There are many earnest pre-millennialists who object to the position here taken, and insist that there is a scarcely perceptible interval between the coming of Christ for the saints and his coming with them. They refer among other passages to the apostle’s declaration that “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God,” and argue with some plausibility that such language forbids the thought of a secret translation of believers previous to the appearing of the Lord in visible glory on the earth. They say that the shout, the voice, and the trump must be heard by all, and hence that we need not look for the Saviour until the manifestation of the Antichrist, and the fulfillment of certain prophecies which, every one admits, await the startling events of the future. It is of unspeakable moment to the Christian to know whether he shall be exposed to the dreadful sufferings and temptations that will mark the close of the present age, or whether he shall be removed to the heavenly heights, and look down with undisturbed composure upon the tempest of judgments that will lay waste an ungodly world before the establishment of righteousness. Let us approach the examination of the question with hearts submissive to the teachings of the Sacred Scriptures, and with a sincere desire to know the truth as there revealed.

There is a principle which the Almighty has observed in all the dispensations, and which is faintly shadowed forth in the opening verse of the Bible, where we read the sublime statement, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” He created both. He has a right to both. He lays claim to both, and in due time He will make that claim good to the utter confusion of His enemies, and to the everlasting joy of the holy intelligences of the universe. The principle that He asserts and intends to maintain His claim both to heaven and earth is thus quietly announced in the first sentence which the inspired penman wrote, just as there can be no reasonable doubt that the doctrine of the Trinity is intimated in the fact that the word translated “God” is in the original in the plural, while the word translated “created” is in the singular number. This remarkable fact is not owing to any peculiarity in the Hebrew language, for it can describe God as easily by a word in the singular as in the plural; but a singular verb is joined to a plural noun for the express purpose of teaching the great truth of Trinity in unity, which is brought out a little more fully at the creation of Adam when God said, “Let us make man in our image, after OUR likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” (Gen. i: 26).

Here, then, man was invested with the sovereignty of the earth, and his place and portion were to be on it, while God, in the second person of the Trinity, came down, and manifested His presence and glory amid the beautiful scenes which He pronounced to be very good, and walked in the garden in the cool of the day, and communed with Adam as friend talketh with a friend. But sin entered and marred the fair face of creation, and disturbed the rest of the Creator, and introduced disaster and death where all had been love and life. Cain, as the type of the legalism and self-righteousness which have formed the religion of the world ever since, finding his offering of fruits and flowers rejected, turned with rage upon his brother standing beside a bloody altar, as the type of those who through faith in Jesus are justified from all things; and then the earth opened her mouth to receive more precious blood than that of the lamb, and it cried unto God from the ground. The earth thus polluted was no longer fit for the manifestation of Jehovah’s presence, and the human race was divided into two distinct families, one of which clung to the world as its heritage, and the other of which was separated from the world to be a peculiar people. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and he and his descendants built cities, and invented musical instruments, and worked in brass and iron, and tried to repair the ruins of the fall by human skill, and sought to render the only habitation for which they cared delightful; but Seth and his descendants called upon the name of the Lord, and left no memorial of earthly achievements, and wrought no works that could enhance their reputation in the eyes of an unbelieving world, though of one of them we have the brief and touching record, “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him,” (Gen. v: 24).

