therefore that Babylon the
Great has outlying suburbs which are in fellow
ship with her. Let him that readeth understand.
The extent of this judgment needs to be carefully
considered, since some would discredit the plain
interpretation which we follow, by declaring that
it implies the consigning of every subject of the
pope to perdition, as it is declared that " if any
man worship the beast and his image, and receive
his mark in his forehead or in his hand," he shall
be consigned to everlasting punishment. But
here the analogy of previous judgments throws
striking light. Before the doom of fire and brim
stone fell upon Sodom, the warning was sounded,
— " Up ! get thee out of this place, for the Lord
will destroy this city ; " and heeding the call, some
were found sheltered in little Zoar ere the burn
ing rain descended. So, likewise, before Jerusa
lem was destroyed, the Saviour's previous admo
nition was enforced : " Then let them which be in
Judea flee to the mountains ; " and the holy seed
gained refuge from the awful slaughter in the
hilltop of Pella.
The Apocalypse predicts a similar warning be
fore the fall of Babylon : " Come out of her, my
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins."

264 ECCE VENIT.

This summons, we believe, is synchronous, or
nearly so, with the descending of the Lord in
glory (Rev. xviii. 4). We conclude this because
the Church is summoned to exercise judgment, —
" Reward her even as she rewarded you, and
double unto her according to her works " — which
she is everywhere forbidden to do in her present
suffering state, but which she is to do at the
time of her reign and judgment with Christ at
His coming in glory. Before the sentence goes
forth, " Babylon the Great is fallen," the gracious
call of separation will have been sounded : " Come
forth, my people, out of her" and then "they that
are Christ's at His coming," whether hitherto in
Babylon or without her, whether in their graves
or living on the earth, will be caught up to meet
the Lord in the air, where, standing with the
Lamb upon Mount Zion with the hundred and
forty -four thousand having the Father's name
written in their foreheads, they shall see afar off
the doom of such as persisted in worshiping the
beast and wearing his name upon their brows.
As some true saints of God have been found in
Rome during all her history, so we doubt not it
will be to the end. But overwhelming doom
will fall upon such as persevere in their idola
tries after this last warning cry shall have been
sounded. If then "any man is worshiping the

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 265

beast, and receiving his mark on his forehead or
upon his hand," "the same shall drink of the
wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out
without mixture into the cup of his indignation "x
(Rev. xiv. 9).
Hark the song of exultation breaking forth
from heaven ! A great voice of much people —
of myriads whose blood the harlot drank — is
now heard saying: "Alleluia! salvation, and glory,
and honor, and power unto the Lord our God.
For true and righteous are His, judgments ; for
He hath judged the great whore which did cor
rupt the earth with her fornication, and hath
avenged the blood of His servants at her hand "
(Rev. xix. 2). And immediately a triumphal pro
cession is seen moving forth from the direction
whence comes the song: "And I saw heaven
opened, and behold a white horse ; and He that
sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and
1 " Covetous Babylon of wrath divine,
By its worst crimes, has drained the full cup now.
Her idols shall be shattered in the dust,
Her proud towers, enemies of heaven, be hurled,
Her wardens into flames and exile thrust.
Fair souls and friends of virtue shall the world
Possess in peace ; and we shall see it made
All gold, and fully its old works displayed." Petrarch, 1304-1374

266 ECCE VENIT.

in righteousness doth He judge and make war"
(Rev. xix. ii). This majestic rider we met at
the very opening of Apocalyptic history (vi. 2),
but then He was going forth in peaceful con
quest : " And I saw, and behold a white horse,
and He that sat upon him had a bow," — " Thou
didst ride upon thine horses, upon thy chariots of
salvation : thy bow was made quite bare " (Hab.
iii. 9), "and a crown was given unto Him." This
is the " Stephanos" the crown which in Scripture
is so repeatedly set before the Christian as the
prize for his spiritual overcoming, and which is
fitly worn by Him who in the days of His flesh
could say, " I have overcome the world." "And
He went forth conquering and in order to con
quer" — not only to effect the present victories of
redemption, but to win the ultimate sovereignty
of the world.
This final conquest has now arrived ; for as
the white-horse rider comes forth from heaven,
we behold, "and on His head were many crowns."
Not the Stephanos now, but the diadema is the
symbol of His supremacy. The kingdom of the
world has become the kingdom of our Lord and
of his Christ ; and all the crowns of all the kings
have passed over upon His brow. The long suc
cession of world-wide monarchies which we be
held in Daniel's vision has intervened ; the stone

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 267
cut out of the mountain without hands now
smites the image upon its feet, and itself fills the
whole world. How striking the picture of the
final transfer of earth's sovereignty to Immanuel !
To Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the first
in this line of universal monarchs, God said :
" Thou, O king, art a king of kings " (Dan. ii. 37).
Now that this bloody line terminates in the over
throw of mystical Babylon — whose sovereign,
the pope, has long arrogated both temporal and
ecclesiastical supremacy — Messiah takes up both
the successions and also takes the long abused
title attaching thereto : " And He hath on His
vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of
kings and Lord of lords " (Rev. xix. 16).
It is necessary here to explain how this judg
ment of Christendom is related to that of the
world as a whole. This will only be possible by
giving careful attention to the law of prophetic
perspective which rules so constantly in the di
vine predictions. That wondrous judgment par
able of our Lord, recorded in the twenty-fifth
of Matthew, seems to be opened out by later rev
elations so as to have an age-long reach. Resur
rection and judgment are counterparts ; and as
the rising of the dead, foretold by Christ in the
Gospel of John (v. 28), though seeming to be a
simultaneous event for the righteous and for the

268 ECCE VENIT.

wicked, — " The hour is coming in the which all
that are in the graves shall hear His voice and
shall come forth : they that have done good, unto
the resurrection of life ; and they that have done
evil, unto the resurrection of damnation " — is
shown in the later Revelation of John to take
place in two stages a thousand years apart : so
the judgments in which these respective resurrec
tions issue are separated by an entire millennium
Laying the prophecy of the xxvth of Matthew
alongside this of the vth of John, we judge that
they exactly harmonize ; that the time when the
Son of man shall " sit upon the throne of His
glory " is the whole millennial period ; that the
time when the righteous dead shall hear the King
say unto them, " Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world," is at the coming of
Christ in the beginning of the millennium, which
is " the resurrection of life : " that time when the
unrighteous dead shall hear the sentence, " De
part from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire," is at
the close of the millennium, which is " the resur
rection of condemnation." While this is so, we
should not err in saying that in one sense the
judgment of the righteous and of the wicked is
simultaneous. For since resurrection is the great
declarative act of justification, the coming forth

