both will be loosed. The reign of peace will be over, Satan will be unbound. His appetite for mischief whetted by his long forced abstinence, he will "go out to deceive the nations," and "to gather them for the last great battle of Almighty God," the last and final effort of rebellious Evil.

But where will he find his aiders and abettors ? Where but in those who might have put on the form of godliness during that reign of godliness, but who never knew the power of it? Where but among the children of God's saints, who could not communicate grace, and did communicate to their children their own infected nature? The bodies of those saints were not regenerate, though their spirits were. But until the body also is regenerate, evil is not rooted out from man, nor Satan's power made incapable of harming him. Thus comes at last the great final outbreak, the last desperate effort of the great Adversary, and of those who willingly do his works. The absolute necessity of the destruction of this earth is demonstrated by all these things to the whole intelligent universe; Justice condemns; Mercy can plead no more; and the earth passes away in the consuming flame. The "Church, caught up to

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the

meet the Lord in the air," looks down upon globe melting in the fire, and sees the Almighty Word calling into being out of the purified elements new heavens and a new earth," to be the happy, sinless, peaceful, undisturbed dwelling of the redeemed, on which no tempter shall ever reign, no moral darkness ever brood, but where the light of the glory of the Lord shall make it day without any night for ever.

The Bible gives us something more than glimpses of the marvellous truth, that this earth of ours is the theatre on which millions of eyes are fixed, on which events are taking place which the angels desire to look into, on which the mysterious Evil, which cast down so many stars from heaven, which made so many immortal spirits bitter and eternal rebels, is being met, grappled with, and shall be finally overcome; where in Christ's victory, and in His people made "more than conquerors through Him that loved them," shall be displayed "to angels and principalities in heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God" (Eph. iii. 10), “ πολυποίκιλος σοφία,”—the prismatic varieties of the pure and eternal wisdom of God. As, when you turn the prism, the white light is cut and divided into all the glorious and beautiful

colours which exist in its mysterious oneness, even so God's holiness that hateth evil, His justice that must punish it, His truth that is pledged to destroy it, His wisdom that planned to consume it without harming man, His power that enabled him, His patience that waited, His love that devised it all, shall be exhibited by the Cross and in Him Who died thereon, to all created Intelligences.

68

"TIMES AND SEASONS."

THE last question which His Apostles ever put to Jesus, (though they knew not that it would be the last), was, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" That the kingdom would be restored to Israel they had no doubt. That Messiah would “take to Himself His great power and reign," they were certain. They only wished to know whether He would do it then. In His reply, the Saviour did not say that the kingdom should not be restored to Israel, but simply, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power." It is enough for you to be assured that "ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." These are the last recorded words of Christ, the answer to the last question ever put to

Him by His disciples. There are then "times and seasons," these "are in the Father's own power," but it was not for them to know them.

No one who has carefully studied the Bible will have failed to notice the very distinct and definite way in which certain "times " are spoken of. For example, the four hundred years (Gen. xv. 13), at the expiration of which the children of Abraham should be brought out of Egypt. The "seventy years" (Jer. xxix. 10), of their subsequent banishment from their own land, and their captivity in Babylon. The "seventy weeks" of Daniel. (Dan. ix. 24.) The "time, times and a half" of the same prophet (xii. 7); the "thousand two hundred and ninety days' (xii. 11); and after that the "thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." The "forty and two months" of the Revelation (ch. xi. 2), and the "thousand two hundred and threescore days" (v. 3.) That all these various numbers represent "times," accurately and exactly measured, and appointed by the Divine mind, we cannot doubt. That these, though stated in different words, and in numbers, some of which are to be taken literally, some after a mode of reckoning peculiar to prophetic language, yet all declare