EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM

A Study in the promised Second Coming of Christ

By REV. CLIFFORD HARLEY

Published by the MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE NEW CHURCH,

20 BLOOMSBURY WAY, LONDON, W.C. I

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SYNOPSIS

I. THE DOCTRINE IN THE ApOSTOUC AGE.

~ 2. OUR LORD'S PREDICTIONS CONCERNING HIS SECOND COMING. ) . S MESSIANIC PROPHECIES, AND USE OF SYMBOLS.3· SYMBOUC PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND COMING.4·

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THE SON OF MAN. - ­5· " 6. THE SPIRITUAL SENSE OF THE WORD. How IT HAS BEEN MADE

KNOWN.

PURPOSE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE SECOND COMING.7· 8. THE SECOND ADVENT NOW ACCOMPLISHED.

g. POSTSCRIPT.

EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM

INTRODUCTION THE belief that our Lord would return to the world and establish His Kingdom on earth was widely held by the Primitive Christian Church, and appears to have been an integral part of the teaching oL the Apostles. It found its most explicit expression in Paul s first letter to the Thessalonians in the following passage:

" For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, wit h tfie vOIce of the. arch­anga~ anl):\vi(.h"':.Jh~1rump_9I:QOd : aria the 000 in Birist shall rise first ; T hen we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (Chap. iv. 14-18).

So widespread and strongly held was the belief i...n the imminent return of the Lord in bod il form thatit was, in large measure ; aresponsl e factor In delaying the committal to writing of the apostolic oral tradition of the Lord's life and teaching. For the Apostles, our Lord's death and resurrection were sim ply th e prel\lde, th e opening cha[lter, of a story soon to be given its glorious completion. Meanwhile, they conceived their mission to be the delivering by the living voice, of their own personal testimony to the cardinal facts of the Gospel-the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Anti~ipating, _a.~~Y: djd , the speedy retur..n_ of the

Lord !.O the world, and the triumphant establishment of. His Kingdom , they had no thought of makmg a written record for posterity, since they believed that the substance of any such record would find splendid fulfil­ment in present experience of the Lord's Kingdom.

As the years passed, and the Apostles themselves were removed by the hand of death from the scene of their earthly labours, the need was increasingly felt for an authentic account of the essential facts of the Gospel stories to be committed to writing, while yet there remained to the Church some, at least, of the " eye­witnesses of the Word." And so began the written

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The belief in the Early Church

A reason for the late appearance of the written Gospels.

accounts of the Gospel, which were received as authori­tative records by the Early Church. '" The late appear­ance of the writt~n Gos els·is interesting and significant eviaence~50thof the ten acit of the belief in, and nature of thS Second Comjn" Qf_the Lord, w 1cIi was held by the Apostles and the primitive Church.

The present Nor has the belief ever died out from the Church.view of the doctrine in But, as might be expected in view of the fact that, as it the Church. was interpreted by the Apostles and the FathersL...!l9

literal fulfilment has been give.!l l2...it, many ~!!empts have been made to find some kind of inter retation 0 It other th an a lit era one. None of th ese, however, has proved to be acce table to the collective mind of the

urc , so t at m recent years, t~I~Dcegrc;n oTilie doctrine of the Second.Adv nLhas-.received a

[ shift in emphasis. The doctrine chiefly interests modern th eologian s from the point of view of how it arose. The recorded sayings about it, attributed to the Lord, have been closely studied. Parallels with apocalyptic teaching contemporary with Christ, and also of that contemporary with the age of the Jewish prophets, have been closely scru tinized, and the conclusions which have been drawn, as a consequence, tendtOCIlsmiss the belief in a Second ( Coming as being n01o_~er wormy 0 cre ence:-And fortlie most part, it nas scarce y any-place in contemporary theological thought.

'-T he the, i<;pf I1 In this booklet it will be shown that the doctrine of the Ihls booklet. l Second Advent is n2t_t.9 be sIismissed as unworthy of

crea ence, bUttliat all the Lord's teachmg concernmg it /? -<>\ liiSactUally been fulfilled,"'and that the Second Coming

/ 11 of the Lord is an accomplished fact. r In order that the truth of this assertion may be

demonstra ted , it is necessary that hat our Lord ( A actuall t a~ht His disciples about His return, snould \ De set fort . That done, we shall next proceed to show , '2 precisely what He meant by the terms that He used

concerning It . Lastly, we shall try to show that the promise to come again has hl!,d its historical fulfilment.

_ .--R~'

-3 OUR LORD~S TEACHING CONCERNING HIS SECOND COMING

.. The Little The Gospel accordinz to Mark is probably theApocalypse.' I '-'

earl iest of the four Gospels, and in the t~

( chapter of the book we find what is technically known as T he LIttle Apoca lypse. Here we may find the first connectea account of what our Lord Himself taught concerning His return to the world.

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Mark narrates the incident which the Lord made the occasion of His prophetic utterance. He says that

Later that same day, the Lord and His disciples withdrew from the city to the seclusion of the Mount of Olives.

" And as he sat upon the Mount of Oli ves ... Peter and .Tames and John and Andrew asked Him privately, Tell us when shall these things be? and what shall be th e signs when all these things shall be fulfilled?" (verse 3) .

Thereupon, our Lord enumerated a number of signs that would herald the ful filment of H is p rophecy. They may be read in detail in verses 5-23. The account is substantially repeated in Luke's account in chapter 17 of his Gospel, with minor modifications, and with some additions.

Returning to The Little Apocalypse, Mark now records the very pith of the promise of the Second Coming, in the following words:

" But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,;""and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that ar e in heaven shal/1je shaken. And then sha ll they see the 1 of Man in ilLthe clouds of he :Jven wi th powedan grea t glory. -rr-And then shall H e sen B Is angels and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost p art of the ear th to th e ull ermost p :Jn of'hea ven " (verses 24-27).

The Little Apocalypse concludes with the parable of the man who took his journey into a far country, giving authority meanwhile to his servants, and commanding the porter to watch.

The parable is expressly linked with the prophecy of the Second Coming and actually applied to it in the words,

" Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh.... And what I say unto you, I say un to ~, ~h " (verses 35 and 37).

Matthew's account.

