Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/267

 salvation thereby. The communication of grace, the sentiments of faith, the nature of the resurrection, the principles of judement, the joys of heaven, the torments of hell, and the coming of the Lord, are all pronounced to be mysterious things which reason must not dare to handle, or philosophy attempt to touch. Do not these facts prove most convincingly that the dispensation in which they exist has no true intelligence upon the most important subject of revelation? When mystery begins, there is some reason to suspect that truth has ended. Wisdom is one of the chief attributes of a genuine Church; if, then, a Church exists which teaches doctrines that cannot be received among the people as principles of intelligence, the conclusion that it has come to its end, is irresistible. Of what intellectual value is any teaching which the understanding cannot accept? Of what practical use is that which no one is supposed to comprehend? Is it not plain that the Church which has read the Word with these unfavourable results, must either have mistaken its significance or perverted its meaning? in either case its darkness is evident, and its night has come. Surely these facts present a strong and reasonable occasion for the Lord to come again. Their general features include all the details of the narrative which the Lord revealed as the prelude to that event; and, therefore. He who is faithful and true will fulfil His promise, nor can He, under such circumstances, delay His coming.

As, then, it is plain from the Scriptures that the occasion for the second coming of the Lord is to be sought for in the corruptions of the Church which He mercifully founded when He was in the world, it may be equally evident that the purpose of His coming is to execute a final judgment upon it, and, at the same time, to vouchsafe to the world a