2 I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee,' &c. Wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them my indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed), in that day. Judgment will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies. For the Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.1 He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.5 Speaking of the day of his coming and of his power, Jesus said, Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.-Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. If any obscurity or doubt might seem to rest on these things as record is thus borne in the Apocalypse concerning them, and if they were not deemed sufficiently clear to show their meaning, still by thus comparing scripture with scripture in the multiplied testimonies which it expressly bears to the coming of the Lord, it may be seen that, wherever there is an entrance for it, that entrance of the word giveth light to dispel such darkness as rests not in the text, but in the minds of those who have so closed their eyes that they read it not as it is written. The things which John here 1 Jer. xxx. 7, 11. 2 Zeph. iii. 8. 5 Rom. ix. 28. 3 2 Thess. i. 7-10. testifies, shine forth in all the lucidness of heaven's own light, if the testimony of prophets and of apostles, and of Christ himself be believed. That the Lord will come; that every eye shall see him; and that all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, are truths set forth repeatedly throughout the Revelation of Jesus Christ, as throughout the other scriptures. The visions, as John saw and bare record, of the coming of the Lord, and of that day of the wrath of the Lamb, will be compared in the sequel in more minute details, with more ample testimonies from the same unerring oracles of the living God. But having seen the entire accordance between this first recorded prediction of the Apocalypse, concerning things that must come to pass, and the uniform testimony that they pertain to the common faith, as testified of in other scriptures; allusion at least may here be made to these different visions, in which counsel is not darkened by words without meaning, or of other significancy than that which scripture else assigns them, but in which manifestly and expressly the testimony is completed, and many sure words of prophecy combined and concentrated. The record that John bare concerning things which he saw may here be compared with the leading truth which is written in the seventh verse of the Apocalypse: Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him; and they that pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?-Rev. vi. 15-17. The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead that they should be judged, and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth.-Rev. xi. 15-18. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.... and the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. -Rev. xiv. 14-16, 19. They are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold I come as a thief. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.-Rev. xvi. 14, 15, 18. And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire. His name is called The Word of God. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.-Rev. xix. 11, 13, 15. 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. 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.-Rev. xx. 11, 12. And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.-Rev. xxii. 12, 13. Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. The scriptural testimony to the coming of the Lord can not, in quotations however short, be adduced as it is written, without statement after statement either of the terrible things in righteousness which he will come to do, or the glorious things in grace which also he will then accomplish. These are often conjoined in the same sentence. Testimonies con cerning both the consummating judgments and the consequent universal restitution, are thus obviously and expressly recorded in other scriptures, as well as in the Apocalypse. Each and all of them have to be compared with the corresponding things which John saw, and has recorded in it. When, without the jarring discords of earthly sounds, no other voice is heard but the voice of the Lord in his word, it will be seen whether in topic after topic there be not harmony in every part; and whether that harmony be not more clear and complete as the comparison is extended; till, as testimony swells forth on testimony, it should make an interpreter's ears to tingle, and a believer's heart to thrill. The fancied and possibly not fictitious "harmony of the spheres" is heard, if heard it be, by other ears than those of yet mortal men. But it is written, The Lord hath magnified his word above all his name; and its harmony, when heard as it is, is not less than theirs-whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. It is written, as the Judge of the quick and of the dead hath spoken, that When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations.-Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.-These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.' The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the perfect, and the only rule of faith. Whatever things they reveal, are the testimony of God, which is infinitely greater than that of all men. Let God be true, and every man a liar. That testimony bears, according to the words of Jesus, in this single passage, that when the Son of man shall come in his glory, then shall all nations be gathered 1 Matt. xxv. 31, 32, 34, 41, 46. before him-the righteous shall go away into eternal life, and inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world-and the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, in the place prepared for the devil and his angels. He shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. The coming and appearing of the Lord; the gathering of all nations before him; the great day of his wrath; the judgment of the world, of: the quick, and of the dead; the casting of the wicked into hell; the manifestation of the sons of God; the kingdom, and the inheritance prepared for them; the new heavens and the new earth, for which true believers look, according to his promise, and all the exceeding great and precious promises that pertain to those who, by the resurrection of Christ, are begotten again to the lively hope of glory and immortality, and to an incorruptible inheritance reserved in heaven for them who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time— are all truths that were believed by the faithful in Christ Jesus before the book of Revelation was written-and which wait for their realization at the coming of the Lord. But the testimony respecting them all is completed in that Book, which expressly testifies of these things. Many of them are recorded collectively in other Scriptures. In the Apocalypse, or Revelation, for such it is, they are set forth distinctively in separate visions; and, as on the sounding of the seventh trumpet, collectively also. If, according to the uniform testimony of Scripture, they be all connected with the coming of the Lord, and wait for their realization till then, it will hence be seen that so soon as this first predicted truth of the Apocalypse is touched in faith according to the Scriptures Behold, He cometh-the key-note is struck of the book of Revelation, to which the songs of saints and angels-recorded in it as in other Scriptures-are also set. Things revealed, or predicted, are not less divine, because the same Eternal Spirit placed them in the writings of the prophets, rather than exclusively in the Gospels, or in the epistles of the apostles. The sayings of this book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass, are not less worthy of credit, nor ought they less sacredly to be kept remote from all unhallowed contact with the imaginations of man's heart, than any part of |