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 269
of the righteous from the tomb at the advent of
Christ is their open acquittal and vindication be
fore the universe ; while the non-resurrection of
the wicked is their silent condemnation, — which
silent condemnation, however, is to be made pub
lic and visible at the second resurrection and the
great white-throne judgment at the end of the
millennium. It has been maintained that the scene in the
xxvth of Matthew is strictly and only a judgment
of the living nations. It is clearly this ; but the
question is, whether this prophetic picture of our
Lord is not a composite photograph comprehend
ing in a single view all the stages and subjects
of the judgment.
While acknowledging the exceeding difficulty
of harmonizing all the texts relating to this sub
ject, we conceive of the great transaction thus :
Judgment begins at the house of God when the
Master of the house returns in the clouds of
heaven. Instantly there is a separation of the
wheat from the tares ; of the sheep from the
goats ; of the Bride from the harlot. By resur
rection and translation, the faithful living and
the faithful dead are instantly brought into one
company in the skies ; by non-resurrection and
devastating judgments, the apostate dead and the
apostate living are brought into the other com-

270 ECCE VENIT.

pany in Hades. Thus, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, judgment is pronounced for
both classes.
Now the reward of the righteous begins.
That manifestation predicted in the words, " For
we must all appear before the judgment-seat of
Christ, that every one may receive the things
done in his body according to that which he hath
done, whether it be good or bad," at last takes
place. This is not a judgment of believers as to
the question of life or death ; into such judgment
it is distinctly declared they do not enter : " Ver
ily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My
word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath
everlasting life, and shall not come into condem
nation," — KpCo-iv, judgment, — " but is passed from
death unto life " (John v. 24). The first resur
rection is itself the award of life ; and they who
now stand in their risen and immortal bodies
have passed beyond all possible inquisition con
cerning the inheritance of life eternal. But into
strict and solemn investigation concerning their
works they do now come ; for at length is that
Scripture fulfilled : " Every man's work shall be
made manifest ; for the day shall declare it, be
cause it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire
shall try every man's work of what sort it is " (1
Cor. iii. 13). Doubtless there will stand before

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 271
the Lord in that day many who are saved but
unrewarded, redeemed by the precious blood of
Christ, but not recompensed at the resurrection
of the just ; their works burned up as worthless,
but themselves saved so as by fire (1 Cor. iii. 15).
But to such as have borne the cross and endured
hardness, this is the time of reward : " Behold, I
come quickly and my reward is with me to give
to every man according as his work shall be."
And this recompense we believe will consist in
no vague and transcendental joys of song, and
rapture, and repose. That repeated strain in the
parable which follows that of the ten virgins —
" Well done, good and faithful servant : thou hast
been faithful over a few things, / will make thee
ruler over many things " — seems to indicate the
nature of the saints' inheritance. Reigning with
Christ over the earth throughout the millennium,
their rank in His manifested kingdom will be
according to their fidelity during the time of His
absence. In the judgment of the nations which
now follows, they will be associated with their
Lord, — " Know ye not that the saints shall judge
the world ? " (1 Cor. vi. 2) — and in their nearness
to Him in honor and authority will consist the
greatness of their reward. It is not necessary to
believe that the saints' reward will be altogether
earthly or civil, but nevertheless there is a mean-

272 ECCE VENIT.

ing which must not be spiritualized away in the
beatitude of our Lord : " Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth " (Matt. v. 5) ; and
in the award Of the nobleman returning from a
far country to set up his kingdom : " Well, thou
good servant : because thou hast been faithful in
a very little, have thou authority over ten cities "
(Luke xix. 17).
At the end of the millennium occurs the sec
ond resurrection. So far as there is a quicken
ing of "the rest of the dead " — those left behind
at the sound of the advent trumpet a thousand
years before — it is strictly a " resurrection unto
judgment." Here, in the vision of the great white
throne which follows, we find " the book of life "
opened, and "whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
Those whose names were in the book have
already been living and reigning with Christ a
thousand years; therefore, unless we think of
them as now leaving their thrones and crowns,
and coming before the bar of God to be tried for
their lives, we cannot conceive of their being the
subjects of this solemn inquisition : and as we
have already seen, the Scripture declares that
they will not be, since they have already passed
from death unto life, and come not into judgment.
But, holding that the righteous and unright-

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 273
eous still die during the millennium, it appears
that there will be saints as well as sinners in the
second resurrection. Hence there will be for
such a judgment of works when the assize of the
great white throne and of Him that sits on it shall
open. How solemnly, therefore, it reads : " 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 accord
ing to their works ! " (Rev. xxi. 13.)
Such seems to be the order as we gaze through
the long and solemn perspective of the judgment
scene ; but if our readers shall put a question-
mark against many of our conclusions, we shall
not be surprised. There is a massing of shad
ows and a concentration of mystery about the
whole scene which invest it with unutterable awe.
We are willing to leave the shadows unlifted and
the mystery unsolved, if, "knowing therefore the
terror of the Lord," we may "persuade men."

VIII.
THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL.
There is a fragment of Jewish legend that has
floated down to us, which represents two venera
ble rabbis as musing among the ruins of Jerusa
lem after its destruction. One is giving way to
unrestrained lamentation, saying : " Alas ! alas !
this is the end of all. Our beautiful city is no
more, our Temple is laid waste, our brethren are
driven away into captivity." The other, with
greater cheerfulness, replies : " True ; but let us
learn from the verity of God's judgments, which
we behold about us, the certainty of His mercies.
He hath said, ' I will destroy Jerusalem,' and we
see that He hath done it. But hath He not also
said, ' I will rebuild Jerusalem,' and shall we not
believe Him ? "
This is a correct method of reasoning, and one
which we would commend to Gentile doctors as
well as to Hebrew rabbis. A literal fulfillment
of threatenings upon Israel argues a literal fulfill
ment of promises. The sorrowful and ill-starred
history of the Jewish race since the dispersion
has been the theme of constant reflection among

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 275
thoughtful men. It is not merely the fact of
their unparalleled sufferings which has arrested
attention, but the evidence of a providential
method, if we may say so, running through those
sufferings, the appearance of their history having
been woven at every point to the pattern of some
hidden decree. Persecution which would have
blotted out any other nation seems in their
case to have been so blended and tempered with
divine preservatives, that, like that symbol of
their Jehovah, the burning bush, they present the
astonishing spectacle of a nation always girdled
about with the fires of judgment, but never con
sumed. Scattered like dust to the four winds,
they have yet preserved their national unity as
firm and compact as a rock ; driven out of their
land, and kept from it by an inexorable decree,
they have beheld their supplanters guarding with
scrupulous care their most sacred shrines, as
though unconsciously waiting to surrender them
back to them on the expiration of their lease ; so
utterly homeless that they have had no city or
foot of land for centuries which they could call
their own, they have, nevertheless, been the
bankers of the world, as though destined always
to have on deposit the wealth needful for restor
ing the desolations of Zion, if the hour for such
restoration were to come. This mingling of

