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CHAPTER XII PRACTICAL USE OF THE APOCALYPSE

“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than lie that is in the world.”— 1 John 4:4.

I. THE primary practical object of the Apocalypse is to make the Church victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Bible opens with defeat; it ends with victory. At its outset, man fallen, Satan triumphant; at its close Satan conquered, all his world powers overthrown, and the redeemed with the Redeemer, crowned as victors, and glorified.

At the close of His earthly life, looking back over its temptations and conflicts, Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.”In the beginning of His risen life, exalted and endowed with “all power in heaven and in earth,”He went forth leading His Church, “conquering and to conquer.”

In His heaven sent messages to the Churches which He left as His witnesses on earth, all the inestimable rewards of His kingdom are promised “To him that overcometh.”In the prophetic visions which succeed these messages, tracing the gradual subjugation of all things to Christ, the conflicts, sufferings, and victories and final glories of Christ’s saintly followers are described. This is the theme of the prophecy, and its object is practical. It was. a gift to the Church militant from Christ triumphant. The Son of God had overcome the world. The sons of God were now to overcome it. Faith was to make them victorious. They were to conquer their visible foes by faith in things invisible. All the powers of the world were to be arrayed against them. They were to be hated, persecuted, hunted into dens and deserts, cast into dungeons and flames. Yet were they to conquer. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” Who spoke that triumphant word? A lonely exile; a persecuted and banished saint and apostle. And when? In the days of proud Domitian, master of the world; in the time of Pagan Rome’s supremacy. How calmly he writes it in his letter of love to his “little children.”There is no flourish of trumpets; simply the clear note of victory. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast ordained strength, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”And so Christ led His Church to the battle-field. Calmly and unflinchingly He conducts them with open eyes into the deadly arena of their warfare. They are to fight with wild beasts in the Colosseum; to be driven into the darkness of the Catacombs; to die under the worst tortures pitiless Rome can inflict. They are later on to contend with worse enemies than heathen Rome. They are to fight with the powers of hell in the apostate Church which should succeed “to the throne of the Caesars. ‘The harlot Babylon was to be drunken with their blood; yet were they to overcome, and the victors were “to stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire, having the harps of God.” No music so lofty as theirs; no song more glad and glorious; followers of the Lamb, of Him who died on Calvary’s Cross, the Con- queror and Saviour of the world. To nerve such warriors, to arm them for the battle, to conduct them to victory, the Apocalypse was written. He who has not grasped this salient fact, has missed the meaning of the prophecy. Not to satisfy curiosity as to the future was this wondrous prophecy indited; nor merely to close the s.icred volume, to bind its several portions into unity as with a golden clasp, nor was it written to complete the book by shedding the glories of sunset, or rather of sunrise, over its concluding pages, to fill its last skies with splendour, with the light of the rising of a morning without clouds, the advent of a world where sin and sorrow and death can never come; not for these ends though doubtless they were contemplated, but for nobler purposes ; to form the characters, guide the steps, maintain the faith, and inspire the courage of those who were to pass through flood and flame to that final world of glory and immortality ; to make the saints and martyrs who were to share its triumphs and wear its crowns. And hence the glorious rewards promised in the seven letters to the Christian Churches with which it opens, letters purely practical in their object, are largely the theme of the succeeding prophecy. For in it the selfsame rewards are seen, and set forth in their most glowing colours, and in their true and proper relations, their place, and time, and circumstance, for the contemplation of the servants of Christ; that they may behold in advance the things promised, and the future world become as real to them as the present, as seen with the open eye of vision; so that the confessors might witness in the presence of Rome’s Caesars, standing the while in spirit before the throne of God; or tread their way amid the awful shadows of the Catacombs, as beholding the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. Yea to open heaven itself to the gaze and contem- plation of God’s pilgrim people was this prophecy given; that their conversation, or “citizenship”might be there, even while they wandered as strangers amid earth’s transient and troubled scenes; and that while journeying or warring on earth, they might be seated in heaven, where Christ is seated “at the right hand of God.”

And turning now to those practical letters which preface the Apocalypse, we ask what are the promised rewards which they hold forth “to him that overcometh “?

First, to the victors of the Church of Ephesus it is promised that they shall eat of “the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”Behold then the promised tree of life in the visions of the prophecy, bearing twelve manner of fruits, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. See it there in its true location growing by the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, “proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

Secondly, to the victors of the martyr Church of Smyrna the crown of life is promised; and the revealing spirit adds “he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.”But what that second death, and for whom destined? The prophecy replies, “the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.””Death and Hades “it tells us are to be finally ” cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death.”

To the Church of Thyatira the promise runs “to him that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of My Father. And I will give him the morning star.”In the prophecy the shivering of the nations as the vessels of a potter with a rod of iron is portrayed. A woman clothed with the sun, and crowned with twelve stars brings forth “a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”The man child is caught up to God and to His throne, and the woman flees to the wilderness from the presence of the persecuting dragon. Later on the all conquering “Word of God,” the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords, comes with the white robed armies of heaven,””to judge and make war,”to “smite the nations with the sword of His mouth,”and “rule them with a rod of iron”; even He whose voice declares “I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.”

To the Church of Sardis which had a name to live and was dead, the command “be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die,”is followed by t he warning “if therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee,”and the promise “he that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment and I will not blot out his name from the book of life.”In the prophecy the thing promised is beheld; the bride of jhe Lamb is seen in her purity and perfection “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”And at the final judgment “the book of life is opened”; while those who enter the New Jerusalem are only “they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

To the Church of Philadelphia the encouraging promise is given, “him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.”In the visions of the prophecy the New Jerusalem is seen “descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.”Her walls, her gates, her streets, and her foundations are all described. Her beauty and her glory fill the bright closing vision. And of Him who is called “Faithful and True,”it is declared, “He had a name written that no man knew, but He Himself”; analogous with that secret name which He will yet write upon the victor’s brow.

To the degenerate Church of Laodicea, boasting herself “rich, and increased in goods, and needing nothing,”not knowing that she was “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,” after the gracious offer of tried gold, and white raiment, and healing eye salve Jesus declares His long-suffering love, and says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock,”promising to the individual soul that opens to Him the supper of His own personal and private fellowship: and promising further “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne even as I also overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne.”And in the succeeding prophecy the glorious reward thus promised is beheld, for there are seen the victor saints enthroned with the Lord, first in His millennial kingdom, and then in His eternal reign.

