The life and work of St. Paul

342 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
and it is for that pathway into His presence that I am now watching. In the
earlier years of my conversion we all anticipated a speedier development of
Antichrist, a speedier removal of the restraining power, a speedier brightening
of the clouds about the flaming feet of our Saviour. That for which I now
look is far more the spiritual union with my Lord than His visible manifestation.
It may be, too, that He cometh in many ways. If we ever mistook the
nearer for the farther horizons of His prophecy, it is but a part of that
ignorance which, as He Himself warned us, should, as regards the details of
this subject, be absolute and final. For said He not when He was yet with
us, '
Of that day and that hour knoweth no man ; no, not the angels which
are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father '
? But whether He come so
soon as we have expected, or not, yet in one form or another assuredly now
and ever '
'
the Lord is at hand and the ;
lesson of His coming is that which
He also taught us, and which we have taught from Him '
Take ye heed,
watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is.' "
That these were tho views of St. Paul and of other Apostles on " the crises
and the periods" respecting which, if they ventured to hold any definite
opinion at all, they could not but, according to their Lord's own warning, be
liable to be mistaken, will, I think, be evident to all who will candidly weigh
and compare with themselves the passages to which I here refer. 1
Now BO far as the fall of Jerusalem and the passing of doom upon
the Jewish race was " a day of the Lord," so far even the most literal acceptation
of their words is in close accordance >viik the actual results. Nor
should this remarkable coincidence be overlooked. On December 19th, A.D. 69,
the Capitoline Temple was burnt down in the war between Vitellius and Ves-
pasian, which Tacitus calls the saddest and most shameful blow, and a sign of
the anger of the gods. On August 10, A.D. 70, a Roman soldier flung a
brand within the Temple of
" 2 "
Jerusalem. Thus," says Dolliuger, within a
few months the national sanctuary of Rome and the Temple of God, the two
most important places of worship in the old world, owed their destruction
to Roman soldiers thoughtless instruments of the decrees and -judgment of
a higher power. Ground was to bo cleared for the worship of God in spirit
and in truth. The heirs of the two temples, the Capitoline and the Jewish a
handful of artisans, beggars, slaves, and women were dwelling at the time
in some of the obscure lanes and alleys of Rome ; and only two years before.
^Allusions to a near Advent, 1 Thess. i. 9, 10, "ye turned to God .... to wait
"
for His Son from heaven
"
; 1 Cor. i. 7, To wait for the coming of the Lord Jesus "
(cf. 2 Theus. iii. 5) ; 1 Cor.
"
xv. 51, We shall not all sleep, but we "
shall all be changed
(cf. 1 Thess. iv. 15 17) ; James v. 8, 9, "The coming of the Lord draweth . . . nigh The
judge standeth before the door " "
1 Pet. ;
iv. 7, The end of all things is at hand
"
;
"
1 John ii. 18, Even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last
"
time ; Rev. xxii. 20, " Surely I come quickly." On the sayings of our Lord, on which
the expectation was perhaps founded (Matt. xxiv. 29, SO, 34), see my Life of Christ, ii.
257, sq. On the other hand, if St. Paul contemplated the possibility of being alive at
the Day of the Lord, he also was aware that though near,
it would not be immediate
(2 Cor. iv. 14 ; 2 Thess. ii. ; Horn. xi. 24 27), and at a later period looked forward to
hi* own death (Phil. i. 2023).
8 Judenth. u. Heidenth. ix. ad. f.