the ground with the corpses of Sennacherib's host ; when its storm swept Jerusalem as with fire, and bore Israel into bondage ; when its sword came down upon Idumea and was bathed in blood upon Edom. « The day of the Lord ' is another term of precisely- similar import. It occurs in the Old Testament about fifteen times. In every instance it means some mighty manifestation of God's power in calamity. These occasions are pictured forth with the most astounding figures of speech." 1 On the following page he says he fully believes that the evangelists and early Christians understood the language of Christ in reference to his second coming, as predictions of a personal and visible advent, connected with a resurrection and a general judgment, but he more than doubts whether such was the meaning of Christ Him- self. (1.) Because he says nothing of a resurrection of the dead. (2.) The figures which He uses are precisely those which the Jewish prophets employed in predicting " great and signal events on the earth." (3.) Because He " fixed the date of the events He referred to within that generation." Christ he thinks, meant to teach that his " truths shall prevail and shall be owned as the criteria of Divine judgment. According to them," he understands Christ to say, " all the righteous shall be distinguished as my subjects, and all the iniquitous shall be separated from my king- dom. Some of those standing here shall not taste death till all these things be fulfilled. Then it will be seen that I am the Messiah, and that through the eternal principles of truth which I have proclaimed I shall sit upon a throne of glory, — not liter- ally, in person, as you thought, blessing the Jews and cursing the Gentiles, but spiritually, in the truth, dispensing joy to good men and woe to bad men, according to their deserts." It is something to have it admitted that the Apostles and early Christians be- lieved in the personal advent of Christ. What the Apostles be- lieved we are bound to believe ; for St. John said " He that knoweth God, heareth us." That the New Testament does teach a second, visible, and glorious appearing of the Son of God, is plain : —
1. From the analogy between the first and second advents. The rationalistic Jews would have had precisely the same reasons for believing in a more spiritual coming of the Messiah as modern rationalists have for saying that his second coming is to be spirit- ual. The advent in both cases is predicted in very nearly the same terms. If, therefore, his first coming was in person and
i Alger's Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life. Philadelphia, 1864, p. 319.
794 PART IV. Ch. m. — the second advent.
visible, so his second coming must be. The two advents axe often spoken of in connection, the one illustrating the other. He came the first time as the Lamb of God bearing the sins of the world ; He is to come " the second time, without sin, unto salva- tion." (Heb. ix. 28.) God, said the apostle Peter, " shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts iii. 20, 21.) Christ is now invisible to us, having been received up into heaven. He is to remain thus invisible, until God shall send him at the restitution of all things.
2. In many places it is directly asserted that his appearing is to be personal and visible. At the time of his ascension, the an- gels said to his disciples : "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gaz- ing up into heaven ? 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.) His second coming is to be as visible as his ascension. They saw Him go ; and they shall see Him come. In Matt. xxvi. 64, it is said, " Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven ; " Matt. xxiv. 30, " Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Luke xxi. 27, " Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud."
3. The circumstances attending the second advent prove that it is to be personal and visible. It is to be in the clouds ; with power and great glory ; with the holy angels and all the saints ; and it is to be with a shout and the voice of the archangel.
4. The effects ascribed to his advent prove the same thing. All the tribes of the earth shall mourn; the dead, both small and great are to arise ; the wicked shall call on the rocks and hills to cover them ; the saints are to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air ; and the earth and the heavens are to flee away at his presence.
5. That the Apostles understood Christ to predict his second coming in person does not admit of doubt. Indeed almost all the rationalistic commentators teach that the Apostles fully believed and even taught that the second advent with all its glorious con- sequences would occur in their day. Certain it is that they be- lieved that He would come visibly and with great glory, and that