These relations of the prophetic visions of the Apocalypse to the hortatory letters addressed in its opening pages to Christian Churches, reveal the practical character of the prophecy; and the important practical uses which the Church, under the Spirit’s guidance, has made of the prophecy during the last nineteen centuries is a confirmation of its intended adaptation to practical ends. For first, the Martyr Church of the second and third centuries armed herself for her conflict with heathen Rome with weapons drawn from the arsenal of the Apocalypse. To her heathen Rome, seated on her seven hills was the Apocalyptic Babylon, drunken with the blood of saints and martyrs. Every feature of Rome’s character and history she saw delineated in the prophecy, in bold outlines, and vivid colours, her place, her power, her wealth, her wickedness, her doom. And the martyrs of those days beheld the exact picture of their experience in the slain beneath the altar portrayed in the prophecy, whose blood called for vengeance; a vengeance delayed but to come at last when in Babylon, the smoke of whose judgment should go up forever, “the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon earth “should be found.

Secondly, on occasion of the fall of persecuting heathen Rome the early Church of the fourth century recognized the prediction of that great event in the vision of the Apocalypse, and celebrated it in the triumphant language of the prophecy, and commemorated it in symbols drawn from that sacred source. To the newly liberated exultant Church the fall of heathen Rome was none other than that represented by the casting down of the great red dragon, who had sought to devour the man child destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron. As predicted the victory had been that of Christ and His martyr followers. “They overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”The triumphant song of the Church ascended in the Apoc- alyptic words “now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night.”

The coins of Constantine the Great bear witness to the use of the symbol of the dragon prostrate beneath the cross to commemorate the overthrow of the dominion of ancient heathen Rome.

Thirdly, the overthrow of the Roman Empire by Gothic invaders which followed, and especially the burning of the city of Rome by Alaric, in the year 410, led Augustine to write his noble book on “The city of God”; a book whose central conception is drawn from the Apocalypse, in which the two societies of the world, and of the people of God, are represented by the harlot city Babylon, and the Bride, the New Jerusalem. Augustine recognized Rome as Babylon, and devotes a large part of his work to the delineation of its character and history. On the other hand he dwells with loving appreciation on the past, present and future of the society of saints, “the city of God,” that city which has, unlike Rome, enduring foundations. The work of Augustine defended the Church, whose views it illustrates, from the accusation that it was the cause of the woes which had befallen the empire; and gave popularity and permanence to a conception of the relation of the society of the world to the society of saints, in striking harmony with the teachings of the Apocalypse.

II. The second great practical use of the Apocalypse lay in the aid which it rendered to the preservation of true Christianity from the extinction by which it was threatened in the Middle Ages. The Gothic overthrow of the Roman empire was succeeded by the gradual rise in the sixth and following centuries of Papal Rome.The wars and jurisprudence of Justinian in the sixth century laid the foundation of a new imperial power. The bestowment on the Bishop of Rome, by Justinian and Phocas, of universal oversight in the Christian Church, exalted the Pope to the position of the Spiritual Head of the restored empire, while the work of Charlemagne completed the movement by the creation of “the Holy Roman Empire “of mediaeval and modern history.

The empire thus restored became the support of apostate papal Christianity, and the oppressor and persecutor of the true saints of God, whom it drove into obscurity, and reduced in the course of centuries to almost complete extermination.

Foreseen and foretold in Apocalyptic prophecy the persecuting papal power, and idolatrous Romish Church became objects of dread and abhorrence to the faithful saints of the Middle Ages, who in their separate communities and mountain solitudes kept the ” commandments of God,”and continued the testimony of Jesus Christ. The records of the Albigenses, and Waldenses, of Wyckliffe and the Lollards, of Huss, Jerome of Prague and their followers, amply attest the preserving influence of Apocalyptic teachings during this perilous period. . By means of this prophecy the lamp of divine truth was kept burning which later on was to illuminate the world. The historian Gibbon justly connects the Paulicians, Albigenses, Waldenses, and other pre-reformation separatists from the apostate Church in the East and West, with the reformers of the sixteenth cen- tury. The faith of the Reformation and pre-reformation reformers was one; their testimony was one, their attitude to the Bible was the same, and their martyrs suffered in a common cause. The reformation movement did not commence with Luther, nor was he the first to translate the Bible into the vernacular. The exalted Head of the Church had maintained an unbroken line of faithful witnesses to His Truth during all the Christian centuries, and had fulfilled His promise that against the Church which He had founded upon a rock, the “gates of hell “should never prevail.

III. The third great practical use of the Apocalypse lay in its justification and support of the Reformation movement, by its delineation of the Church of Rome, and its command to the people of God to separate from that apostate Church, to republish the Scriptures, and to rebuild the Spiritual Temple, as the Jewish reformers Ezra and Nehemiah had restored the temple at Jerusalem after the Babylonish captivity. Ample materials exist for the verification of these statements in the voluminous works of the Re- formers of the sixteenth century. The reformation was built by them on doctrinal, practical, and prophetic grounds: there is no possibility of separating these elements in its foundation. To the Reformers the Pope of Rome was the “Man of Sin,”and Antichrist, and the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Apocalypse; a doctrine not only em- bodied in the confessions of faith of the reformed churches, but sealed by the blood of their countless martyrs. Who can estimate the value and importance of the aid thus rendered to the Reformation by the delineations and warnings of prophecy? Let the learned Bishop Wordsworth have a hearing on this subject, for no other has written upon it with clearer understanding, and in nobler and more eloquent language,—”The Holy Spirit, foreseeing, no doubt, that the Church of Rome would adulterate the truth by many gross and grievous abominations, that she would anathematize all who would not communicate with her, and denounce them as cut off from the body of Christ and the hope of everlasting salvation; foreseeing also that Rome would exercise a wide and dominant sway for many generations, by boldly iterated assertions of unity, antiquity, sanctity, and universality; foreseeing also that these pretensions would be supported by the civil sword of many secular governments, among which the Roman Empire would be divided at its dissolution, and that Rome would thus be enabled to display herself to the world in an august attitude of imperial power, and with the dazzling splendour of temporal felicity; foreseeing also that the Church of Rome would captivate the imaginations of men by the fascinations of art allied with religion, and would ravish their senses and rivet their admiration by gaudy colours and stately pomp and prodigal magnificence; foreseeing also that she would beguile their credulity by miracles and mysteries, apparitions and dreams, trances and ecstasies, and would appeal to such evidences in support of her strange doctrines; foreseeing likewise that she would enslave men and (much more) women by practicing on their affections and by accommodating herself with dangerous pliancy to their weakness, relieving them from the burden of thought and from the perplexity of doubt by proffering them the aid of infallibility, soothing the sorrows of the mourner by dispensing pardon and promising peace to the departed, removing the load of guilt from the oppressed conscience by the ministries of the confessional and by nicely poised compensations for sin, and that she would flourish for many centuries in proud and prosperous impunity before her sins would reach to heaven and come in remembrance before God ; foreseeing also that many generations of men would thus be tempted to fall from the faith and to become victims of deadly error, and that they who clung to the truth would be exposed to cozening flatteries and fierce assaults and savage tortures from her,—the Holy Spirit, we say, foreseeing all these things in His divine knowledge, and being the everlasting Teacher, Guide, and Comforter of the Church, was graciously pleased to provide a heavenly antidote, for all these dangerous, wide-spread, and long-enduring evils, by dictating the Apocalypse. In this divine book the Spirit of God has portrayed the Church of Rome such as none but He could have foreseen that she would become, and such as, wonderful and lamentable to say, she has become. He has thus broken her magic spells; He has taken the wand of enchantment from her hand; He has lifted the mask from her face; and with His divine hand He has written her true character in large letters, and has planted her title on her forehead, to be seen and read of all: ‘ MYSTERY , BABYLON THE GREAT , THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH .’ ”

