CHAPTER III.

THE HOPE OF THE ADVENT IN RELATION TO THE QUESTION OF TIME.

We have seen that Christ's second coming is the Church's "blessed hope." Its place in the Christian system, and in the Church's view, is over against his first coming, as its proper counterpart. As "ONCE in the end of the world he hath appeared to put away sin, by the sacrifice of himself," So, "to them that look for him, shall he appear THE SECOND TIME, without sin unto salvation." As the grace of the one coming is received by faith, so the glory of the other is apprehended by hope; and thus, between the Cross and the Crown, the believer finds all his salvation and all his desire. With reference to the former, his attitude is that of brokenhearted sweet recumbency; with reference to the latter, that of glad yet humble expectancy. On the one hand, he determines to know nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified;" on the other, he is found in the ranks of "all them that love his appearing."

Very good, says the pre-millennialist; but the question is, With which theory of the second advent does all this accord? When a man believes that Christ's second coming may take place at any time-that he may come just now, for aught that we know, quite as readily as a hundred or a thousand years hence-one can understand how he should set himself to "look" and "wait" and "watch" for him, "not knowing when the Master of the house may come, at

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even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning." But will the Church be brought up to this expectant attitude by telling her that a whole millennium, not yet begun, must run its course ere Christ appear? And does not this blunt the edge of such texts as the following:

"The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night" "The Judge standeth at the door"—" Behold, I come quickly?"

"Our ignorance," says Mr. Bickersteth, " of the day and hour when Christ comes seems inconsistent with any certain intervening period of a thousand years." To the same purpose, Mr. Dalton.† the Duke of Manchester.‡ and most other writers on the same side. Mr. H. Bonar admits the possibility of longing, of waiting, and even of looking for Christ's coming, on the common view of it, but strenuously denies the possibility of watching for it on that view.

That this is plausible, I freely admit. In fact, if there be plausibility in the system at all, it lies here. I have felt it necessary, therefore, to weigh it again and again; but at every fresh examination I have found it more specious than solid. That it is entirely fallacious, may be shown by a variety of considerations.

One remark, however, I must request the reader to bear in mind throughout the whole of this discussion. I attach no importance, in this argument, to the precise period of a thousand years. It occurs nowhere in Scripture but in one solitary passage. There are reasons for taking it definitely and literally; but, to some these reasons appear

* Guide to the Prophecies, p. 66, seventh edition.

+ Lent Lectures, by English Clergymen ("Second Coming," &c.), pp. 95, 96, second edition.

Finished Mystery, pp. 277-281.

Prophe cal Landmarks, p. 88, &c.

slender. They think it means just a long indefinite period; agreeing with us, however, as to its being yet to come. Be it so Wherever I speak of the millennium, or "thousand years," let them understand their own "indefinite period," or bright "latter day," to precede the coming of Christ; and my argument will remain the same. Then, as to its being yet to come, let no one suppose I expect that the beginning and end of this period will be so clearly discernible as to leave no room for doubt upon any mind. On the contrary, I think there can hardly be a doubt that it will follow the law of all Scripture dates in this respect -of Daniel's "seventy weeks," and of the "twelve hundred and sixty days" of Antichristian rule. The beginning and end of the former of these periods, though a long past one, is even yet a matter of some controversy, while the beginning and end of the latter period is confessedly unsettled. Why, then, should we suppose that it must be otherwise with the millennial period? If the first stages of it should be marked only by the rising beams of the Sun of Righteousness over the darkness and disease, the disorder and confusion, the wretchedness and ruin, which they are destined to chase away; and if its last stages should be characterized by nothing but the waning brightness and decaying spirituality of its religious character-all being outwardly unchanged, and nothing wanting but the animating spirit-like "the glory of the Lord," which took its gradual departure from the first temple, hovering over the threshold of the house, then going up from the midst of the city and resting for a moment on the mount of Olives, as if to take a last lingering look of its wonted abode, and finally disappearing from the scene, to make way for the judgments of an incensed God:-if, I say, the commencement and the close of the latter day should be thus intentionally shrouded in obscurity, and the same uncertainty

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overhang this as all the great periods of the divine economy, would it not be worthy of Him who, in his ways as in Himself, is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?

With this explanation, I proceed to examine this new theory of "watching" for Christ's coming, as incompatible with the ordinary view of the second advent. And,

1. Can anything be more arbitrary than the distinction attempted to be drawn between longing, waiting, and looking for Christ, on the one hand, and watching for him, on the other? Doubtless, these terms express distinct shades of thought and feeling; but the state of the soul in them all is so nearly the same, that it is scarcely conceivable how any doctrine that destroys one of them should admit of the exercise of the other three. Beyond question, all scriptural exercises of heart towards a coming Redeemer must stand or fall together.

2. This alleged impossibility of watching for Christ's coming, on the ordinary view of it, involves a serious charge against the Christianity of the major part of the Christian Church, almost from the age of the apostles downwards. An extract or two from the fathers of the Scottish Church, for which we are indebted to Mr. A. Bonar,* will sufficiently illustrate this remark. "Few in Scotland," Mr. Bonar truly observes, "held the pre-millennial view, but they loved the Lord's appearing."

Why," says Principal Rollock, "should not the hope of Christ's returning comfort our souls, and make them rejoice? How happy is that man who earnestly looks and waits for the blessed and glorious coming again of the Lord to judgment, for that hope shall comfort and uphold him in all his troubles and distresses."

"O when," writes the scraphic Rutherford, "will we meet? O how long is it to the dawning of the marriage

* Redemption Drawing Nigh, pp. 21, &c.

day! O sweet Jesus, take wide steps! O my Lord, come over mountains at one stride! O my Blessed, flee as a roe or young hart upon the mountains of separation. O if he would fold the heavens together like an old cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way, and make ready in haste the Lamb's wife for her husband! . . . . . . O heavens, more fast! O time, run, run, and hasten the marriage day; for love is tormented with delays! . . . . Look to the east the day-sky is breaking. Think not that Christ loseth time, or lingereth unsuitably. . . . The Lord's bride will be up or down, above the water, swimming, or under the water, sinking, until her lordly and mighty Redeemer and Husband set his head through these skies, and come with his fair court to rid all these pleas, and give them the longed-for inheritance."

And shall it be said of these men, that, though "they loved their Lord's appearing," they could not possibly

"watch for it ?"

But it may be replied-These worthies, though they were not pre-millennialists, interposed no definite millen. nium between their own day and the day of Christ's appearing. Whether they did or not, I know not. There is, probably, little means of knowing what their views were of the latter-day period. But there is not a particle of evidence that they had any such views of the nearness of Christ's coming as pre-millennialists assert to be indispensable to watching for it. The contrary, indeed, seems evident enough from Rutherford's language in the very extract which we have given. What else can be gathered from his passionate wish that the Lord would "take wide steps, come over mountains at one stride, fold the heavens together like an old cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way," but that he looked upon the actual period of Christ's coming as identical with the end of time itself?