Let it be remembered that the translation of Enoch occurred when Jehovah was about to assert again His forgotten and despised claim to the earth, and when to make good that claim He was determined to purge it of its corruptions by the judgment of the deluge. When this was done. He gave Noah, whom He found to be righteous before Him, dominion over it as He had given Adam previous to the introduction of evil. We behold, then, Enoch who was translated before the judgment descended; Noah and his house who were preserved through the judgment: and a large class upon whom the judgment fell. Have we not in these first chapters of the Bible a recital of the divine purpose to take the church away before the desolating judgments shall descend at the close of the present dispensation, and also to preserve a people in the midst of the fearful exhibitions of God’s wrath, and finally to pour the tide of His fury upon the world at large? Surely the supposition is not improbable when we recall the fact that the judgment of the deluge and the judgments that shall soon terminate our age, are more than once mentioned in direct connection by Christ and the apostles, who make one the type of the other. At all events it is certain that when God gives His people dominion in the earth He prepares the way by the Spirit of judgment, and until the scene of man’s wickedness is cleansed by the hand of justice that He may reveal Himself in His unsullied holiness and untarnished glory. He calls them to a life of separation as strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Thus as Adam was invested with the sovereignty of the earth before the fall, so was Noah after the deluge; but the former believed the devil’s lie rather than God’s truth, and the latter got drunk. Man has turned out a wretched failure wherever tried, for notwithstanding the terrible punishment that had fallen upon the world at the flood, we find the race in the arrogancy of the human heart proposing to build a city, and a tower whose top was to reach unto heaven, that they might make themselves a name, and act independently of God. Such was man’s attempt to establish himself in the earth, and as evil was again in the ascendency, we hear God’s call to Abram to come out from the world and to find his place and portion in heaven. This faithful servant had not so much of earth as to set his foot on, but was all his life time a man of the tent and the altar, “for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God,” (Heb. xi: 10).

But again does Jehovah assert His claim to the earth, and again He clears the scene where He intends to manifest His presence by the most terrific judgments. He selected the Hebrews as His witnesses in the world, and the land of Canaan for their habitation; and in accomplishing His sovereign will. He assumed a title suitable to His design, as He always did when appearing under a new name at any special manifestation of Himself; and nothing can be more instructive and interesting than to trace the reason for these different names, as they occur along the track of revelation. For example, we may be sure it was not without good reason the Holy Ghost used the word God thirty-two times in the first chapter of the Bible, and the words Lord God in the second chapter, when man came upon the scene.

It would be out of place to dwell upon this now, but for the present purpose it is sufficient to notice that when the Israelites crossed the river Jordan to take possession of the land of promise, Joshua said, “Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan,” (Josh iii: 11). It was as Lord of all the earth He was manifesting himself to His people among whom He deigned to dwell, and therefore He acted in judgment by the sword which was to exterminate the old inhabitants, and not to spare for their crying. When Jericho was taken, “they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword,” (Josh, vi: 21); and a curse was pronounced against the man who should rise up to rebuild the city. When Ai was taken, “Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants,” (Josh, viii: 26); and in fighting with the Amorites, “the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies,” (Josh, x: 13); for God was dealing in righteous judgment, and the land must be cleansed before He could reveal His presence in it as the Lord of all the earth.

From that time until their rejection, the Israelites were charged to maintain the authority of God in the earth, and were therefore regarded and treated as an earthly people. Of course it is not meant that they did not receive spiritual blessings, but their special calling nationally was to act as witnesses for God on earth, and hence the promises and threatenings addressed to them were to a large extent earthly in their character. On the one hand they were encouraged to obedience by the assurance of long life, of vigorous health, of a numerous offspring, of fertilizing showers, of abundant harvests, and of an easy victory over their enemies; and on the other hand they were warned against disobedience by the fear of pestilence and plague, drought and famine, suffering and subjugation by their foes. Is there anything of this in the New Testament? Not a shadow. It is indeed directly the reverse, for in proportion to our fidelity, and closeness of conformity to the will and word of God, will we know in our own experience the meaning of the language, “Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake,” (Phil, i: 29); and the friendship of the world has never been purchased by a Christian, except at the price of disloyalty to his Lord. We are plainly told that we must expect to be reviled and slandered, that the world will hate us, that in the world we shall have tribulation, that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom, that we are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together, and that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution; but instead of exacting an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, as under the former dispensation, we are repeatedly charged to abstain from retaliation, to harbor no thought of revenge, to overcome evil with good, and to face the insults and injuries to which we are exposed with meek endurance.

