As regards the coming of the Lord, the purpose of God is evidently to make saints always wait for it as a present expectation; and this is shown in never telling them the moment. Nothing can be more explicit than scripture on this head. St. Paul then made no mistake in expecting "the speedy return of Christ from heaven." He waited for God's Son from heaven and taught others to wait for it continually. He never prophetically announced the time. In each he was perfectly guided by the Spirit of God. That this was the Lord's mind as presented in scripture, the following passages show: But "let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that waft for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that... they may open unto him immediately.... And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.... Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not." So again, "If that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite... the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him... and shall appoint him his portion with the hypocrites." Yet in the very same discourse, directly after, the Lord says, "While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made," &c. That is, if the heart counted on delay, it betrayed its wickedness; yet the Bridegroom would delay, so trying the faith of His own. Yet, adds Peter, "the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish... the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation." That is, the delay is not slackness in His promise to us, but God's patience with men prolonging the time of grace and salvation. But the same apostle warns us that there would be scoffers, saying, "Where is the promise of his coming?" The apostle, then, taught of the Holy Ghost, acted in the spirit of Christ's direction to His disciples in holding and nourishing the lively, and joyful, sanctifying, yea, energizing constant hope of His coming, and yet never predicted the time, which He had put in His own power who had said "Sit on my right hand till Ι make thine enemies thy footstool."
Mr. N., pressed by proofs, seeks to avoid the effect or what he does not dare deny, while sheaving his unwillingness to admit it, "That God has been pleased to reveal something of coming history to certain eminent men of Hebrew antiquity," adding, "That is all." Now I call this profoundly immoral, and an absurd state to be in. Because, to say of divine communications to man, and in mercy, "That is all!" is, in the worst sense, immoral. And it is absurd; because, to suppose that God should have revealed something about Moab, and Ishmael, and Tire, and Edom, to some eminent men of the Hebrew monarchy, and nothing at all else, is unreasonable. To have given some local facts about some petty nations, and to have concealed everything about all the temporal and eternal interests of men, His own government and salvation, is an absurd supposition.
But, further, these eminent men to whom God has been pleased to give this, have said a great deal more on more important subjects, and give the particular revelations spoken of as minor parts of a vast scheme of government, ending with Messianic glory, with the same evidence of truth-the same power of testimony. As to the former, according to Mr. N., they are the confidants of God, and as to the rest impostors and deceivers; yet such as God chose as eminent men, to make them the special confidants of these particular revelations: and all this is logic and philosophy! But this is not our subject now. Mr. N. "receives this conclusion"-i.e., of their inspiration on these points-"with an otiose faith." But his logic has failed him here; because then, at any rate, second-hand faith is not vain. Mr. N. may be indifferent, "otiose;" but that is not the point. Here is faith at second-hand-real and convincing to those concerned-
of vast importance to sustain their hearts, to encourage them to trust in God, and to avoid the powerful current of all which was set in, through the assurance of divine interference in favor of the faithful, and the powerlessness of human resources; in a word, through the assurance that God governed and was to be trusted. This was the effect of faith, secondhand faith (i.e., the truly excellent kind of faith subjectively). For while, for the purpose of testimony to others, eye-witness was the just means employed; yet, even as to the eye-witnesses, it was the spiritual sense of the value of these things that was real, moralizing, efficacious faith before God. Even as to Israel, they happened to them for figures, and are "written for our admonition on whom the ends of the world are come." That is, the admission of this one paragraph totally sets aside the whole chapter. It is not true; it is totally untrue (evidently untrue for one who has examined scripture) that these prophecies have nothing to do with Christianity. They are part of one vast scheme. They are not Christianity of course. We have the true light; but the first fresh dawn of mercy, and God's patient ways with ignorant man-always His ways-have not lost their interest for those who can see clearer.