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In concluding our investigation of the question of time, as it affects the duty of watching for Christ's coming, I would fain leave on the reader's mind the spirit of that apostolic warning to the Thessalonians on which I have been animadverting. The apostle does more than correct the error about the imminency of the day of Christ: he alludes also to the way in which they were solicited on the subject, and the effects which the delusion would produce upon their minds. He warns them against being practised upon, either, first, "by spirit"-a pretended spirit of prophecy, foretelling the nearness of the advent; or, secondly, by word"-any supposed testimony uttered in favour of this view of the advent by him or other inspired men; or, thirdly, "by letter as from us"-forged letters from the apostle himself, announcing "that the day of Christ was" chronologically" at hand." Now, if the premillennialists be right, if both their doctrine and their way of urging it be scriptural, is it not strange that designing men, instead of teaching the DISTANCE, should have set themselves systematically to urge the NEARNESS of Christ's coming-that they should have found their interest to lie so much in possessing the Church with the belief of Christ's nearness, as to lay false prophecy, pretended apostolic discourses, and forged letters all under contribution, to give currency and weight to this view of the advent? It would be an interesting inquiry, what such parties could gain by the reception of that opinion? Perhaps the history of religious delusions would throw some light on this question. I think it would not be difficult to show that some of the prime delusions to which powerful but enthusiastic and a difference in the mode of expression. His object was to show how near the end probably was-not extending beyond two hundred years; and it was the specification of this period which alone I wished to mark. Mr Wood quotes a passage from Dods on the Incarnation, in disparagement of Lactantius. It is no interest of mine to defend him, though I find his aid accepted freely enough by premillennialists when it suits them.

feverish minds have given birth, have been associated with the very expectation to which the apostle refers, and have derived from that expectation a pabulum which has rallied them when otherwise languishing, and without which they would neither have had the attractions which invested them while they lived, nor have been kept so long from sinking into the merited oblivion which at length they have found. Whether it was some perception of this that filled the apostle with such alarm at the notion in question, and such anxiety to dislodge it, we shall not affirm. But his beseeching tone, the particularity with which he notices it, the systematic way in which he sets himself to meet it, and the singularly ample detail with which he lays out the scheme of events that would throw the advent into the distant future—all show that he saw some peculiar evils in the womb of that notion, and contemplated with concern and grief its possible progress in the church. Of what sort these evils would be, we have a hint given us in the two pregnant words by which he describes the effects of the notion upon those who give heed to it. He beseeches them not to be "soon," or quickly, as by sudden impulse, "shaken in mind" (σaλevoñvar)—agitated-disturbed; or to be "troubled" (gosiolα-as one is on "hearing of wars and rumours of wars," Matt. xxiv. 6, Gr.) by the assertion, "that the day of Christ was at hand." The thing pointed at is such an arrestment of the mind as tends to unnerve it; a feverish excitement, which tends to throw the mind off its balance, and so far unfit it for the duties of life—as in the rumours of wars of which the parallel passage makes mention—the very opposite of that tranquil and bright expectancy which realizes the certainty rather than the chronology of the Lord's coming. And I would appeal to the whole history of premillennialism, whether this feverish excitability has not been found a prevailing element, and the parent of not a little that is erratic both in doctrine and in practice.

Thus have I weighed all that has been advanced to prove the impossibility of watching for Christ's coming on the common view of it, or rather on any view of it which does not admit of our expecting it almost any moment. I have done so with a minuteness and at a length which, if the intrinsic force of the objection scarcely demanded, the stress laid upon it by the most recent premillennialists and its apparent plausibility may well excuse. I think I have shown it to be entirely fallacious; and not only so, but that it is the very notion which the apostle characterises as feverish, and sets himself to crush, as usurping the place of the tranquil and truly quickening expectation of "our" simultaneous" gathering together unto Him," at his glorious appearing. It is high time that the immense difference between these two expectations should be brought out and realized. Till that be done, one can scarcely obtain a hearing with some ardent minds. They are so afraid of being thrown off their watch for the coming of Christ, that unless they think every thing ripe and ready for his coming to-morrow, they do not see how they can be kept in the scriptural attitude of "looking for him." Having exposed the fallacy on which this is founded, we shall no more be borne down by the question, How the common view can possibly stand with the scriptural prominence of the Lord's coming, and the required watchfulness of the church in the view of it? Holding that to be a settled point, we shall refuse to be again crossed in the open field of scriptural inquiry. In point of chronology, "the day of Christ was" not "at hand" in Paul's time, and he was positively fearful lest it should be thought that it was. course, it will be chronologically at hand; but, as this involves a question of dates and times-as to which men are liable to mistake, and some in the primitive church did mistake, and had to be told explicitly that they were under a delusion the apostle would have us not mix up with the great and stirring certainties of the Lord's impending advent

Some day, of

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any speculations, however lawful or even laudable in their own place, about the chronological nearness of it. If it was "at hand" eighteen centuries ago-if, when the beloved disciple was in rapt communication with him at Patmos, Jesus could greet him with the glad announcement, Behold, I come quickly"—and no deception-faith can now, precisely as then, echo that disciple's sweet response, "Amen: Even so, come, Lord Jesus." For faith lays hold, not on chronological dates or arithmetical calculations-useful though these are in their own place-but on "the Strength of Israel, who will not lie," as he speaks in the promises of his blessed Word. What faith believes, hope brings near. To the hope of the believer, even as to the Lord himself, 66 a thousand years are as one day." Though chronologically far off, if so it should be found-no matter. Faith sees him coming "leaping upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills." And neither, on the one hand, in the spirit of sloth and carnality, which says, "My Lord delayeth his coming," nor, on the other hand, in the spirit of fanatical and excited expectation as to a present appearance; but in that sublime state of mind which the apostle calls "the PATIENCE OF HOPE," it is the privilege of faith to say-alike when chronologically far off and chronologically near, and as it were in holy defiance of mere dates, because ready for them all alike—“Make haste, my Beloved, and be thou like to a rce or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices!" (Cant. viii. 14.)

CHAPTER III.

THE CHURCH, OR MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST, COMPLETE AT HIS COMING.

OUR preliminary inquiries being now concluded, the way is open for bringing out the mind of the Spirit on the great question at issue, namely, Whether the fleshly state at the second advent, instead of coming to an end, will only be then reconstituted and inaugurated as one of the departments of a millennial kingdom;—whether, after one portion of Christ's people have appeared with him in glory, for ever beyond the experience of imperfection and the reach of evil, another portion of them will be left below for a thousand years in their mortal bodies, subject to all the imperfections of the life of faith and the state of grace, as contradistinguished from the glory of the risen and changed saints. The Scripture evidence against this theory I propose to arrange under a series of propositions, the first of which will occupy the present chapter.

PROPOSITION FIRST:

THE CHURCH WILL BE ABSOLUTELY COMPLETE AT CHRIST'S

COMING.

If this can be established, the whole system falls to the ground. If all that are to be saved will be brought in before Christ comes, of course there can be none to come in after