hide them? This we only notice in passing, having occasion to say more on this point under another bead.

This time of destruction is the gathering called the time of harvest both by our Lord and by the Prophets; when the righteous are gathered as wheat into the garner of God, and when the wicked are gathered like tares into bundles, to be consumed in the lake of fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt. xxiv. 31). "The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matt. xiii. 40). "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle and reap for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe" (Rev. xiv. 14). "Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about thither the Lord shall bring down the mighty. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision; for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision" (Joel iii. 11). "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor, it is time to thresh her yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come" (Jer. li. 33).

And the destruction of the wicked in the course of that day of vengeance is universal and complete; as is evident from many of the above texts, and still more so from those in which the supper of the great God is spoken of; as: "and I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sat on them, and the flesh of all men, free and bond, both small and great" (Rev. xix. 17).

"The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" (Isa. xiv. 24.) "Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beast of the field, to be devoured...... And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day and forward....... Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God" (Ezek. xxxix. 4, 21, 22, 29).

This last passage shews that favour to Israel is the sequence of the destruction of the wicked; and favour which shall never be withdrawn that the Lord cometh, mighty to destroy, but mighty also to save that, though the day of vengeance is in his heart, the year of his redeemed is also come (Isa. lxiii. 4). And this time of God's return in mercy to Israel is also the consummation of the glory of the whole church and the beginning of unalloyed blessedness to the world. If the fall of the literal Israel was the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more shall their fulness be such? And if the casting away of Israel was the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? (Rom xi. 12, 15.)

In the verse before the passage quoted above from Joel, it is written; Proclaim this, ye among the Gentiles: prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up: beat your plough-shares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong (Joel iii. 9, 10). But immediately after the destruction at Armageddon, the exact reverse of this shall take place; for "The law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and, they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Mic. iv. 3). And a corresponding reversal shall at the same time take place in the present sin and ignorance of

man, and the present misery of the fallen world: for where it is said that the Lord shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked, it is immediately added, "And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall die down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign to the people: to it shall the Gentiles seek, and His rest shall be glorious" (Isa. xi. 10). This is the cause of all the blessings to the earth, THE LORD IS THERE! This is the assurance of their reality, this the guarantee of their perpetuity. Blessings more than the heart of man can conceive, or the tongue of man express, cannot but irradiate that favoured spot of creation where the Eternal and Almighty God shall plant his throne for ever; and that spot is this redeemed world, purchased by the blood of Christ, to be claimed as his own at the time we speak of, and thenceforth for ever kept by him, creation's Lord, the world's Redeemer. "The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God" (Isa. lii. 10). "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee " (Isa. liv. 10). "Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations..... And thou shalt know that I, the Lord, am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.....the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.....Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified......I the Lord will hasten it in his time" (Isaiah lx. 15, 22).

These few passages suffice to demonstrate how large a portion of Scripture remains yet to be fulfilled under these few heads alone; and the texts we have quoted draw with them whole chapters, and even books of prophecy, as a reference to the contexts and parallel passages will shew. And they prove that the day of the Lord is not yet come, inasmuch as the wicked are not yet destroyed, nor have wars ceased, nor are the Jews gathered to their land, nor is the creation delivered from misery and thraldom, nor has the Lord planted his throne of glory on the earth. But we must further shew that the earth itself abides through these trials, and that some generations of men continue as subjects of the kingdom of heaven upon the earth. For the arts of evasion are two-fold: one party making void the word of God by representing it as all fulfilled; another party depriving it of all practical influence, by postponing its fulfilment beyond the time when we can feel any interest about it, or at best making the fulfilment simultaneous with the destruction of the heaven and the earth.

In order to do this, we need only advert to the Jewish people, in their two-fold relationship to the Christian church and to the rest of the world: for the fulness of the Gentiles come into the Christian church before the Lord turns away ungodliness from Jacob (Rom. xi. 26); after which the fulness of the Jews takes place; and all Israel, thus saved, become as life from the dead to the world, and deliverance to the creation from the bondage of ignorance and sin. And these several stages of the purpose of God go on in continuity, without interruption by destruction of the earth.

The context of most of the passages to which we have referred in proof of the destruction of the wicked, will demonstrate that the house of Israel is restored to the land of Judea, and excepted from those judgments which fall upon their enemies: "For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land" (Joel iii. 1, 2). And after thus pleading with the nations, destruction shall light upon the rebels thus assembled: and "the sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more...... But Judah shall dwell for ever,

and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood, that I have not cleansed for the Lord dwelleth in Zion" (Joel iii. 15, 21). "The Lord is there" (Ezek. xlviii.). To those who wish for further demonstration of the same kind we would mention the following passages, an attentive perusal of which must satisfy every one that Israel is gathered at Jerusalem before the final destruction of their enemies; and that no destruction or change which ensues will affect the locality of Judea; the temple on mount Zion thenceforth abiding for ever, and all nations that have escaped the destruction worshipping the Lord there. Isai. xiv. 1; xi. 11; xii.; lxv. 17. 25; lxvi. 23; Jer. xxxi. 1, 4, 6, 10, 14, 23, 27, 31, 35, 38; Ezek. xxxvii. 12, 21, 25; xliii. 7; xliv. 2; xlvii. 12, comp. Rev. xxii. 2; Dan. xii. 1, 13; Hos. i. 11; iii. 5; Amos ix. 15; Obad. 21; Mic. ii. 12; v. 4; vii. 11, 20; Zeph. iii. 17; Zec. ii. 10; vi. 12; xii. 8, 10; xiii. 1; xiv. 3, 5, 9.

What is thus demonstrable of the restored tribes in the earthly Jerusalem, is of course, and a fortiori, true of the glorified saints in the heavenly Jerusalem. While the Jews are gathering to Judea, the saints are gathered and translated to the clouds of heaven, from whence Satan will then have been cast to the earth. And by the convulsions and conflagrations of the heavens which afterwards ensue, the dwelling-place of the saints will not be affected, because Christ will be there in the midst of his church; just as the presence of Jehovah in Zion, the mountain of the Lord's house (Isai. ii.), will be its guarantee against future destruction; and the Personal glory shall be revealed from heaven, at the same time when the Shechinah glory descends to fill the Ezekiel temple.

While the Jews shall be gathering to their land, the saints, who shall have been raised and translated in the morning of that day of the Lord, shall be employed by Christ in preparing all things for the manifestation of His kingdom. And the potentates of the earth, being brought under the sceptre of Christ, or else dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel (Psal. ii. 8; cx. 2; Rev. ii. 26, 27), all things on earth are prepared: and, the bride being then herself made ready (Rev. xix. 7), the holy city, the new Jerusalem, shall be seen coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. xxi. 2); the distinction between the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem being as great as that between type and antitype, as that between Moses and Christ, as that between the temple built by Solomon and the temple of the Holy Ghost, "whose temple are ye." In the heavenly Jerusalem there is no temple, all being living temples of God (Rev. xxii. 22).

These general conclusions, concerning the future blessedness of the earth, and the restoration of the Jewish people, and