IV. The practical use of the Apocalypse in the present day as casting light upon the whole course of Christian history’, revealing the plan of Providence, and confirming faith amid the assaults of modern scepticism.

“The Church of Christ in ‘these last days,”says Professor Birks of Cambridge, “is exposed to strong temptation, from the spread of a secret and disguised infidelity. Many causes have conspired in promoting it,—the long years which have passed since the first preaching of the gospel, the superstition of the middle ages, the religious feuds of later times, the progress of physical science, with the consequent occupation of men’s thoughts, more than ever, about sensible and outward things, and the widening intercourse with all the various creeds of the whole earth. Hence the faith of real Christians has often been severely sifted, and that of many others entirely undermined. A vague loose form of scepticism has crept in, and become fashionable, which does not care openly to discard Christianity, but is content to reduce it to the rank of uncertain opinion, a harmless and even beautiful form of the religious sentiment; while it denies the binding authority of its message, and treats the word of God with a hollow politeness, or perhaps with scornful indifference.

“At such a time we need to use every help which God has given us to expose this fearful evil. One of the chief of these is the word of prophecy. For here the Almighty Himself withdraws the veil, that we may see His hand clearly at work amidst all the changes of time, and discover the seal of His own prescience, whereby His word is stamped with a divine authority. Once let its truths enter our minds and infidelity can have no place within us. The history of our world becomes bright with the very sunshine of heaven. Where all before seemed to be disorder and darkness we can now discover light, love, order, and beauty. The gulf which appeared to separate us from the times of the gospel, and the personal history of our Lord, is bridged over; and the meanest events that are now passing around us are seen to be links in one mighty chain of Providence, which reaches from a past eternity, and loses itself in an eternity yet to come. The Church of Christ does well in taking heed to this word of prophecy, until Christ Himself, the true Day-star shall return to scatter the darkness. Amidst all the dimness of earthly hopes and human fancies, it is this holy light which alone can reveal the mysteries of divine Providence, while it leads our thoughts onward to the glory which shall be revealed.”

We occupy to-day a more advanced position than has ever been previously reached in the course of the five kingdoms of history and prophecy—a position from which we can trace with clearer light and fuller knowledge than that possessed by those who have gone before us, the plan of Providence directing the development and decline of human governments, and the rise and establishment of the kingdom of God. Standing as we do at the close of the fourth, or Roman kingdom of the visions of Daniel and the Apocalypse, we behold the fulfilment of their predictions as to the four kingdoms, and especially as to the last, in its pagan and papal stages, the long course of its antichristian and persecuting action, and the outpouring of the vials of God’s wrath by which its destruction is being accomplished. We trace the fall of the western and eastern divisions of the Roman empire, under Gothic, Saracenic and Turkish in- vasions; the rise of the Papal and Mohammedan apostasies, their dominion and decline; the fall of the Papal temporal power at the date so long foretold, and the parallel wasting away of Turkey, and subjection throughout the world of Mohammedan countries to Christian rule,—together with the marvellous rise of the Jewish race to wealth and power, and the commencement at the predicted period, of their national reconstitution, and restoration to the land of their fathers.

In all these mighty movements, with their world-wide effects, we can clearly see the fulfilment of the sure word of prophecy, the actual realization in the history of the past, and in present events, of the course of things predicted thousands of years ago in the writings of holy apostles and prophets contained in the scriptures. Our faith in the inspiration of the Bible is thus confirmed; the ceaseless assaults of scepticism are resisted and repelled as the foaming waves of the sea by the lofty rocks against which they hurl themselves in vain; and the very oppositions ot unbelief, of scepticism, naturalism and materialism, as foretold in prophecy among the salient characteristics of the closing days of the present dispensation, confirm our faith in the Word of God, which has forewarned and forearmed us against these attacks.

In the “divinely pictured visions of the Apocalypse,”as Elliott has admirably shown, the philosophy of the history of Christendom is set before us, “the chief eras and vicissitudes of the Roman Pagan Empire,”and “the sketch of the Christian body such as it would present itself to the all-seeing eye of God’s spirit,”the sealing of an elect number out of the professing, church, or mystic Israel, and the subsequent “fortunes and histories of Christendom and the church distinctly in two different lines of succession:—the one the visible professing and more and more antichristian church :—the other no visible corporate Christian body (the once visible faithful Catholic church being now hid from men as in a wilderness), but Christ’s own real church, the out gathering and election of grace, individually chosen, enlightened, quickened, and sealed by Him with the holy spirit of adoption ; a body notable as “God’s servants “for holy obedience ; and though few in number as compared with the apostate professors of Christianity, yet in God’s eye numerically perfect and complete. Thenceforward the prophecy traced them in their two distinct lines of succession, through their respective fortunes and histories down even to the consummation. On the one hand there was depicted the body of false professors, multiplied so as to form the main and dominant constituency of apostate Christendom, as developing more and more a religion not Christian but antichristian, it being based on human traditions, not on God’s word: and, after falling away to the worship of departed saints and martyrs as mediators, in place of Christ, as alike in its western and eastern division, judicially visited and desolated by the divine avenging judgments of emblematic tempests, scorpion-locusts, anci horsemen from the Euphrates : in other words, of the Goths, Saracens, and Turks :—then as in its western division, rising up again from the primary desolating judgment of Gothic invasion, in the new form of an ecclesiastical empire, enthroned on the seven hills of ancient Rome : its secret contriver being the very Dragon or Satanic spirit, that had ruled openly before in the Pagan empire; its ruling head proud, persecuting, blasphemous, and self-exalting against God, even beyond his pagan precursors; its constituency and priesthood characterized by “unrepented idolatries, and fornications, thefts, murders, and sorceries”: in fine as continuing unchanged, unchangeable in its apostasy, notwithstanding the repeated checks of woes and judgments from heaven, even until the end; and therefore then at length in its impenitency to be utterly abandoned to judgment, and, like another Sodom, made an example of the vengeance of everlasting fire :—this being in fact the grand essential preliminary to the -world’s intended and blessed regeneration.

