THE FINAL ADVENT OF CHRIST.

REV. H. F. BURDER, D. D.

JEWIN STREET CHAPEL, DECEMBER 17, 1833.

"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them."-REV. xx. 11.

THE volume of unfulfilled prophecy must be almost unintelligible to those who have not studied the bold imagery and peculiar symbols of the ancient prophets; a want of acquaintance with the meaning and use of those striking metaphors, has led some to apply to the literal and final advent of Christ, predictions which were to be understood figuratively, and which refer to signal interpositions of the power of Christ, without his personal advent and without his visible reign. As the shortest and the safest method of proof and illustration, previously to entering immediately on the consideration of the subject appointed, let me read to you a few specimens of prophetical language.

The first to which I will direct your thoughts you will find in Isaiah xiii., and it is entitled (for it is a separate prophecy), "The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see;" and was unquestionably a prediction of the capture and desolation of Babylon by the Medes and Persians. Yet observe in what terms that prophecy is expressed: "They came from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the Lord, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger." Now this is not the only passage in which the heavenly bodies are represented as symbols of the ruling powers. The cutting down of the sun and moon and stars is intended to mean the fall and ruin of those who did bear sway in the political relations of a country.

Again, in Joel ii., we have this phraseology: "It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come." Now, the Apostle Peter himself, on the day of Pentecost, applies the first part of that prophecy to the pouring forth of the Holy Ghost on that very day, and therefore authorises us to refer that day of the Lord, which is so terrible, to that period in which Christ may be said figuratively to have come, to destroy Jerusalem, and lay in ruins the temple, and terminate the civil polity of the Jews, so that they may be dispersed over all countries; which dispersion, you know, continues to the present day.

I will only refer to one other passage, in order to confirm these preliminary remarks, and that is in Daniel vii.: "I beheld till the thrones were cast down; and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body was destroyed, and given to the burning flame." Now when you examine strictly that prophecy in its connexion, and attend to the chronology of the whole passage, it is plain that it is a description of the destruction of the Papal Antichrist, the beast and the false prophet, previous to the millenial reign of the Son of God; a period, not we presume very far distant, but which is to take place in order to the peaceful, glorious, yet invisible, spiritual reign of our Lord Jesus Christ upon this earth; not that he will then appear and reign in person, (as some suppose, from mistaken views of the figurative language of these and other passages,) but that he will then, by the power of the Word and his Spirit, be the acknowledged Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and also when the whole of this world's population shall be brought to believe on his name, and to subject themselves willingly to his peaceful rule.

Very different however from the passages already adduced, is the meaning of the predictions given in the words that have been read as our text. Of this we may be certain, from the place which it occupies in the scheme of prophecy in this book of the Revelations. It is not only after the prediction of the termination of the great prophetical period of twelve hundred and sixty years, which is to mark the duration of the reign of the Papal Antichrist, a period to which the last passage I quoted distinctly refers; but after the millenial period itself shall have closed, which is introductory to the consummation of all things and to the final state of the children of men. And, brethren, it is impossible to arrive at close, definite, satisfactory, sober-minded views of this, or any other prophecy, without taking the whole system and scheme into view-seeing the place it occupies, what precedes, what follows, what is the general bearing of the whole, and on what scriptural principles it may be justly and correctly interpreted. "As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him." To this the passage I first read refers; because it includes the distinct prediction of the glorious period of the millenial reign: "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their works."

Now a similar phraseology is introduced in that passage in the book of Daniel. As is common in many other parts in the Scriptures, the phraseology is borrowed from the proceedings of the last day, though applied to predictions that are to take place long before: but that other passage refers to judgment

on nations, and nations can only be judged and punished in the present life: that was the judgment of Antichrist: but the passage before us refers to the judgment of the whole world as made up of individual men. Such is the representation of the passage which is read before us; "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

And

The spirit-stirring words which have been read set before us three things:The final advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, in order to judge the world: the proceedings of the judgment itself: and the results by which it will be followed.

In the first place, contemplate THE FINAL ADVENt of Christ in order to JUDGE THE WORLD. "Where is the promise of his coming?" the sceptics will be contemptuously asking, after the period of the one thousand years of millenial blessedness shall have closed. And in the midst of all their infidelity(for infidelity is to assume a power-it is distinctly asserted there will be a conspiracy against the saints of God, even after the millenium shall have closed,) and in the midst of all their infidelity, of all their malignity, and all their conspiracies against the people of God, the day will come upon them as a thief in the night; at a moment when they shall be saying "Peace and safety," sudden destruction shall arise. At midnight, perhaps, the cry will be heard, “Behold he cometh!" A splendour, such as Saul beheld on his way to Damascus, such as the Apostle John beheld in Patmos-yes, an appearance far more intense, may suddenly beam forth from the face of the approaching Judge, and light up the heavens with a blaze of glory. Now will be the manifestation of the Son of God; he will be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, appearing in all the glory of his Father, when he shall come to be justified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe. How unlike the babe of Bethlehem-how unlike the carpenter of Nazareth-how unlike the wearied traveller at Jacob's well-how unlike the prostrate suppliant at Gethsemane-how unlike the buffetted, scourged, and crucified man of Calvary is He that cometh, with all his holy angels at the last great day! The multitude of angels, with a shout loud as from numbers without number, pause only in their acclamations that the deep silence which succeeds may be broken by the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God. That Archangel, the herald of the highest rank in the creation, shall first proclaim the second advent of Messiah, and then that appalling and unearthly trumpet, once heard on Sinai, shall summon from their dust the sleepers of the grave.