276 ECCE VENIT.

mercy and misfortune in their career has consti
tuted the Jewish race the paradox and miracle
of modern history. It has awakened a constant
curiosity and speculation in the minds of the
thoughtful as to their future. Incomparably dark
as has been their history for eighteen hundred
years, men have been constrained to see in that
darkness the shadow of Jehovah's hand turned
over them for their protection and preservation !
And in the very sharpness of the judgments that
have overtaken them, not a few have discerned
the presage of a future glory far surpassing any
thing in the past.
Have we thought what an undertone of hope
there is even in the divine condemnations of the
Jews? The single word "until" constitutes a
kind of epitomized prophecy of Israel's restora
tion. The picture which our Lord gives in the
gospels of the destruction of the Holy City and
the dispersion of the Jews is one of the darkest
in all Scripture. What a massing of the shadows
of doom ; what a crowding together of successive
chapters of woe ! And yet, as we reach the mid
dle of that sentence which summarizes whole cen
turies of divine retribution, "Jerusalem shall be
trodden of the Gentiles until the times of the
Gentiles be fulfilled," we are conscious of a cer
tain powerful relief from the strain that has been

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 277
put upon us. "Until" — amid the dense sur
rounding darkness, this one word fairly gleams
with the promise of a better future for the suffer
ing race. It is only a hint, an intimation, that
is given us ; but it is so pregnant with the hid
den light of hope, that it impels us instinctively
to fix an end to the desolations of Zion. So in
our Lord's pathetic farewell to the Temple, after
His rejection, there is the same refrain, " Behold,
your house is left unto you desolate ; " and,
"Verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me,
until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is
He that cometh in the name of the Lord." Until
the time come, — here, certainly, is a flash of light
upon the dark prediction of Israel's desertion. It
is but a word, again ; but it is heavy with the
burden of prophetic expectation. Next to the
silence which says nothing contrary to our hope,
the hint which barely breaks the silence in its
favor is the most significant. And this is all we
have here ; but how much is in it ! In St. Paul's
discourse upon the hardening and healing of his
people, like phraseology occurs. "Blindness in
part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of
the Gentiles be come in." Thus, again and
again, this word " until " is heard, like a cadence,
in the solemn strain of the Divine threatening, in
which Jehovah's voice seems to drop, for a mo-

278 ECCE VENIT.

ment, from the stern tones of anger and impre
cation, to those of His "old love" and tender
ness.1 But let it not be supposed that we have in the
New Testament only inspired hints and implica
tions concerning Israel's restoration. The elev
enth chapter of Romans is a compact and well-
reasoned argument upon this theme, conducting
us step by step from sorrowful premise to trium
phant conclusion. "Hath God cast away His
people ? " is the question considered. " God hath
not cast away His people whom He foreknew"
is the conclusion reached. And this upon two
grounds, — present fact and future fulfillment.
Though the nation has been cut off, there is " a

1 " O then that I
Might live, and see the olive bear
Her proper branches, which now lie
Scattered each where,
And without root and sap decay,
Cast by the husbandman away,
And sure it is not far !
" For surely He
Who loved the world so as to give
His only Sonne to make us free,
Whose Spirit, too, doth mourn and grieve
To see man lost, will, for old love,
From your dark hearts this veil remove."
Henry Vaughan, 1654.

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 279
remnant, according to the election of grace," who
have believed on Christ to their salvation, and
therefore have been preserved in the favor and
fellowship of God ; while, on the other hand,
those remaining outside this remnant have been
hardened : " the rest were blinded!' But concern
ing this rejected majority, there is hope, because
of the sure covenant of God. And though, like
the branches of an olive tree, they have been
broken off, we are told, first, that " God is able to
graff them in again ; " and, a little after, " How
much more shall these which be natural branches
be graff ed into their own olive tree" Not only
possibility, but certainty, of Israel's restoration
is thus predicated. And the argument culminates
in the grand conclusion, "And so all Israel shall
be saved" — an elect and individual redemption
at last succeeded by a national and complete re
demption. And this full recovery, it will be ob
served, is in connection with the second coming
of Christ in glory. As it is written : "There
shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall
turn away ungodliness from Jacob." x
A typical man is often set before us in Scrip-j
1 " The passage cannot be understood merely to denote the
first appearance of Messiah as Isaiah xi. ; but, in any case, the
eschatological appearance of Jehovah is also conjoined in the
Messiah." — Lange.

280 ECCE VENIT.

ture for our clearer instruction in regard to great
events. And such was Paul in relation to the
final redemption of Israel. He says of himself,
the "blasphemer and persecutor" of Christ:
" Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that
in Me first Christ Jesus might show forth all
long-suffering, for a pattern of those who should
hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life," —
wirorumoo-iv -rusv pxWovranr mtrrevtw, — not an ensample
to, but a sample of, those who should afterwards
believe unto salvation. By the manner of his
conversion he was constituted a kind of first-
fruits, or prototype, of the Jewish harvest.
Whether or not in this passage he refers expli
citly to his kinsmen according to the flesh, we
find, at least, that the circumstances of his own
new birth were so unique as to constitute a
special type. For, enumerating those by whom
the Lord was seen after His resurrection, he
says : " And last of all, as unto one born out of
due time, He appeared to me also." By the vis
ible, glorious manifestation of Christ to his eyes,
was this Hebrew of the Hebrews smitten with
conviction ; by the indictment of the Redeemer's
personal wounds — "I am Jesus of Nazareth,
whom thou persecutest " — was he brought to
repentance and confession. When he " could not
see for the glory of that light," then was the veil

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 281
taken away from his heart, so that he turned to
the Lord in the profoundest penitence.
"Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every
eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him,
and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over
Him " (Rev. i. 7, r. v.). If, with most expositors,
we must understand " the tribes " in this instance
to mean the kindreds and peoples of the world,
we cannot so interpret the Old Testament proph
ecy of which this is a quotation. In the profound
mourning, so graphically pictured by Zechariah,
in which " every family apart " is seen sobbing
out an uncontrollable grief, the scene is, by gen
eral consent, in the Holy Land, and the subjects
the house of Israel. And what has come to pass ?
The bounds of another prophetic "until" have
been attained for Jerusalem. " Upon the land of
my people " God threatened thorns and briers,
forsaken palaces, and deserted towers, " until the
Spirit be poured out upon us from on high " (Is.
xxxii. 1 5). That time has now been reached, and
the word which God spoke by the mouth of
Zechariah is fulfilled : "And I will pour upon the
house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Je
rusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplications :
and they shall look upon Me, whom they have
pierced, and mourn for Him, as one mourneth
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for

