continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood." As to the continuity of our Lord's office of High Priest, we have the declaration of the last verse quoted, and these following: "Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost, etc., seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." "But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." And Melchisedec is said typically to resemble Christ, because he, the Son of God, "abideth a priest continually." As to the perpetuity of our Lord's high priesthood, it is written, "Jesus is made a high priest forever after the order of Melchisedec;" "but this man because he continueth forever;" "but this man forever sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." Heb. x. 13. As to the general nature and design of our Lord's sacerdotal office, the Scriptures delineate its mediatorial and antitypical character: "Seeing we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast, etc." "We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but one, etc." See also Heb. vii. 26; ii. 17, and vi. 20, from which passages we are taught that it was by the blood of his atonement Christ entered into the true tabernacle for us, where alone he can efficaciously plead the expiatory virtue of that blood; that there access by prayer with holy boldness to the throne of grace is only in the name of Christ as interceding for them at his Father's right hand; that his intercession therefore is an essential part of his work of salvation, and a fixed and indispensable ordinance of the mediatorial economy, requiring Christ's perpetual presence in the heavenly sanctuary; that if Christ were personally to quit that sanctuary to dwell on the earth, no covenant blessing could thenceforth be imparted to the Church; that it is indispensable therefore that Christ should conform and adhere to this appointed place and order of his intercessory work; and that it is absolutely necessary for believers that they should have a high priest at the right hand of God, constituted after the power of an endless life and made higher than the heavens. Finally, as to the antitypical character of our Lord's high priesthood, there is according to the previous and other passages a plain contrast pointed out between the typical and antitypical priesthood, as pertaining to the conscience, and it is made therefore utterly inconceivable that an economy thus comparatively defective, after having

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answered its typical and temporary purpose, should again be revived, as the premillennial theory asserts it will, especially when it is considered that that economy possessed no value or efficacy in itself, but derived all its importance from that superior and final economy which it merely typified, and by which it was ultimately superseded as a "shadow" of the good things to come. (See Heb. vii. 11, 18, and ix. 23.)

This teaching of Scripture as to the impossibility of Christ again personally appearing on earth previous to the final consummation of his mediatorial economy, when he shall deliver up that kingdom to the Father, receives striking confirmation from those declarations of the apostles, in which, as in 2 Cor. v. 16, it is said, "Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now know we him no more." And still further, the apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. ix. 26-28, appears to us to state the whole doctrine of the second advent in terms so clear and positive that it can admit of no question among those who are willing to abide by the testimony of the Holy Ghost as given to the holy men inspired by him. The apostle declares in verse twenty-fourth that Christ as our High Priest has entered "into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us," "not that he should offer himself oft, etc., . . . but now, once in the end of the world," that is, as Doddridge and other critics think to be the best interpretation that can be given, “now in this the last dispensation which God will ever give to man,"-"hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Here it is positively said that Christ made his first advent under the last dispensation which God will ever give to men, and consequently he cannot make a second advent under the same dispensation. It is to be observed also, that the term translated "world" is in the original, "ages,' in the plural, and not as in Matt. xvi. 28, where it is in the singular, in which form it is employed to denote literally the end or last of this mundane system. So much for the first advent as here revealed. And now as to the second advent of Christ, the apostle goes on in verses 27 and 28 to say, "And 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 (i. e., not as a sin offering) unto salvation." Now here we have asserted, 1. The universal law of mortality as the penal curse of God's violated covenant-"it is appointed unto men (that is the whole race of men, good and bad,) once to

die." 2. Here is the universal judgment of the same entire race of men after death—“the judgment of all men," that is, of course, of all who shall have become subject to the universal law, which consequently implies the previous universal resurrection of the dead. 3. We have here the judge whose advent is afterwards foretold-"Christ was once offered, etc., and unto them that look for him, shall he appear the second time, etc." 4. This appearance is explicitly declared to be the second personal advent of Christ. And thus as Christ's first advent is already past and there cannot possibly be an intermediate advent, it inevitably follows that the premillenary hypothesis is not true. That these words refer to the universal judgment, comprehending both the righteous and the wicked, will be still further evident in the contrast implied in the words "them who look for him" with those who do not look for him.

