Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/230

 to be expected. His promise to come again when troubles should set in upon the Church, when false Christs and false prophets would arise, and deceive, if it were possible, the very elect; when it would become doubtful whether faith could be found in the earth, refers, so far as men in the world are concerned, to His re-coming into their minds by opening the interior truths of His word for their perception and acceptance. Hence, in connection with those remarkable predictions, it is expressly written, that the Son of man shall be revealed.

Besides, the Lord, in order to come personally into the world, took upon Himself a natural humanity. The humanity in which He was then seen by the common sight of His contemporaries, was taken from a human mother. That humanity, considered in itself, was not Divine, nor do we see how, by any subtleization or process of absorption, it could be taken up into the infinitude of the Divine nature. The Lord, during the whole period of His sojourn in the world, was engaged in putting off His natural humanity, and putting on another within it from Himself: and this is that Divine Humanity in which He now is, and in which He must ever be approachcd by those who love Him. It was this Divine Humanity which was revealed to the spiritual sight of the three disciples upon the Mount of Transfiguration, which was seen by His followers after His resurrection, and at the period of His ascension. This Divine Humanity is not adapted to the ordinary sight of men in the world, and none were permitted to behold it but those who had followed Him, and in some measure believed what He had taught. From the time of His resurrection, He was never seen by the natural eyes of any one; the reason being because He then no longer possessed