On the other hand, with regard to Christ’s true Church, the election of grace, consisting of such as should hold to Christ as their head, and keep the word of God, and testimony of Jesus, the Apocalyptic prophecy represented them as almost at once entering on a great and long tribulation; yet though in number few and fewer, and reduced soon to a state spiritually destitute and desolate, like that ot the wilderness, so as to constitute them a church invisible rather than visible, as still secretly preserved by their Lord; … and then as witnesses for Christ’s cause and truth matte war on by Rome’s revived empire, as by a beast from the abyss of hell; and so being at length conquered and apparently exterminated : yet suddenly revived and exalted in the presence of their enemies ; a revelation from heaven of Christ as the Sun of righteousness introducing and accompanying this glorious revival of God’s slaughtered witnesses ; and “a political revolution attending, or following, under which the tenth part of the ten-kingdom ecclesiastical empire would fall. All this the prophecy figured as the result of God’s second great intervention for His Church;”and “fulfilled in the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, the discovery introducing it of the doctrine of justification simply by faith in Christ Jesus; and the downfall following it of the tenth part of the Popedom in Papal England. Thus was the Protestant Reformation distinctly figured in the Apocalypse as a glorious, divine act.”

“As to the subsequent ‘indifferentism in religion,’ which followed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was not unforeshown in the further developments of the Apocalypse. Yet it seemed also pre-intimated how, as if from some gracious revival of religion in God’s still favoured Protestantism, there would afterwards speed forth in the latter times three missionary angels, flying through midheaven, with voices of faithful gospel-preaching throughout the length and breadth of the world, of warning against Papal Rome, and denunciation of its quickly coming judgment: a contemporary energetic revival and going forth of the spirit of Popery, conjunctively with other kindred and allied spirits of Pagan-like infidelity, and pseudo-Christian priestcraft, being but the last putting forth of its bravery, to hasten the final crisis, and constitute the precursive and justification of its fall: acts these that would be nearly the last public ones promoted, or mingled in, by the little body of Christ’s faithful ones on earth. For it was foreshown how that Christ’s advent would speedily follow; and contemporarily therewith, and with the mystic Babylon’s destruction by fire, His witnessing saints and all that fear Him, small and great, have the reward given them of an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of their Lord; and that so, and then (not before, or otherwise), the promised regeneration of all things, the Christian’s great object of hope, should have its accomplishment, in Christ’s own reign with His saints; and therewith, at length, the true and only complete evangelization of the world.

“Such is the Apocalyptic moral philosophy of the history of Christendom, its rule of faith not tradition, but the Bible; its Church of the promises that alone of true believers in Jesus; and God’s glory in Christ the grand and final object ever set forth in it.”1

In the foregoing view there is a consistency with the Apocalyptic figuration, and the actual history of the Christian Church which cannot fail to deeply impress, those whose minds have not been blinded by prejudice, or warped by erroneous conceptions as to the subject of Apocalyptic prophecy, and the philosophy of Christian history. For the Apocalypse is manifestly “the story of Christ’s kingdom “; its faithful and suffering saints are none other than those who “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ”(chap, xii, 17), who overcome in their warfare with the satanically ruled world power “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and loved not their lives unto the death” (v.11), those wrfio “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”(chap, xiv, 12), those who are “-the martyrs of Jesus”(chap, xvii, 6), those who are “called, and chosen, and faithful”(chap, xvii, 14), those whom God calls “My people”(chap, xviii, 4), those who “have the testimony of Jesus”(chap, xix, 10), those who were “beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God” (chap. xx). They form “a great multitude, which no man could number;’ of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,”they ascribe their “salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb”; they have come “out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”; they are the “palm bearing”multitude before the throne (chap, vii, 9) the victors who “sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb “(chap, xv, 3), the hundred and forty-four thousand who stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion, “having His Father’s name written in their foreheads,”who “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,”who were “redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb”(chap, xiv, 1—4). They are the “blessed”who “are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb”(chap, xix, 9), the “blessed and holy”persons who “have part in the first resurrection,”on whom “the second death hath no power,” “priests of God and of Christ “who “reign with Him a thousand years” (chap, xx), and later on “reign forever and ever “(chap, xxii, 5). They are the citizens of “the holy Jerusalem,”who constitute “the bride the Lamb’s wife,”a city which is yet to “descend out of heaven from God,””having the glory of God”(chap, xxi); in which city the saints of the Seven Churches addressed in the opening Epistles of the prophecy have their part, and receive their reward, for on them Christ promises to “write the name of the city of My God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from My God”(chap, iii, 12), the saints to whom He promises that they shall “sit with Him on His throne,”when He comes in the glory of His kingdom (chap, iii, 21).

The Apocalypse describes the double conflict or warfare of these saints and martyrs of Jesus, first their conflict with Pagan Rome (chap, xii), and then with Papal Rome (chaps, xi, xiii, xvii), first the warfare in which they overcome, and secondly the warfare in which they are overcome, and utterly silenced, but from which slain condition they rise, and are exalted to power, in manifest analogy to the experience of their Lord, the Lamb, who had been slain, and raised and exalted to the right hand of God- These in the dark ages were His faithful “witnesses,”the Church “hidden in the wilderness,” like the prophet Elijah in the days of the Baalitical apostasy of Israel. And these in the glorious Reformation, the age of “the little book, open,”of the restored Word of God, were they who took “the little book”from the hand of the Angel of the Everlasting Covenant, whose face was as the sun, and fed upon it like the prophet Ezekiel, and then in the power of its teachings “prophesied again, before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings”(chap. x).

Do we not recognize in all this the Church of Jesus Christ? Are we not acquainted with her history? Or do we conceive of that Church as reigning in the world over subject kings and nations, clothed in glory and magnificence, “arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls “? By which figure is the true Church of Christ represented in the Apocalypse, by the woman who is “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars,” who is forced to “flee into the wilderness,”and to remain hidden there during the period of the dominion of the revived wild beast power? (Rev. 12, 13), or by the woman seated upon the beast, reigning over “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues”? (chap. xvii). If the latter be to us the figure of the Church of Christ then have we confounded the Bride of the Lamb, with the Harlot Babylon, A fatal error too common in our days.

