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x. 37.) James also wrote "to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, . . . stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." (James v. 8.) Peter wrote to the saints in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, "The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." (1 Peter iv. 7.) John wrote, "Little children, it is the last time; and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time." (1 John ii. 18.) And yet those apostolic days all passed away, and still "the Bridegroom tarried." There are, indeed, hints and intimations in the apostolic writings that the Savior's coming was not so near as many anticipated. It has been very properly remarked that "the same St. Paul who addressed the Thessalonians in his first Epistle as if they, yet alive, were to behold the coming of Christ, in his second warns them that his words were meant to justify no such certainty, inasmuch as that the day of Christ was to be preceded by a great and conspicuous apostasy. The same St. James who had spoken of the same coming as drawing nigh, introduces his assertion with exhortations of endurance, and illustrations drawn from the 'long patience' of the husbandman waiting for the fruit of the earth. The same St. Peter who in his first Epistle contemplates the end of all things at hand, and bids Christians hope for the ' grace to be brought at the revelation of Christ,' in his second obviates objections to the tardy march of the expected Judge, not by denying the fact, but by

reminding his reader that the Lord is not slack as some men count slackness, but long-suffering to usward, and that the cycles of his providence are framed upon a scale in which one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. And the same book of Revelation which promises the rapid return of Christ, unfolds an antecedent series of events, probably to occupy long-revolving ages. ."* But, with all that, none of the first Christians ever supposed that the event for which they waited and hoped with so much anxiety would be delayed to this late day.

So, also, the companions and immediate successors of the apostles confidently expected that Christ would come in their day. About one hundred years after Christ, Clement wrote, "Let us every hour expect the kingdom of God." Barnabas also, about the same period, declared, "The day of the Lord is at hand, in which all things shall be destroyed, together with the wicked one." Ignatius, of the same age, wrote to the Ephesians, saying, "The last times are come upon us: let us, therefore, be very reverent, and fear." But the age of the apostolic fathers also passed, and still "the Bridegroom tarried."

Cyprian wrote, in the third century, "Let us ever, in anxiety and cautiousness, be awaiting the sudden advent of the Lord. . . . The kingdom of God has begun to be nigh at hand." Hippolytus expected it about the end of the fourth or fifth cen

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* Archer Butler's Sermon on The Uncertainty of Christ's Coming.

tury. So also Lactantius, and Ambrose, and Chrysostom, and Hilary, and Jerome, and Augustine. But the fourth, and fifth, and sixth, and seventh, and tenth, and additional centuries passed, and still "the Bridegroom tarried."

With the Reformation these expectations of the speedy coming of the Savior were revived with the revived Church. Savonarola spoke of the nearness of Christ's coming to take the kingdom. Luther said, "I ever keep it before me, and I am satisfied that the last day must be before the door; for the signs predicted by Christ and the Apostles Peter and Paul have all now been fulfilled: the trees put forth, the Scriptures are green and blooming. That we cannot know the day, matters not; some one else may point it out: things are certainly near their end." Melancthon said, "We may be sure that this aged world is not far from its end." Leo Juda said, "The time of his glorious last coming to judge all the world, both quick and dead, is now already nigh at hand." Latimer said, "The last day cannot be far off. Peradventure it may come in my days, old as I am." But the days of the Reformers also passed, and still "the Bridegroom tarried."

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1

Again, other epochs were specially named. Whiston computed the time for 1776; Jerieu, for 1785; Stilling, for 1816; Bengel and Wesley, for 1836; Miller and others, for 1843; Sander, for 1847; Schmucker, for 1848; and many devout people looked to these dates as marking the time in which the Bridegroom should come. But all these years

have gone, and yet he tarries.

There are some who

He may come

are very confidently expecting him to come in 1862, others in 1866, '7, or '8. "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." (Matt. xxiv. 36.) in one or the other of these years; but it is not unlikely that they will all pass and find him still tarrying. We certainly cannot be very remote from the time; but it is presumption for any one to undertake to tell when it shall be. This, however, we know, that in preaching and hoping that it is near at hand, and that any year these heavens may open and reveal to us the Son of God, we preach and hope as the apostles did, and put ourselves in the attitude of the best Christians in the purest periods of the Church.

I know that the facts I have just cited have furnished infidelity and rationalism a copious fund for sarcasm. Skepticism scorns a revelation so indefinite and liable to mistake on so important a point; and there be many even Christian men who are so affected by the jeers brought against them from this source, that they ignore the whole subject, and find no place for it in their studies, their sermons, or their hearts. But I learn from it quite a different lesson than that which brands apostles as fanatics and the words of my Savior as fables. I find in it a proof of the truthfulness of Scripture statements, and of the great wisdom of the Author of salvation. It proves the truthfulness of the Scriptures, in that they everywhere tell us that it is not for us, nor any

man, to know the times or the seasons. It exhibits the Savior's unsearchable wisdom in so arranging what he has said about the time as to secure the same practical effects for every age, without confining the promise to any.

It is one of the objects for which Christ is dealing with his people in this world, to teach them hope, watchfulness, fidelity, humility, earnest inquiry, and reverential awe,—and this in a large degree by means of the great and soul-moving theme of his return in power and glory to judge the world. Consider, then, what would be the effect if the hour of that return were definitely announced, as compared to the peculiar uncertainty in which it is left. I put the case in the language of another:-"If, for example, it be our duty to hope and haste unto this glorious epiphany, how is the preservation of this hope consistent with a certainty, and still more a certainty of distance? Would not the anxious and desiring solicitude that hangs upon the prospect of his appearing be suddenly (for all save the single generation that was to witness it) chilled into indifference by knowing it postponed in his own infallible announcement? Again if he would keep us in that state of watchfulness which he has himself so often and earnestly impressed, is it not to neutralize his own purpose, to remove the uncertainty which alone can make that vigilance necessary? If, too, it be his declared intention to test our fidelity, does he not destroy his own avowed test by rendering preparation necessary only to those who are apprized