to his revelation, and only when that hindrance should be removed would "that Wicked" be revealed. How long he would remain when revealed, is not remotely hinted by Paul.

It is only by claiming that Nero, the Roman emperor, who died A.D. 68, after a reign of thirteen years and eight days, was that man of sin, and hence that the prediction had been fulfilled, and that the brightness of Christ's coming had then transpired at Nero's death, that Dr. W. evades this passage. He

says:

"The man of sin,' 'that wicked.' In attempting to show whom Paul meant by these appellations I would speak with becoming diffidence where the ablest commentators of every age have been so much puzzled. Apart from that fact, however, I confess it does not seem to be such an unresolvable mystery, Three things, I think, ought to concur in the solution: 1, the man of sin must be a person; 2, he must be one in such position, and holding such relation to the Thessalonians as to be an object of apprehension to them personally

3, he must be, nevertheless, one whom, for some reason, it would be unsafe to name more definitely. . . . Taking these, then, as our clew, we are conducted at once to the emperor Nero as the monster in whom all the probabilities of the case meet.-Parousia, pp. 69, 70.

To this I reply: Not one of the three is involved in the text, or grows out of it.

Nero never sat in the temple of God,-whether we regard the Church as that temple, or the temple at Jerusalem,--" showing himself that he is God." No, never. Nor was Nero destroyed by the brightness of Christ's Parousia. Dr. Warren shall himself tell us

how he died :—

"In the midst of the siege of Jerusalem, [that is, two years before Titus besieged it,] and in the very flush of his power, Nero was suddenly hurled from the throne he disgraced, and died like a dog in one of the sewers of Rome."—Parousia, p. 75.

And is this all that is intended by the sublime lan"Whom the Lord shall consume with mouth, and shall destroy with the coming" [parousia]. Let him be

guage of Paul? the spirit of his brightness of his lieve it who can.

But Dr. Warren insists that the man of sin is identical with the wild beast having "seven heads and ten horns," in Revelation. In this view the thing is still more incongruous and irreconcilable. For the destruction, or perdition [apoolia], of that beast is to be-that he shall be taken, also his prophet, and be cast alive into a lake of fire (Rev. 19: 20). But Dr. W. says, "Nero died like a dog." Nero reigned thirteen years and eight days; but the Apocalyptic beast has "power given him to continue forty-two months." Whether the Doctor calls them forty-two literal months-1,260 days, or symbolic months-1,260 years, the time does not fit Nero in either case. I might name a large number of other points specified by Paul and John, which no more fit Nero than do those already noted. Therefore Nero is neither "the man of sin" of Paul, nor "the beast" of Revelation, and Dr. Warren's argument in support of the theory that the coming of the man of sin took place in Christ's generation, falls to the ground; nor did the Parousia take place in that generation.

As to the great mass of texts (seventy or eighty) to show that Christ, Peter, James, Jude and John taught the immediate coming of the Lord, nearly the whole of them are entirely indefinite as to the time of his coming. They assert the fact of his coming, the uncertainty of the time, and suddenness of the advent, but only a few can be made to speak at all of its nearness: and

they only in a relative sense. It is only in a relative sense, for instance, that Paul's language (Rom. 13: 11, 12) can be understood: "And that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand." What "salvation" came to the saints at Rome speedily following this letter, that they had not already received? None. The salvation to which Paul refers was a salvation still future, but drawing nearer; it was nearer at the time of writing than when they believed in Christ and received pardon and regeneration. If we call "the night" the course of sin which had then run over four thousand years, and its whole course to be six thousand, two thirds and more of that night were past, and "the day" of millennial glory was at hand relatively but not absolutely, for it has not yet come. Nor can Dr. Warren disprove this until he can show what salvation to the Roman Christians came speedily, -which he cannot do.

Dr. Warren says still further:—

"That the declarations of our Lord and his apostles, which I have cited, mean what they seem to mean as to the near approach of the Parousia, is evident from the connection in which they stand, and the purposes for which they were uttered. That doctrine is rarely or never advanced in the way of general, didactive statement, but always as having an important bearing for encouragement, incitement, or warning, on some present exigency, in which the very stress of the passage lies in the fact that the Parousia was near. When Christ told his disciples that he would come in the glory of his Father to reward every man according to his works, and added that some of them should not taste death till they had seen it,-what was it but to console them with the prospect of a speedy reward for their sufferings? Take away this element of speed iness, and the promise is robbed of its meaning.”—Parousia, p. 53.

This seems specious, but is groundless in fact. I have already shown that the two verses (Matt. 16: 27, 28) related to two entirely different events: verse 28 to his first royal advent, when he came to Zion as her king riding upon an ass and a colt the foal of an ass; and verse 27 to his coming in the clouds in royal majesty as universal monarch, as foretold Dan. 7 : 13, 14. It is the fact of final reward when the Lord does come, whenever it may be, on which nearly all the texts cited depend for their force. That the element of nearness has a practical power, I admit; but I do not admit that the mass of texts quoted (and I have weighed them one by one with care) contain the element of nearness, until after the foretold precursors have been developed. "Then know that it is near, even at the door," said Jesus.

66

THE PAROUSIA TO COME.

Another point in the foregoing argument, as well as at different points throughout the book, deserves notice. He speaks of "the fact that the Parousia was near." If, as the Doctor so strenuously contends, parousia signifies "presence," not "coming," what does he mean by was near"? Was there an interval of some forty years after Christ left his disciples on the mountain in Galilee, saying, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," to the time of Jerusalem's overthrow, when Christ's presence was not with them? I press this point and urge an answer. Was there forty years, more or less, when they had to work without his omnipresence? If there was not, and the time of his presence was still future when Paul wrote, where had

been his omnipresence? Either Dr. Warren or his reviewer is confused in his mode of apprehending and expressing this great theme. Does not the word near imply not yet here but coming: and if parousia is near, is it not coming? How is this?

That I do not misapprehend or misrepresent the Doctor's language or sentiments will still further appear from the following:

"Let the Parousia as a now existing fact be preached with as much earnestness as they preached it as an anticipated factin other words, that Christ has come and in now upon the throne of his kingdom, ruling, judging and rewarding men according to their works," etc.-Parousia, p. 55.

If this does not ignore Christ's presence with his people, and make it, in the days of the apostles, a still future event, and a coming, also, I confess I do not know what it does teach.

THIS SAME JESUS.

But Dr. Warren also says:—

"It is urged that the view I have presented is inconsistent with Acts 1: 11, which it is said teaches that Christ's second coming was to be a visible and bodily one, which certainly has not taken place and must be still future. 'Ye men of Galilee,

this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.' The meaning of this declaration depends on the phrase 'in like manner,' Greek, hon tropon."-Parousia, p. 61.

The Doctor then proceeds to show that hon tropon, rendered in the common version "in like manner," signifies "as," rather than "in like manner"; for example, “Wilt thou kill me as [hon tropon] thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?"—Acts 7: 28. I admit the force of his criticism on the phrase, and the correctness of his rendering" as ye have seen him go." But I am un