proaching-for yet a little while, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry." (Heb. 10: 25, 37.) : And, now it has come to that the bride looks no more for the Bridegroom! According to one view, she is a poor widow importunately crying: "Avenge me of mine Adversary;" and praying: "Thy kingdom come;" without any faith in the prayer but yet she cries: and, bless God we have the promise that he will hear, his own children, that cry day and night unto him, and avenge them speedily: "Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find on the earth?" (Luke 18: 8.)-According to another view all her friends are fallen asleep, both wise and foolish together, "while the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept :" and what is worse, she keeps not her patience of hope, expecting her Lord she in her impatience, must go to her Lord. Ay, this is the doctrine now, that the Lord comes not again for a long time and so the happy dead lose no time, but are supposed to be gathered in the heavens to the Lord, before he comes; and before the last trumpet calls and the Bride is supposed not so much to go forth to meet the Bridegroom at his coming, as she is made in the doctrine to go, where the beautiful modesty of the chaste bride forbids her to enter, even into the secret chambers of the Bridegroom before his glorious appearing. The church in the doctrine now goes one by one, not to meet the Lord coming in his glory; but to be present with the Lord in the heavenly glory, the Bride to the Bridegroom. She no longer expects him, that is true; and so, forsooth, she must go to him. is more the bold forwardness of the Carthagenian queen, and the fickleness of an ambitious and faithless one : : "Varium et mutabile semper" This than the humble delicacy of the true Bride, the Lamb's wife, who will tarry in the chambers of the house of her mother, until the shout of the descending host is heard: "Behold, the Bridegroom COMETH !"-when the trump of the Archangel will send forth such a peal of triumph over Satan and Death, that all which are in their graves shall hear, and the dead will awake and come forth, to behold the glory of the Lord, both the righteous and the wicked together. Then the heavenly adorned Bride will bound with step so light to meet her returning Savior, that this world with all its works, will be left forgotten behind; and she will rise in the clouds, to greet her Lord all welcome in the air, and so be ever with the Lord. Neither Abraham, nor any of the ancient worthies, appears to have yet received the things promised, in respect to the heavenly glory; in order "that they without us, should not be made perfect." (Heb. 11: 40.) And, we likewise must wait "yet for a little season, until their fellow servants, also, and their brethren that should be killed, as they were, should be fulfilled;" (Rev. 6: 11.) that all the children of God, and heirs of the promises, may come into possession of their inheritance forever in one band, under Christ, our king, " in the dispensation of the fulness of times" -"when God will gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance," of which the Holy Spirit is the earnest, a part of the portion in hand, guaranteeing the covenant of promise, until the day of the redemption of the purchased possession, which is the day of the Lord Jesus. (Eph. 1: 10 to 15.) This is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit: "At midnight, a cry was made: Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all the virgins arose and trimmed their lamps; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut.-Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour, wherein the Son of man cometh." (Mat. 25: 13.) But to watch, in this connec tion, is alike unnecessary and impossible for the present, if the Son of man does not certainly come for a thousand years; or until after the expected millennium. "O, says one; this is his final coming to judgment." True; and in that lies the power of the doctrine to persuade men to repent, and to turn from Satan unto God; as the poet says: "Delay not; delay not; the hour is at hand, "The earth shall dissolve, and the heavens shall fade; "But it is not supposed that Christ will come to judgment yet a long time." So the wicked suppose; and they harden themselves in sin. "But surely there is a spiritual coming and kingdom, before the final coming of Christ to the judgment." THE SPIRITUAL REIGN. "Now awake, ye slumbering virgins, "Trim your lamps; the bridegroom's near; "Let your loins with truth be girded, 66 Signs proclaim-he'll soon appear. "Mark! the fig-tree budding shows the summer's near." There are plainly but two advents of the Messiah: one in humility, which is past; and one in glory, which is at hand. Where then is the spiritual coming? "In the millennium." They that look for it in this world, postpone a glorious certainty, I think, for a very dubious experiment. No coun try, nor city, nor village, or combination of them, on the face of the whole earth, was ever long governed spiritually, with great satisfaction to the people. Some, which have attempted it with a high hand, have showed that they mistook their spirit. The experience of the church, and of the people, is not very favorable to any form of spiritual government, whose administration must be in the flesh still, and in the hands of sinful men. Those who expect it, reckon without due regard to the prince of this world, who has power in his kingdom; until the day of the redemption of the purchased possession: who has power over this present evil world, to afflict the just, to wear out the saints, and in war to prevail against them; and to persecute the righteous, and to worry the faithful with temptations in the heart, and temptations in the flesh, and temptations in the world. "But the Adversary is to be bound in that day, and chained in the bottomless pit." Amen! so let HIM come, who will bind the strong man, and spoil his goods. Then we shall have, not a spiritual coming merely, but the coming again of the Lord Jesus, in the clouds of heaven; and, also, the resurrection of the dead, and the kingdom of Jesus and of heaven, never to be shaken. An old catechism in high repute, teaches that "Christ's exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day."-A spiritual reign of a thousand years does not enter into this estimate of our Lord's exaltation. And it may not be admitted that his spiritual coming is the coming again of the holy Spirit; for that would imply that the Holy Spirit has left the world, which is not true. Therefore, Jesus cannot come again by his Spirit, seeing the promise of the Spirit was fulfilled eighteen hundred years ago, and he is to abide forever. The coming of the Holy Spirit was not to rule the world, not to set up in the beginning, or now, or at any time hereafter, I think, a spiritual kingdom over this world; but solely to witness for the crucified Jesus, that he is in heaven, in the glorified flesh, at the right hand of the Father; and is coming in his time, to redeem the earth from the curse, and the dead from the grave, and to make all things inconceivably more glorious, than eye hath seen, or ear heard, or than hath entered into the heart of man, even the restitution of all things. This is the office of the Holy Spirit, not I think to reign in this world, but to prepare the way for the Lord's reign; to teach, not to govern this world; to reprove, admonish, and warn the world of the coming of the Lord Jesus, the appointed heir of all things, who will destroy this world, changing it with its heavens, and also our vile bodies, as a vesture folded up: and that he will soon fulfil all the promises to his chosen in the glorious kingdom of Messiah and of heaven. The history of the church is evidence of the immense mischief that has flowed from the doctrine of the reigning power of the Holy Spirit in this world; a doctrine, which is not very plainly taught, if taught at all, in the holy Scriptures. "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." (1 Cor. 14: 32.) This would be still true, if the prophet were on the throne of the world; and it would be the man who ruled, and not another; not the spirit of the prophet. That would admonish him: but he might rule contrary to the holy counsellor; and deceive both himself and others with the idea, that God alone ruled the world by the Spirit in his servant the prophet. We have seen some administrations of this sort, in the hands of men, who believed that the Lord in them reigned over their brethren, and over the whole civilized world. Those who have made the greatest claim to the governing of this world, by the Holy Spirit, have of all other rulers most grossly violated the laws of God, and the rights of man; and insulted all that is holy. So that I take it for a |