sleep in Jesus," have heard his voice, and been raised up, and that his living saints have already undergone their glorious metamorphosis, in order to come with their Redeemer. The following scriptures must have been fulfilled:

1 Thess. iv. 14—17. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even them also which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them that are asleep. For 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 meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

1 Cor. xv. 50-55. "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?" &c.

This quotation of St. Paul from Hosea xiii. 14, affords an incontrovertible argument to prove that the manifestation of the Messiah to Israel, and the resurrection of the just, are simultaneous; and the apostle's other reference in this passage to Isaiah

xxv. 8, equally proves that we are to understand by the destruction "of the last enemy death," ver. 26, the "swallowing up of death in victory," mentioned by the prophet. Then will God bring with Christ the souls of his redeemed from the unseen state, and their dead bodies from the dust of the earth; that they may come forth with him at the time of her deliverance.

1;

These two divine oracles of the New Testament, the language of which is so plain that it requires no commentary, ascertain, therefore, the fact that the blessed resurrection and the assumption of living saints, are events, which will precede the appearance of the Lord upon earth, they are caught np in fact to meet him in the air, before his feet alight on this earthly ball: or "stand on the mount of olives," and they are never more separated from him: "and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Thus when he is shewn in the visions of the opened heavens they are shewn with him:

Rev. xix. 2. "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was faithful and true, and in righteousness doth he judge and make war. His eyes are as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself: and he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name was called THE WORD OF GOD. And the armies which were in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nation, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and he treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING of Kings, and LORD OF LORDS."

It seems evident, therefore, that his people are gathered to the Lord before his actual arrival on the surface of the earth, when he comes forth as the avenger of Israel to the judgment of the vintage. The seat of that judgment, where the wine press is trodden, is in an especial manner referred to the holy land, where the armies of the nations are assembled in the circumstances and by the means which we have seen. At the same time, however, this judgment is extended to the great city, and to the country of the enemy. As Lot out of Sodom, and as Noah from the drowning world, are the saints delivered from this last destruction.

But, in the fourteenth chapter of the Revelation, where we have the events of the last time shewn in their order, as we find the vintage preceded by the "blessing" on "the dead," and "the harvest of the earth,"—both which together comprise "our gathering together to the Lord;"-so these symbols are themselves preceded by the proclamations of two angels, one of which denotes the fall of Babylon; the other the curse entailed upon the worshippers of the beast and of his image. It may be argued from this, that the judgments both against the city and against the empire-if this should be the distinction marked, as I believe it to be, by the separate proclamations of the two angels-have begun to go forth; and are in actual execution before the blessed dead are raised, and the living elect are caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And to this agree the words of our Lord in

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bies Ther come, some of them at least, from the midst of a people as much at ease is Sodom, when Lot was conducted out of the midst of it; or the world that perished in the food, when Noah entered into the ark. One night em probable conjecture, fix the period of this wonderful deverance, under the seventh vial. That vial is poured on the air; in the air Satan's kingdom is situate. There, “Jehovah judgeth the host of the high ones, on high," or "in the height as well as the kings of the earth, upon the earth."* In the air his redeemed go to meet their victorious Lord. They “judge angels.” Satan" is trodden under their feet." In their glorified and spiritualized bodies they receive “a kingdom," which "flesh and blood could not inherit:" though flesh and blood might have inherited an earthly kingdom, had that been

• Isaiah xxiv. 21.

all, whether in Adam's paradise restored, or in Jerusalem, rebuilt on the renewed earth. But these are blessed "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." It will, however, be known, and felt, and seen, on earth, that "the heavens do reign," and that "the dominion under the whole heavens is given to the saints of the Most High," or "the saints of the high places." The present "prince of the power of the air" is superseded, "powers and principalities are spoiled," and "he puts not into subjection to angels," not even to elect angels "the world to come;" but to "man of whom he hath been mindful, and the son of man whom he hath visited," and of all this we have a pledge and earnest in the humiliation and exaltation of "the man Christ Jesus." By those "better sacrifices" which he hath offered, "the heavenlies have been purified."— "A tabernacle which is not of this building" is there erected; and these are the generations that shall dwell and abide there, when "the gates lift up their heads, and the everlasting doors are opened, that the King of glory may come in.”

These mansions in the sky, as we shall see hereafter, are brought indeed in very near contact or intimate intercourse with "the redeemed nations" upon earth. They "walk in the light of the New Jerusalem," and know it to be the depositary of all real power and lordship which is exercised over the earth. But still it is, strictly speaking, an aërial city:—unless we presume to say "the literal construction cannot stand "-above the highest mountains that are climed: so that when the mountain