Now mark the language of the thirteenth verse of the passage before us: "The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell"—or rather Hades, retaining the word in the original-" Death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them." Death is represented here as having had possession of the bodies of men, both as regards the righteous and the wicked. "Hades," that is, the world unseen, (for so the word signifies) not the place of punishment, for that is not here meant; it is not the same word in the originalHades is represented as having had possession of the souls of men, both as regards the righteous and the wicked. Death, then, is compelled to surrender the bodies, and they rise to die no more. The unseen world surrenders the

souls of men, from its two great divisions-the one the abodes of the righteous, and the other the abodes of the wicked, and these souls now enter their risen bodies, preparatory to the judgment.

With this connect the words of our Lord in John v. where we find him saying" As the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." From this passage, compared with that before us, we may suppose, that when the trumpet of the Archangel shall sound, all the dead, both the righteous and the wicked, will come forth; they who have been buried with every honour that could be paid them, and they who have been buried without honour, they who have not been buried at all, and they who had been cast into the depths of the ocean, or devoured by its mighty inhabitants-the sea, as well as the land, shall give up the dead that are in it.

It is indeed said, the dead in Christ shall rise first; but the meaning, as explained by the Apostle himself is, that they shall not rise before the saints then living shall be transformed: the happy spirits of the departed, who have slept in Jesus shall accompany their Lord on his descent from heaven. When the trumpet shall sound their happy spirits shall re-enter their bodies, now vigorous, beauteous, glorious, resembling the glorified body of the Saviour. That resurrection shall be immediately followed by the glorious transformation, without death, of those saints of God who shall then be living on the earth. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," shall that stupendous change take place. Oh, how impossible, my friends, it is for us to conceive of the rapturous ecstacy of those who, in a moment, shall exchange, without tasting the bitterness of death, such bodies as ours, for a transformed, perfect, glorious body, to live in blessedness to all eternity! What must be their ecstacy and transport when conscious of the wondrous change?

And now comes down the fire from God out of heaven, kindled by the word of the Son of God: and now the flaming fire lights up, in one tremendous copflagration, the burning world. The day of the Lord now comes as a thief in the night, and the earth and the "heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burnt up." To this hour they had been kept in store, reserved unto fire in the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Previously to this, both the risen and the transformed saints will have been taken up together to meet the Lord in the air, so as to be elevated above the dissolving elements of this burning world, and be in tranquil security the astonished spectators of the awful scene. Doubtless, the wicked that will be destroyed in that deluge of fire will subsequently receive bodies formed for degradation and suffering, in which they must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. Oh, my friends, what a thought is this, that they shall rise, it is expressly said, "to shame and everlasting confusion!" The world has never yet seen a human body raised from the dead for the very purpose of being summoned before God for judgment, there to receive the sentence due to the sins committed in the body. Oh, how terrible is the thought, how tremendous the contemplation!

Such is the Scripture revelation with regard to the advent of the Son of God.

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Let us now contemplate, in the second place, THE PROCEEDINGS TO WHICH THIS WILL LEAD. And I saw a great white throne." It is the judgmentseat of Christ. He is the Judge of all: "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son. "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God;" the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the prince and the peasant; none are too insignificant to be overlooked; none too great to be brought to the bar. And shall I be there? is the question which every one now present should ask himself. And there is but one answer that can be given: every one of us must actually stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. It is recorded in the chapter that sets before us, in our Lord's own language, the proceedings of the Judgment, that when the dead shall be raised, and the Son of Man shall come in his glory, he shall separate them one from another with as much facility as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall place the sheep on the right-hand, and the goats on the left. Thus the sentence will be anticipated; and how can it be otherwise? Those who have died in successive ages have known already whether they are among the saved or the lost; for no human spirit can quit the body at death, and enter the unseen world, without having a place, even then, assigned it, which will fix the eternal destiny, and make that destiny distinctly and `perfectly and irrevocably known to every one that goeth forth out of this life and out of this world. Do you ask, then, What end can be answered by the scrutiny of the day when the Son of Man shall come the second time? The answer is, It is to bring forth, before the universe, the entire manifestation of individual character; it is to publish to the whole world the evidence on which the sentence will in every instance rest; it is to justify, as well as to pronounce, the decision of the Omniscient and Righteous Judge. For this reason it is represented in the passage before us, that the books are opened, and the dead are judged out of those things which are written in the books according to their works. There is here evidently an allusion to the records which men write in books, because reliance cannot fully be placed on the register of their own memory. But can any thing escape the memory of Him before whose eye the past and the future are alike and perpetually present? His memory is itself the book by which he will judge the world; his own eye penetrates the entire character of every one of all the myriads before his bar, seizes all in one view; all the actions, and all the motives, and all the principles, and all the passions, of every human being. With what feelings, my friends, ought we to read the 139th Psalm: "O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising; thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." What will be the memory of man at that great day! What a resurrection there will be of thoughts! What crowds of deeds and words and habits and thoughts will rush upon the memory, and arouse the conscience! Oh, how the rapid, the impartial, proceedings of that silent tribunal within the heart will anticipate the decision of the Supreme Judge! Have you never known, my friends, what it has been to have the memory of past events and of past doings crowd upon your mind, instantaneously, when the recollection has been roused by something you have heard? The deeds of other days, and the thoughts of other days, long since gone by, may rush upon your memories like a torrent, which it is impossible to stay; perhaps inflicting most insufferable anguish, perhaps most unwelcome and most disquieting. What, then, must be the rush of memory, the crowd of recollections when the spirit