sound, the dead shall be raised incorruptible," and the living saints shall be in a moment similarly changed," and caught up to "meet the Lord in the air." Both these facts are clearly revealed in 1 Cor. xv., and in 1 Thess. iv.; and also intimated in such passages of the Old Testament, as Job xix., Isaiah xxvi., Dan. xii., Hosea xiii.

Now, we understand that the bodies of the saints which slept arise, after the image of Christ's resurrection body, He being "the first fruits of them that slept," and they the ripe ensuing harvest. The spirits of the righteous, and all the triumphant Church of paradise come down with Jesus, and such as are unclothed receive their risen new corporeal tabernacles of immortal flesh. The old earthly house of this body having been dissolved, they all have now the new resurrection body, the house not made with hands, the clothing of the soul, for a happy inheritance in the earth and heavens. But, before this eternity is entered upon, it is decreed, in the everlasting purposes of Jehovah, that these shall live and reign with Christ, on the re-baptized and regenerated earth, a thousand years. The rest of the dead-not regenerated by the Spirit of God-remain in their graves till the thousand years are ended (Rev. xx. 3), and the general judgment takes place. (Ver. 12.)

Such is the Scriptural doctrine of the first and "better" resurrection to which the saints under the old covenant aspired (Heb. xi. 16, 35), and for which Paul prayed (Philip. iii. 11). What that new life shall be on earth, when Christ and His saints are dominant and triumphant, we have not much Scriptural data to ground any certain descriptions upon. We are only assured (1) That, during this millennial state, the apostles of our Lord shall have supreme ruling powers under Christ, over the twelve tribes of Israel in the holy promised land, then "the glory of all lands." (Ezek. xx. 6, Matt. xix. 28.) (2) That the risen and changed saints shall possess the kingdom and dominion over the nations in the other parts of the earth, and regulate the affairs

of the Church, in a state of universal peace (Dan. vii. 18, 27; Ps. ii. lxxii.; Rev. xx. 4). (3) That the family of true believers shall be all united under One Head, and Priesthood, and the prayer of Christ to the Father shall then be fulfilled, "that they all may be one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." (John xvii. 21); (4) That the progress of the preaching of the Gospel shall be very rapid and extensive, under the latter down-pouring of the rain of the Holy Spirit's grace, so that "all shall know Him (Jesus), from the least to the greatest," "all nations shall call Him blessed," and the saving knowledge of the King Messiah shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. (5) That life shall be much prolonged, deaths rare, and fertility vastly increased.

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The millennial life of apostles and saints will, of course, be subject to none of the changes, trials, wants, infirmities, or inconveniences of mortals in the flesh. Their risen bodies will resemble our Saviour's after His resurrection. They will be pure and spiritual, not natural and carnal. This corruptible will put on incorruption; and this mortal will put on immortality." Powerful, like our Saviour's body risen from the grave of weakness, they move to and fro, without restraint from any obstruction of materiality, or any hindrance from the grosser elements. Space is in a measure annihilated, and matter exhausted, as in a vacuum, with regard to the capacity of the spiritual and immortal frame. This can be seen or unseen, partake of food or not, at pleasure. It may seem difficult for us to comprehend how the immortal saints can for a thousand years live and hold converse with mortal men in the flesh. Yet, the case presents no more, but rather less difficulty than our Lord's "forty days'" tarrying in His resurrection bodily state, and going in and out among His disciples during that period in the unregenerate condition of this earth. For, during the millennium, we believe, the regenerative life-giving influence from

Jerusalem will extend, more or less, over the whole world. It will then be the time of the "restitution of all things" to the Jews first, and also to the Gentiles. The dominion of the Lord by the blessed Gospel shall be "from sea to sea, and from the flood unto the world's end." "As soon as they hear of Him, they shall obey Him." "All kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve Him." And, though we must allow that they who are permitted to remain amid the millennial restitution, will not all be converted in heart, as true and loving children, for "the strange children, even then shall dissemble with Him" (Ps. xviii. 45); yet, we are assured that, till the very close of the millennium, these will be restrained; there will be no open manifestation, during the binding of Satan, of insubordination or disobedience any where, but "the camp of the saints," the Church of the living God, will be everywhere secure, unmolested, dominant in power, and triumphant in glory! In belief and prospect of this, let us be prepared, and pray to be partakers of this blessed life under the glorious reign of Messiah.

