of the earth. It is the voice of the Archangel. It is the trump of God. It is the descent of the Son of God. He cometh-He cometh to judge the earth. His dead saints spring from the dust-his living saints, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, are changed, and both together are rapt up far above the clouds, to meet Him, (1 Thess. iv. 17,) long before he is seen by the inhabitants of the earth.

"This, I conceive, is the great event that we are now to look for. So far as I can discern, no further signs are to be expected; as it seems to me, we have entered into that last period of awful expectation during which the church is likened to the Ten Virgins. When I published the former editions of this work, not having seen the distinction in time between the advent of our Lord in the air, and his descent to this earth in the day of Armageddon, I conceived that the restoration of Judah was to precede the advent. I now believe that this restoration is to begin just at the rapture of the saints, and that they are to be led through the wilderness as formerly, by the pillar of a cloud by day, and of fire by night, without knowing their conductor as the crucified Nazarene, That the Lord himself is to lead Israel through the wilderness, and plead with them face to face, appears evident from Micah ii. 12, 13, and vii. 15-17, compared with Ezek. xx. 33--37; yet, from Zech. xii. 10, it is apparent that their discovery of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, as their conductor and guide, belongs to a later period. That the appearance also described in the last passage is a different one from the former, is manifest, for two reasons: first, it is in another place, viz. Jerusalem, whereas the former one was in the wilderness, Ezek. xx. 35; secondly, it is at a later period, viz. after their restoration to their own land, and when the confederacy of the nations shall have come against Jerusalem; whereas the former

was before their restoration. The history of Joseph shall be re-acted in its antitype in all its parts. They shall be fed and led by their brother, the mystic Joseph, and shall stand in his presence without knowing him.

"At the very same time that the saints are caught up to meet the Lord, and the restoration of Judah commences, the whirlwind of wrath shall go forth against the Roman. earth-the political heavens shall pass away as a scrollthe war of Armageddon shall commence, and, in its awful progress, it shall make the world a wilderness. It may probably begin as an intestine war of the nations against themselves, tearing to pieces every kingdom and state, and establishing, first, a fierce democracy on the ruins of mon archical rule, ending at length in military despotism. It is during these awful and bloody struggles that the Roman earth shall be moulded into that great confederacy which is to perish in battle against the Lamb and his celestial hosts. This confederacy shall be headed by Lucifer, son of the morning, the Assyrian of Isaiah, who, though only one of the regal horns of the Beast,* shall range under his military feoffship all the regal powers of the Western empire.

"Now, as these events must occupy a considerable interval of years, and as I hold it to be already proved that our Lord comes to the air, and takes his saints, before the war of Armageddon; and also before he conducts Israel through the wilderness, even as he was manifested to Moses before the first Exodus, and as he was actually present with the hosts of Israel (Ex. xiv. 24, 25,) in their passage through

* "See Is. xix. 24, 25. The notion of an eighth head of the Beast, which is held by some interpreters of the present day, is inaccurate. There is no eighth head. There are seven heads with diadems on the Dragon, signifying seven successivè sovereignties; and an eighth plural, or decemregal sovereignty, signified by the ten horns with diadems." (Cuninghame.)

the Red Sea, I must conclude that a long interval will also elapse between the first appearance above the clouds and the descent mentioned in Zech. xiv. 4, 5, and Rev. xix. 11.

"During the whole of this interval the glorified church shall be with our Lord in the air. If it be asked, whether while one complex series of events is to be going forward upon earth, all preparatory to the great catastrophe of the treading of the wine-press, any parallel series is to be proceeding in the church above, preparatory to the glorious antithesis of that catastrophe, namely, the descent of the New Jerusalem, the city of our God, and the establishment of our Lord's kingdom, I answer, that though it becomes us to use reverential caution in prying into these high mysteries of the kingdom, yet it does appear to me, that we are not left altogether without light in the Scriptures on these points.

