not all ministering spirits?" Eccl. 12: 7" the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit return unto God who gave it"; Acts 7: 59-"And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit"; Heb. 12: 23-"to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect"; 1 Pet. 3: 19-"in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison"; 2 Cor. 5: 8-"We are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord "; Dan. 12: 2-"many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake"; Mat. 9: 24-"the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth"; John 11: 11-"Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep"; 1 Cor. 11: 30-"For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep"; 1 Thess. 4: 14-"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him "; 5: 10-"who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him."

B. The passages first cited refute, on the other hand, the view that the suffering of the intermediate state is purgatorial.

According to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church, "all who die at peace with the church, but are not perfect, pass into purgatory." Here they make satisfaction for the sins committed after baptism by suffering a longer or shorter time, according to the degree of their guilt. The church on earth, however, has power, by prayers and the sacrifice of the mass, to shorten these sufferings or to remit them altogether. But we urge, in reply, that the passages referring to suffering in the intermediate state give no indication that any true believer is subject to this suffering, or that the church has any power to relieve from the consequences of sin, either in this world or in the world to come. Only God can forgive, and the church is simply empowered to declare that, upon the fulfilment of the appointed conditions of repentance and faith, he does actually forgive. This theory, moreover, is inconsistent with any proper view of the completeness of Christ's satisfaction (Gal. 2:21; Heb. 9:28); of justification through faith alone (Rom. 3: 28); and of the condition after death, of both righteous and wicked, as determined in this life (Eccl. 11:3; Mat. 25: 10; Luke 16:26; Heb. 9:27; Rev. 22 : 11).

Against this doctrine we quote the following texts: Gal. 2: 21-"I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought"; Heb. 9: 28-"so Christ also, having been once [or, once for all'] offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation"; Rom. 3: 28-"We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith, apart from the works of the law"; Eccl. 11: 3-"If the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be"; Mat. 25: 10-"And while they went away to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage feast: and the door was shut"; Luke 16: 26" And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they which would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us"; Heb. 9: 27" it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment"; Rev. 22: 11-"He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy still."

For the Romanist doctrine, see Perrone, Prælectiones Theologicæ, 2:391-420. Per contra, see Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3: 743-770; Barrows, Purgatory. Augustine, Encheiridion, 69, suggests the possibility of purgatorial fire in the future for some believers. Whiton, Is Eternal Punishment Endless? page 69, says that Tertullian held to a delay of resurrection in the case of faulty Christians; Cyprian first stated the notion of a middle state of purification; Augustine thought it "not incredible"; Gregory the Great called it "worthy of belief"; it is now one of the most potent doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church; that church has been, from the third century, for all souls who accept her last consolations, practically restorationist.

Elliott, Horæ Apocalypticæ, 1: 410, adopts Hume's simile, and says that purgatory gave the Roman Catholic Church what Archimedes wanted, another world on which to fix its lever, that so fixed, the church might with it move this world. We must remember, however, that the Roman church teaches no radical change of character in purgatory-purgatory is only a purifying process for believers.

We close our discussion of this subject with a single, but an important, remark, this, namely, that while the Scriptures represent the intermediate state to be one of conscious joy to the righteous, and of conscious pain to the wicked, they also represent this state to be one of incompleteness. The perfect joy of the saints, and the utter misery of the wicked, begin only with the resurrection and general judgment.

That the intermediate state is one of incompleteness, appears from the following passages: Mat. 8: 29-"What have we to do with thee, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" 2 Cor. 5: 3, 4-"if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life"; cf. Rom. 8: 23-"And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body"; Phil. 3: 11-"if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead"; 2 Pet. 2: 9-"the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment"; Rev. 6: 10" and they [the souls underneath the altar] cried with a great voice, saying, How long, 0 Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? "' In opposition to Locke, Human Understanding, 2: 1: 10, who said that "the soul thinks not always"; and to Turner, Wish and Will, 48, who declares that “the soul need not always think, any more than the body always move; the essence of the soul is potentiality for activity"; Descartes, Kant, Jouffroy, Sir Wm. Hamilton, all maintain that it belongs to mental existence continuously to think. Upon this view, the intermediate state would be necessarily a state of thought. As to the nature of that thought, Dorner remarks in his Eschatology that "in this relatively bodiless state, a still life begins, a sinking of the soul into itself and into the ground of its being what Steffens calls 'involution,' and Martensen 'self-brooding.' In this state, spiritual things are the only realities. In the unbelieving, their impurity, discord, alienation from God, are laid bare. If they still prefer sin, its form becomes more spiritual, more demoniacal, and so ripens for the judgment."