The account by Matthew of our Lord's teaching concerning His return to the world, is substantially the same as that given by Mark, but is slightly more detailed. The heart of the prophecy is all but identical with that given in The Little Apocalypse, as will be seen from the quotation which follows from Matthew xxiv, 29-31.

" Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the ~n be darkened, and the m~n shall not give her light, and the

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stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of th e heavens shall be'S ha ken .

" And then shall appear the Sift of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes 01 t e earth mou rn , a nd they shall & the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

"And H e shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to th e o ther. "

Here, then, in the Gospels by Mark, Matthew and Luke, we have the record of the words wh ich form the h core of the ro hecies of the Second Commg. l n addition to these, however, t ere were many parables told by our Lord, in which the subject received signifi­cant treatment and application. One of the most notable is related in Matthew xxv. It is the parable of the sheep and the goats, which is applied to a judgmen t

Iu I2Qn all na tions, to be effected " wh en th e Son QI' m an shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with H im " (verses 3 1-46) .

Apostol ic It was on the teaching set out in the above passages, doctrine.

that the Apostles based their belief, and developed their interpretation of the pro]2hecies of the Second Advent. That they interpreted the m with the utmost degree of literalism is clear from Paul's words in Thessalonians and elsewhere. But by the time the book of R evelation was writt en, it is evident that, althoUh the ex ectation

JIof the Lord 's ret r • '11 > lshed, the rve y ope of Its occurrence in the lifetime of the Apostles was already on the wane; so much so in fact, that the definite deSCri tions of how th e Lord would come havegiVen

I al\' se, to the simple affirmafron tfia t J\ H e would return. T he final words 01 the book of

Revelation make this fact very clear. They are, "behold, I come quickly. Ev en so, come, Lord J esus " (R ev. xxii. 20).

4- THE TERMS OF THE PROPHECY EXAMINED

Old Testa­ Long before th e first advent of the Lord, and from the ment parallels. time of the custom of building synagogues, the education

of Jewish boys was entrusted to th e R abbis, and the basis of the instruction given was the Law of Moses. With more advanced years, instruction in other Old Testament books was added . And the committal to memory of certa in parts of it (notably the Shema (Deut. vi. 4-9) and the H allel (Psalms cxiii. to cxviii) ) was an integral part of the course of study.

In the local syn a!I0gue of His own village of Nazareth,

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our Lord would be instructed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament.

That the instruction was thorough and that o~

I.,OJ:d 'S knowled e alike of the · and of R abbinical trag!!.i..Qn?-1 interpretations of them, was eep

\ an~ ext ensive, is evident from t e account of I!lS'Visit to the temple, and of the amazement of those who saw and heard Him, in " the presence of the doctors" of the law "both hearing and asking them questions" (Luke ii. 41-48).

These remarks are subject. Jesus wa imbued with the s';"=:;i"-:·:- "'0"';f;<=t7 e ~:n.,r:lt- nh -O am tu res. An , as t e ospel records of His life unfold, we find how frequently He quoted from them, and how very often, and with what aptness, He applied them directly to Himself, and indirectly to what He taught.

We should, therefore, not be surprised to find, that ' in speaking with such confidence of His survival of death, of His return to the world, and of the ultimate triu mph 01 His Ki!lgdom, He should employ the language of the Old Testament to describe alike the nature of the necessitv for a Secon d Coming, and the manner in whi ch it wou l e made. This is a very important consideration to our understanding of the subject, and we shall shortly return to it.

At what precise moment in His life the Messianic Messianic prophecies.consciousness of the Lord dawned upon Him, is of little

consequence to know. But that He was early aware that He was the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy is evident from the records. And that He applied to Himself and to His life's work the terms of the prophecies is equally manifest. In part He made literal application of them as, for example, His claim to be born of the line of David, His triumohal ride into erusalem sitting upon a whi te ass, ~ e stee of e rew -ings an ju~s ,

His acceptance of the title of the " Lamb of God , which taketh away the sin of the world", His acceptance of indignities, sufferings and crucifixion, and His manifest understanding of these circumstances as being applica­tions to Himself, as Messiah, of the prophecy of Isaiah which said,

" the Lord hath laid on Him th e iniquity of us all. " And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the

rich in His death; because He had done no violence, neither was any dec eit in His mouth" (chapter liii ).

These and other instances show how literally the Lord applied to Himself many of the Messianic passages of the Old Testament.

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Nevertheless He must well have known, indeed His words show that He did know, that many a prophecy which He claimed to have been fulfilled in Himself and in the circumstances and events that befell I-Em, could have had no literal counterpart in either. He believed Himself to be the Messiah. He knew that prophecy declared of the Messiah that He should ascend the throne of David: yet He neither hesitated nor scrupled to apply such conceptions to Himself while yet He declared, " My Kingdom is not of this world."

And He also knew in how many of the prophecies relating to the coming of the Messiah, and which so often were introduced by the words, "in that day," there were foretold wars and earthquakes, famine and pestilences, signs in the heavens a nd on the earth, and great cosmic catastrophes, as certain forerunners of the advent. Nevertheless although none of these predictions had any literal fulfilment at the time of His birth, nor during His lifetime, He solemnly announced,

" think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not com e to destroy, bu t to fulfil " (Matthew v, 17).

These, and other instances not here mentioned, show clearly that the Lord applied such passages to Himself, not in a literal, bur in a symbolical and spiritual sense."

