present things" which shall greatly hinder the necessary readiness to meet the Lord. That some sense of security is involved, I have no doubt, for no one ever slumbers or sleeps without some such feeling; but that it is a "carnal security," or a descent from proper Christian character to the spirit of the unconverted world, I cannot allow. No carnal man shall ever enter into the kingdom of heaven; and no consenter to the spirit of this world shall ever go in to the marriage of the Lamb. Nor can any such characters be accounted virgins of Christ's Church. The Scriptures everywhere rate them among the unclean, whose place is without, among the unbelieving, sorcerers, and idolaters; whereas the text speaks only of virgins who were at the time waiting for their Lord, and one-half of whom entered in to partake of the highest honors of the kingdom. And to interpret the sleep in which Christ finds them at his coming as denoting any thing carnal, or the prevalence of a spiritual stupor akin to that of the unregenerate, would quite obliterate the distinction between nature and grace, and make the parable propose a premium for that very negligence and sloth which it was meant to rebuke and to supersede by untiring watchfulness and fidelity.

The essence of this slumbering and sleeping I am disposed to find in a certain dulling and deadening of the Church to the specific subject of the Bridegroom's coming.* It was the prospect of his speedy

*So also Maldonatus and others.

coming that was the all-animating theme of these virgins. It was this that brought them together, that led them forth, and that held them for a time in high and joyous expectation. And had this deep. interest and lively anticipation of the Bridegroom's coming remained, it certainly would not have been said of them either that they "fell a-nodding," or that they slept. But the Bridegroom tarried,-not really, but with respect to their anticipations. The long delay and consequent disappointment served to blunt that intense and animating interest with which they set out. And the longer he tarried, the more distantly was his coming apprehended. Other thoughts than those of a speedy meeting of their Lord began to steal upon their hearts, and they began to make themselves easy upon that subject. They had thought so often that they saw the light of his approach gleaming in the sky and heard the footsteps of his train and the shouts of his attendants. drawing near, and yet found themselves mistaken, that they were no longer moved by such hopes as at the beginning. They do not retire from their position of waiting. They do not give up the hope of his coming. It is only the likelihood of his near approach which they surrender. It is simply their once lively interest in the subject which they permit to die away. They settle down in their places, no longer caring, and hoping, and thrilling with anticipation, as once; and one and another begins to nod with heaviness, until finally they all sink away from their former wakefulness and all slumber and sleep. It is not a

return to a carnal state; neither is it a mingling and acquiescence with the spirit of the world. Their places, their virginity, their lamps, their general attitude of waiting, all remain the same. They are all harmonious, and all have their lamps lit. But their enthusiasm on the near advent of their Lord has abated. Their expectation has lost its ardor. Of course, some of them began to nod sooner than others, and the sleep of some was profounder than that of others; but in some degree "they all slumbered and slept."

And in proportion to this their stupor to the great event for which they had gone forth, there was also a deleterious influence exerted upon their general piety. Though still waiting, it was a very dull and stupid sort of waiting. Though virgins, they were indulging themselves in a way very hazardous to their purity. And though their lamps still burned, they had become greatly dimmed meanwhile, and needed to be trimmed afresh to be ready for the Bridegroom's coming.

Nor is it difficult to trace the approach of this stupor and its gradual settlement upon the Church. History speaks with great distinctness upon the subject. I have already referred to the joyous eagerness with which the early Christians anticipated the speedy return of their Lord. It was their great consolation under all their great sufferings that soon Christ would be revealed from heaven to judge their enemies, establish his blessed kingdom over all the earth, and give reward unto his servants and ever

lasting joy to all his true people. All Christendom was animated with "the blessed hope" of "the glorious appearing of the great God, even our Savior Jesus Christ." It was this that sustained them amid persecution, banishment, and poverty, and that made them welcome even the blood and fires of martyrdom itself. But, as age after age rolled away without bringing the expected Lord, interest in the subject began to flag, and Christians began to lose their original ardor with reference to it. Mosheim tells us that the philosophy of the third century proved very detrimental to it, introducing, as it did, ways of contemplating it to which the apostles and their associates were entire strangers. This celebrated historian assures us that the opinion of Christ's speedy coming to reign on the earth was, in the second century, "diffused over a great part of Christendom; that the most eminent doctors afvored it; and that no controversy with them was moved by those who [may have] thought otherwise." He quotes Tertullian as speaking of it as "the common doctrine of the Church." Then, at least, the whole body of Christians were at one upon this subject. "Down to the times of Origen," says he, "all the teachers who were so disposed openly professed and taught it. But Origen assailed it fiercely, for it was repugnant to his philosophy; and by the system of biblical interpretation which he discovered he gave a different turn to those texts of Scripture on which the patrons of this doctrine most relied. The consequence was that it lost its influence with most

Christians."

The virgins began to nod.

"But a

little past the middle of this [third] century," he tells us, "Nepos, an Egyptian bishop, endeavored to revive it and give it currency, by an appropriate treatise, which he called a Confutation of the Allegorists. This book was admired by many in the district of Arsinoë, and was thought to confirm the visible reign of Christ on earth by the most solid arguments. Hence great commotions arose in that part of Egypt, and many congregations gladly resumed their expectation of the future millennium.” Christendom again lifted up its head, opened its eyes, and began to listen for the coming of its Lord. "But these commotions were quieted by Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria, a pupil of Origen. He held a discussion with one Coracion and his followers, in which, by his admonitions, arguments, and exhortations, he induced them to give up the opinion they had derived from the treatise of Nepos.' "'* And the virgins dozed again. Presently up rose Methodius, the pious Bishop of Tyre, and put forth his Feast of the Ten Virgins, and then the earnest Apollinaris, the Bishop of Laodicea, in two Books against Dionysius, and then the eloquent Lactantius, in his Institutes of Divinity,-each in his turn endeavoring to awaken the Church to its ancient hopes and interest in the return of its Lord; but the drowsy virgins barely opened their eyes at their calls, and dozed again in still deeper slumbers. And thus, with now

* See Mosheim's Historical Commentaries, ii. 244–250.