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LECTURE XXIX.

ORDER OF ADVENT.

"Behold, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."-Revelation xxii. 20.

LAST Lord's-day evening I showed you how full the whole New Testament is of what I called the second advent or coming of our Lord. You will recollect how many passages I quoted, each passage the nucleus of precious and edifying thought; and how I showed that, instead of being a doctrine that occurs only here and there, it is constantly preached by the apostles-predicted by our Lord-the hope of saints-the joy of the whole church of Christ. This evening I proceed to consider the order of this event. Last Sabbath evening, I showed you simply the fulness of Scripture in expressing the certainty of this event, but this evening I will try, in dependence on Divine aid, to lay open the order of this event; in other words, to ascertain whether, according to some, it shall precede the Millennium, or, according to others, succeed it. All sections of the church of Christ are perfectly agreed in this, that Christ will come personally to our world: there is no dispute about this; there is no diversity of opinion whether Christ will personally come; the whole controversy is upon the order, or what precedes, and what immediately succeeds it. We have therefore no question about the fact whether Christ shall come or not. Again, there is no dispute in the Christian church if there will be a Millennium. You may call it what you like; a Millennium is derived from the Latin word "mille," a thousand, and "annus," a year, and signifies the space of a thousand years: it derives its origin from Rev. xx., where we read of a thousand years during which Satan shall be bound, and the whole church of Christ shall be holy and happy and perfect; but call it what you please, there is predicted in

Scripture an era which shall exceed any thing that has been realized on earth, in the holiness, in the happiness, in the joy that shall be enjoyed by the saints, in the fertility that shall be possessed by the earth, and in the communion that shall subsist between a reconciled God, and a reconciled and rejoicing family. There is no dispute, then, in the first place, whether Christ will personally come; that is settled, that is the fixed belief of us all secondly, there is no question or dispute that there will be a Millennium, an era of happiness, felicity, and joy, when earth shall close, as earth commenced, with paradise. About this there is no dispute. The first point of difference, then, is the order of these events. One class allege that the Millennium will come first, and Christ will come at its close: another class of Christians allege that Christ will come first, and the Millennium will instantly succeed him. The one class say the Millennium will usher in Christ; the other say Christ will usher in the Millennium. The one class say that missionary effort is to bring in the Millennium, and that Millennium is to have Christ for its close; the other say that all existing missionary effort is to select a people from the midst of the world for the Lord, and that Christ shall come himself, like the sun standing at his meridian, and that the Millennium will only be the sheen and splendour of that unsetting sun. The difference is this: the one class look forward to the Millennium as their hope, the other class look forward to the coming of Christ as their hope. The one class asserts, "Come quickly" means, Let the Millennium dawn speedily; the other class assert that "Come quickly" means, just what it naturally implies, "Come, Lord Jesus, personally, and begin the Millennium." The one class, therefore, is looking for expanding piety, increasing light, a growing church, and dying apostasy-a progressively advancing Millennium of beauty, holiness, and glory, and then Christ upon the judgment-throne. The other class are looking for increasing confusion, abounding errors, multiplying sins, a world turned upside-down, denser darkness, tremendous chaos, Christ interposing in the midst of it, and the Millennium bursting from the earth the moment that his footsteps touch it. These, then, are the two points of difference. Among these two classes, let me say, there is no difference about Christ's

great work upon the cross; that is settled. It is not Christian and the world that differ; it is Christian and Christian that differ, not about what is of the essence of faith, but about its outworks, its privileges, and its joys. There is no doubt that you will find, in every section of the church of Christ, that two men equally distinguished for piety, devotedness, and consistency, differ upon this point. I have met with some who are perfectly furious against what they call Millennarianism; I have met with others who are just as furious in defence of it; and the one is as much to be blamed as the other. They both agree that the righteousness of Christ is our only trust and title, and that Christ will come again; but they quarrel where they ought only to agree to differ till they have greater light, about the order and sequence of the events that are to characterize the future. Now I wish this evening to try if I can settle the order in your minds; and I ask you to lay aside all previous conceptions which you may have formed from your earliest days; I ask you to lay aside all prejudices that you may have taken up against those who are called by the nickname-if such I may pronounce it-Millennarians. I ask you simply to follow me through various passages of Scripture; and if my inferences do not commend themselves to your judgment as logical and legitimate, then the greatest justice you can do me, and the greatest justice you can do yourselves, is to reject them. But if the inferences I draw prove-and prove, I think, they irresistibly do-that Christ comes first, and that the Millennium comes next, then I am sure that Christian minds and cool judgments will lay aside their earliest prepossessions, and hear, not what man may plead for, but what God has said "Thus saith the Lord."

I will refer you to passages in the Old Testament, where I think this event is alluded to. The first passage I will quote is Isaiah xxiv. 19-21: "The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again. And it shall come to pass that in that day the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth."

And, passing to the 23d verse, we read, "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." Now if we examine this passage, we shall see that there is first the assertion of chaos, disorganization, and judgment; then there follows, without the intervention of any thing like millennial bliss, the prediction, that in the midst of this Christ shall come and reign in the mount Zion, whatever be the nature of that reign, and shine before his ancient people, the Jews, gloriously. After this, the 25th chapter follows, which is just a millennial song: "O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name, for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." And at the 8th verse of this song of the Millennium it is written, "He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it."

In order to know when this victory shall take place, we have only to refer to 1 Cor. xv. 54, where the apostle says, "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying"-What saying? "The saying that is written," which Isaiah has uttered here in chap. xxv. in a millennial song-" He will swallow up death in victory." When is this to be? Christ first reigns in Zion, and shines before his ancients gloriously; and subsequent to this is the song of rejoicing, one of the predictions of which is that "death shall be swallowed up in victory." You go to an apostle in the New Testament to get light upon the Old Testament chapter, and he tells you that the time when the prediction in the Old Testament shall be fulfilled, is when the resurrection comes, and "death shall be swallowed up in victory." But when does the resurrection come? After Christ has come. That there may be a resurrection, there must be the presence of Christ; and then "the trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be raised" and hence we infer from Isaiah, and from this passage in Corinthians, alone, that Christ comes first, and shines before his ancients gloriously; and the resurrection of the dead, the joy of the saints, the happiness of the world, immediately and in

stantly follow. Again, in Isaiah xxxiv. we have another predic tion which casts light upon this very subject. We read at verse 4, after denouncing judgments upon the nations in the second verse, "For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies; he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood;" and then it is added, "And all the hosts of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll and all their host shall fall down as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree." Now, the question is, When does this occur? Turn to 2 Pet. iii. 10: "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which"-quoting the very words of Isaiah-"the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." It is plain, therefore, that before Isaiah xxxiv. can be made actual, Christ has come then chap. xxxv. which immediately follows, is a song for the Millennium: "The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads; and they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall blossom as the rose." Now in both these chapters we have, first, the occurrence of fearful judgments executed upon the world, and next, and immediately after them, a new heaven and a new earth starting into existence : we see an apostle in the New Testament showing you that the creation of the new heaven and the new earth succeeds, not precedes, the advent of Christ; and in both the chapters of Isaiah we have the evidence of the millennial blessedness following the new heaven and the new earth. In other words, not first the Millennium, with its bliss and its happiness, and the coming of Christ next; but Christ first, and the Millennium next. Again, in Isaiah lxv. 17, we have a reference to the same event: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind ;" and then, if we read what

SECOND SERIES.

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