Not among the least of the reasons why the lead ers of Jewry refused then and refuse now, to accept Him as the Messiah of prophecy, was that neither in Himself, nor in the even ts of H is life, nor in the circumsta nces of His times was th e greater JNr t of the terms of the prop lecies Iiterallv fulfi lled . T o writer has grven more telling e.xpression to this incontrovertible fact than has been done by the late Dean Farrar in his The Life and Work 01St. Paul. He writes:

" If the Pharisees regarded it as the main function of their existence to rais e a hedge about the law-the inspiring motive was a belief that if only for OD e day Israel were en tiITly fai thful, the Messiah would come. And what a coming! How sho uld the Prince of th e I-louse of David smite the nations with the rod of HIS mou th ! H ow should He break them in pieces like a potter's vessel. How should He exalt t~ .children of Israel into kin s of th e eart an d feed them with The flesh of Be emoth, and LevIathan, and pour at their feet the treasures of the sea! And to say that Jesus fir Nararetl: was th e promised Messiah-to suppose th at all the splendid promises of pa tria rchs and seers and kings, from the Divine Voice which spoke to

IAdanfin Eden, TO the last utterance of the angel Malachi- all ointed to, a ll cen tre d in One who had been the carpentef'OJ"

za re , and whom !hc y had seen cru clhed between r",'b brigan s-to say that their vc Messiah liad been • hung ' by G~ntik..l ran ts a t the Instance of th clr own riests:-this,)1 . . ~~ve be~ w~. I It ha not seemed too aDsurd. Was there not one sufficient and decisive answer to It all in

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one verse of the Law-' Cursed by God is he tha t han get h on a~c' (Deut. xxi. 23)."

That Christians have accepted Him is because, in the light of His life and teaching, and in the light of the splendidly beneficent consequences of both, they see that

~ in senses both li teral and svm bolic;-" the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy " (Rev. xix. 10).

Doubtless the reader will not be unprepared nor should he object to find, that it is now intended to apply the considerations so far advanced, to the terms in which the Lord announced the sigrls, the fact, the natu re and purpose olHis Second Coming.

N otable among O ld T estamen t prophecies concerning the Messiah, is one made by (fIle- prophet jQ£I) It is notable for two special reasons:---Tlie 'flrStis that it is in almost identical terms to that in which the Lord prophesied His Second Coming. The second is in the use of it made by the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts ii.).

Here is the prophecy:

" And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pou r out Mv Spi r it up on a ll flesh.... And I will show wonders m the heavens andm the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, beforethe great and terrible day of the Lord come " (.Joel ii. 28-3 1 ) .

" The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall witharaw their shmmg" (joel iii. IS), ­

Compare these verses with those already quoted from Mark and Matthew, and the parallel becomes at once apparent. There can be no little doubt, also, but that our ~o rd deliberately" drew upon His knowledge of them'when He made His own predictions.

But why should He have done so, and why should He have used imagery drawn from other Old Testament sources, unless He knew that the cond itions which ;Qre­

'1 vailed at His First Coming were such as were adequately, although symbolically, described by them, and that conditions not dissimilar would present themselvesill the fu tu re, which would constitute the ne cessit for a

Z Second Coming, an which t ere ore could be escn ed bY the same symbols?

When our Lord spoke of the Jewish Church in such forthright terms, as, "ye have made the command­ments of God of none effect through your traditions," when He denounced the leaders of that Church as " blind guides," and " hypocrites," when He declared in one parable after another, " therefore the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a

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The foregoing considerations are now applied to the prophecies of the Second Coming.

The Meaning of the Symbols.

nation that shall bring forth the fruits thereof," He was revealing at least one of the reasons which had neces­sitated His incarnation. The Jewish Church, the only Church in the world which had the DlYme Law, and the knowledge of the one true God, had utterly fail ed to fulfil the purpose for which it had been established. " The salt had lost its savour," and was" fit only to be cast out." The Church was consummated . To bring about its judgment, to reveal its inward corruption to

III itself, to establish a new t ri tu al order, a new d ispensa­j1 tion of re1ig-ion, a new C urch m fact , was one of the

reasons why the Divine Being was "made flesh and dwelt among us." In the spiritual states of the Jewish Church and the Gentile world, many Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled, " behold! darkness shall cover ) the earth, and gross darkness the people " (Isaiah lx. 2). In the advent of the Lord was the complementary part of the prophecy also fulfilled,

" Rut the Lord shall arise upon thee. And His glory shall he seen upon thee" (Isaiah Ix. 2) .

But the states of the Jewish Church and the Gentile world were symptoms, not causes. They were symptoms of the d.~.ep-seated malaise which afflicted all manJilild , and which neither prophet nor law-giver could any longer heal.

" Your iniquities have separated between ' you and your( God, and your sins have hid His face from you" (I saiah

lix . 2) .

The power of th e hells prevailed over the power of the heavens, and on earth the power of evil over the power

/ of good, and they threatened the freedom of the human l race, and placed in jeopardy its very existence.

A To subjugatd IN HIS OWN PERSON the e9wer of the j'Z..- l.!£!!s, to rcstoretspi' al freed om t9 mankmd , to~ct

1 a 'ud mel.lL..p-on..a consummated hurch, and to estab ­'7 lish a nevv"re li ious d is ensation- these were the very

reasons why .. the word was made flesh and dw elt among us" (John i. 14) .

.. So He became th eir Saviour; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them " (Isaiah Ixiii. 8).

Love to God was all but extinguished. Because of th.e dearth of love there was lack of faith, and with the loss

lof love and faith the knowledge of th ings Divine and sJirituaL!Yas dragged do wn and immersed in the mire o superstition, an the" traditions of men."

Is it any wonder that the prophets of Israel, Divinely inspired to foretell, and to give warning of just such spiritual conditions, should do so by the use of symbols that wonderfully corresponded to the desolation of love, ..,

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~ faith and kllQ.wk,dge in the Church and the world, say ing, to quote again the words of one of them, Joel,

" the sun shall be turned into darkness, and th e moon into blood, and the stars shall withdraw their shining."

For do not the Scriptures themselves say of the Lord that He is " the s.!Ln of righteousness" ? Is not faith, the life of love to God and to the neighbour, reflected in

? religious beliefs, and so, comparable with the ~n ,

whose light is the reflected light of the sun? Are not J the s.tilJS of heaven most fitting, and aptly lovely

symbols of heavenly truths, which in darkness, send out their rays of hope, consolation, guidance, and counsel, without which the souls of men grope in darkness, and walk in the valley of the shadow of death?