"When the raised and changed saints are caught up to meet our Lord above the clouds, there shall be found assembled before him the whole of the church of the first born, without one lacking. At first, however, we conceive of this immense multitude as standing in one mass of celestial bodies, shining with resplendent glory, reflected as it were from the irradiation of the divine effulgence of their common Lord. There remains yet to be effected, the marshalling of these heavenly armies, in their various orders and degrees of glory and dominion. Of this comely and glorious array, in which the saints shall descend with our Lord, when he treads the wine-press, we have the type in the marshalling of the hosts of Israel, in Numb. i. and ii. And to the church triumphant thus marshalled, I conceive also the words of Balaam, in Numb. xxiv. 5, 6, have a mystical relation. But this marshalling of the saints, in their various degrees of glory, supposes a previous judgment according to works, since this is absolutely necessary thereunto. See Rom. xiv. 10-12, 2 Cor. v. 10, and sundry

other passages of Scripture, but especially the parable of the pounds, in which the judgment according to works is placed immediately after our Lord receives the kingdom. (Luke xix. 13--15.) Now, the extreme particularity of this judgment, which is for the vindication of the divine justice and impartiality in the eyes of all intelligent creation, seems to demand a considerable interval. Next, as I conceive, to this judgment of the glorified church, follows the marriage, Rev. xix. 7. There is also the solemn investiture of our Lord in the kingdom, on which occasion he adds to the stephanos, crown, which he wears in chap. xiv. 14, the diademata polla, many diadems, with which he comes forth in the day of the treading of the wine-press, xix. 12. All these events do, in their relation to the divine attributes of power and omniscience, require, indeed, only a moment of time; but in their relation to the capacities of the creature, for whose instruction and manifestation of the divine glory they are intended, they require a considerable lapse of time.

"I remark, in the next place, that the interval between the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, and their entrance into Canaan, appears to be in many respects a type of the interval between the rapture of the glorified church out of the mystic Egypt (Rev. xi. 8,) into the air to meet the Lord, and her subsequent descent with him.* Israel, after passing through the Red Sea, was, as it were, buried in seclusion from the world in the solitudes of Sinai, and there received the institutions of Moses. In like manner, I apprehend, when our Lord first comes into the air, the sign

* "The learned Joseph Mede, two centuries ago, conjectured that the rapture of the saints into the air unto their ark, Christ, might be, their being "preserved there from the deluge of fire, wherein the wicked shall be consumed." See his Works, b. iv. epist. 22. It is plain, therefore, that he must have contemplated their continuing in the air during a considerable interval of time. This idea then is no novelty." (Cuninghame.)

of the Son of Man shall appear, the same, perhaps, as the ensign of Isaiah, xviii. 3. But the saints being rapt up, the sensible signs of his presence shall be withdrawn. Shrouded and enshrined in celestial light, wholly inaccessible to mortal eyes, our Lord shall with his saints direct all the movements of the storm of wrath; and after the children of men shall have recovered from their first sensations of horror and dismay, occasioned by the voice of the Archangel, and the sign of the Son of Man, they shall, like Pharaoh, be judicially hardened; and, deceived by the devil, they shall gather themselves to the battle of the Great Day, altogether insensible against whom they are fighting.t

"In this sanctuary of unseen and eelestial light, the glorified church may probably receive from her Lord the institutions of his kingdom in the new earth, and may thus be prepared to fill her high office of subordinate and yet conjunct dominion and priestly ministrations in the age to come. And as the Hebrew Church received from Moses, when in the wilderness, the book of Genesis, containing the history of creation, and of the world and the church, down to the end of the patriarchal age, it seems agreeable to this analogy that the glorified church

"If there are any who conceive it impossible that such a hardening of the nations should také place after they have seen the Lord, or at least the sign of the Son of Man, whatever that be, I must request them to consider the transactions which took place on the plains of the wilderness at the foot of Mount Sinai. What was the interval between that awful display of the majesty of God, at the giving of the law, and the day when the people danced before the golden calf made by Aaron? The answer is, that less than six weeks was, the interval between these things. In that memorablè example of the exceeding wickedness of the human heart, we have therefore a complete and ready answer to this objection. It ought, also, to be considered that the hardness of heart resulting from an infidel philosophy, must be more entirely Satanic than that which was the fruit of ignorance and superstition." (Cuninghame)