The argument of the apostle is this: the future judgment will be universal, and there cannot, therefore, so far as the human race only is concerned, be more than one day of judgment. The resurrection which must precede this judgment will be universal, and there cannot, therefore, be more than one resurrection. And as both the universal resurrection and the universal judgment will, as we have seen, take place at the last day, our Lord will not make his second personal advent to the earth till he comes to raise the dead and judge the world at the last day. And therefore, since Christ will not make his second personal advent to the earth until he comes to the universal resurrection and judgment at the last day, he cannot, as this hypothesis demands, make his second personal advent at any intermediate period. Observe well the apostle's analogical reasoning: 1. As the race of man dies once and only once as the penal curse for sin, so Christ could only die once to bear that penal curse. 2. That which awakes each man of the whole race of men after death is judicari-the judgment, the one and only judgment of the quick and the dead, good and evil, at the last day, which is the final fulfillment. So Christ's second coming is judicare, not to bear or atone for sin, but to judge sin and sinners, and pronounce on all the sentence of salvation or of perdition. 3. This death and judgment are by the appointment of God, his constitution or covenant or law, and are penal and final in their nature, and as such everlasting, and actually everlasting to all who die impenitent, "the wrath of God abiding on them." Christ's second coming, therefore, will be to pronounce judicially the final and full salvation of the penitent

and perdition of the impenitent.* 4. The next event in the great scheme of man's redemption,-next to death, there being no intermediate dispensation admitting of a possible change after death-is the judgment and the second coming of Christ as judge; and since Scripture no where makes mention of any third personal coming of Christ, the millenary hypothesis must be untrue. Let it be added and duly considered that in the above interpretation of passage, there is, as far as our examination of commentators has gone, a universal concurrence, the word "salvation" being substituted for the word "judgment," as the analogy would require, because, as elsewhere, the apostles, when speaking of the judgment in relation to believers, speak of it as it really shall be, and as the song of the redeemed (see Rev. v., vii.,) declares it shall be their consummated salvation. We shall only give the opinion of the great Dr. Owen on this passage: "Any other coming, Scripture knows not, and this place expressly excludes any imagination of it. His first appearing is past, and appear the second time he will not until the judgment comes and the salvation of the Church be completed." There are several other passages which, correctly interpreted, must confirm the conclusions to which we have arrived. Let us, however, only advert to two, one from the apostle Paul, and the other from the apostle John. In Col. iii. 4, the apostle Paul gives us his testimony positively: "When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory." Here the second advent or appearance of Christ is of necessity to be interpreted in accordance with the explicit statement commented upon in Heb. ix. 26-28, at the time of the general and universal judgment; and the place is also determined by the established use of the term glory as applied to heaven and the ultimate consummated blessedness of the righteous. The apostle John in like manner gives us a negative testimony (which is the more important as this whole theory in its traditional form is traced up to him) in John iii. 1, 2, in which there is an evident allusion to what he had recorded in his Gospel (see John xiv. 16, and above). "Beloved," says John, "now we are the sons of God, (that is the loftiest earthly condition possible for us,) and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is," that is, in heaven. Here

*In proof of the use of the term salvation, here employed, see Is. xxv. 28, 29; Rom. viii. 23; 1 Cor. xv. 51; Phil. iii. 22, 23; 2 Th. i. 7-10; Rev. vii. 10.

the apostle declares, first, that he had no knowledge of this premillennial earthly glorious advent; secondly, that he did know that at Christ's second advent-(as in the same passages referred to he had taught in his Gospel, and also in Christ's intercessory prayer recorded in c. xvii., where Christ says, "I will that these may also be with me,"—that is, with the Father in heaven where he was going-"that they may behold the glory which thou hast given me")-Christ's glory and kingdom would be in heaven as taught by the apostles.

III. The doctrine of Scripture on the second advent may be determined by asking, Does the Scripture teach that the kingdom of Christ as foretold in some hundred passages, many of them literal and some symbolical, prophetical, and figurative, under analogies drawn from the kingdom of David, the tabernacle, the temple, and the Jewish ritual-has actually come? For if they do, then we have a divinely authorized rule of interpretation by which all the other prophecies relating to that kingdom are to be understood. The apostle James, in the council held at Jerusalem, after hearing the declaration of the apostle Peter, "how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name," immediately afterwards recites a passage from the prophet Amos which is entirely subsersive of the millenary theory. "Simeon," said James, "hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name; and to this agree the words of the prophet; as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up, that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things." The preaching of the gospel is here represented by the building again the tabernacle of David and teaches that it was not to be restricted, but was designed for all nations without exception. We have here, therefore, the apostolic and inspired rule for explaining the rest of the typical and figurative predictions of the prophets, relative to the gospel dispensation, in which they use symbolic language drawn from the ancient history and institutions of the Jewish people. And as the tabernacle was employed by the prophet Amos to represent the Gospel Church in its migratory and unsettled state in the wilderness of this world, so the temple is employed by Ezekiel to prefigure that same Church in its most enlarged and exalted state, to signify its greatest external