But if on the other hand we recognize in the suffering hidden Church of the Apocalypse the figure of the true spiritual Church of Christ in this dispensation, analogous with the faithful hidden Israel of Jewish history, who had never bowed the knee to Baal, how confirmatory to faith becomes the marvelous Apocalyptic anticipation of the course of Christian history! How clearly we behold the evidence of divine inspiration in the prophecy, for by no mere human wisdom could the strange and chequered history of the Church, its apostasies, its contrasts, its conflicts, its victories, have been foreseen; yet here is all the story told in advance, the events described long before they came to pass, sketched with masterly power, drawn in striking colours, ineffaceable by time, portrayed not only with fidelity, but with an insight into their deepest meaning most manifestly divine. And every century by its fresh fulfilments has only added to the evidence of that inspiration, while the events of the present, as they unfold before our eyes, still further confirm it. Upon “the impregnable rock of holy Scripture”then we take our stand, nor fear the assaults of modern scepticism; our faith in the Bible as the Word of God, confirmed and deepened, assured that while “heaven and earth shall pass away,”the word of the Lord as contained in that sacred volume shall abide as living and life-giving truth forever.

V. The use of the Apocalypse in setting and keeping before the Church from age to age the ever brightening hope of the Coming and Kingdom of Christ.

The foregoing marvellous fulfilments of prophecy having taken place, confirming our faith, and indicating our advanced position in the revealed course of the present dispensation, we have but to follow the further delineations of the prophecy in order to perceive the character of the events which lie before us, in the ever advancing development of- the Kingdom of God.

On enquiring the nature of the leading event which is to mark the termination of the present age we are directed by the sure word of prophecy to expect that “the stone cut out without hands “during the existence of the quadripartite image, is to fall upon the clay-iron feet of the image with destructive force, to crush, the entire image to dust which the winds of heaven will sweep away, and then to grow to a great mountain, and fill the earth: in other words, as the prophecy explains, that in the closing days of the divided and weakened Roman Empire, the last of the four Gentile kingdoms, a destructive revolution shall take place, a manifestation of divine judgment, in which the antagonistic kingdoms of this world shall be overthrown and swept away; and that on the accomplishment of this event the kingdom of God shall pass from its present initial stage to its further millennial stage, and become a universal kingdom, filling the whole earth with its presence. Exactly how this great change shall be accomplished is not clearly revealed in these earlier prophecies. The coming of “the Ancient of Days,”is spoken of, and the “giving of judgment to the Saints of the Most High”(Dan. 7 : 22), at the close of the “three and a half times,”or 1,260 years of the dominion of the persecuting, self-exalting “little horn,”or papal power; when “the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end “; a judgment in which because of ” the great words which the horn spake, the beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.”Apparently this event takes place when “the Ancient of Days “sits on the fiery throne of final judgment, while “thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him,”for then “the judgment was set, and the books opened”; but a comparison of this earlier and briefer prophecy with the more detailed predictions in the Apocalypse reveals the fact that the fourth empire, that of Rome, with its persecuting papal head, is overthrown under the judgments of the seven vials; and that the advent of Christ in judgment, accompanied by His saints, has more than one stage, for a period of a thousand years is to separate between His revelation “to tread the wine-press of the wrath of God”as described in Rev. 19, and His corning on His great white throne to judge “the dead small and great,”out of the things “written in the books,”described in Rev. 20. The recurrence of the remarkable expression “the books were opened”in Dan. 7: 10, and Rev. 20: 12, links together these two descriptions of the final judgment, as relating to the same event; but while the judgment of Rev. 20:12 is certainly post-millennial, the destruction of “the beast,”or persecuting Roman power is, according to Rev. 19: 20 a pre-millennial event; indicating the conclusion that the judgment described in Dan. 7 includes both the pre and post- millennial stages of the judgment of “the Beast,”and of “the dead small and great,”more fully portrayed in the Apocalyptic prophecy.

The existence of these stages in the divine judgment will cause no surprise when we reflect on the character of the present and millennial dispensations taken as a whole; for as Jonathan Edwards has shown in his “History of Redemption,”the whole period from the ascension and enthronement of Christ to His final coming to judge “the dead small and great,”is characterized by the taking down and removing of antagonistic world powers, one after the other, until every foe is placed in subjection beneath His feet. The mighty work of subjugation is not accomplished by a single act, but by a succession of acts; acts figured under the seals, trumpets, and vials of the Apocalypse. Many of these acts have already been accomplished, while others remain to be fulfilled. Among the former no less than six of the “vials”of the judgment of the seventh trumpet, or “last woe,” have been poured -forth, while the outpouring of the seventh vial, if not already begun, is manifestly close at hand.

In considering the events of the seventh trumpet era as including those which are now transpiring around us, we should take into account the important fact that the seventh trumpet has a double character, as being both a “woe”trumpet, and a “jubilee “trumpet. It is distinctly stated to be a “woe “trumpet in Rev. 8 : 13, and n : 14. On the other hand it is most certainly a jubilee trumpet, for on its sounding the joyful proclamation is made, “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.”

Now it is a matter of the profoundest interest that we can plainly trace in the events which have taken place since the middle of the eighteenth century these two features of the predicted seventh trumpet era. On the one hand we behold the accomplishment of the foretold judgments of the vials, as outpoured on Western and Eastern Christendom; and on the other hand we can as plainly see the rising up of a new and better order of things, preparing the way for the promised “gathering together in one of all things”in “the fulness of times,”under the headship of Christ (Eph.1: 10).

The recognition of these two opposite movements in the present day is not an easy attainment. Those who see the one are apt to ignore or deny the other. Hence while some are pessimists others are optimists, in the interpretation they attach to contemporaneous events. But time corrects such partial views, and with added years, and widened observation, we come to occupy a position midway between these opposite extremes. “Are you a pessimist? “said one to the late Dr. A. J. Gordon of Boston. “No,” said he, “I am not.””Are you then an optimist?”asked the interrogator. “No,”he answered, “I am not.””What then are you? “he was asked. “/ am a truthist”he replied.

If I may be permitted to refer to my own experience as a student of prophecy for more than forty years, I can distinctly trace two stages in the development of my views, in which the downward and upward movements of the age, successively occupied my attention. Briefly to narrate the facts I may say that when evangelizing in France before the outbreak of the Franco-German war of 1870, I saw everywhere around me the prevalence of Romanism and infidelity. Visits to Spain and Italy only extended the view of this sad state of things, while growing acquaintance with Germany showed the reign of Rationalism in a country which had taken a leading part in the reformation of the sixteenth century. In all these lands there still ‘existed a small body of evangelical Christians, but they were inconspicuous compared to the mass of the population under the sway of Romish or Rationalistic errors. By the Vatican Council of 1870 which decreed the Pope of Rome to be “The Infallible Teacher of Faith and Morals,”the errors and superstitions of the Church of Rome were practically declared to be “irreformable.” Nothing then awaited that apostate church but the destruction foretold in such solemn and terrific terms by the Apocalypse; a church which boasted that it embraced in its communion no less than two hundred millions of the professing Church of Christ, and indeed exalted itself as the true and only Church of Christ on earth.