If indeed these be the true m~ings of the symbols employed in the predictions of our Lord's first Advent, J1 are we not compelled by His own use of them, when He predicted His Second Coming, as well as by parity of t. r easoning, to give 'tOt1iem the same svmbolic in ter­

[ pretatioIU!s we have seen reason to give to the prophecies ort11eComing of the Messiah? We proceed, therefore, to show how, in what sense, and when, th c-fU:omise

L of the Second Comin be~e a n accom lished fact. \

E; THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECIES OF THE

SECOND COMING It is an interesting and significant circumstance that, The Son or

whereas the Old Testament prophecies of the coming of Man.

the Lord invariably refer to Him as the Messiah, the I ( New.Testament prophecies of His Second Coming refer . to HIm as " the Son of Man." 2­

The title "Son of Man" appears also in the Old Testament, and is chiefly used of the prophets of Israel and Judah. Isaiah and Ezekiel were invariably addressed by the title whenever they were commanded to deliver a message from the mouth ofJehovah. In the book of Daniel the title also occurs, but it is there applied to a m .ca l fiaure who a ca red to Da niel in a vision. The striking similarity 0 the terms used in the account

/ of the vision, with those used by our Lord in the pre­\. dictions of Hi s S econd Coming, cannot-fail to impress

the reader. ~ays ,

" I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Anclen t oiDays, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people,

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It nations, and lan~es, should serve him: his dominion is an It everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away!> and his

kingdom that which shall not be destroyed ' "(Daniel v ii 13, 14).

Compare that with our Lord's words in The Little Apocalypse and in the report of them in Matthew xxiv .

" And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and grea t glorY."

But before we make any further comment upon the title as used in the Book of Daniel, we shall return to consider the use of it as applied to the prophets.

And first we ask the question, In what, essentially, did the prophetic office consist? The answer is that the e~~ of prophecy consisted of two elements, distinct from each other , and usually complementary. The two elements are, forthtelling and foretelling. Forthtelling

J was a p~ach ing fun ction, and foretelling was the function L of prediction. More often than not the predictionsarose

out of the preaching, and in both cases the message was what the prophets had heard, when, as they put it, " in mine ear, saith the Lord of Hosts," or in what they had seen wh en th ey were " in the Spirit." And both

f preaching and prediction were the uttering of Divine " tru ths, revealed as commandment to declare" the Word Pof the Lord." I The prophetic office then, essentially consisted in the declaration of truth revealed by the Divine Being, while prop-hecy itself may be said to be the tr21th."!-G'{e_~!ed. " Keeping this thought in mind, the reader's attention

is directed to a memorable occasion on which our Lord Vad used this title, " Son of Man," in speakingoffiis crucifixion; whereupon the question had been put to Him by His hearers, " who is this Son of Man? "

It was when our Lord had gone up to Jerusalem six days before the last passover feast that He would keep on earth. Jesus had said,

" I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.

" The people answered Him, We have heard out of the law , that Christ abideth for ever : and how sayest Thou, Th~o.n

\o:.M~n must be lifted up? Wh o is this ~~n ? " ~nJ Xli. 32,34).

To their question the Lord made what seems at first sight to be a quite irrelevant answer,

"Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is th e light with you . Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you ." (John xii. 35).

Is the answer really irrelevant, however? Consider that our Lord had already declared that

" I am the light of the world" (John viii. 12 ).

" I am the way, the truth , and the life" (John xiv. 6).

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- I

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And does not the relevance of His reply begin to appear? He was the light because He was the truth. And as the truth incarnate, the" Word made flesh," He was also the Prophet of whom Moses had written in the Law:

" The Lord thy God will rai se up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken" (Deut. xviii. 15) .

. If, then, the title " Son of Man" could be used withIpropriety of the prophets who were but the mouthpieces of the oracles of God, how much more pertinently could He who was the Word incarnate, apply to Himself, the

(. supreme title of" The Son of Man"? And would not the title carry the same reference, namely, that of fore­telling and forthtelling the things of the wisdom of God? Therefore it would bear the same meaning, namely, the Divine truth .

The" Coming of the Son of Man " is therefore the same thing as the commg of the Lord as, and in the D ivine t!:!!.ili. If su ch a Com mg IS a Second COiiiing, It'Can ~

i~ only consist in a fur ther revelation of such truth to PImankind, an u nfoldment of the Hu ngs of H IS infinite

c lov e and wisdom, im plicit in His First Coming, but not 'l-a t that time made expli cit. For did not the Lord

Himself say, " I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now" (John xvi . 12).

We must assume that the necessity which was the A Conlrast ~ a~a

reason for the assumption of our human nature by God Comparison.

Almighty; was completely met by the unique means adopted, and by the work which He accomplished in the world as" the Word made flesh." If the dire and tragic state of the human race was such, that it could only be healed by the advent of the Almighty" in the likeness of slrJuI man," then the advent and the manner of it I

was an act of infinite wisdom as well as of infinite love. L. Being such, it could n~possibly need to be supple­mented, at a future time, by a further coming identical in kind. There could never again be such a human situation as could only be met by God becoming incarnate. Is it not clearly evident, then, that, although ou r Lord foretold a-S ~on d Coming , that coming, when­ever it should occur, would be different in kind ~i s~ firs t ad ye.pt?

The first advent was effected by incarnation, and-1 .- incarnafioii required the use of a human instrument.

The instrument was a woman who was a vinti.n , and - En who, by the " overshadowing" of the Almighty, con­ceived a human form and body, whose soul or inmost being was the Divine itself of the Father. Foregleams and anticipations of the incarnation of a Divine Being

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are commonplaces of the religious thought of the ancient world, and they found their most definite and clear expression in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, where the prophecies of the Messiah are proQhedes Of) the coming of Iehovah God in hum an form, to be the deliverer of the Jews and the Saviour of all mankind. Such a prophecy, for example, is to be found in the Book of Isaiah :

" It shall be said in that day, La, this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us. T his is ]chovah: we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation" (Isaiah xxv. g).

And also (whatever meaning we may choose to attach - to the word " vIrgin " in the passage) there is the

prophecy, which the Church universal has always seen as applicable in an ultimate sense, only to the Messiah,

" Behold, a virgi n hall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name lanuel' (I saiah vii . 14).

Z. But in all the predictions of the Second Coming of the Lord, there is no hint of incarnation, no suggestion of bodily Coming. On the contrary, a feature common to all the predictions is that the Lord would appear to

@ - mankind, as " the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Let it be well observed, also, that the clouds which are mentioned are not the clouds of earth, but the clouds of heaven.