The reason for this complete change in the tone of the communications addressed to the people of God, when we leave the Old Testament to come into the New, will be apparent, if we recollect, that Christians are living in an entirely different dispensation. In the one, God was asserting His claim to the earth; in the other. He is taking the church out of the world to form the body and bride of the Son of His love. In the one, the earth was the prominent thought before the divine mind; in the other, heaven is the place to be enriched by the displays of redeeming grace. In the one, therefore, Israel received an earthly calling, but in the other, the church has a heavenly calling, as it is written, “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling,” (Heb. iii: 1); and God “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” (Eph. i; 3); and “our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,” (Phil, iii: 20). Thus also we are distinctly taught that God “created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,” (Eph. iii: 10). The church then, is the great lesson book which the principalities and powers in heavenly places are continually studying, and out of which they learn more of the manifold wisdom of God than from the entire range of the universe, while the special calling of Israel was to teach this manifold wisdom to the nations of the earth. If we forget the distinction between an earthly and heavenly people, or in other words, if we lose sight of dispensational truth, where every thing is beautiful and well-ordered in its season, we will be thrown into inextricable confusion in attempting to understand the Scriptures.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and since the creation of man He has alternately revealed His purpose to declare the glory of His grace in both departments of His magnificent empire. But where sin has polluted the theatre of its display He always prepares the way of its manifestation by judgment, even if the judgment must fall, as it did when He brought in the new dispensation, upon the head of His only begotten and well-beloved Son. The second coming of that Son, therefore, must inevitably be ushered in by judgment, and independently of explicit testimony, we might argue from analogy that a heavenly people, the church, would be preserved from it like Enoch; and that an earthly people, the faithful remnant among the Israelites would be preserved through it, like Noah; while the ungodly who have despised His love would be overwhelmed by it, like the Antediluvian world. There is to be a coming of the Lord for the saints, when the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and after an interval, in which human wickedness will reach the loftiest height of iniquity, there is to be a coming of the Lord with the saints for the overthrow of the nations gathered about Jerusalem, and for the re-establishment of Israel in the place of testimony and of honor on the earth.

Nor is there any real force in the objection that the shout and voice and trump accompanying the descent of the Lord into the air precludes the possibility of a secret translation of the saints previous to His appearing in the sight of all men. Such sounds as these are only for a heavenly ear, and divine glory is only for a heavenly eye, or for the soul prepared by grace to hear and to behold what God hath prepared for them that love him. There is no evidence that the translation of Enoch produced the slightest impression upon the unbelieving world, or that there was any preliminary sign announcing the time of its occurrence, or that it was witnessed by a single human being. In the translation of Elijah we know that he passed over the river Jordan from the presence even of the sons of the prophets, and taking only Elisha with him who was his successor, suddenly there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven, and the sons of the prophets sought three days, and found him not. When the servant of Elisha was greatly alarmed because the city in which he and his master sojourned was compassed by enemies, his eyes were opened, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha, but neither the inhabitants of Dothan nor the Syrians saw them. When Daniel was upon the banks of the river Hiddekel he lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: his body was also like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like a voice of a multitude. But it is added, “I Daniel, alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves,” (Dan. x: 7).

Coming now to New Testament times we find that the glory which shone upon the holy mount at the transfiguration was seen only by Peter and James and John, though as it was evidently manifested in the night, it might have filled the land with its dazzling radiance. So at a later period in the ministry of our Lord, His soul seemed to recoil for a moment from the unfathomable gulf of woe opening at His feet, and He exclaimed, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered,” (John xii: 28, 29). What to Him in His habitual communion with the Father was the articulate utterance of love, was to their uncircumcised ears only as the rumbling of distant thunder. Still later in His wonderful career, no human eye saw His resurrection from the grave, and only to His chosen disciples did He appear after that memorable event. Stephen, at his martyrdom, “being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,” (Acts vii: 55); but no others beheld this blessed vision. Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus was smitten to the ground by a great light flashing from heaven, and he heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutes! thou me? “And they that were with me,” he says, “saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me,” (Acts xxii: 9). The same Saul after his conversion was caught up to the third heaven, and heard unspeakable words, but no man tracked his flight to the Paradise of God.

