needs relate to the earthly life, and not to the disembodied or post-resurrection state.

But, in order to obtain a proper conception of the fate of these unwise virgins, it will be necessary to take a wider survey of the matters involved.

Let it be observed, then, in the first place, that the Scriptures do contemplate the world as continuing, and men in the flesh as abiding on it, after Christ comes. The Savior's advent will neither end the existence of the earth nor cut short the continuance of the race upon it. There will be many changes, and the population of the earth will be extensively diminished, by the translation of the saints, on the one hand, and the destruction of Antichrist and the wicked powers under him, on the other. But very many of those alive at the time will continue. The Jews, as a nation, are not to be restored till after Christ comes, and must, therefore, continue. Even those who are to be most efficient in forwarding the final regathering of Israel are to be persons who "escape" the terrific judgments which Christ will inflict upon his enemies at his coming. (Isa. lxvi. 15-20.) As we are specifically told that the translation will not embrace all, that only some will be "taken," while others are "left," (Matt. xxiv. 40, 41,)—so we are informed with equal explicitness that the destruction will not by any means include all who are not translated. Great shall be the tribulation that will then come upon the world,-so great that "except those days should be shortened there should no flesh be saved; but," the Savior says, "those days shall

be shortened," (Matt. xxiv. 22,) and hence, by neccssary implication, that SOME FLESH SHALL BE SAVED; that is, made to survive those judgments, as millions of the Jews survived the destruction which befell their nation for its rejection of Christ. And among those who are "left" when the translation occurs, and "saved" when the judgment of the "nations" takes place, will be a great number of feeble Christians, who are none other than these unwise virgins, who had not oil enough to be ready when their more provident comrades were "taken."

Again, the Scriptures leave room for the belief that repentance and deliverance from the penalty and power of sin will be no less possible in the age which is to come than in the present dispensation. Indeed, the great turning of Israel from their ungodliness to the true Messiah, of which the prophets say so much, and the grand revival which it is to introduce all over the world, is distinctly placed after the advent, and within the future dispensation. It is only after "he" [the Judge] "shall come down," and "shall have dominion also from sea to sea," that "they that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him," and that "he shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence." (Ps. lxxii. 14.)

The Savior himself has also given utterance to a text which has very important bearings upon this point. Speaking of the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, he says, "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him, [shall be pardonable;] but whosoever speaketh

against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, [shall not be pardonable,] neither in this world, neither in the world to come." (Matt. xii. 31, 32.) For strength of expression and fearfulness of import, these are among the Savior's most powerful words. They describe an offence which they pronounce, now and forever, beyond all possibility of pardon. But along with this terrific announcement there clings the implication, which no legitimate exegesis can exclude, that for all grades of human guilt short of this, as there is forgiveness now, so there will be also hereafter. So Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, Olshausen, and many more, construe the passage.

It is a mistake, however, to understand "the world to come" to be Hades, or the realm of the dead,-as though persons dying in sin may yet be pardoned and saved. There is here no reference to the state after death, unless, perhaps, in a very remote way and to a very slight extent. The phrase "world to come" is nowhere in Scripture applied to the invisible abode of the dead. Though many deaths are referred to, not a saint is ever spoken of as having gone or come to that "world." Not one of the sacred writers in the remotest degree has connected together death and entrance into "the world to come." Indeed, to the great majority of the human family Hades is not a future world at all, and was not at the time the Savior spoke these words. Except to those now living, it is a present world,—a world that has already come, and which cannot be properly spoken of as so completely future as that of which

the Savior here speaks. Besides, the word does not strictly mean world. The original is awv, age, dispensation, order of things.* The two "worlds" referred to are simply two sections of time, two periods, two eras of the Divine administrations, and those on the same general theatre and in the history of the same affairs,-not two distinct scenes of being and modes of existence. The Scriptures also speak everywhere of "the world to come" as an age of time which belongs to the whole Church, which no one member reaches before another, and which embraces the hidden and spiritual only as connected with the visible and earthly. Men, in the glorified state, will be concerned in it, as angels have been concerned in former dispensations; but it is the visible world on which it is to rise, and it is the affairs of the visible world of which it is to be another form of administration. Paul characterizes it by a word which makes this very clear. He calls it "the oizovμɛy to come." This term is never applied to Hades, or to any invisible or supernal realm. It means the inhabited earth, the visible world of living people. It is never used with reference to heaven, and cannot with any propriety be so applied. It fixes "the world to come" to our own globe, and to an economy investing it,—just as the Roman empire and the world in which the apostles were sent to preach-which are denoted by the same word-belonged to the literal visible abode of man. The thing

* The Berlenburg Bible renders it "Weltlauf," and "Jetzigen Weltzeit," this course of the world, the present period of the world.

meant is simply another era and economy in God's eternal kingdom upon the earth. The epoch of its commencement is that of the second coming of Christ, at which all present orders and commissions cease. "This world," then, as distinguished from that world, is simply the present dispensation, the order of things which now governs, the gospel economy, which had already been introduced when these words were spoken, and which was the subject of such blasphemous opposition on the part of those to whom they were addressed. It is the same under which we still live, and which will remain until the Savior comes.

I therefore take the passage as clearly teaching these four things:-First, that there is to be another dispensation of the affairs of the kingdom of God upon earth after the present; second, that the sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be pardonable, either in this dispensation or in that by which it is to be succeeded; third, that in both these dispensations all other sins are pardonable upon repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; and fourth, that, accordingly, the unreadiness in which the coming of Christ shall overtake many Christians then living need not be viewed as cutting them off from ultimate salvation, nor yet from very exalted excellencies in the kingdom, notwithstanding that it excludes them forever from all the peculiar joys and dignities of the marriage.

Again, it is to be noted that the Scriptures teach that there are differences of grade and position among