282 ECCE VENIT.

Him, as one is in bitterness for his firstborn"
(Zech. xii. 10). The point of departure at last
becomes the point of return. The wounds of
Jesus were the death sentence upon national Is
rael ; and now they become the source of life to
that long-rejected people. For immediately upon
the prediction of their mourning for Him whom
they pierced, it is added : " In that day there
shall be a fountain opened to the house of David,
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and
for uncleanness."
Nationally or individually, there is but one way
of salvation for Israel, — the way of the Cross ;
and one way of repentance, — a total reversal of
attitude towards the Nazarene. The Jews cried
out : "His blood be upon us and upon our chil
dren ; " and for this whole age that blood has
been crying out for vengeance against them. By
their own repentance and faith must that pre
cious offering be turned from the blood of impre
cation to the blood of cleansing. "Not this man,
but Barabbas," they said, when the awful alterna
tive was offered them ; and Barabbas, the mur
derer and robber, has swayed them with his dag
ger, and pillaged them of their wealth, even unto
this day. "Not Barabbas, but this man," must be
their penitent confession before this spoiling shall
cease. " We have no king but Caesar" was their

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 283
answer when the appeal was made to them,
"Will you crucify your King?" And Caesar
after Caesar has crucified, enslaved, and outraged
them till, as no other, they have become a nation
of sorrows and acquainted with grief. This fatal
choice must also be reversed, and instead of it
the acclamation be raised : " Hosanna to the
Son of David ! blessed is He that cometh in the
name of the Lord ! " Indeed, recalling Christ's
prediction, — "Ye shall not see Me henceforth,
\till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the
name of the Lord " (Matt, xxiii. 39), — we must
remember that He gives us the key-note of Is
rael's repentance in these words. They are part
of the Jewish "Hallel," sung at the Passover.
The strain which immediately precedes this ben
ediction is : " The stone which the builders refused
is become the Headstone of the corner. This is the
day which the Lord hath made: we will rejoice
and be glad in it" (Ps. cxviii. 22-25). How
glorious this song of Israel's consummated res
toration! And what a heightening of the dra
matic effect of that lurid picture of the overthrow
of mystical Babylon, that, amid the rejoicing of
the Church over the downfall of her great enemy,
this " Hallel " is heard four times breaking in, as
though Israel, too, were joining to celebrate the
fall of the last and bloodiest form of Caesar's

284 ECCE VENIT.

kingdom, that from which both Christian and Jew
have received their bitterest persecution ! (Rev.
xix. 1, 3, 4, 6.)
As to the exact order of events connected with
Israel's conversion and restoration, we must not
speak too confidently. Some passages seem to
make the Jews' repentance the occasion of the
Lord's return, and others would appear to make
the Lord's return the occasion of their repent
ance. Of the first kind is Peter's declaration to
the crucifiers of Jesus : " Repent ye, therefore,
and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out,
that so there may come seasons of refreshing
from the presence of the Lord ; and that He may
send the Christ who hath been appointed for you,
even Jesus, whom the heaven must receive until the
times of the restoration of all things" (Acts iii.
19-21, r. v.). Here the Saviour's coming back
is made contingent on the conversion of the
Israelites ; while, in the prophecy of Zechariah,
that appearing in glory seems to be the producing
cause of the Jews' repentance. From all that we
gather, we judge that both conclusions are true,
— that Israel will regather in their land in un
belief, as they are now beginning to do ; that they
will be brought into great tribulation through the
assaults of enemies coming against them in siege ;
that in their utmost extremity they will cry out

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 285
for their Messiah ; and " then shall the Lord go
forth and fight against those nations." His com
ing, however, will bring sorrow, as well as succor.
" His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount
of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem on the
east" But those feet that bring deliverance will
bring overwhelming conviction, as it is seen that
they are the same that they once nailed to the
cross. As He lifts up His hands for their help,
" one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds
in Thy hands? Then He shall answer, Those with
which I was wounded in the house of my friends "
(Zech. xiii. 6 ; xiv. 4). Thus while He comes to
bring salvation to a repenting people, His coming
will add repentance to repentance, as it brings
home their terrible crime against their Messiah,
so that "all the tribes of the land shall wail
because of Him." But what joy shall give place
to that lamentation, after their sin is purged!
Now shall long-prostrate Jerusalem hear the sum
mons : " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and
the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee."
The twin fact of Israel's restoration to God's
favor is this of their restoration to their own land.
To cite passages in proof of such restoration
would be to quote whole chapters and entire
books from the prophets, of whose writings this
is the constant glowing burden.

286 ECCE VENIT.

This great consummation seems destined to
occur in two principal stages, elective and na
tional. First, a few are represented as being
brought upon ships from their scattered habita
tions (Is. xviii. ; Ix. 9) : "I will take you one of
a city, and two of a family ; and I will bring you
to Zion" (Jer. iii. 14). These would appear to
be a kind of first-fruits of the final restoration.
And as sober judges of events see this gathering-
out and gathering-home already taking place, it
should be to us a sign and an earnest of the
speedy realization of Israel's complete hope. Af
ter this partial restoration, we are led to expect
the final and full regathering, a national move
ment, like the Exodus from Egypt, only far sur
passing that in' glory and power (Jer. xxiii. 3-5 ;
xxxi. 8, 9).
This great restoration constitutes the true hope
of the Israelite, as the return of the Lord does of
the Christian. And it is very interesting to read,
in the light of this fact, the closing chapters of
the Old and of the New Testaments. In the one
the promise is, "Behold, I will send you Elijah;"
in the other, "Behold, I come quickly." To the
prepared people of His Church He comes, that
He may receive them into the place which He
has gone to prepare; to His long - disobedient
people, Israel, He sends the prophet, that He may

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 287
" turn the heart of the fathers to the children,
and the heart of the children to their fathers."
Accordingly, as for the Christian the commun
ion is commemorative and anticipative, so is the
Passover for the Jew. The Lord's Supper, by
its solemn formula, is ever repeating, "Till He
come ; " and the Passover, with its vacant seat
for Elijah, is ever saying, "Till Israel return."
As the sprinkled blood and bitter herbs remind
children and children's children of the Hebrew
household how the Lord brought their fathers
out of Egypt, they also recall evermore Jehovah's
promises : " Therefore behold the days come,
saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The
Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel
out of the land of Egypt ; but, The Lord liveth
that brought up the children of Israel from the
land of the north, and from all the lands whither
He had driven them ; and I will bring them again
into their land that I gave unto their fathers "
(Jer. xvi. 14, 15). Nothing that has yet occurred
can be said to have fulfilled this prediction of
" bringing them again into their own land." If
the contrary be affirmed, how can we explain the
finality and perpetuity of this restoration as
affirmed in several parallel texts ? " And I will
plant them upon their land, and they shall no more
be pulled up out of their land which I have given

