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Second Discourse.

THE DROWSINESS OF THE VIRGINS-THE DIFFERENT VIEWS OF ITWHAT IT REPRESENTS-TRACED THROUGH THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH-THE MIDNIGHT CRY-ITS QUICKENING EFFECT THE TRIMMING OF THE LAMPS-THE DISCOVERIES WHICH SHALL BE MADE BY CHRISTIANS WHEN THE MOMENT OF CHRIST'S RETURN ARRIVES AN APPEAL UPON THE SUBJECT.

"While the Bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps," &c.-MATT. xxv. 5–13.

I COME now to call attention to what befell these virgins "while the Bridegroom tarried." The Savior gives it in very few words:

They all slumbered and slept."

What is to be understood by this drowsiness, has been variously explained. Some of the fathers took it as denoting the sleep of death and the slumber of the grave. I cannot so interpret it. The word rendered "slumber," and which expresses one stage of this drowsiness, is from a root which signifies to nod, which does not very well describe a deathscene, and which is nowhere used in such a connection. Again, the unfurnished virgins, even after being aroused from their sleep, were directed to go

* vvoraw, from vɛvw, to nod the head from sleepiness.

and buy the lacking oil from those who had it to sell, and so repair their deficiency; which does not at all agree with that fixedness which death is everywhere supposed to put upon moral character and condition. "Life is the time to serve the Lord,

The time to insure the great reward."

When life is once past, and the Judge has sent forth his summons to awake the dead, their time for procuring the necessary provisions against that hour will be over and gone. Again, if we take this slumbering and sleeping to be death, we must assume that there will be no true Christians living on the earth when the Lord comes. As "all" the virgins slept, so all denoted by the virgins would be dead at the time of the Bridegroom's arrival; which would be contrary to many plain declarations of Scripture. (1 Cor. xv. 51.) The awaking of these virgins is also represented as occurring some little time, at least, before the Bridegroom himself comes; whereas the resurrection of the saints from the dead is everywhere spoken of as contemporaneous with the advent. Besides, the whole machinery of the parable is disjointed by referring this sleep to death; the very thing which it was meant to enforce upon the living is precluded, and the Savior is presented in the absurd attitude of exhorting living people to be on the alert for an event which can come only to the dead.

Others, again, take this slumbering and sleeping to refer to a certain "carnal security" which is to come over the Church of the last times,—at least, "a certain acquiescing in the present time and in the

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

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