The Clouds of VVe have already seen that the Lord identified the Heaven. • §9n of M a n with Himself, but with Himself as bei ng

~ " the ligh t ori:he worl ,'and we have urt ier seenthat i the light of the world is the Divine truth proceeding

from the Lord. At an earlier stage still in our treatment of the subject of the Second Coming, we pointed out the symbolic meaning of the sun, the moon, and the stars, and showed that these symbols all had relation to the Divine Being as love, and wi~m, and to man's love towards, and faith fri" H im . In the Old Testament

r the name of the Diving Being is Jehovah. In the New Testament the name of Jehovah in His incarnation is

z Jesus Christ. The Old Testament and the New Testa­nle'Iit together are the suprem e revelation of the Lord to the human race . In a nd by the New T estament the Lord may be said still and always to come to men, for it is there that we have the record of the incarnation, and of the life and teaching, the death and resurrection, which wrought the redemption of the orld.

I n an abstract sense, therefore7'the wri tt e , I' f(God may fitti ngly be called" T he Son of an, since it is the writt en form of tha t living Di vin e truth, which was" th e wo rd made flesh." And it follows from this,

'\ ,,''1{'. <: that if the second Coming of the Lord is the coming of

14

I )..C:.,.e ~ ~ w...:.. tz;jl '1 J'" J , J----: "L "w--":n __ w. ~d .. ~ lI), d .... J-c..•. --..-. (c.A.... .,/rj

" the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven with power and 11 grea t glory, " -then that coming is a comin g in the D ivine l }J truths of thd'written) word, and tEe full manifestation of I

tile""""Son ofM an Him:;elf, as the Divine Man, "the Alpha a nd O mega , the First and the Last, the Almighty," and" the only wise God, our Saviour."

If such is indeed the character of the Second Coming, then " th e clouds of heaven " (in which, it was pre­dicted, the Lord would come in "power and great

\( glory") must have reference to the written "Vord, and to s speci fic aspect of that Word. Wha t th a t aspect

~ :... ... 0 the Wore is we shall now endeavour to show. = h 0\'1 are the clouds of earth formed? And what use

do they serve ? T he questions are asked because the answers to them will enable us to see clearly why clouds are used as a symbol of that in which the Lord promised that He would come again.

Clouds are formed by the action of the rays of the sun upon the surface of the earth, whereby its moisture is drawn up into the air, and is there condensed into the forms that we know as clouds. The clouds, being formed, serve many uses, but especially do they temper to the earth and its inhabitants, the fierceness and brightness of the rays of the sun, and by tempering them, they enable the things of earth that could not live without them, to receive and to endure them.

In similar manner as the su n comes forth to the world (and te rn el's its a rde~ the clouds, which are cr ea ted by it s own actryjnes , so the m mte ardency and brilliancy of the D ivine Love and Wisdom, brought forth in revelation to mankind, clothe themselVeS] in the "lan uage" of the objects of the world, a nd 11- "c,f"e­t C istorres 0 a ra ce, III w IC I t ley are tempered J",""h. '\ok ..... .

and accomm odated to n m te powers of perception and unders tanding.

T hi s clothing aJ] d acco m modation is itself the letter,l -1'1.... A. S . and the sense of the letter of the Old and New T esta ­ments, the WrItt en Word of Go d . And it is this sense ) wh ich, i ~ that Wo r~ IS symbolized by " the cloud s of -tt.; A.s. h~n. ~~. S . ')..;;,--c,

If~ however, the literal sense 0 he ''Vord vere the Power andhat I - L d great glory. onIy sens e t at It pos es, t le comin 0 or to )

mankind in such clouds would need no renewal or 'Tt-.. ~ S amphficatIOn, smce:the 'Vord in that sense~is with men, • • and needs only that men shou ld r ead It rever en tly and ~.s . intelligently,jorsthe Lord in His truth to come to them.

2. - Bu t the litera l' sens~ is not the only sense of the word. There IS WIt m t at an internal and sp'ir itual sense, -:J-. W"; t:../ I ..}

1 - distinct from tha t of the letter, and treating not of j "" "/4j, _

~ . s. 15

~ .S . JWJ'~ earthly things, but exclusively of spi ritual things. And williiii.t hat sense again, which itself is an accommoda tion

i t.... . p. . oS of infinite tru th to the und ersta nd in of a n el-men and( women in the spintua WOI' , is the Divine Isdom itsel f; which is a nother way of saying that the Lord

-- Himself is inane-wor.9) and is its very spirit and life. Let it be n""Otedliere that the prophecies concerning

the Second Coming of the Lord do not stop with the assurance that H e will com e " in the clouds of heaven ."

j They testifY that He will come" in-l?0wer a nd grea t {glory." ,.Ju.. .q • s , -:-----....

'2... _ _ - - lhe " clouds" ar the Word in its liter~..~ The " power and great glory are t e or _ 10 Its s p~rit~al

A ~(;C. S r - sejise, The very coming~tself, there fore, COnsists 1!L1he ~ rcveIation of the interna l ~ iri tu al sense of th~' ~Word,' - I Whteh'in essence treats of the ord alone, an 0 Im) A. .r

in His D ivin e or glorified Hum anity,...in His relations '.J with angels and ~. This revelation of1 ~S: truths and

= <' )1~~ i'p~ s wh ich constitute t?e spiriftiaf !!CnsL,gf the}1 »: «/ WoM, and are the essen tla :tower an<L great gory" .d r. J + orit, is none ot er than the fUffi ment of a promise made re. .. . """'~ . by the Lord when, in the flesh, He " dwelt among us."

The promise was, It "in th at A .J.lY, I will no more speak unto you in parables,Jl but I 'IL how you p lain ly of the Father" (J ohn xvi. 25).

And the fact of the promise having been given, and of the terms in which it is couched, are themselves a dis­clo~:,::re of the very nature of the li teral sense of the ~e{ Word, which is, thatit iS~E..arable. And no small part

( orthe parable is th e story of our Lord's life on earth . 71.... R.J \ True history the story undoubtedly is. Being such, its ) revelation of the Lord primarily shows Him in the I infirm humanity, put on in the womb of th e Virgin. ) - R.S . o necessity, t erefore, It must pjcture Him in H is states \ of humiliation and in the depenaence 0 t e umaruty ) - R. S. upon the Divine Father which had created it.