The more I pondered the present condition-of the Church of Rome, the revival and spread of Neo-Romanism in the form of Ritualism, and the widespread prevalence of scepticism and infidelity, the more I became conscious of the operation of a vast downward movement affecting’the larger part of the professing Christian Church, like the’ slow retreat of the tides, or the gradual darkening of the heavens at the close of day. The growing infidelity of the age especially impressed me, its tendency to naturalism, and even agnosticism. “With the progress,”as I wrote, “of rationalism there is a growth of radicalism and nihilism, and the destruction of religious faith threatens to involve on a more or less extended scale the destruction of civil lorder, and common morality.”

The view thus given of the condition of Christendom, while harmonizing with many of the prophetic forecasts relating to the period, was far from encouraging. The prospect seemed to darken, and to point to the proximity nf the day to which our Lord referred when He asked the ijiicstion, “When the Son of Man cometh shall He find t.iith on the earth? ”

During the thirty-five years which have followed the fall of the papal temporal power in 1870 I have become prac-tirally engaged in missionary work in many parts of the world. In the prosecution of that work it has been my lot to travel in America, Africa, India, China, and Japan; and in these regions I have seen the wonderful spectacle of a new world rising up, like some vast continent emerging from the depths of the ocean. Extending my study of the movement it became evident that this new world had been rising up for the last three or four hundred years, but especially since the Puritan colonization of America in the seventeenth century. The growth of civil and religious liberty, the marvellous progress of science, the extension of the British empire, the rise of the United States, of United Germany, of United Italy, the political regeneration of India, the exploration and uplifting of Africa, the opening and evangelization of China, the amazing progress of Japan, the ever increasing approximation of all peoples by steam and electric communication, the rapid spread of education, the multiplication and extension of Christian missions, all were evident features of a world movement, analogous to, though far surpassing that in the history of Greece and Rome which preceded the advent of the Christian religion, and prepared its way; or like the terrestrial changes which prepared the world for the appearance of man; the dawn of light, the retreat of the submerging waters, the clearing of the sky, the rise of islands and continents, and the clothing of the waste and desolate places with the wonders of vegetable and animal life.

On considering these two contrasted world movements several broad facts as to their nature, causes and tendencies became apparent.

First, considering their history in the past, and the forces from which they spring, the inveterate tendency in fallen man to depart from the living God, and the law of progress, both natural and spiritual, under which we are placed, it became evident that both these movements, the downward and the upward, will continue to operate in the future; a conclusion which harmonizes with the teachings of prophecy.

Secondly, that the two movements differ profoundly in this respect, that whereas the downward world movement has its fixed limits, the upward movement belongs to a divine order of things which is in its nature enduring and eternal.

Thirdly, that according to the sure word of prophecy including the witness of the prophetic times, the limit of the downward world movement lies in the proximate future.

Fourthly, that the arrest of the great apostasy win be effected by the manifestation of Christ in the judgment described in Rev. 19, under the figure of His coming forth from heaven to “tread the wine- press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

This great and solemn fact brings before us the teachings of the New Testament on the Second Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those teachings are so important as to de-mand their exhibition in the following section;

THE COMING ONE

“For yet a little while, O how little, and The Coming One shall come, and will not tarry.”—Heb. 10:37.

LOOKING around us into the past, and into the future, what is our position at the present time?

We stand on a lofty eminence of observation, placed between the two Advents of Christ; His advent to redeem and to save, and His advent to judge and reign. Nineteen centuries of Christian history separate us from the first of these Advents; while no revealed interval separates us from the second. We know “neither the day, nor the hour”when our Lord cometh.

What is the teaching of the New Testament on the subject of the second Advent of Christ? What place does it assign to it? How far does it give it prominence? To what practical uses does it put the prospect of the Lord’s coming? And what position does that coming hold in the last great prophecy in the Bible, the sacred prophecy with which it ends? Let us turn to the New Testament, and patiently scanning its pages seek to collect in one mew the substance of its testimony on this great subject. Surely such a doctrine deserves this effort to understand its meaning and its place in the word of God! Our examination must of necessity be brief and superficial, little more than a grouping of scripture passages, but the glance which we bestow on these may lead to further and deeper study of “the whole counsel of God “in the matter. Let us then turn to “the sure word “of scripture prophecy, given by “inspiration of God “; inwardly praying for the illumination of the Holy Spirit that we may be led into all truth.

We begin with the Gospels. There, on the mount of beatitudes, we behold Jesus teaching the multitudes, preaching the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, whose establishment was then at hand, and as we listen awed and borne away by the divine wisdom and authority of His discourse, we hear Him speak of that day of Judgment in which His word shall decide the eternal issues of our destiny, how He will say to false professors of His name, “I never knew you, depart from Me ye that work iniquity.”We tremble at the message and take heed; while He Himself, rises before us in the vision of that coming judgment as our great and final Judge.

Turning over the pages of the record we behold our Lord by the Sea of Galilee. Multitudes have heard without understanding them the parables of the kingdom of heaven which He has just spoken, but His disciples lingering when the multitudes have departed, crowd the house while He explains their meaning. The wheat and the tares were “the children of the kingdom,”and “the children of the wicked one.”The harvest was the “end of the age.”Then would “the Son of Man send forth His angels to gather out of His kingdom all things which offend, and them which do iniquity,”and to cast them into a furnace of fire, where should be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then should the righteous “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

Later on we see Christ seated on the Mount of Olives, with four of His disciples. It is the last week of His earthly life. The temple and city of Jerusalem lie beneath them full in view. “There shall not be left,”He says, “one stone up on another that shall not be thrown down.””When shall these things be,”ask his disciples, “and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the age? “Wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, Christ answers, shall happen. There shall be persecutions, false prophets, apostasies, and a world- wide proclamation of the Gospel as “a witness unto all nations.”Then should the end come. A great and unparalleled tribulation should take place, and “immediately after”its termination sun and moon should be darkened, the stars of heaven fall, and the sign of His second advent be seen. Then the Son of Man would come “in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,”and He would “send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, to gather together His elect from the four winds, and from one end of heaven to the other.” And for that coming the world and the Church should be unprepared, for it should overtake an ungodly world as did the flood in the days of Noah, and find an unfaithful Church slumbering—slumbering till wakened by the midnight cry, “Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him.”The wise virgins having oil for their lamps trim them, and go in to the marriage; the foolish virgins having no oil, their lamps gone out, are excluded. In a later parable our Lord tells us that His coming would not take place speedily; “after a long time,”the master of the household should return to reward his faithful servants. And every act, even the most trivial ministration of kindness to suffering men whom He calls His “brethren “would be remembered and rewarded as done to Himself, when He should come “in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him,”and seated “on the throne of His glory “should separate His true disciples from false professors of the Christian name, as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. Then should the wicked go into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.