"Come, Thou, and, added to Thy many

crowns,

Receive yet one as radiant as the rest, Due to Thy last and most effectual work, Thy word fulfilled, the conquest of a

world!"

THE PARABLES OF THE THIRTEENTH OF ST. MATTHEW IN

RELATION TO THE SECOND

ADVENT.

THERE is a cheering sound arising in the Church of Christ, awakening a long slumbering interest in the subject of the second coming of our blessed Lord and Saviour. Believers are not now satisfied to take for granted the correctness of those views to which they have so long listened, which teach us that the state of material progress in which our lot is cast, is fast ushering in the millennial reign of universal peace and purity. In the prophetic language of both the old and new dispensations they read much of woe, of rebellion, of ungod liness which are to mark the "last

days," and very little of faith and holiness.

There are errors which strike at the very root of saving truths, such as denying the divinity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the absolute need of Christ's atonement as the satisfaction for a broken law; there are other errors which, though not so deadly yet seriously affect the power with which the gospel is preached, and deprive the church of that stimulating hope which will more than any other conduce to holiness of Life and Christian effort.

The different interpretations given of the parables in the 13th of St. Matthew, especially of the six which are generally called the "parables of the Kingdom," evidently receive their peculiar tone from the coloured medium through which they are viewed, and materially influence the construction placed upon them. They have in my opinion a special connection with the great questions involved in the subject of our Lord's coming again to this earth, and what He will find when He comes.

Let us in a prayerful, teachable spirit seek the guiding of the Holy Spirit to lead us to the true understanding of this important subject and enable us to divest ourselves of any impressions that are not in accordance with the general scope of the mind of our Great Teacher.

Our Lord's hearers were Jews, He Himself, as well as His apostles, was a Jew, and we must therefore try to place ourselves in their position and view all these questions as a Jew would have done. Losing sight of this spoils the interpretation of the whole.

In the endeavour to explain what our Lord intended in His illustrations when speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven," it is often taken for granted that He in every case intended to represent only that idea which He Himself would attach to that term; that is, something pure and holy; and that His view wasconfined simply to descriptions of the subjects of His kingdom, such as they will appear when He shall reign in righteousness, and all nations shall witness and rejoice in His glory. We are asked

to interpret the parables in accordance with these views. But this could not be His meaning, as the first, and I believe the second and third parables, speak of a mixture of good and bad.

This great difficulty is generally disposed of by again taking it for granted that our Lord spoke of a kingdom which He came to set up on earth at His first coming, which kingdom, however, the nation, instigated by Satan, opposed and rejected, while a few gathered out of the nation, alone being made willing to have Him to reign over them, accepted; and thus the kingdom of Heaven was set up in their hearts only.

The most careful examination of the subject will, however, I think fail to disclose that our Lord intended by the term " kingdom of heaven to apply the teaching in this way. In the parable of the sower indeed men's hearts are spoken of, but here it is the simple question of the effect of His word, in gathering His children out of the world, or as James said, "to take of them a people for His name." But in the six following parables not a word is said about men's hearts; it is in these the" kingdom of heaven."

I believe that our Lord, in the first three parables of the kingdom, is pointing out to His Jewish hearers their erroneous views of the Messiah's kingdom as they then expected to see it set up; and then in the next two teaches the nature of the true church in the world as seen by the Father. After giving a slight sketch of the parables, I hope to show in what consists the danger of the interpretation to which I object. And I may here observe that the views I am about to express, though probably new to some who may read these remarks, are by no means new in the church.

Now the term" kingdom of heaven" is said to have been commonly used by the Jews when speaking of the expected advent of the Messiah. With this they always associated the idea of temporal glory to the Jewish nation, with divine power, and the restoration of their pre-eminence over the Gentile world.