For this reason, the very record which is a revelation of the Lord as " a Man of sorrows and ac ua inted-2vith ) _ A. S. g~," tends to obscure the momentous truth tnat , verv Man" though H e was, H e was "Ve~d " ­ ILS . also.=Ualso tends to hide from us the triiTIlthat, although as to His Humanity, He was the Son of God, - A . [ . He nevertheless was as to His soul, "the Everlasting Father." Sw . «.s .

Not until the truths of the internal sense of the Word ,., had been revealed, and the fUllness of its disclosure of

---'" how the Lord was God and Man?and of how He fought \vIth, ana overcam e the hells, an~glorified by making

I IJJ • -~ Divine, His Humanity~ thereby effectIng the redemption n . S. ]6

of mankind in all worlds from the preponderant power j:<.v •of the hells-~til the n could mankind read the )

- - A.J_" parable " of the incarnatlOn/l and plainly see t e SW·Divinity of the Lord 's Humanity;r~md that He and the

:FatTle"r are one and the same Divine Being. fur • It is precj;;ely in the revelation of the in ll;rnal sense

of the W9J" tr,' ~'md in the~..octrine concerning t~d)l _ J "". as the One onl God i~te for man's redemption, ,4. S .

\1that e come { again. It is iIA the power andas '~ /1great glory of the sp1l'1 tual sense of th e·.l:Word, lighting I

"/ j Up , and beam ing t1lrough the " clouds" of its literal n.r f c;(~ T_ . A. r'pscnse, that the predictions of the Second Coming are , I - '11 - .., J-­

made clear as to their"genuine meaning: .--l- 1I . . 2. ~·s /I

" they shall see the .son of Man cormn III the clouds of heaven, " _ Mol. ro... f . ,with pow er and great glory" ( att ew XXIV. 30 • M4"J- I ~ and when that revelation was made, the purpose for which it was made, and the consequences of its having been made, is the subject of our final inquiry into the teach ing concerning the Second Coming of the Lord.

6' HOW THE SPIRITUAL SENSE OF THE WORD HAS BEEN MADE KNOWN

In any act of knowing there is involved a subject and A human instrument an object, the knower and the thing known. In the was necessa ry

act of revelation there are likewise involved the revealer, and the person or persons to whom the revelation is made. It is advisable that we should here confine the use of the word "revelation" to mean, the act of Divine d isclosure to m~ truths that man could not discover for himself. It is in this strict sense that we use the term "revelation" of th~ d isclosure of th e truths contained in the internal or spiritual sense 0.£.J.h!: Word. A. JI1".~ . f.,.

T herefore, if such a revelation is to be made, the revealer must be the source of what is revealed, and th us the Divine Being Himself. I t is also evident that "a human instrument will be employed as the medium of

~ tJiC"disclosure. ~ - At th e first Ad yent of the Lord, and in order that God

might manifes t Himself in a human form and body, it was necessary to raise up a human instrument for the purpose. The agent used was a woman, the Virgin

( ~, in whose womb God formed and fashioned for

I His full indwelling, the humanity which was known to , men a~the Christ. By the process of glorification

17

this H umanity was u nited to the Divinity of which it r. was begott en; so that the Divine Humanity of the LordJ }

JJ...... Ad. S~, . ~f Jesus Christ is" th.f. visible God in whom 'Uheinvisible, I as'the soul is in th e bOdy."

But the visibi litY-OLthe D ivine Humanity is visibility not to physical, but only to mental sight. The Divi e

~ . S . H~ty is at once conceivable, and comprehensible by men. It is "visible" to their understanding, and for this reason, namely, that since H is ascension th e Lord is in His glorified humanity; He can no longer ~Eear'" ­

'i. J. - - Ilbefore the eyes of man's body.> Wherefore, when e s owed- H imself to His disciples after His resur­

rection, He first of all opened the eyes of their spirit. And so we read of the appearance of the risen Lord to the two disciples on the Emmaus Road that,

" their eyes were o~ened, an d they knew Him; and He vanished ff'J.S . out of their sIgh t j (Luke xxiv, 31).

Ernanuel These considerations are offered to the reader, inSwed enborg.

order that he may not hastily dismiss from his mind what is about to be said. The claim to have been the instrument raised u b the Lord in order to effect His

Ic)d -r. S~ond oming- by rev ea ing Himself in the truths of C'-- - His WQfd, in its opened internal sense-is made by thatlrf4.ul . I.

good and great "servant of the Lord Jesus Christ,.3A. S . Emanuel Swedenborg." The claim is unpretentiously,

\ but firmly, made in a book written by him, which bearsI the title, True Christian Religion. And it is put forward in the words which follow :

" Since the Lord cannot manifest H imself in person to the world (on account of the glOriJ1caiiOriOffiishumanity), and yet He has foretold that H e would CO!!1l:-ll Qcis stabl ish a N ew Church, which is th e new ! erm alem, it follows that He will do this by means of a Man, who is able not only to receive th e doctrines Of) that Church in his understanding, but also to make tn em Rnown by the press. That the Lord manifested Himself before me, His servant, that He sent me on this office and afterwards opened the sight of my spirit, and so let me into the spiritual world, permitting me to see the heavens and the hells , and also to converse with angels and spirits, and this now continually for many years, I attest in truth; and further that from the first day of my call to this office, I have never received anything I

relating to the r!ocu:i.lles of that Church from any angel, but e , r. from the LOrd a[one, w.hilc I Was read ing " the word " . 1. H: T. (paragraph 779) · A .s

To this claim, Swedenborg added the further statement J • • that,

"To the end that the Lord might be constantly present, He revealed to me th e spiritual sense of Hi s word, in which sense Divine truth is m lIS light, and 10 thiS light"l-Ie is continually present; for H is presence in the wprd is only by means of its spiritual sense through the light 0 which He passes into the

A • .r. ' shade, in whi ch is the sense of the letter. eo: .. The literal ~Qls e - A oS' • ____ is as a c~(J , ,!!!d the sJllritua l sense Wry, and the Lord Himself

S.....,8 t:::=,

is as the sun from which the light proceeds, and thus the Lord is \!Ie W~" (paragraph 780). ).S...... c.