Even here, Dorner deals in speculation rather than in Scripture. But he goes further, and regards the intermediate state as one, not only of moral progress, but of elimination of evil; and holds the end of probation to be, not at death, but at the judgment, at least in the case of all non-believers who are not incorrigible. We must regard this as a practical revival of the Romanist theory of purgatory, and as contradicted not only by all the considerations already urged, but also by the general tenor of Scriptural representation that the decisions of this life are final, and that character is fixed here for eternity. This is the solemnity of preaching, that the gospel is "a savor from life unto life," or "a savor from death unto death" (2 Cor. 2:16).

On the whole subject, see Hovey, State of Man after Death; Savage, Souls of the Righteous; Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:304-306; Neander, Planting and Training, 482-484; Delitzsch, Bib. Psychologie, 407-448; Bib. Sac., 13: 153; Methodist Rev., 34: 240; Christian Rev., 20: 381; Herzog, Encyclop., art.: Hades; Stuart, Essays on Future Punishment; Whately, Future State.

III. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.

While the Scriptures represent great events in the history of the individual Christian, like death, and great events in the history of the church, like the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost and the destruction of Jerusalem, as comings of Christ for deliverance or judgment, they also declare that these partial and typical comings shall be concluded by a final, triumphant return of Christ, to punish the wicked and to complete the salvation of his people.

Temporal comings of Christ are indicated in: Mat. 24: 23, 27, 34-"Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or, Here; believe it not..... For as the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the coming of the Son of man..... Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished"; 16: 28-"Verily, I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom"; John 14: 3, 18 -"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there

may be also....... I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you"; Rev. 3: 20-"Behold, I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." So the Protestant Reformation, the modern missionary enterprise, the battle against papacy in Europe and against slavery in this country, the great revivals under Whitefield in England and under Edwards in America, were all preliminary and typical comings of Christ.

The final coming of Christ is referred to in: Mat. 24: 30-"they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send forth 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"; 25: 31-"But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory"; Acts 1: 11" Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? this Jesus, which was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven "; 1 Thess. 4: 16-"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God"; 2 Thess. 1: 7, 10-"the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power..... when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed"; Heb. 9: 28-"so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation"; Rev. 1:7"Behold, he cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they which pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him.

1. The nature of this Coming.

Although without doubt accompanied, in the case of the regenerate, by inward and invisible influences of the Holy Spirit, the second advent is to be outward and visible. This we argue :

(a) From the objects to be secured by Christ's return. These are partly external (Rom. 8:21, 23). Nature and the body are both to be glorified. These external changes may well be accompanied by a visible manifestation of him who makes all things new' (Rev. 21:5).

Rom. 8: 21, 23-"in hope that the creation also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God..... ... waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body"; Rev. 21: 5"Behold, I make all things new."

(b) From the Scriptural comparison of the manner of Christ's return with the manner of his departure (Acts 1: 11) - see Com. of Hackett, in loco :—“ôv τрóñоv = visibly, and in the air. The expression is never employed to affirm merely the certainty of one event as compared with another. The assertion that the meaning is simply that, as Christ had departed, so also he would return, is contradicted by every passage in which the phrase occurs."

Acts 1: 11-"this Jesus, which was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven"; cf. Acts 7: 28-"Wouldest thou kill me, as [ôv трómov] thou killedst the Egyptian yesterday?" Mat. 23: 37-"how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as [öv трómov] a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings"; 2 Tim. 3: 8-"like as [òv трóжоv] Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also withstand the truth.'

(c) From the analogy of Christ's first coming. If this was a literal and visible coming, we may expect the second coming to be literal and visible also.

1 Thess. 4:16 "For the Lord himself [in his own person] shall descend from heaven, with a shout [something heard ], with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God "-see Com. of Prof. W. A. Stevens: "So different from Luke 17: 20, where 'the kingdom of God cometh not with observation.' The 'shout' is not necessarily the voice of Christ himself (lit. 'in a shout,' or 'in shouting'). 'Voice of the archangel' and 'trump of God' are appositional, not additional." Rev. 1:7-"every eye shall see him"; as every ear shall hear him: John 5: 28, 29-"all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice"; 2 Thess. 2: 2-"to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled. .... as that the day of the Lord is now present"-they may have "thought that the first gathering of the saints to Christ was a quiet, invisible one-a stealthy advent, like a thief in the night"

(Lillie). 2 John 7-"For many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh"- here denial of a future second coming of Christ is declared to be the mark of a deceiver.

Alford and Alexander, in their Commentaries on Acts 1:11, agree with the view of Hackett quoted above. Warren, Parousia, 61-65, 106-114, controverts this view, and says that "an omnipresent divine being can come, only in the sense of manifestation." He regards the parousia, or coming of Christ, as nothing but Christ's spiritual presence. A writer in the Presb. Review, 1883: 221, replies that Warren's view is contradicted “by the fact that the apostles often spoke of the parousia as an event yet future, long after the promise of the Redeemer's spiritual presence with his church had begun to be fulfilled, and by the fact that Paul expressly cautions the Thessalonians against the belief that the parousia was just at hand." We do not know how all men at one time can see a bodily Christ; but we also do not know the nature of Christ's body. If all men may see the same rainbow, all men may see the same Christ coming in the clouds.