The Messiah, however, when He came, was rejected, and the true church was, and is still, a small, despised, hated thing, while a visible church is, as it was in Jewish times, an imposing, self-glorifying bodyvaunting itself up to heaven, but so far as we can see preparing for great judgments, when the Lord shall manifest Himself a second time in His glory.

The first parable in the chapter is the sower, it speaks of Christ the great husbandman sowing the word and the results of it. Even here only one part in four falls on good ground, this part alone brings forth the fruits of righteousness.

He then speaks of the " kingdom in six parables-the first three being man's view, and the last three the Father's view. They are, from the nature of the case, both historical and prophetic. Man is the same

under every dispensation, outward circumstances alone differ; but his relation to God and God's dealings with him are esentially the same at all times.

In the first of these six, the scene is laid in a "field" (ver. 24), which the Lord says is the "world" (ver. 38). The wheat and the tares describe two classes," the children of the kingdom, and the children of the wicked one.' Man cannot discern the difference between them with sufficient accuracy, and therefore their final separation must be the work of angels (ver. 39); who, being divinely directed, will make no mistakes.

Some prefer a more direct and perhaps more accurate application of the tares, by supposing that it is not all mankind who are included, but enemies who have crept in unawares, a class of wicked men introduced by Satan amongst God's people; thus showing his power to catch away that which was sown, as in the first parable-in fact, a mixture of good and bad that outwardly bore a resemblance to each other.

The second tells of a good seed; a mustard seed being sown and springing up becomes a great swelling thing, under the branches of which birds take shelter. See a description of Neb::chadnezzar's tree. (Daniel iv.) T

See also what part birds play in these scenes (ver. 4).

The third tells of "three measures of meal," again a good thing, corrupted and made perishable by being mixed with leaven, an emblem of what is human, and everywhere a bad thing. Leaven has the property of penetrating and swelling up the mass, making the meal indeed palatable to man, but it soon sours and becomes corrupt.

How does this correspond with the facts? All history tells the same story; it would take too long to enumerate even the best known facts which could have been brought forward even in our Lord's day. Before the deluge and after it, in the history of Abraham, of Moses, of Joshua, of Elijah, and others, we read of the good seed and the fine meal; we see men turning to God, the Church purified for a while, but as time goes on, and numbers increase, the world enters in and all goes wrong again. The name is retained, but the thing itself has lost all its purity till the man of God can see, even in the chosen nation, nothing but corruption, and is tempted like Elijah to think that he alone remains of all the seed which has not bowed the knee to Baal, and although the prophet was mistaken, yet of the thousands of Israel only seven thousand had escaped the corruption, and they apparently were not to be recognised by man, for Elijah was not aware of their existence.

But extending our view to Christian times, to which those appeal who teach the other view of these parables, and we see in a still more striking manner a confirmation of the saying that history repeats itself, and that these parables were in our Lord's time a true prophetic sketch of what history has since in part revealed to us. Some of the seed sown by the Son of Man and His apostles did bring forth fruit, but that

mystery of iniquity," which began to work in St. Paul's day swelled up, and when Christianity became a great thing on the earth, Constantine and other kings sheltered under it; many heresies sprang up in the church, and popery began to rear its

head; and soon, as far as man could see, nothing was left of true Christianity but the name. Darkness covered the Christian world, and gross darkness the people. There were indeed a few to be found in the Cottian Alps and elsewhere, hidden in dens and in caves, who had not bowed the knee to the Roman God, but they could not be discerned by man, and the few that had the truth would perhaps suppose that all the rest was 'leavened,' that all had been corrupted.

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May not the same thing in kind though not in form be seen now? The glorious Reformation did dispel much of this darkness, and a bright star was seen for a little while, but the leaven is still at work. What would Luther think if he could visit the nations which profess to be his followers, and call their church by his name! Would he not be tempted to feel that the thing had changed its colour, but not its nature, that idolatry was still rampant, that pleasure, and science, and gold, were shipped with all the fervour that marked the worshippers of Baal, and that true spiritual worship on the sound basis of Christ the only and all sufficient Saviour was nearly extinguished? Apostasy has marked every dispensation, and if we are to see in St. Paul's words what is certainly their literal meaning, the present dispensation will be no exception. (See 2 Thess. ii. &c.) God, however, even now does not leave Himself without witness, and has raised up many faithful prophets, whose sound preaching and earnest prayers for unfaithful nations and churches avert His judgments still.

