LECTURE VI.

HE THAT IS TO COME.

The certainty of the advent none deny. The time and manner of it it is proper to discuss in a sober, kind, and charitable spirit.

"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.”—ACTs i. 11.

THE words of two celestial visitants in white apparel seem to have satisfied the anxious apostolic group who gazed into heaven; for it is stated that immediately after they received the message, "they returned unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey." It has oft been a question discussed by the good, what is meant by those ceaseless references to Christ's second advent spread over so many pages of the sacred volume? Is it a mere figure of speech, which we may exhaust by understanding it to mean the death of the Christian, or the providential interposition of God? or is it what most Christians believe, that the Saviour who personally ascended into heaven from the mount of Olives, personally will descend from heaven, and we shall see Him just as He is, and His feet shall stand on the mount of Olives? Whatever may be supposed to be the antecedents of

this advent, or whatever may be supposed to be the issues of it, every man who believes the Apostles' Creed, and repeats or subscribes it-a document not inspired, but constituting a very clear and explicit summary of Christian facts-believes that He ascended into heaven, that was personally; that He sitteth at the right hand of the Father, that is personally; and that He will come again to judge the quick and the dead, which must be personal also. In a personal advent of the Saviour everybody believes; the only question is, What is the meaning and precise import of that expression? Is it, according to some, a mere providential advent? We say, He comes in the storm, He comes in the beautiful and bright sunshine; we say, He came (and this is a perfectly scriptural illustration of it) at the destruction of Jerusalem. We do not deny a providential advent; we repeat, Christ is in the chapters of history, just as truly as He is in the chapters of the Bible. We believe that acts in providence are as much from Him, and by Him, and through Him, as are the texts in the word of God. That He came, at the destruction of Jerusalem, in a modified, providential sense is unquestionably true; but you will notice, in the 24th chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and in the 21st chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, that it is after the destruction of Jerusalem— after the Jews shall be scattered into all lands-after Jerusalem shall be trodden under foot of the Gentilesthat He will come in the clouds of heaven, with power and with great glory. I maintain, therefore, that this cannot be a mere providential advent; but is it, as some believe, a purely spiritual advent? I answer, What is the use of looking for a spiritual advent when that spiritual advent is the Christian's experience every day?

What does He tell us?

"Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." What does He say? "Go and preach the gospel to every creature; and lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” His providential presence is every day heard in the echoes of the facts that transpire in the hearing of the world; His spiritual presence is felt in every sanctuary, and enjoyed in every humble and regenerated heart. We maintain, therefore, that the presence referred to in the sacred text, and alluded to in this verse, is a personal descent from heaven and manifestation on this very globe, as personal, as visible, as real, as when He trod the waves of the obedient sea, or walked a weary pilgrim on the streets of Jerusalem, or shone in the radiance of heaven on the heights of Tabor; or ascended, as He did, personally, visibly, from the mount of Olives; that even so, in like manner, will He come again. Those who do not accept this, as it seems to me, plain and intelligible interpretation must have enormous difficulties in dealing with the Jews. I have conversed with Jews, enlightened, I would almost venture to say pious Jews; and sometimes I have found a Jew giving far more evidence of being a Christian than many a baptized man. In conversing with the Jew, I ask him, How do you get over the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, that promise of a Messiah to come, and to suffer? They say, It is all figurative and spiritual; and the only advent of the Messiah that they look for is, His advent to emancipate the Jew, and enthrone him in Jerusalem, the capital, and the joy, and the beauty of the whole earth. If you say the first advent was personal, but the second is spiritual or providential, the Jew naturally retorts, and

says, 'You make it personal when it suits your purpose, and spiritual when it does not suit it; you object to me regarding the first advent as spiritual, and the second as personal. Why, I may object to you with equal force, for you regard the first as personal, but the second you explain away as figurative and spiritual. The consistency of the reasoning demands that both are metaphors, or both are facts; both are figurative, or both are personal.' The Jew is perfectly right in looking for a glorified Messiah, and that Messiah will be manifested to him; he is only wrong in ignoring a humiliated and a suffering Messiah. But may not. we, if not so fatally, be at least as logically wrong when we hail, and lean on, and glory in a crucified Messiah, but repudiate and lose the forethrown splendour, happiness, and hope of a Messiah that is yet to reign and shine before his ancients gloriously? That this advent of the Saviour is a truth not very rarely alluded to in the word of God is evident from passages, many of which will occur to every reader of the Bible. For instance, we read in Daniel: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Again, we read in the book of Revelation, almost in similar words: "Behold, he cometh in clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." And in Zechariah xiv. 4, there is a remarkable prediction, that instantly

suggests the ascent of the Saviour in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. It is stated, in the Acts of the Apostles, that he ascended from the mount of Olives, that round, beautiful hill, about a sabbath day's journey distant from Jerusalem; from that mount he ascended into heaven. Now, it is very remarkable that Zechariah predicts, in the 14th chapter, at the 4th verse, that He shall come again, in the following words:"And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal; yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah; and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." In the words of the Epistle to the Thessalonians, Christ shall descend, with them that sleep in Jesus. He ascended from that mount; and the prophet leads us to believe that He shall descend on that very mount again. It is not right to explain away plain words of Scripture. Wherever the literal interpretation does not involve absurdity, contradiction, nonsense, I always accept it. Now, these words are so specific, so elaborately minute, that I cannot explain them away. I must accept the simple prediction that those sacred feet that were nailed to the cross for me shall one day stand upon the mount of Olives, that is before Jerusalem on the east, when the Lord my God shall come and all his saints shall come with him. And what shall take place then?