However astonishing this claim .may appear to be, the reader is' asked to reflect upon what has been advanced in the pages of this booklet. I t has been

r - shown (firstly) that the Second Coming of the Lord is made in a revelation of Divine truth from Himself, in "T which revelation He has clearly revealed "H ims elf as

.. -~.:::. being~ in is Divine Humanity: the one God of heaven A·S. L - and earth; (secondly) the revelation consists in th e", L J ~.('.f­

disclosure of the internal sense of th e \ Word of God; - d A. f . .s. :? _ and (thirp lY) such a rev elatIOn"must needs be made by

means orJl'hum an instrument. ~ - ---_ J,..;.-That the claim to have been the aforesaid instrument A.S .

is made by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), has been affirmed in his own words. \- What the reader must decide for himself-namely, can the claim be sub­stantiated ?-can only be fairly decided on available evidence, such as the eminence of the claimant as a man of science, philosophy and statesmanship, his profound scholarship, the integrity and purity of his life, his probity, and his competence to the mission entrusted to him. The life of Swed eobor is on record and may

A be read in t le annals of his country . we en and in the biographies written by George Trobridge, and the Rev. Wm. Worcester. Above all else, the testification

7 ( to the truth of the claim is to be found in the books Iv i written by Swedenborg, from the time that he

i ~urrend ered himself to the call he received, to his dea th In 1772.

There we must leave this particular matter. And we are well content to do so if the reader will make impartial inquiry in the directions indicated above.

f We have answered the ques9,ons of how, l od (approxi­~ mately) when, th e spir itual s ense of t!:lc r.Word was I. " made known " and th e SecOi1clCOming olt'he Lord thus effected. There remains that we should answer as briefly as possible two more questions.

.:j FOR WHAT PURPOSE HAS THE LORD MADE HIS SECOND COMING AND

WHAT CONSEQUENCES HAVE FOLLOWED IT?

We have seen that the language in which th e coming Parallels between the

of the Lord as the Messiah was prophesied, was symbolic First and Second in character, and that it aptly described the desolation Advents.

of I2Y..e, faith, knowledge, and spirituallifc, which would• z.] 't

19

prevail in the Church and the world, at the i~f His coming. Furthermore, this "abomination of desolation" was what constituted the necessity for His Coming, and which, therefore, involved the Divine work of redemption. The work 0 redemptIOn Itself consisted in the Lord's taking upon Himself our fallen nature, and therein combating, conquering and removing hell from man. The conquest of the hells by His victories over them in temptations, involved at the same time the glorification of the Lord's Humanity. -- - ­

This Divine work of redemption also effected a judgment upon the Jewish Church-an opening of its internal states, and the bringing it to an end. Thus our Lord declared that

.. for judgment am I come into the world" (John ix, 39).

That the Jewish Church was self-jud~J2Y-jts re'~on of the Lord as the Messiah,ls a matter of history. And that it had reached the nadir of its futile and em2ty f~m at the time that our Lord came into the world, cannot be doubted by any unbiased student of the age. It was indeed a con summ_~~~sLQ1Utrch, utterly inctRable ~ rebuking or r~g the age in which it ha come to the end of its spirinial.aisefulness. Its doom was pronounced by the Lord Himself in the dreadful words:

If God were not to be left without a witness in the world, it was most urgent and necessary that a ~d }\ m ore spi r itu al Church should be established. Accord­ingly. a New Churcll\,was founded upon the rock of faith ~ in .th e Lord l-Iims~l f.\ On His life and teaching, and \ guided and inspired by the Spirit of the Lord, the Christian Church began its glorious and conquering career.

The last judgment on the Jewish Church was actually \ effected by the Lord's work of redemption, in the spiritual world. To this judgment He referred when He said,

.. I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven (Luke x, 18).

And to its immediate consequences He made pointed reference in the words, >

.. Now is th e judgment of this wo rld : now shall the prince of this wOrld be cast out: An d I If I be lifted u fr m the earth'l! l....cA •• J

will d raw all men unto e 0 n xi i. 31, 32 ) . ,,0.". It was by means of this general judgment in the spiritual world, that the way was opened for a new inflowing of

20

h.caY.cnly love and light into the minds of men upon earth. Without that influx there could have been no reception of t h e ord as God and Saviour, and no affirmative response to His message. And apart frOm ) I 9.1...;. such jrecep tion it is impossible to conceive how the z. j)£ ~f • Christian Church could have been established amongst ] JW d ~J­men.

We see, then, that an essential purpose in the advent of the Lord in flesh was the work of judgment, the winding up, as it were, of the ewish Churc , and the establishment of a new dispensation of religion, or the Christian Church.

ll

--- We should expect to find, therefore, that like events \\ were involved in the Lord's Second Adyent, and that }.l l::iecause of them, th e Lord could use in His predict ions .. t l

concerning it, the very language of corres&ondential sy.mhQls, which had been employed by ose who delivered the prophecies of His First Advent. - 4~

That, in point of fact, our Lord did use these symbols has already been shown. That He also foresaw the

ecline and fall of the Church which He had establ ished by the la ours of HIS postles must be manifest to any discerning student in the words in which He foretold it,

"when the Son of Mall cometh shall He find faith on the 1I earth? " (Luke xviii. 8). ­

The parable of the sheep and the goats, related in Matthew xxv., as a part of the predictions concerning the Second Coming, as clearly shows that the makin g of a general judg m ent was an integral part of its purpose. As a consequence, a re-orien ta tion in th e world of _ ,I spirits, the formation of new h eavens a nd the estabhsh­

---=:.)\ ment of a new Church , are descri bed in the book caned " T he Apocalyp se," in which the visions recorded as having been seen by John, the revelator, are concluded with the vision of tl:ll;, descent of the Holy City, the new-- J erusalem. The description of this vision is introduced by the words,

" I saw a new heav en and a new eart h " (Rev. xxi . I ).

\ And in the course of it we meet with the declaration made by Him "who sat upon the throne," that, "Behold! I make all things new" (Rev. xxi. 5).