288 ECCE VENIT.

t, saith the Lord thy God" (Amos ix. 15 ; Jer.
xxxi. 8-9 ; Ezek. xxxiv.-xxxvii.). And if any ask,
" How can this be, considering the wide apos
tasy and practical surrender of these promises by
such vast numbers of Israelites ? " we must an
swer : How can it fail to be, since Jehovah, who
made this promise, cannot lie ? As though an
ticipating this incredulity of men, He has said,
concerning the time when He makes a new cov
enant with His people, " to forgive their iniquity
and remember their sin no more " : " Thus saith
the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day,
and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars
for a light by night, which divideth the sea when
the waves thereof roar ; The Lord of Hosts is His
name : If those ordinances depart from before
Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also
shall cease from being a nation before Me for
ever. Thus saith the Lord : If heaven above can
be measured, and the foundations of the earth
searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the
seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith
the Lord" (Jer. xxxi. 31-37).
So great will be the glory of Israel's recovery,
that the sorrow of His long rejection will seem
as nought in comparison. Now will God comfort
His people, saying : " For a small moment have I
forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 289
thee " (Is. liv. 7). Instead of the sentence : " I
have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the
hands of her enemies," to His people, resisting no
longer, He will say : " For as the girdle cleaveth
to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave
unto Me the whole house of Israel, and the whole
house of Judah, saith the Lord, that they might
be unto Me for a people, and for a name, and for
a praise, and for a glory " (Jer. xiii. 1 1).
Not only shall their sun no more go down, but
because the Lord is their sun, " the light of the
moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the
light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of
seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up
the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke
of their wound " (Is. xxx. 26).

IX.
THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM.
In the transfiguration — which is distinctly
called "the Son of man coming in His king
dom " — we have a miniature presentation of the
millennium. Moses and Elias, who appear with
Christ in glory, prefigure respectively the risen
and the changed saints translated and brought
into one company at the appearing and kingdom
of our Lord ; while the disciples who stand with
out the cloud and behold His glory are typical of
those in the flesh, the Jews and the nations, who
will still be left on the earth after the rapture
of the saints. What relation to this globe will
the transfigured Church hold in the millennium ?
Some have maintained that she will be forever
removed from this sphere, the world and its in
habitants being burned up together as soon as
the Church is taken away. Others have held
that while the ungodly will be utterly consumed
at the appearing of the Lord, the earth, purified
and renewed, will become the eternal and exclu
sive abode of the saints. Either view is extreme,
as judged by a full collation of Scripture. It is

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 291
plainly declared in Revelation that the saints
shall "reign over the earth;" but that they will
be absolutely bound to it, as now, by terrestrial
gravitation, does not follow. " They that are ac
counted worthy to obtain that age and the res
urrection from the dead . . . are angel-like, —
10-dyyeA.oi, — and are sons of God, being sons of
the resurrection " (Luke xx. 36). Surely here is
a suggestive hint for us. Angels visit this earth
and mingle with its inhabitants ; they have tan
gible forms, and accept material food, and exer
cise gracious ministries for those in the flesh,
and yet they reside in a higher sphere. So may
it be with the sons of the first resurrection, — in
perpetual contact with the earth, but not inhabit
ants of it. Instinctively we turn for light on this
subject to our Lord's forty days between His ris
ing and His ascending. Though now in the res
urrection body, He associated as familiarly as ever
with His disciples : at one time holding high dis
course with them concerning the things of the
kingdom ; at another eating in their presence of
the broiled fish and honeycomb ; to-day directing
that cast of the net into the Sea of Galilee by
which the multitude of fishes was enclosed, and
to-morrow announcing the great commission in
the mountain of Galilee by which the draw-net
of world-wide missions was committed to His

ECCE VENIT.

Church ; and all the while maintaining that
strangely double life in which He was now han
dled and inspected to prove his body to be literal
flesh and bones, and now mysteriously withdrawn
like a vanishing spectre. Here is revelation in a
mystery concerning the glorified saints and their
relation to the millennial earth. For the life of
Christ is the life of His Church in epitome.
Reasoning from these hints, we gather that
the millennial Church may hold a relation to the
earth as close as that which we now maintain,
and a relation to heaven as intimate as that which
the angels enjoy. Perhaps there is more than
poetry in the prophet's delineation of the Mes
sianic glory (Is. xl. 31): "They that wait upon
the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall
mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run
and not be weary; they shall walk and not
faint : " celestial flight alternating with terres
trial travel, and each alike unwearying.1
What a realistic element in the promised vic
tory of the saints it is, that they shall enjoy their
triumphs in the very sphere where they suffered
their defeats ! This is according to the divine
1 " Captain Credence lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold,
Immanuel came with colors flying, trumpets sounding, and the
feet of His men scarce touching the ground?' — Bunyan's Holy
War, 17.

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 293
purpose. The millennium is called " the times of
the restitution of all things" (Acts iii. 21). The
steps in this restitution move slowly and stead
ily ; but, because it is a restoration, each step for
ward is really a step backward towards the purity
and perfection of the primitive paradise. All
that was involved in the fall will be involved in
the recovery : the soul restored to God by regen
eration ; the body restored to the soul by resur
rection ; and the earth restored to man by regen-
esis. Thus the rainbow arch of redemption bends
back and touches the earth from which it springs,
— " the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which
should follow," both have their scene in the same
material world. And remembering that the ex
alted Head and the mystical body have an identi
cal destiny, we see how much is suggested by this
fact. Christ returns in glory to the point of His
earthly departure : " His feet shall stand in that
day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before
Jerusalem on the east " (Zech. xiv. 4). In His
transfigured body He may now survey the literal
scenes of His humiliation : Gethsemane, where
He sweat great drops of blood; and Golgotha,
where " by wicked hands He was crucified and
slain ; " and the garden where He lay for two
days buried. Heroic poetry, in its most pre
sumptuous flights, has never dreamed of such a