Following Christ to the upper chamber in Jerusalem, we witness the paschal supper the night before His crucifixion. He is comforting His disciples, sorrowing in the prospect of His departure. “Let not your hearts be troubled,”He says. “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also.” Earth is not all. “In My Father’s house are many mansions.”Words of tender love, and lofty meaning, how have ye comforted the sorrowful from age to age, and kept the lamp of hope burning through the long night of Christ’s absence; the vision of those many mansions shining above the gloom; and the promise “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself,”lingering like a sweet strain of immortal music in the memory; love’s own promise, holding forth love’s last best gift; the restoration of Him whom for a season the Church has ceased to behold: the return of the Lord to present the Church to Himself'”a glorious Church,””holy and without blemish,”henceforth to be forever with Him who is her life, her righteousness, her all.

From the scene in the upper chamber we turn to that in which after His resurrection from the dead our Lord revealed Himself to His disciples gathered together in Jerusalem, and commanded them to wait there for the promised baptism of the Holy Ghost. Had the time come for the expected deliverance of the Jewish people from the yoke of Gentile rule? They ask Him the question, “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? “Memorable was His reply: “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power^ but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”Both promises were fulfilled; and the book of Acts is the record of their fulfilment. The disciples of Christ were baptized with the Holy Ghost, and became His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Not to the early church was it given to know the length of the journey that lay before her, the period of her toil, and suffering, and waiting for her Lord. The knowledge would have damped her zeal, or worn out her patience. Better than such knowledge was the gift bestowed upon her. Hers was not to know, but to love, to labour, and to wait. The evangelization of the world was committed to her; a work to this day but half accomplished, if even that. Great fields unreaped though white to harvest, still remain. And still the great commission presses upon the Church “Go,””preach the gospel to every creature,”and the twofold promise is hers; that of the Spirit’s baptism; and that of the perpetual presence of her Lord.

While the words of the great commission were still sounding in the ears of Christ’s disciples, “while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

Gazing after Him they remained rooted to the spot. Then two angels, “in white apparel”stood in their midst, and in a brief memorable sentence, turned their thoughts from the Lord’s departure to His return. “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.”

A few days later Peter and John, having received with the other disciples the baptism of power, of cloven fiery tongues, for gospel testimony, are standing in the temple witnessing for Christ. “Repent” they cry to the crowds around them, “be converted that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, -whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

Later on Paul is standing on Mars Hill, preaching to the Athenians the gospel of the resurrection. “God,”he says, “commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance to all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” Strange and startling words! Unprepared to receive them, some mock, and others say, “we will hear thee again of this matter.”So Paul departs from among them to go to Corinth where the Lord had “much people” to bring to Himself.

And now Paul is writing his great Epistle to the Romans; a treatise rather than an epistle: the noblest treatise ever written unfolding the gospel of Christ. He has reached the place in which he is exhibiting the mercy God has in reserve for unbelieving outcast Israel. “Blindness”is happened to them, says Paul, “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.”God has concluded Jew and Gentile in unbelief “that He might have mercy upon all.””O the depth of the riches of His wisdom and knowledge!”

Further on in the Epistle Paul is reasoning with the Christian who in matters of secondary importance judges his brother, and presumes to set him at nought. “Why dost thou judge thy brother?” says Paul, “for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” “so then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”Thus Paul substitutes the just judgment of the righteous judge for the rash judgment of man by man in doubtful things.

And now Paul is writing to the Corinthians. He begins his epistle with words of encouragement. God would “confirm them to the end,”that they might be “blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”But divisions and disorders had appeared among them. He comes to the subject of the Lord’s supper, and reminds them of Christ’s own institution of the ordinance, and of its meaning. “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.”To remember Him; to show forth His death; to anticipate His return; to link the first advent with the second; to bind them together with an unbroken chain of sacramental acts and seasons; such the object, the effect of the sacred ordinance. And so in lowly tabernacles, in lofty temples, in upper chambers, in prisons, in caves, in deserts, has the Church kept without intermission this sacred ordinance of communion and commemoration, during the long centuries which have elapsed since her Lord’s departure, waiting for His return.

With a marvellous and matchless chapter on the resurrection of the dead Paul closes the Epistle. “Every man,”he tells us, shall be raised “in his own order. Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s at His coming “; then later on the end, when death should be destroyed. But should all die? “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump.” Then shall death be “swallowed up in victory.”

In his second Epistle to the Corinthians he resumes the subject, and reminds them that “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.”A salutory view of a solemn subject, never to be forgotten or ignored. To the Ephesians he writes his epistle of unity, speaking of “unity of faith and knowledge; of one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all; and of the gathering together in one of all things in heaven and earth in Christ, in the dispensation of the fullness of times.”

To the Philippians he expresses his confidence that “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”; saints of whom he could say, associating them with himself, ” our citizenship is in heaven from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.””Rejoice,”he says, and “let your forbearance—or gentleness—be known unto all men; the Lord is at hand.”

To the Colossians he unfolds the mystery of Christ in us, “the hope of glory “; and says, “when Christ who is? life shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.”

To the Thessalonians he writes two Epistles, speaking in every chapter of both on the subject of the Lord’s coming. They had ” turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.”They were Paul’s hope, joy, and crown of glorying “before our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming.”He prays that their hearts may be established “unblameable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.”He comforts them concerning those who had “fallen asleep in Jesus,”that God would “bring them with Him.””For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”He reminds them that “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, when they are saying peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall in no wise escape.”But that day should not overtake God’s faithful people “as a thief.”And he prays for them that their “spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In his second Epistle to the Thessalonians he tells them that God will “recompense affliction to those who afflict them,””at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

“Touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him,”he tells them that that day should not come “except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed “; “and now ye know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work, only there is one that restraineth now until he be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of His coming.””But the Lord is faithful who shall stablish you, and guard you from the evil one. And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ.”

To the Hebrews he writes that Christ who had appeared “once at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,” and was now appearing “before the face of God for us,”would “appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto Salvation.””For yet a very little while He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.”