These facts gathered from the Scriptures are sufficient to show that the Lord reveals precious secrets to His own chosen servants, of which the world knows nothing, and that the shout, and voice, and trump attending the coming of Christ for the saints, may not even be heard, much less understood by those who are locked fast in the slumber of spiritual insensibility. But whatever difficulties may surround the subject, there are two classes of texts found in the Bible which will satisfy the mind that is subject to its authority. One class holds forth the second advent as the object of immediate expectation and desire, without the necessary intervention of any occurrence whatever after the ascension of the Saviour to heaven; and the other class predicts such events as the restoration of the Jews to their own land, and the culmination of the world’s ungodliness in. the Antichrist previous to the return of Jesus to the earth. One class speaks of His return for the saints, and the other of His return with the saints. One class refers to the coming of Christ as it relates to the full redemption of His waiting people, and the other, to the day of the Lord as it relates to the period when He shall reign personally and judicially upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice. When, therefore, the apostle Peter writes of the day of the Lord as the time 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, it is obvious that he alludes to the close of the day at the end of the millennium instead of the events that shall occur at its commencement. That this is the correct view will appear to all when we remember that immediately following the fearful conflagration of which Peter speaks, there shall be new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness; and that in the only other passage in the New Testament where this form of expression occurs John tells us that he 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). That the sea here is to be understood literally there can be no doubt, for two verses before it is said, “the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell [or hades] delivered up the dead which were in them,” (Rev. xx: 23); and as we know there will be a sea during the millennium, the new heavens and the new earth which Peter mentions as succeeding the destruction of the old by fire will not appear until the close of the millennium, and at the beginning of the eternal state.

“One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” (2 Pet. iii; 8); and the day of the Lord is that long period ushered in by judgments and closed by judgments, when Christ reigning personally over the earth shall bring it back into harmony with heaven according to the original purpose and plan of creation; and “Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power,” (1 Cor. xv: 24). It is obvious therefore that believers have nothing to fear from that day, either at its dreadful commencement or its more dreadful conclusion, for if true Christians, they will keep in mind continually the Saviour’s solemn admonition, “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man,” (Luke xxi: 34-36). Those that love His appearing shall escape all these things by being caught up to meet Him in the air, and it comforts our hearts to know that He will come for His people, before He comes with them. The time of His coming for them may be just at hand, “For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye, therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, watch,” (Mark xiii: 34-37).

This earnest and repeated call to watchfulness not only warns against indifference with regard to the great truth of our Lord’s second advent, but it plainly intimates the possibility of His descent from the right hand of the Father at any hour. Owing, however, to the prevalent error which postpones His return for a thousand years, most Christians of the present day utterly fail to heed His solemn injunction, and in fact unite with the scoffers of the world in sneering at the few who watch as fanatics. If a thousand years must certainly elapse before He can leave His seat in the heavens, or if a series of predicted events must necessarily occur before His shout can be heard in the air, then indeed it is worse than idle to watch for Him, for error is always positively injurious to the soul. There is no way, therefore, of harmonizing the multitude of Scriptural admonitions to the Christian, to be constantly on the watch, at even, at midnight, at the cockcrowing, in the morning, with the multitude of Scriptural prophecies, equally explicit, concerning the Jews and the judgments of the last days, that remain to be fulfilled, except by seeing that Christ comes for His people before He appears with them. Hence the last chapter of the Old Testament describes His appearing as the Sun of Righteousness, which must be seen by all; but the last chapter of the New Testament describes His coming as the Morning Star which can be discerned only by those who wait and watch through the weary hours of the night. Hence too, the last chapter of the Old Testament appropriately closes with the word “curse but the last chapter of the New Testament appropriately closes with the word “grace.” All this is deeply significant, for it indicates that while the curse is still resting upon afflicted Israel and a groaning creation, “The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings;” but His appearing will be heralded by His coming in grace as the Morning Star, ushering in the day without a cloud.

Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, “I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. And they answered and said unto him. Where, Lord? And he said unto them. Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together,” (Luke xvii: 34-37). Although our Lord with His followers, however unlettered, moves on a plane of truth infinitely above modern science of which man is so proud, yet here He evidently anticipates the discoveries of modern science that demonstrate the spherical form of the earth, and refers to His coming as producing its practical and tremendous results in the separation of believers from unbelievers at different hours of the day, on account of the roundness of our globe. At one place it will be even, at another place midnight, at another place the cockcrowing, at another place morning; or as in the passage just quoted, in one part of the world two men will be asleep together at the time for slumber; in another part two women will be preparing the morning meal j in another part, still further east, two men will be engaged in the busy toil of the day, when one shall be taken, mounting up with wings as an eagle to meet the Lord in the air, and the other shall be left to the deluge of wrath that will break in successive waves of desolation over apostate Christendom.

Oh, what rapture shall thrill the hearts of the redeemed, what ecstasy of bliss shall lavish the sorrowing, tempted, troubled disciples of Jesus, when responding to His shout that will sound to the world only as a strange clap of thunder, they shall in the twinkling of an eye be changed into the likeness of His glorious body, and together with the risen saints, hand in hand with some whose graves have cast a shadow all along their pathway of life, they shall ascend to be with Him forever, and to be done with sin and suffering forever! But what amazement and horror must seize upon the careless, the unbelieving, the worldly, when the husband shall miss from his side-the wife who had wept bitter tears over his rejection of her Saviour, and the child shall look around in vain for the mother whose entreaties had been disregarded, and the friends who mingled their sympathies shall silently and suddenly part to meet no more!

“What horrors shall roll o’er the Godless soul,
     Waked from its death-like sleep;
Of all hope bereft, and to Judgment left,
     Forever to wail and weep!

O worldling, give ear, while the saints are near!
     Soon must the tie be riven.
And men, side by side, God’s hand shall divide.
     As far as hell’s depths from heaven.

Some husband, whose head was laid on his bed.
     Throbbing with mad excess,
Awakes from that dream, by the lightning’s gleam,
     Alone in his last distress:

For the patient wife, who through each day’s life
     Watched and wept for his soul.
Is taken away, and no more shall pray—
     For the judgment thunders roll!

The children of day are summoned away:
     Left are the children of night—
Sealed is their doom, for there’s no more room:
     Filled are the mansions of light!”

It may be well before closing briefly to recapitulate. After showing the importance of the subject, it was proved that in the New Testament the coming of Christ is always to be understood literally, and that it is a gross and dangerous perversion of Scripture to refer it to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, to death, or to any other event whatever. This was followed by the confession of the leading post- millennial Expositors, who acknowledge that the first Christians looked for the personal return of the Lord Jesus in their day, but think it is fanatical to look for Him now, or for a thousand years still in the future. Then the prominence of the doctrine was exhibited, set forth as it is in one verse out of every twenty-five, or as some who have examined the subject very closely say, one verse out of every thirteen in the New Testament, and in the Old Testament mentioned scores of times as often as the distinct assertions of His first coming; and it was urged that the total silence generally observed concerning this great and leading truth, as if it were a forbidden topic, can not be right or pleasing to the Holy Ghost. The Scriptural use of the doctrine was next illustrated, and it was seen that the inspired writers employ it to meet and comfort, and guide, and sanctify, and strengthen the believer, at every step of his toilsome and often sorrowful journey, from the cross to the crown. Thus the central thought of the book was reached, and it was made manifest that not only is there no hint in the New Testament of a millennium until Christ comes, and not only is there no hint of it in the Old Testament except as it shall be ushered in by appalling judgments at His personal appearing, but instead of the fancied progress and universal power of the church, both the church and the world are hurrying forward to a darker, deeper night than ever known in the past. There is no such thing as the bride reigning without the Bridegroom, in whom alone she has her portion. This was succeeded by a brief history of the doctrine, to show that for the first three hundred years it was the faith of Christians, but as Bengel says, “When Christianity became a worldly power, the hope of the future was weakened by the joy over the present success.” Auberlien adds in stronger language, “When the Church became a harlot, she ceased to be a bride who goes to meet her bridegroom; and thus Chiliasm necessarily disappeared.” The Commentary of which Dr. David Brown is one of the Editors, quotes both remarks with warm approval.

