fought against the cloudy pillar, while it troubled his hosts and took off his chariot-wheels; and according to the type of Balaam, whose eyes God had opened, while he taught Balak to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel; and according to the type of Sodom, which would have violated and profaned the angels of God; so shall their end be that have pleasure in unrighteousness: they shall have their hearts hardened, even by God himself; and they shall come in their desperate rage against Him whom they refused to believe in; against Him whom at length they have 'seen,' and can no longer therefore 'believe in;' and they shall fight against him: but he shall overcome them, 'for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful." (Rev. xvii. 14.)

"But the most important event (so accurately timed in the Bible as to leave no doubt that it takes place during the epiphany) is the resurrection of the dead in Christ, and the change both of them and the then living saints, in the act of their ass, or rapture unto the Lord in the air. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven (a cupavov,) with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we.... together with them'-we that are alive and remain, together with the risen ones'shall be caught up in the clouds to the Lord's aTvis, or gathering, in the air.' For although we shall not all be laid to sleep; although we are part in the grave, and part still of the number of the quick; nevertheless WE ALL (both parties)—we all' shall undergo THE CHANGE, 'in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incor

ruptible, and we shall be changed' (1 Cor. xv. 51, 52). And in this change, as I am led to conclude from an examination of all the Scriptures-in this change of all the children of God (without exception either of the quick or the dead) consists the mystery of our baptism in fire,' (v Tvoμari ayıp as Tupi, Matt. iii. 11; Luke iii. 16); the 'alteration' of 1 Cor. xv. 51, or the metamorphosis' of Matt. xvii. 2: for, indeed, on the authority of 1 John iii. 2, and Phil. iii. 21, we may assume the glory of our Lord's body (John i. 14; 2nd Pet. i. 16, 17) to be of the same kind as that which we are destined to receive. And this is the mystery' disclosed by St. Paul in 1st Cor. xv. 51, 57, even the particulars of that 'change,' or 'metamorphosis,' of us all.

"The word aravno, which I have translated by the Scotch term 'gathering,' occurs in the New Testament in three more places, besides that in 1st Thes. iii.; in two of which it distinctly refers to the same event. In Matt. xxv. 1, 'Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps and went forth to the azavrnois of the bridegroom'.. and at midnight there was a cry made; Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye forth to his aravinois. Five of those virgins, although expecting the Lord, had provided no oil in their lamps; and, what is indeed the most remarkable feature in the parable, and no doubt the key to its meaning, these become self-convicted of their folly, and, foolish as they are, they acknowledge the superior wisdom of their companions. They are shut out, however, because it is the Lord's arvois, and the ramyupis paτoronav, the convocation of the firstborn absolutely complete,' of Hebrews xii. 23; and the only one spoken of from Genesis to Revelation.*

*The remaining instance of the use of the word awarтnou is in Acts xxviii. 15.

For which reason, in Matt. xxiv. 31, and in Mark xiii. 27, we find again the description of a completed convocation, or gathering of all from one end of heaven to the other, a wavyups of the brethren of the Lord, immediately consequent upon, or rather contemporaneous, with his epiphany; while the mourning tribes still look upon HIM (not yet 'present') but only 'COMING;' and before the judgment of the nations, in the end of the succeeding chapter.

"And now, if it should be objected to the above observations, That the sign given of the Son of Man's approach, according to them, is no sign thereof at all, but the very thing itself, so far as concerns the elect-whose brethren, indeed, were the parties enquiring of the Lord-I reply, in the words of the Lord himself: 'In such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh' (Matt. xxiv. 44.) And upon the authority of the whole inspired volume I maintain, that unless we watch incessantly, and without remission, the signs of the times in which we live (not boasting of our age, as many do, but 'keeping all these things in our heart,' as the Lord's mother did, Luke ii. 19); unless we will give ourselves to observe the gradual fulfilment, and ere long the most stupendous and confounding and sudden fulfilment of the prophecies, still such; WE shall have no sign at all of the Lord's advent: we shall be taken by surprise, as the unwise virgins are, and, self-convicted beforehand of our egregious folly, we shall hear him say, 'I never knew you.' Yea, although we may have 'prophesied in his name, and in his name cast out devils, and in his name done many wonderful works;' and 'though we speak with the tongues of angels, and have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and

all knowledge, and have all faith so that we can remove mountains, and bestow all our goods to feed the poor, and give our bodies to be burned, IT IS NOTHING!' So long as we do not love the children of God, and much more, 'the Only Begotten Child,' well enough to look for, to hasten, to watch for, and to love their deliverance in His epiphany. 'Prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them that believe! (1st Cor. xiv. 22).

"Brothers in the study of unfulfilled prophecy, and in the desire of the Apocalypse of the Lord from heaven, 'of the times and the seasons ye have no need that I write unto you: for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say Peace and Safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. BUT YE, BRETHREN, ARE NOT IN

DARKNESS THAT THAT DAY SHOULD OVERTAKE YOU

AS A THIEF: ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night nor of the darkness; therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us WATCH, and be sober' (1st Thess. v.— read to the end of the chapter).

"One of the Pentecostal gifts of the Spirit is said, in 1st Cor. xiv. 22, to be 'for A SIGN, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.' The evil and adulterous generation of the Apostles' contemporaries they had their sign (Matt. xii. 39), a sign to tell them that it was none other than God's only Son whom they had slain; and I say that a generation more false than they, in which shall be found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth' (Rev. xviii. 24), shall also have its sign of the advent of its Judge.

"Of what avail the sign of the epiphany may be

to the world, is not very clearly, or at least not easily, discoverable. It is written, indeed, concerning the day of the punishment of Leviathan and the Dragon, 'Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me, and he shall make peace with me' (Isai. xxvii. 5); but it is written again, and that in more positive terms, concerning some period (and I see not what other period it can be but that of the epiphany, when, the Son of Man becoming an object of sight, men, like the devils, may believe and tremble,) 'Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you; then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me' (Prov. i. 24-28; xxi. 18; Psa. xviii. 41; Job xxxv. 12; Rev. xxii. 10-12, &c). Then shall the sun be darkened; and 'I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sack-cloth their covering,' saith the Lord; and in the midst of that thick darkness shall the Lord shine forth, in the glorious company of his catholic church. In that day, the Lord God of hosts coming forth from his dwelling-place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, shall be seen on high; and the infidel shall know, and the Assyrian shall quake to behold it; and all people shall see the grand purpose of God achieved in the gathering of his elect. This shall be the sign of his coming to the affrighted world; a sign to tell them, It is now too late (Psa. xviii.);