Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/238

 many things which He had to say, but which they could not bear, and about which He had very plainly said unto them, "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons." To say then, that they were not clearly acquainted with the time and nature of the Lord's coming to judgment, is simply to repeat what the Lord Himself has said upon the subject. It was information not essential to give efficacy to the mission on which they were employed: they were the Apostles of the first advent; when, therefore, they spoke of the second, it could only have been from some general impression gathered from what the Lord Himself had declared upon the subject. This, indeed, is very strikingly illustrated in the case of Paul's language to the Thessalonians. He introduces the statement which we last considered with these remarkable terms: Now "this I say unto you by the word of the Lord:" which means that this is not any new revelation upon the subject, but that which the Lord had spoken concerning it while He was in the world, and which had been recorded by the evangelists. The Master of the household had delivered the prediction, and the servants reproduced it from general recollection, with acknowledgment. The words, indeed, are not cited, but a paraphrase is given. The words of Matthew are, "The Son of man shall come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He 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 the other." Those of the Apostle are, "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to