Then came a chapter to awaken attention to the practical power of the doctrine in the life of the believer, not when he coldly receives it as a mere dogma of Theology, not when he studies it with idle or intellectual curiosity, not when he watches “times and seasons” with which he has nothing to do, but when it is carried home to his heart in the power of the Holy Ghost, snapping the link that bound him to the world, causing him to walk in close and constant communion with his Lord, and teaching him to be daily “looking for that blessed-hope.” The discussion with regard to the return of the Jews was somewhat protracted, because acquaintance with this truth is absolutely essential to a knowledge of the word of God and to the entire subject of our Lord’s second advent. It was noticed that God began to reckon time from the redemption of Israel by blood out of Egyptian bondage, for “this month,” He said, “shall be unto you the beginning of months,” (Ex. xii: 2); and that He does not count time except as His earthly people are in covenant relation to Himself. Hence when they crowned their long career of disobedience with the stupendous crime of crucifying His eternal Son, they were scattered abroad; and there commenced on the day of Pentecost a dateless, timeless period or parenthesis, during which the Holy Ghost is gathering out from all nations the elect, who are to be the body and bride of Christ, one with the risen Head, constituting His fulness, and essential to His mediatorial completeness.

But when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, Israel will be restored, and, as of old, amid the accompaniments of dreadful judgments that attended their deliverance from Egypt, some of which we learn in the book of Revelation will be repeated. Blessed be God, before the judgments of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials begin, the saints who sleep in Jesus will arise, and those remaining who are really born again will be caught away to meet him in the air, as we learn from the same book of Revelation; for He has promised to the faithful, “I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth,” (Rev. iii: 10); while of the hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel who were sealed, and of the great multitude that believed their testimony, it is said, “These are they which came out of the great tribulation,” (Rev. vii: 14). To the one He comes as the Morning Star, and this is the hope of the Church; to the other He comes as the Sun of Righteousness, and then “Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit,” (Isa. xxvii: 6). As Auberlien says, “Israel is again to be at the head of all humanity. . . . The whole Old Testament is full of prophecies on this subject. They begin with the Pentateuch, and conclude with Malachi. . . . The doctrine of the future

THE HOPE OF THE CHURCH.

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glorious restoration of Israel is such an essential and fundamental idea of all prophecy, that the difficulty is not so much to find passages in which it is taught, as to select from the great number.” The Commentary, of which Dr. David Brown is one of the authors, says, “Apostate Christendom being destroyed, and the believing Church translated, there will remain Israel and the heathen, the majority of men then alive, who, not having come into contact with the Gospel, have not been guilty of rejecting it. These will be subjects of a general conversion. ‘The veil’ shall be taken off Israel first, then from off ‘all people.’ The glories attending Christ’s appearing, the destruction of Antichrist, transfiguration of the Church, and binding of Satan, will prepare the nations for embracing the Gospel. As individual regeneration goes on now, so a ‘regeneration’ of nations then. Israel, as a nation, shall be ‘born at once—in one day.’ As the Church begins at Christ’s ascension, so the Kingdom at His second advent. The humiliation of civilized nations will be, that nations which they despise, Jews, and barbarians, the negro descendants of Ham, under the curse of Noah, Kush, and Sheba, shall supplant them.”

“When the thousand years are expired,” we are told, “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,” and a little season of revived wicked ness shall ensue, about which it is not necessary to say more here than to point to the demonstration it will afford of the unchangeable evil of man’s nature under the most favorable circumstances, while the flesh remains in him. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and though restrained during the millennium, it will manifest its inherent pravity at the first favorable opportunity, like a tiger long caged and curbed that will bound back to its native jungle with unquenched thirst for blood, when the iron bars are removed. But the last desperate assault of Satan will fail to accomplish his designs, for he will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the antichrist and false prophet are; and after the resurrection and judgment of the unbelieving dead, eternity begins, “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: 4).

How thrilling the thought that the first of these startling events, the coming of Christ for the saints, may occur at any hour! Upon this the Holy Ghost seeks by the most solemn appeals to stay the minds of Christians as the proper hope of the church, and the happy day with its attendant consequences to the world can not surely be long delayed, for our Lord tells us, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world [the habitable earth] for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come,” (Matt, xxiv: 14). The gospel of the kingdom, implied in the cry, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh,” is now proclaimed by Missionaries nearly everywhere, giving one indication that we are living in “the last days and meanwhile the meanings of the gathering storm that shall burst upon apostate Christendom are heard in every direction through the deepening gloom. From Europe are wafted the forebodings of the most thoughtful and distinguished men, who see the dark shadow of heavier disasters in the near future for the suffering nations. The hollow peace that followed the recent gigantic struggle in Turkey for dominion is justly regarded as only a lull in the tempest, preceding a wilder outburst. Communism and Nihilism are threatening the foundations of the strongest thrones, and not a crowned head is safe for a day from the bullet of the assassin. In Berlin, the centre of culture, a recent petition implores the Government to arrest the rapid spread of the most debasing and heathenish vices. Meanwhile the idolized leaders of scientific investigation are engaged in a work appropriately described by Archbishop Cullen as “the revival of paganism.’’ Nay, it is worse than paganism, for while the ancient Athenians erected an altar to THE UNKNOWN GOD, these modem philosophers declare that He is the unknowable, and, worse still, that He does not exist. A long stride toward preparation for the reign of antichrist has been made from the deism of the last century to the blank atheism of the present, and not only on the Continent but in “Protestant England,’’ the “cultivated thought” of the day delights to announce that there is no future state for man.

In this country the same materialistic philosophy is making frightful progress, for there seems to be an irresistable charm about the very word science, which ministers to the self-conceit of the human heart, and captivates thousands, even when it is nothing more than “science falsely so called,” (1 Tim. vi: 20). The secular press is almost entirely under the control of “free thinkers,” who are in thorough sympathy with the “free thinkers” of the pulpit. Let a preacher give utterance to skeptical views, and, no matter how great a fool he may be, he is immediately lauded to the skies, as a man of genius and courage and independence. The march of infidelity in the Church as well as out of it is rapid, bold, defiant, trampling down the Lord’s day, and opinions and customs which a few years ago were regarded as sacred. Common honesty is difficult to find, and Christians are constantly humbled into the dust by the deliberate thefts of prominent members of churches, prayer-meetings, and Sunday schools. The columns of the daily journals are so uniformly loaded with the record of crimes, they have ceased to excite surprise, or to awaken emotions of horror. The fell spirit of Socialism is gathering strength every hour, and is ready to break forth in destructive violence at the first favorable opportunity. Amid the accumulated evidences of immorality and wickedness on every hand, God has let loose civil war, floods, fires, hurricanes, famines in some sections, plagues of grasshoppers, cholera, the awful scourge of the yellow fever, pecuniary distress that has ruined thousands, and that presses hard upon the poor, increasing their bitterness; but they have only hardened the people in iniquity and steeped them in a duller insensibility. Even the virgins nod and sleep, and the Church utterly fails to discern the signs of the times. “All these are the beginning of sorrows,” (Matt, xxiv: 8).