120

CHAP. XVIII.

CHRIST'S ADMONITION TO HIS CHURCH IN THE PRESENT CRISIS.

If the conclusion to which the foregoing discussion has conducted us be a legitimate conclusion; if we are now indeed arrived at that particular crisis, which it has been the object of these pages to designate; then the passage of Scripture with which the preceding chapter has been closed, is one of the most interesting and momentous on which, at the present time, our attention can be fixed; for it is the very passage in which Christ, at this important crisis, is addressing himself to his church, and admonishing his people of their danger, duty, and interest. We have already remarked on the striking manner in which this admonition is intro

duced. The narrative of the vision, as represented to St. John, is suddenly interrupted by an awakening voice, which we perceive from internal evidence to be the voice of Christ himself; who having uttered the admonition in question, the narrative proceeds, and the vision is instantly resumed; so that the admonition is precisely what it was before stated to be, a parenthetical admonition; and is the more awakening and impressive, from the very circumstance of its being thus unexpectedly introduced: "He then that has ears to hear, let him hear," what Christ now saith unto his church, "Behold, I come as a thief: blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments; lest he walk naked, and they see his shame."

To give prominency to this most important passage, and to excite attention to the seasonable instruction contained in it, has been the ultimate design of the writer in this essay; and he should feel that he had conducted his attempted ex

position of prophecy in a very defective and unprofitable manner, if, after having endeavoured to point out to the people of God the crisis in which they are now placed, he should omit distinctly to set before them, the great practical purposes, in respect to which alone the knowledge of their situation can be of any real advantage to them.

In order more clearly to understand these admonitory words of Christ as ad dressed at the present crisis to his church, we may consider them as intended to rouse the attention of his people to three things, namely, to the near and sudden approach of the predicted time of unprecedented trouble; to their immediate duty in the full anticipation of this event; -to the encouragement, with which in this emergency he excites them to the discharge of it.

Behold, I come as a thief." The very word with which this admonition is introduced is of an awakening tendency,

and is calculated to stir up the people of God to the consideration of those aweful signs of the times, which the concurrent testimony of prophecy and of Providence place before their sight. "Behold: lift up your eyes. Regard with attention those indications, which announce the near approach of that time of trouble, such as never was, of which the Prophets have spoken, Behold, I come." "

124

CHAP. XIX.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINued.

THE coming of Christ is an event which is frequently mentioned in the New Testament, and has two different significations, which must be determined by the context. It sometimes denotes his personal advent, when He shall come to be the judge of quick and dead. In other places, it designates those visitations of his providence, by which He inflicts in this world the predicted judgments on the enemies of his church.* It is evidently

* See Matt. xvi. 28., where the event predicted under this expression is generally understood to be the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish state and polity. "Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."