294 ECCE VENIT.

vindication for defeated warriors as this, — tri
umphing in a deathless body on the very field
where the dead body was mutilated and en
tombed. And our Redeemer comes not alone in
His victorious entry upon the earth: "Behold,
the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His
saints to execute judgment upon all, and to con
vince all that are ungodly among them of all
their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly
committed, and of all their hard speeches which
ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Jude
15). Christ's confessors, who, being reviled, re
viled not again, but committed themselves to
Him that judgeth righteously, may tread again
the very judgment halls where they listened in
silence to the hard speeches of ungodly sinners
who condemned them to death ; may stand on
the very spot where the earth once drank up
their witnessing blood, or tread under foot the
very soil with which their martyr -ashes once
mingled. Will the glorified Church hold relation to mor
tal men still living on the earth ? They who deny
this, and suppose that the whole human race will
be swept from the globe and destroyed at the
coming of Christ, quote words of terrific import
for such a view (2 Thess. i. 7). But if we balance
Scripture with Scripture, the conclusion is other-

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 295
wise. For not only is it taught that the advent
judgments fall especially on apostate Christen
dom (Matt. xiii. 40, 41), but with equal clearness
that Christ's coming issues in the conversion of
Israel (Zech. xii. 10 ; Rom. xi. 26), and through
Israel in the conversion of the Gentiles (Rom. xi.
12-15 ; Is. Ix). We conclude, therefore, from a
wide collation of Scripture, that after the transla
tion of the Church, two classes will still remain
living on the earth, — the Jews and the nations.
And as the glorified saints have now become
" kings and priests unto God," they must exer
cise rule and ministry over some besides them
selves, and over whom but these ? Here Scrip
ture is clear and harmonious with itself. Im
manuel now takes " the throne of His father
David," that He may "reign over the house of
Jacob forever." But He is not alone in His
kingly rule over Israel. Of His risen saints it is
written that " they lived and reigned with Christ
a thousand years." His glorified Bride sits by
Him in His throne, Queen-consort with her en
throned Lord ; nearer to Him than any other as
"the wife of the Lamb." Now is fulfilled that
Scripture which cannot be broken : " Verily I
say unto you that ye which have followed Me in
the regeneration," — the regenesis, mzA.iyyej'eo-ia,
" when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of

296 ECCE VENIT.

His glory — ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones
judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. xix.
28). In this dominion of the risen saints there
doubtless is order and precedence according to
the degree of suffering and loss endured for
Christ. The apostle band would seem to have
especial preeminence ; next the martyr company,
whose long waiting for the avenging of their
blood is at last rewarded ; and saints and be
lievers of all generations, who have been counted
worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection
from the dead. Israel is still in the flesh, though
converted, purified by long trial, and brought at
last into loyal subjection to Messiah. Through
her as a -redeemed nation, and through her ex
alted city as capital of the world, the Son of
David will now extend His blessed sway to the
ends of the earth. "For out of Zion shall go
forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the na
tions, and shall rebuke many people ; and they
shall beat their swords into ploughshares and
their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not
lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more" (Is. ii. 4). At length, through
this benignant consummation, the righteous gov
ernment for which the suffering nations have
sighed will have been reached. The last attempt

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 297
at human rule, like all before it, will have miser
ably failed, and men, despairing of self-help, will
finally be prepared to accept the benignant rule
of God, that perfect theocracy in which Christ
the Lord shall be King over all the earth. We
have said in a previous chapter that election is
not the end of grace, but the means to a vastly
higher end. This ultimate purpose here comes
into view. The elect Church, glorified with her
Lord, and the elect nation Israel restored and
converted, now take up the work of universal re
demption. Have we pondered the deep sugges-
tiveness of the apostle's saying : " He hath raised
us up together, and enthroned us together with
Him, in order that He might show forth to the
ages which are coming the exceeding riches of His
grace in His goodness towards us in Christ Jesus "
(Eph. ii. 7).1 The garnered wealth of redemp
tion, the holiness, and faith, and love gathered
up from generations of chastened experience, and
now displayed in the transfigured Church, —
what may be the impression of this upon the
generations of the age to come? At last the
1 "That God in the future order of things, that is, in the
kingdom of God, — in which the glory of the faithful, which is
hidden here below, will be made visible to all, — may manifest
the overwhelming richness of His grace." — Olshausen's Para
phrase.

298 ECCE VENIT.

Son of God is fully manifested in " the manifes
tation of the sons of God." He has come "to
be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all
them that believed" (2 Thess. i. 10), — the raised
and enthroned Church being as a mirror in which
His majesty is reflected and displayed. Now
will be seen " what is the riches of the glory of
His inheritance in the saints" (Eph. i. 18). And
we may believe that, as the Queen of Sheba was
astonished at the splendor of Solomon, and at
tested her admiration by rich gifts, so the gen
erations yet unsubdued to Christ at the opening
of the millennium, may be filled with wonder at
the exhibitions of redeeming grace now visible in
the perfected Church, and at the riches of His
forbearance as manifested in converted Israel,
so that they shall be moved to take up, con
cerning Immanuel, the beatitude of this admir
ing queen : " Happy are thy men, happy are
these thy servants which stand continually before
thee and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the
Lord thy God which delighteth in thee to set
thee on the throne of Israel : because the Lord
loved Israel forever, therefore made He thee
king to do judgment and justice" (1 Kings x.
8, 9). These triumphs may not be gained at
once; but they will be effected with a rapidity
of which we as yet know nothing, so that liter-

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 299
ally a nation shall be born in a day. For two
new conditions will now be brought in, — condi
tions utterly unknown since the fall of man : the
binding of Satan and the universal outpouring
of the Holy Ghost. Let us try to conceive of
the astonishing changes which will thus ensue in
the complete repression of " the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience," and in
the unrestrained operation of the Spirit of truth
and holiness now poured out upon all flesh. What
will have now come to pass is not simply an
exchange of malign influences in the earth for
more benign, but the actual dethronement of
"the god of this age,"1 and the unhindered
reign of Christ in his stead. Thus there is a
complete reversal of conditions : " the Prince of
Peace" holding absolute sway in the dominion
where the " Prince of the power of the air " has
so long triumphed. Now will be ushered in the
real golden age of which the weary nations have
so long dreamed, — the true Sabbath-keeping for
which the people of God have waited. If our

1 " That which ceases by the binding of Satan is the cohesive
power of evil, by which it has been able to become an historical
and motive principle in the development and in the life of na
tions, by which it has proved itself a ruling power on earth. In
stead of that now comes in the development of the power of the
glorified Church of God." — Karsten.