The inference, then, appears to be irresistible, that a vital part of the purpose for which the Lord would make a second Advent was th e j udg ment of its fai th and

~ JI life upon the first Christian Church, and the founding Mthereafter of a new Christian Church, which is the J\ Church of T he New Jerusalem.

21

~~Ys~a';,ew . The r~<i;der will naturally ask, What circumstances in Chureh was A the condition of the first Christian Church coula possIbly ne eded. anse tliat wou a reqUIre that the Lord should come

'2. again and establish a_new-Church ? Our reply can only be brief: for the story is too long

to be told in detail within the limits of this small booklet. But, although the reply be brief, it shall be succinct, and history shall be appealed to in verification of its truth.

I1 The simplicitl: and purity of the Atostolic Church --- .11 dianot long survIve the age of th e Ap~t es, ifit survived

it at all. 1 ne EpIstles of the Apostles bear eloquent witness to that fact. The primitive Church, which may be said to have been th e Church surv ivin the A ostles, an astmg or a out ~ears at most, was requently .?ao . rent by heresies and sch isms. With the Church of~the Fathers" false beliefs multiplied themselves and malice and hatred marked their interminable disputes.

So disturbing were these factional disputes, and so widespread was one of the most formidable heresies that has ever rent the Church, namely, that known as Arianism, that the Emperor Constantine called an assemblage of the Bishops to Nicea, There the Council of that name drew up a creed-.rn rebuttal of the Arian heresy. In its immediate object of stamping out the heresy, the Council was generally successful; and the Creed of Nicea became the orthodoxy of the Church concerning the Godhead, and remains so to this day. It answered the assertions of Arius that Christ, though ) begotten before all time was neverthelessa creature. As such, He was not God, although, s~d Arius, H e ~as Divine, because His " reasonable soul w~h~ ~gQs."

In short, accordinf to Arius, Jesus Christ was a semi-) Divine Being, and a super-man,~ but He was not God.

The Nicene Council affirmed that Christ was Very God and Very Man. So far it was right. But the creed it drew up insisted that, although of the same substance \ ~ as the Father and the Holy Ghost, He was a distinct Person, as were also the Father and the Holy Ghost. )

t moreover asserted that, as to His Humanity, it was inferior to His Godhead, and so it was not Divine. While it was careful to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were each distinct persons, it was nevertheless affirmed that there was but one God.

Thus Deity was said to consist in three persons, each one of whom is " God and Lord." I n e breath the Creed asserted that there is bUt one God, and"' in the other it declared in effect, although not in words, that

22

there were three Gods, and that the Humanity of Christ was not Divine:--

Here, then, is the fountain-head of the subseque nt 11 1=.vG 1S . dec ay of th e fi !:.l!! ChiistIan---!:!!:..ch . From it followed a host of consequences which corrupted the life of faith as well as the doctrines of faith. The doctrine of the vicarious atonement, and salvation by faith alone in the redeeming merits of Jesus Christ, with all its evil conse­quences to the life of pure religion, could never have arisen ifthe Church had maintained th e faith upon which) - DUI S ~ she had been foun ded, namely, faith in the Divine Lord . as the One only Godclheaven and earth, w~e Humanity is Divine, and faith in the teaching of her Lord that men can only be saved out of their sins by shunning evils as sins against Him, and by living in accordance with His commandments.

g CONCLUSION It has been the aim of this booklet to explain the New

Testament doctrine of the Second Coming of the Lord. It has endeavoured to show that the Lord has come ~ _f"""" ag ain as He promised to do, and that He has done so bYJ} L A.S"Cl>"- c r. ...... .., a revealing of Himself as the One God 01 all mankmd on earth an d In heaven. In Its fullness, the revelation consists in the disclosure of the ~es of the internal - r'oV. sense of tl~d, an~1l11 estation in its literal - A·S 4

sense. The rev elatiOlFwas made by a human instrument, and set forth in the theological works of1'the revelator) Emanue1 Swedenborg, wherein also the nature of the spiritual world and of life in that world are made known " from things heard and seen."

In the revelation, committed to writing" by command of the Lord," and penned in freedom by His servant Emanue1 Swedenborg, the Second Coming of the Lord J_ I J...... . is an acc omplished fact, and by th at commg, and in the ~ A ..s . truths in which it is made, a_ new Church ha s been established, and is now in process of rowth and ten­

J(sion throughou t the world. The many things which our J1 Lord wished to teach ~hen He tabernac1ed ~~ng

men, but could not because men could not "hear Z. th em, " have now been .12ld , ancf"'~lthings ' are being

made new. And of The N~ Church~ur Lord Jesus Christ, " the only wise God, our Saviour," it is written,

"His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not

Danieass away, and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed"

vii, 14) .

.3 POSTSCRIPT The principal works written by Swedenborg at the

" command of the Lord" are as follows: - Arcana Calestia.

Tli£I5ivzne Love and Wisdom. The Divine Providence. The Apocalypse Explained. The A pocal'l1l.se Revealed. Heaven and its wonders and Hell. The Heavenly Doctrine.

- True Christian Religion. These and other works not here mentioned were all

written between the years 1]40 and 1])0. T neTast of the m tol);Wnn en: y,,'-ai:True Chri--rliq!L lJ:iligion. In an addendum to this work, Swedenborg wrote the following:

" After this work was finished the Lord called together His twelve disclpI cs-wJiololloweil l -lim in the world, and the next day He sent them throughout the whol e spiritual world to preach the Gospel, that the Lord God r~s us Chri sLrrigneth whose kingdom shall endure for ever and ever a din to the prophecy in aniel ViI 13, 14) and in th evelation Xl . 15) and that 'HI e ~e those who arualled ,to !!!i!!Ilage sU!per of th e Lamb' ( evelation xix . 9). This was done on the ninet eent h clay of June, in the year t770' This is under­stoo d fiy the Lord 's words: • H e slialhcrnt1'Iis angels and they shall gather together His elect from one end of heaven to the other' (Matthew xxiv, 31)."

~n that date, therefore, it may be said that th e Second 1\ Coming of the Lord became a fact of history, and from l irdates the commencement 0 The New Church,

-.s-- symbolized by The New erusalem' in Revelation xxi.

AIade and Printed in Great Britain. by The Campfteld Press , St. Albans, Herts.