We are generally taught that the mustard tree and the leaven represent the commencement and progress of true Christianity in men's hearts. A striking instance of this teaching is given in the Christian Advocate, for October, 1873, from the pen of Miss E. J. Whately, in a paper entitled "Thoughts on some Difficulties in the Parables."

Miss Whately writes: "A large class of modern interpreters, many of whom deserve respect not only for their piety, but for their diligent and

close study of the Scriptures, have maintained that two of these parables, those of the grain of mustard seed, and the leaven, refer exclusively to the progress of evil in the visible and external Church of Christ. That Church, in its early days pure and simple, became tainted with evil as it grew and increased in number and importance. The mustard seed (?) these commentators consider represents the external progress of evil in Christendom generally: the profession of faith which had been limited to a faithful few, was extended over the whole civilised world, and the Church consequently became the resort and harbour for the spirit of evil in various forms, worldliness, haughtiness and pride, false doctrine, and corruptions of every kind; the evil spirits and ungodly men being typified by the fowls of the air,' which took refuge in the branches of the tree sprung from a small plant." (Qu. seed?)

"The leaven on the other hand they view as typifying the spread and growth of the evil principle within the Church, gradually diffusing itself through the whole body of professing Christians, till at last it will be completely given up to evil unchecked and unmitigated."

Further on Miss Whately asks "How can the kingdom of heaven' signify something purely evil?"

The above description of our views would be very fair, but for a few glaring mistakes. The mustard seed does not represent the "progress of evil;" the seed is good, it is the tree that springs from it that represents the "progress of evil." Miss Whately also speaks of the tree springing from a plant, the parable speaks of a seed (ver. 31, 32). Again Miss Whately implies that by the interpretation we put on the leaven, we make the "kingdom of heaven" to "signify something purely evil." Surely Miss Whately is again mistaking our views. I do not think this is ever intended. Our interpretation is that the leaven (a bad thing) corrupts the meal (a good thing), in the sense used by St. Paul when he twice cautions believers against allowing known sins in their communities to remain unrebuked, and

says, "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" by no means implying that Christianity would cease to exist amongst them, but that the whole Church would suffer if the leaven were not purged out again. Miss Whately however draws the only logical conclusion which is possible from the views entertained by those who think with her, and she fairly and openly states it. She says, "the new element" (leaven) " was good, not evil; the evil existed in the original substance; it was the flour, so to speak, that was evil.” (!!!)

Now it must be recollected, as before stated, that our Lord, in his human nature a Jew, was addressing Jews and Jews only; taught from their earliest youth to look on leaven as absolutely forbidden to form part in their most sacred feasts, and never to be burnt; while flour was commanded to be used in them all as something most holy and acceptable to God; and when our Lord speaks of leaven it is" hypocrisy," and with the apostle it represents "malice and wickedness," while the bread made from pure flour, or unleavened bread, is an emblem of sincerity and truth." What would have been the astonishment, and we may add the horror, of our Lord's apostles if in "the house" afterwards He had explained His parable as Miss Whately has done, a view wholly opposed to all their most cherished impressions. The general teaching of the Bible, together with history and experience, are exactly opposed to the views so frequently set forth.

Oh! when we hear from our pulpits the flattering tale of the world in its present condition, to be purified by the preaching of the gospel, of the Church which was at first a little seed, rearing its head and becoming the admiration of nations, no longer the Church of the despised Nazarene, but the magficent edifice which contains three hundred millions of the human race, do we not see how self-satisfied souls rest upon the privilege of calling themselves Christians, and are lulled into a fatal lethargy from which crowds will not awake till the cry of the Bridegroom is heard, and find they have no oil in their lamps? Or when