300 ECCE VENIT.

readers have been inclined to put a mark of in
terrogation against any of our millennial anticipa
tions, we have only to remind them that when the
chief apostle bounds forward in thought to this
period, and speaks of its "far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. iv. 17), his
language becomes well-nigh untranslatable, he so
joins hyperbole to hyperbole — Koff inrepfio\.riv eU
iwtp{3o\i)v — in his effort to express its transcen
dent blessedness. " The uniquely beautiful, the
eternally true, the highest good, must be fittingly
made manifest upon an earth whereon they have
been so long ignored ; and as that earth has so
long crowned with thorns its lawful King, it must
contemplate Him yet once again in His full
beauty. It is this blissful period to which proph
ecies like Isaiah xi. 6-9, xxxv., Ix., lxv., and others
appear to us to point. It will be the time in
which the kingdom of God rules upon earth.
Purified by suffering and conflict, the Church of
God now shares in the triumph of its Head : the
Bride finds her rest, after her long wanderings in
the desert, on the bosom of the Bridegroom. It
now becomes apparent that the kingdom of God
is in reality a power in every domain with which
it comes in contact, and that the highest manifes
tation of the truth calls forth a life such as with
out this is nowhere found on earth. In a word,

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 301
it is the time of the Christocracy ever more tri
umphantly unfolding itself ; the realization of the
Ideal, of which the old Theocracy in Israel was
only the shadow ; a realization, however, which
in nothing detracts from the universalistic char
acter of the Saving Revelation now brought to
completion." x
The relation of the three classes of men in the
millennium has been compared to the threefold
division of the tabernacle. The Bride of Christ,
the glorified Church, is the Holy of Holies, ex
alted into equal fellowship with her Head.2 Con
verted Israel is in the relation of the Holy Place,
and the nations which come up to worship Jeho
vah stand as in the court of the Gentiles. Only
we must be reminded how completely the veil of
the Holiest is now rent asunder, so that as the
millennial triumph advances all peoples are em
braced in the light of God's favor. The cloud of
glory — symbol of Jehovah's presence — was first
contained within a narrow ark in the wilderness ;
1 Van Osterzee, Christian Dogmatics, p. 799.
11 " How beautifully does the prophet Isaiah (Is. iv. 5) suggest
the Bridal relationship of Christ to His Church in the millen
nium ! The shekinah glory has returned : 'A cloud and smoke
by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night.' And now it
is said, not as in our common version : ' For upon all the glory
shall be a defense,' but ' Upon all the glory shall be the mar
riage canopy? "

3©2 ECCE VENIT.

then, as the Temple of Solomon was dedicated, it
filled the whole house, so that "the priests could
not stand to minister by reason of the cloud "
(2 Chron. v. 14) ; in its final outreach it will em
brace the world in its effulgence, and the whole
earth will become a Holy of Holies. Then will
the kingdom of God be fully consummated ; the
blessed predictions of righteousness and peace
contained in the seventy-second Psalm will be no
longer chanted only in the music of the Levites,
but they will be set to the measures of literal
accomplishment, and sung out in the strains of
triumphant experience : "All men shall be blessed
in Him ; all nations shall call Him blessed." At
length, in a restored creation, will Messiah see
of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Thus
will the Psalm of redemption be finished : "And
let the whole earth be filled with His glory.
Amen, and amen. The prayers of David the son
of Jesse are ended " (Ps. lxxii. 20).
But we have outrun our argument, and must
return to what has been passed over.
Beside Jew and Gentile and Church of God,
there is still another sharer in the millennial re
demption; a dumb partner who is yet to find
utterance when " the hills shall break forth into
singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap
their hands." " Often " says Goethe, " have I had

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 303
the sensation as if Nature, in wailing sadness,
entreated something of me, so that not to under
stand what she longed for cut me to the heart."
We understand what her longing is, and what is
to be God's final answer to it. " For we know
that the whole creation groaneth and travail eth
in pain together until now, . . . waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body"
(Rom. viii. 23). Earth bears the wound received
through man's transgression, and the brute cre
ation travails in anguish with fallen humanity.
Deep as is the mystery of punishment for sin,
the punishment of no sin, as witnessed in animal
suffering, is even more inexplicable. " In Adam
all die : " not only all persons but all things. But
as man and creation fell together, so must they
rise together in the time of redemption. Earth
will then lay off her soiled week-day garb and put
on her Sabbath dress, and, with her singing robes
about her, take up again that anthem which was
heard when the morning stars sang together, and
all the sons of God shouted for joy. " Cursed is
the ground for thy sake, thorns and briers shall
it bring forth to thee" (Gen. iii. 17, 18), is the
sentence which for six thousand years has re
mained as a sign and testimony to God's judg
ment upon sin. But then : " Instead of the thorn
shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier

304 ECCE VENIT.

shall come up the myrtle tree : and it shall be to
the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that
shall not be cut off" (Is. Iv. 13). The beauty of
holiness and the eternal harmony of redemption
must be displayed where the dishonor of sin has
been most visible. Therefore this globe, which
has so long served as a grave for man fallen, will
now serve as a temple for man upraised ; yea,
more, as Anselm says : " The whole earth, which
carried in its lap the body of the Lord, will be
a paradise." With such predestined glory before her, what
wonder that Nature should be found taking her
place with Christ and the Church as an eager
expectant of the Advent ? If we could bring out
the full original of that passage, "For the earnest
expectation of the creature waiteth for the mani
festation of the sons of God" (Rom. viii. 19), we
should behold a delineation so graphic that, as
Godet has said, " A sculptor of any imagination
and genius might carve a statue of Hope from it."
The picture is this : " Nature, an unwilling slave
to vanity and corruption, stands, impatient of her
bonds, with uplifted head, scanning with longing
eye the distant point of the horizon from which she
looks for help, her hands stretched out to grasp and
welcome the redemption into freedom and perfec
tion which she yearns for and confidently expects." x
1 Dr. Samuel Cox on Rom. viii. 19.

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 305
It is necessary to emphasize this truth of the
rehabilitation of the earth on philosophical as well
as on spiritual grounds. For we know not how
to vindicate the ways of God to sober thinkers,
if this material world is to end in catastrophe in
stead of regeneration. A vague shadowy heaven
beyond the stars, to which man as a bodiless im
mortal spirit is to be finally transported, has lit
tle meaning or attraction for the ordinary mind.
And we are free to say that such a conception is
a triumph of Gnostic philosophy over scriptural
revelation, — the philosophy which finds man's
highest happiness in release from this material
body, and therefore, logically, the race's high
est attainment in deliverance from this material
world. While this notion is widely prevalent in
the Christian Church of our day, we deny that
there is anything inspiring or victorious in it.1
Instead of the apostolic prayer for the perfection
1 It is a one-sided spiritualism which can conceive of no per
fectly consummated blessedness save in a heaven distant as far
as possible from this earth. Infinitely more acceptable, and
more worthy of God, is the Biblical conception that this earth,
too, which, through sin laden with the curse has been made the
scene of grace, has, as well as other worlds, a peculiar destina
tion to accomplish in the realization of God's adorable plan ; and
that the gulf shall entirely cease to be, which at present exists
between heaven and earth." — Van Oosterzee, Image of Christ,
p. 491.