(a) Although Christ's prophecy of this event, in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, so connects it with the destruction of Jerusalem that the apostles and the early Christians seem to have hoped for its occurrence during their life-time, yet neither Christ nor the apostles definitely taught when the end should be, but rather declared the knowledge of it to be reserved in the counsels of God, that men might ever recognize it as possibly at hand, and so might live in the attitude of constant expectation.

1 Cor. 15: 51-"We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed"; 1 Thess. 4: 17" then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord"; 2 Tim. 4: 8-"henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day: and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved his appearing"; James 5: 7-"Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord"; 1 Pet. 4:7-"But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer"; 1 John 2: 18-"Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there risen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour."

Phil. 4: 5" The Lord is at hand (éyyús). In nothing be anxious"- may mean "the Lord is near" (in space), without any reference to the second coming. The passages quoted above, expressing as they do the surmises of the apostles that Christ's coming was near, while yet abstaining from all definite fixing of the time, are at least sufficient proof that Christ's advent may not be near to our time. We should be no more warranted than they were, in inferring from these passages alone the immediate coming of the Lord.

(b) Hence we find, in immediate connection with many of these predictions of the end, a reference to intervening events and to the eternity of God which shows that the prophecies themselves are expressed in a large way which befits the greatness of the divine plans.

Mat. 24: 36-"But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father"; Mark 13: 32-"But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray for ye know not when the time is "; Acts 1:7-"And he said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority"; 1 Cor. 10:11 -"Now those things happened unto them by way of example; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come"; 16: 22-"Maran atha [marg.—that is, 'Our Lord cometh']"; 2 Thess. 2:1-3 -"Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled. ... as that the day of the Lord is now present [Am. Rev.: 'is just at hand ']; let no man beguile you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."

James 5 8, 9- "Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged: behold the judge standeth before the doors"; 2 Pet. 3:3-12"in the last days mockers shall come.... saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old . . . . . But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise... But the day of

the Lord will come as a thief.... what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring [marg.-hastening] the coming of the day of God"-awaiting it, and hastening its coming by your prayer and labor.

Rev. 1: 3-"Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein for the time is at hand"; 22: 12, 20-"Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to each man according as his work is..... He which testifieth these things saith, Yea: I come quickly. Amen: come, Lord Jesus." From these passages it is evident that the apostles did not know the time of the end, and that it was hidden from Christ himself while here in the flesh. He, therefore, who assumes to know, assumes to know more than Christ or his apostles-assumes to know the very thing which Christ declared it was not for us to know.

(c) In this we discern a striking parallel between the predictions of Christ's first, and the predictions of his second, advent. In both cases the event was more distant and more grand than those imagined to whom the prophecies first came. Under both dispensations, patient waiting for Christ was intended to discipline the faith, and to enlarge the conceptions, of God's true servants. The fact that every age since Christ ascended has had its Chiliasts and Second Adventists should turn our thoughts away from curious and fruitless prying into the time of Christ's coming, and set us at immediate and constant endeavor to be ready, at whatsoever hour he may appear.

Gen. 4:1-"And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord [lit.: 'I have gotten a man, even Jehovah']"— —an intimation that Eve fancied her first-born to be already the promised seed, the coming deliverer; see MacWhorter, Jahveh Christ. Deut. 18: 15 "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken-here is a prophecy which Moses may have expected to be fulfilled in Joshua, but which God designed to be fulfilled only in Christ. Is. 7:14, 16" Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. . . . . For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be forsaken "- a prophecy which the prophet may have expected to be fulfilled in his own time, and which was partially so fulfilled, but which God intended to be fulfilled ages thereafter.

Luke 2: 25"Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel"-Simeon was the type of holy men, in every age of Jewish history, who were waiting for the fulfilment of God's promise, and for the coming of the deliverer. So under the Christian dispensation. Luther, near the time of his death, said: “God forbid that the world should last fifty years longer. Let him cut matters short with his last judgment." Melancthon put the end less than two hundred years from his time. Calvin's motto was: “Domine, quousque?” “O Lord, how long?" On the whole subject, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, Oct., 1877: 416-432, and notes upon our next section.

(a) Through the preaching of the gospel in all the world, the kingdom of Christ is steadily to enlarge its boundaries, until Jews and Gentiles alike become possessed of its blessings, and a millennial period is introduced in which Christianity generally prevails throughout the earth.

Dan. 2: 44, 45-"And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."

Mat. 13: 31, 32-"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed.... which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof "the parable of the leaven, which follows, apparently illustrates the intensive, as that of the mustard-seed illustrates the extensive, development of the