To Titus he writes of “looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”To Timothy of keeping the commandment without spot “until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in its own times He shall shew who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.””I charge thee,”he adds, “in the sight of God and of Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word: be instant in seaJon, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and teaching, for the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine, but having itching ears will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.”For “in later times some shall fall away from the truth giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils”: and “in the last days grievous times shall come.”But “I have fought the good fight,”says Paul, in this his last Epistle; “I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give to me at that day; and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved His appearing.”

In his brief practical Epistle James writing to “the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion”exhorts them to “be patient until the coming of the Lord . . . stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”

Peter in his Epistles of hope encourages “the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion”to expect that their faith “though proved by fire”would be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”Partakers as they were of His sufferings, “at the revelation of His glory”they would “rejoice with exceeding joy.”As “a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed,”he exhorts the elders “Tend the flock of God which is among you . . . and when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.” In his last epistle he foretells that “in the last days mockers shall come with mockery walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”But such “willfully forget”the flood, and its solemn lessons. “Forget not this one thing,”he says, “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 promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up … but according to His promise we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

In his first Epistle John writes, “Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last hour.”Therefore “abide in the Son, and in the Father.””And now my little children, abide in Him, that if He shall be manifested we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”Jude in his brief Epistle adds his final warning,—”remember ye the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they said to you, In the last time there shall be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts. These are they who make separations, sensual, not having the spirit. But ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

Lastly, in the Apocalypse, the key-note of the final revelation is sounded. “Behold He cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they which pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over Him.”To that coming all the preliminary letters to the Churches, and all the subsequent actions of the prophecy are directed; the opening of its seals; the sounding of its trumpets, the pouring forth of its vials. Under the sixth vial the startling utterance is heard “Behold I come as a thief; blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.”

After the fall of Babylon heaven is opened and “the King of kings and Lord of lords,”whose name is “Faithful and True,”the “Word of God,”comes forth, followed by the army of His white robed saints. He treads “the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

The destruction of His enemies is accomplished. “The first resurrection “takes place: and the risen saints and martyrs reign with Christ “a thousand years.”

At the close of this period, Satan being loosed for “a little time;” once more “deceives the nations,”and brings about the last apostasy. Fire falls from heaven, and consumes the enemies of the Lord and of His saints. It is the end. Now “the great white throne “is set, and He is seen “that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away.”The dead are raised, and “stand before the throne,”the books are opened, “and another book which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books according to their works.””And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.””And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.”

There follows the vision of “a new heaven, and a new earth,” and the descent of “the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband . . . having the glory of God.”God and the Lamb are her temple and her light. “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and His servants shall do Him service: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be on their foreheads.”

The Apocalyptic visions are sealed with the words, “I JESUS have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things for the Churches.

“He which testifieth these things saith, YEA , I COME QUICKLY .”

“AMEN . COME LORD JESUS .”

On reviewing, however briefly, the foregoing passages, we cannot but be impressed by the fact of the close connection which exists between the coming and the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that these constitute the goal of redemption history.

“Human history,”says Dr. Henry Smith, “has no other centre of convergence and divergence than the Cross of calvary.”He adds, “history has no other prophetic end than the Kingdom of Immanuel.”

Nowhere in Scripture is this latter fact more clearly set forth than in the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse, for in these the kingdom of God is revealed as the last of five universal kingdoms, diverse in source, in character, and in duration from the four great kingdoms which it follows, and replaces; the goal to which they advance, the end to which their entire movement is subject. The Apocalypse, as we have seen is the story of the fourth and fifth of these kingdoms, of the last great earthly empire, and the eternal kingdom of the God of heaven.

The glory of the kingdom of God irradiates this closing prophecy, and the history of the people who are to inherit that glory fills its pages. As “the sufferings of Christ and the glories which should follow,”are the chief theme of Old Testament prophecy, so the sufferings of His saintly people, and the glories which constitute their reward occupy this closing New Testament prophecy, the gift to his suffering and witnessing church of the ascended Saviour.

The greatest of all the events to which the Apocalypse directs the attention is the second Advent of Christ, in glory and majesty, to raise the dead, to judge the world, and to reign with His saints forever.

From the opening sentence “Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him,”to the last utterance, “Surely I come quickly,”the second coming of Christ occupies in the prophecy a prominence accorded to no other event; and on the subject of Christ’s coming and kingdom its revelations are far in advance of those presented in preceding prophecies.

The Apocalypse is thus the crown of all the progressive revelations in the word of God concerning these final events. For whereas in the second of Daniel we see the Kingdom of God as a great mountain filling the earth, and in the seventh of Daniel with increasing clearness as the kingdom of the Son of man, and of the saints of the Most High; and in the gospels of the New Testament, as the kingdom of the Father, and of the children of the resurrection, introduced by the advent of Christ with His angelic hosts, at the close of the times of Jewish trouble and desolation; and in the Epistles as the coming of Christ to raise the sleeping and translate the living saints to meet Him in the air at His advent; and then to manifest them in the glory of their risen life when He Himself is manifested with the angels of His mighty power, to destroy “the Man of Sin,”and to remove from His kingdom all that offend and do iniquity, and effect “the restitution of all things,”promised through all the prophets from the foundation of the world ; in the Apocalypse the precursory events which are to introduce that advent are represented in a long series of marvellous visions, its effects and consequences described in scene after scene of matchless glory and sublimity, and an entirely new revelation granted of a kingdom in which Christ and His risen saints shall reign for a thousand years after the destruction of all antagonistic world powers, and before the final day of the resurrection and judgment of “the rest of the dead,”and the establishment of the new heaven and earth of the eternal state.

And this sublime and glorious prophecy completes and closes the volume of Divine revelation. Borrowing its symbols from the earlier writings of the law and the prophets, gathering together in one the doctrinal and practical teachings of previous Scriptures, as converging rays meeting in a luminous centre, unveiling the vistas of eternal glory and felicity to which all the previous dispensations and ages of redemption history lead, and in which they issue, the Apocalypse forms the golden clasp of the entire volume of Revelation. And as the gift of the ascended Saviour, His own and His final utterance to the church; as His own opening of the mysteries of providence and of the future previously hidden from both men and angels, an unveiling granted to Him as the Lamb of God, as a reward of His sufferings, and crown of His victory, this closing prophecy possesses an altogether celestial position, and an incomparable glory. It speaks to us, not from earth as other prophecies, but from heaven. It is the voice of Him that liveth and was dead, and is alive forevermore, who holds the keys of death and hades; Him to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess; Him whom all angels worship and serve; and from whom shall flow the light and life of that eternal kingdom, in which sin and sorrow and death shall be no more.