306 ECCE VENIT.

of our " whole spirit, soul and body at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ," it places our hope in
the dismemberment of this human trinity : it
proposes a truce with the grave, willingly sur
rendering the body to its possession, provided
only the soul may be eliminated in the dissolv
ing chemistry of death, and float away to some
realm of happy shades. Instead of rejoicing in
the beatitude, " Blessed are the meek : for they
shall inherit the earth," it makes haste to yield
all right and title to this globe, if only the saints
may be released from its gross environments, and
soar to worlds unknown. Even so lofty a thinker
as Edwards gives full sway to this idea in his
" History of Redemption," where, speaking of the
end, he says : " Thus Christ's Church shall for
ever leave this accursed world to go into the high
est heaven, the paradise of God. . . . When they
are gone this world shall be set on fire and turned
into a great furnace, wherein all the enemies of
Christ and His Church shall be tormented for
ever." Is this an alluring conception of redemp
tion, that in its final issue it will have turned
what was made to be a Paradise for man's delight,
into a purgatory for his torment ? We should
call this the apotheosis of divine failure, rather
than the crown of divine redemption. Yet it is
the logical outcome of that philosophy which con-

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 307
sidexs the spiritual to be everything, and the
material nothing. We hold that it is infinitely
honoring to the Creator to believe that in the
end He will be found tabernacling in a restored
world, from which He has wiped away the last
vestige of sin, and in which He has silenced the
last discord of rebellion.1 If the problem of hu
man destiny is to be worked out to a successful
issue only on some yonder side of creation, and
in such unknown terms and quantities that even
the spiritual Christian cannot comprehend it, how
impossible it will be to justify God's dealings to
men ! . In treating of the doctrine of future life,
it may be questioned whether modern theology
has not so far withdrawn from a sober and Scrip-

1 " Upoii two distinct grounds we may believe that the earth
will ultimately be made new, — First, that having been brought
under the bondage of corruption, not of its own will, but by the
sin of man, it is embraced in the scope of redemption ; it is to
enter into 'the liberty of the glory of the children of God'
(Rom. viii. 21). Second, that God having made man, body and
soul, and appointed the body to be an essential element in
humanity, He will so order the material world that it shall min
ister in the highest degree to all his needs. If the body be
raised into a higher condition through resurrection, there must
be a corresponding change in its material environments, — the
new creation serving as a means to higher knowledge of God,
and to the continual enlargement of man's conception of His
power, wisdom, and goodness." — Rev. S. J. Andrews, God's
Revelations to Men, p. 361.

308 ECCE VENIT.

tural materialism as to be carried into an atten
uated, and for the most part incomprehensible,
spiritualism. We believe, on the contrary, that
in setting forth the judgments and rewards of
the future, God has expressed them in conditions
which even the men of this world may under
stand if they will.
That there must be a baptism of judgment-fire
for the earth, preparatory to this anointing with
millennial joy, is plainly revealed. How difficult
it is to explain the predictions of Scripture on
this subject, we need not say. "The day of the
Lord" of which Peter writes — "in the which
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,
the earth also and the works that are therein
shall be burned up " — is evidently a long period,
embracing the entire age, from the second advent
to the close of the millennium. It is within this
era that these burning judgments occur. But
the fire is for purging, and not for annihilating,
since the announcement immediately follows :
"Nevertheless, we, according to His promise,
look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet. iii. 13). In the
prophecy of Isaiah we have a glimpse of this re
newed order : " For, behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth, and the former shall not be re-

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 309
membered nor come into mind" (Is. lxv. 17).
Now Jerusalem is seen restored and made a per
petual joy in the earth ; a warring creation has
been tamed, and the wolf and the lamb are found
peacefully feeding together. But though life is
wondrously ameliorated and prolonged, so that
one a century of age is counted an infant, —
"The child shall die an hundred years old," —
immortality has not yet been reached for the
whole race on earth. The goal of death has been
pushed far onward, but not abolished ; and though
for the risen Church death has been swallowed
up in victory, it still has dominion over men in
this globe during the millennium.
But looking on to the end of this millennial
period we behold the final and perfected order
in which mortality, with all its sorrowful accom
paniments, has at last been swept away : "And I
saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first
heaven and the first earth were passed away:
and there was no more sea " (Rev. xxi. 1). Now
the climax of blessedness has been reached for
the world and all that dwell therein. As the
opening of the millennium witnessed the bridal
of the Church with Christ, its close will witness
the bridal of the earth with heaven. Then the
redeemed were caught up into the clouds to cele
brate their nuptials with their Lord; now the

310 ECCE VENIT.

Lord comes down to our globe to celebrate the
nuptials of the earth and sky : "And I heard a
great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the
tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall
dwell with them, and they shall be His people,
and God Himself shall be with them and be their
God. And God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes ; and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be
any more pain ; for the former things are passed
away " (Rev. xxi. 3, 4).
From all we have thus considered, our infer
ence is, that the redemption of the earth will
begin with the return of the Lord from heaven
at the opening of the millennium ; but will only
be perfected at the end of that period, when
death shall be forever abolished, and there shall
be no more curse. The millennial kingdom is
thus redemptive, not only for the race, but for
the earth, — the final chapter in the great res
toration which is to usher in the eternal state.
Though far surpassing all which we now know in
blessedness, the millennium will not be a fault
less condition. Sin and sin's agencies will still
have a certain sway; for Satan will yet once
more incite rebellion before being finally and
forever cast into the lake of fire (Rev. xx
3-10). But after that the eternally perfect, the

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 311
faultlessly holy, condition will be reached. Of
this condition we can as yet only catch transport
ing glimpses, and speak in stammering accents.
It is the time when God shall be all in all, and
the whole world brought into unwavering obe
dience to His will. The long-suffering Church
forever married to her Lord ; Israel, once hated
and forsaken, now made an " eternal excellency,
a joy of many generations ; " the Gentiles, who
long lay at the gate full of sores, carried by
angels into Abraham's bosom ; and the world,
with all its reconciled inhabitants, lying forever
on the breast of God.
" Earth, thou grain of sand on the shore of the
Universe of God ; thou Bethlehem, amongst the
princely cities of the heavens, — thou art, and re-
mainest, the Loved One amongst ten thousand
suns and worlds, the Chosen of God ! Thee will
He again visit, and then thou wilt prepare a
throne for Him, as thou gavest Him a manger
cradle ; in His radiant glory wilt thou rejoice, as
thou didst once drink His blood and His tears
and mourn His death ! On thee has the Lord
a great work to complete ! "

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY