when God, with all long-suffering and forbearance, is, in Christ Jesus, reconciling the world unto himself. The idea the Bible gives us of this part of the Christian age is, that the Divine Mercy puts up with every sort of insolence and insult which the sinner may throw in the face of heaven; that it bears long and is kind to men, to convince them that God desires not the destruction of the sinner, but rather that he should turn to him and live. But the words of Christ present the strongest view of the tender mercy and longsuffering shown to the wicked in this first portion of the Christian dispensation. He says: All manner of sin and blasphemy, except that against the Holy Ghost, shall be forgiven This is the character of the day of grace given by our Lord himself; this is the day he speaks of when he says, work while it is called to-day; for the night cometh when no man can see to work.

unto men.

The common interpretation given to these words of Christ, that the night he speaks of means the state after death, has no fitness at all in it. It would hardly comport with the dignity and wisdom of Christ, as a teacher, to spend time in admonishing men that they will not be able to work after they are dead. It is the universal sentiment of mankind that death puts an end to all things.

It was not the death of the body that Christ referred to when he spoke of the night when no man could work. He meant that this age of great gospel mercy, in which the grace of God was urging and pressing men to accept of salvation, would have an end, and would be followed by an age as dif. ferent in the mode of the divine dispensations as the night is from the day. Therefore he urges his church to avail herself of those gracious means to spread her influence over the earth to do all she can do while this day and those means last.

The great day of these means of grace is fitly illustrated by the harvest season of the world: the time of gathering and saving men by means of gospel grace and mercy. Christ

compares this day to a harvest: The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few, pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest that he may send forth more laborers into his field. Jeremiah, 8 chap. 20, employs the same mode of illustration : The harvest is past and the summer is ended and we are not saved.

The use I wish to make of these quotations is to show that the prophet, when he speaks of reaping the earth, does not mean the infliction of judgment upon the earth, as some commentators have imagined, but the contrary; he means a gathering of the people into the fold of Christ by the means which God's tender mercy has appointed for that purpose. The harvest state of the world is the gospel day, and is represented in the three following verses:

14. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the doud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

15. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickie, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

16. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

The first of these verses presents a scene which the eye may dwell upon with pleasure. It does not show us the black storm-cloud, speeding its way over the heavens, and by its flashing lightnings and pealing thunders making the very earth tremble with fear; but it shows the soft white cloud which portends no angry storm; spreading its fleecy drapery over the horizon, and as it receives the rays of the descending sun reflects them in a thousand brilliant and beautiful hues.

Upon the white cloud sat one like unto the Son of man, wearing a golden crown, and bearing in his hand a sharp sickle. The whole figure represents preeminent power, pure and holy in its dispensations, as the crown of gold signifies. -2

VOL. II.

In a word it is the gospel dispensation. Christ administers it by his Spirit! this is the holy person seated upon the cloud being like unto the Son of man. The Spirit is to do in the church, and in the hearts of the people, just as Christ would do if he were personally present. The sickle signifies the effective means employed in the salvation of men; as the sickle is the proper instrument of reaping the harvest, the white cloud shows the dispensation to be one of preëminent mercy, and not of wrath.

Another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice, to him that sat on the cloud: thrust in thy sickle: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe! What is this loud voice coming out of the temple, but the earnest and fervent prayer of the church for the spread of the gospel and the conversion of the world? And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle in the earth and the earth was reaped.

The power of the Spirit and the prayers of the church have been blended in this holy effort ever since the introduction of Christianity into the world. But not always with equal success. During the dark ages of the church, the time of her great apostacy, almost nothing at all was done but sowing tares. But when the Reformation had fully restored the day of gospel light, the cry went out: thrust in thy sickle, for the time is come for thee to reap. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at least so far as the latter has transpired, will ever stand prominent as the period in which the power of God and the conquests of divine grace were most remarkable in the salvation of men.

We have not yet reached the period signified in the last clause of the sixteenth verse: And the earth was reaped. Still the white cloud holds its station in the sky, like the covenant bow, and the angel, uniting his sickle with the prayers of the saints, is still reaping.

But this harvest has its end-this reaping comes to a close, and in the language of Jeremiah, multitudes and millions will

say: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. When this will be is not for me to say; all that I shall undertake to do, will be, to show what is to follow the reaping of the earth; the chief characteristics of that time, are condensed in the following four verses of the chapter :

17. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

18. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.

19. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

20. And the wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

These verses introduce the wine-press age of the world, and present a dispensation as different from the gospel-day as the night is from the day.

It is said in relation to the work of the first angel, when it was completed—and the earth was reaped, signifying that the dispensation of the harvest was ended. Then follows the wine-press dispensation.

This is the idea presented by those two representations. Nothing could more fully express the severe judgments, the fearfull calamities, which the Scriptures inform us will distinguish the latter-day trials, than the crushing pressure of the wine-press; and, as if to give additional force to the figure, the prophet says and blood came out of the wine-press, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs, representing these judgments as most fearfull in their effects and extensive in their operations. This has been taken by commentators to signify devastating wars, because mention is made of the flowing out of a great quantity of blood, even to the horses' bridles. But both the blood

and the horses, as well as the press and clusters of grapes, are figurative, and are used only to heighten the effect of the symbolical representation. The wine-press age will be an age in which the indignation of heaven against all ungodliness will be revealed by the most severe and overwhelming judgments, and that age will succeed the present dispensation of gospel mercy.

There is much to be said in support of this opinion of two distinct dispensations in the Christian era; but I shall not now enter fully into that subject, but will defer the arguments upon it until I come to speak of the day of judgment, which I intend to do in a separate chapter. Something more, however, may be said at present of the nature and design of the wine-press dispensation. Of its purpose it might be sufficient to say that it is to effect the objects which the gospel itself has aimed at-viz.: to turn men from their iniquities and bring them to the fear of God.

The wine-press age will not be a war of destruction and carnage of human life; but it will be an unrelentless war against the false and corrupt systems of men, by which wickedness is shielded, and the righteousness of God is opposed. These systems will all be broken down-scattered and destroyed like the chaff of the summer threshing-flour, or, as it is elsewhere expressed, be burnt up like stubble. Christ has reference to this wine-press day when he says: The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. The angels he refers to can be nothing less than the severe judgments of the wine-press dispensation, adapted to the purpose of destroying the institutions of ungodliness amongst

men.

That the two dispensations, the harvest and the winepress, belong to the Christian era, is evident from the fact that the prophet says he saw the two angels that directed and presided over each dispensation come out of the temple— that is, as he means to say, both these institutions will exist