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VII.
FROM
THENCE HE SHALL COME TO
JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD.
The Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father
with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man
according to his deeds.
MATT. xvi. 27.
But
when the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all
the angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of
His
glory: and before Him shall be gathered all the
nations:
and He shall separate them one from another, as the
shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats.
MATT. xxv. 31, 32.
Wherefore,
receiving a kingdom that cannot he shaken,
let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing
to God with reverence and awe.
HEBR.
xii. 28.
Behold,
He cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall
see Him, and they which pierced Him; and all the tribes of
the earth shall mourn over Him. Even so, Amen.
APOC. i. 7.
WE have considered what the Creed teaches
us of the Lord's Life on earth, and of His
Life in the spirit-world, how He has fulfilled the
destiny of man, of man fallen, Himself sinless,
through suffering. But we do not rest here. As
yet the issue of His work is not made plain. We
still look for that final revelation in which the
Life of earth and the Life of heaven shall be re-
vealed in their unity. Therefore we add to our
belief in the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resur-
rection, the Ascension, the Session of Christ at
the right hand of God, the confession that from
thence He shall come to judge the quick and the
dead .
No one can study the New Testament without
feeling that the thought of Christ's Return was
everywhere present and powerful in the first age.
In the Gospels and in the Apocalypse, in the Acts
and in the Epistles, the same hope is the subject
of promise, of exhortation, of vision; and I do not
think that it would be possible to find any other
special doctrine of Christianity which is not only
affirmed but affirmed in the same language by
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VII.
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88
Belief in the Return in the first age.
VII.
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St Paul and St James, by St Peter and St
John. The return of Christ to judgment
was the subject on which St Peter spoke when the
Jewish multitude were astonished at the first apo-
stolic miracle after the day of Pentecost: it was
the subject on which St Paul spoke when he first
passed over into Macedonia and his enemies ac-
cused him of preaching 'another king than Caesar.’
It seems to rise uppermost in the minds of the
apostles when they are most deeply moved them-
selves and when they wish to move others most
deeply. It is as they declare it the sufficient
motive for patience in affliction and the end of
expectation in the presence of triumphant evil.
And more than this: the hope of Christ's
Return was not only general in the first age: the
Return was looked for at once. From Jerusalem
and Corinth the same voice came that 'the time
was at hand,' even as when the Baptist heralded
Christ's ministry. The dawn of an endless day
was held to be already breaking after a weary
night; and while St Paul reproved the error
of those at Thessalonica who neglected the
certain duties of life that they might, as they
fancied, watch better the spread of the heavenly
glory, he confirmed the truth which they had
misinterpreted.
With us it is far otherwise. A few enthu-
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Vagueness of our own belief.
89
siasts from time to time bring the thought of
Christ's Return into prominence, but for the most
part it has little influence upon our hearts and
minds. We have, I think, no definite idea as to
what the article of our Creed means by which we
profess our belief in it. We acknowledge gene-
rally, in a vague manner, that we shall severally
render an account of our doings, but we do not
look beyond this either in hope or fear to any
manifestation of judgment in the world.
And it is to this judgment of the world that
the Creed especially directs our attention. For
we cannot but notice that in the teaching of
Scripture the earth where we suffer and toil is
presented as the scene of a universal revelation of
Christ's sovereignty; that He enters again into
the conditions of human life; that all men are
affected by His coming; that His coming is some-
thing infinitely more, though it includes this, than
the just retribution of individuals.
In this respect there can be no question as to
the natural meaning of the language of the New
Testament. But it has been said that experience
has shewn that the apostolic expectations were
mistaken : that they looked in vain,' however con-
fidently, for Christ's immediate Return: that we
must take warning from their disappointment
against indulging in visionary and vain hopes.
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VII.
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90
Coming of Christ at the fall of Jerusalem.
VII.
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I say nothing on the general character of such
rash conclusions. I readily admit that there may
have been self-willed believers in the first age, as
there are in all ages, who boldly determined how
Christ should return and how He should establish
His Sovereignty. So it was before Christ's first
Coming. Such men were indeed disappointed;
and, as we see from the Epistle to the Hebrews,
they found it hard to submit, their fancies to God's
will. But their errors, their mistaken and de-
feated hopes, alter nothing in the fulfilment of the
divine counsel. The apostles looked for Christ,
and Christ came most truly in the life-time of St
John. He founded His immovable kingdom. He
gathered before Him, seated upon the throne of
His glory , the nations of the earth, old and new,
and passed sentence upon them. He judged, in
that shaking of earth and heaven, most truly and
most decisively the living and the dead. He estab-
lished fresh foundations for society and a fresh
standard of individual worth. The fall of
Jerusalem was for the religious history of the
world an end as complete as death. The estab-
lishment of a spiritual Church was a beginning as
glorious as the Resurrection.
The apostles, I repeat, looked for Christ's
coming in their own generation, and Christ came.
The form of His Coming, His Coming to judgment,
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Other Comings of Christ.
91
at that crisis is a lesson for all time. As we study
it we can learn part at least of the meaning of our
present faith, that He shall come again. We see
in that Coming the type and the promise of other
Comings through the long ages, till\he earthly
life of humanity is closed. We see in it the signs
of a divine Presence which is laid open in the
great crises of social movement. We see in it
the assurance that the world is not left unvisited
by Him Who died for it; and we take courage at
the sight.
For it is at once obvious that the Coming of
Christ is not one but manifold. I will not leave
you desolate—orphans—He said Himself— I come
to you . The conviction that this is so gives a
new significance to the past and to the future.
We look back, and we may without presumption
recognise Comings of Christ in earlier centuries
of Christendom. We look forward, and with
patient confidence we rest in the knowledge that
in due time He will shew His purpose and His
power to those who love Him.
At the foundation of the Byzantine Empire
in the fourth century, at the conversion of the
Northern nations in the eighth century, at the
birth of Modern Europe in the thirteenth century,
at the re-birth of the old civilisation in the six-
teenth century, Christ came as King and Judge.
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VII.
John xiv.
18.
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92
Manifold Comings of Christ.
VII.
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He came, and we can see that He came, at
the time when Athanasius, the champion of the
East, vindicated the supreme independence of the
Faith, and Augustine, the champion of the West,
affirmed the world-wide embrace of the Church.
He came, and we can see that He came, at
the time when the Irish Columban offered to
the barbarian warriors the virtues of an unseen
power stronger than the arm of flesh, and our own
English Boniface sealed by a fearless death a life
of victorious sacrifice.
He came, and we can see that He came, at the
time when the Italian Francis of Assist claimed
once more for the poor their place in the Church
beside emperors and popes and nobles, and taught
the love of God and the love of man in the
universal language of his age.
He came, and we can see that He came, at the
time when men as far apart as Loyola and Philip
Neri, Luther and Calvin, Colet and Cranmer,
shewed in many parts and with many failures that
Christ claims and satisfies the individual power
of every man.
On each of these occasions new thoughts, new
principles, new estimates of things, entered into
the world, and remain still to witness to their
divine origin. The successive spiritual revolutions
were not at once recognised or understood. Christ
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A present Coming.
93
moved among men and they did not know Him.
But meanwhile believers were confessing their
faith, as we do, that He should come again to
judge the quick and the dead; and we now
rejoice to acknowledge that their faith was not in
vain though it was confirmed in ways which had
not been foreseen.
The wider range of our vision enables us now
to recognise these manifold Comings of Christ
already accomplished, and we may be most thank-
ful for such teaching of experience, but we do not
rest in them. We take the great thought that
this world in which we work, with all its sorrows
and sins, with all its baffled hopes and unworthy
ambitions, is the scene of a divine government.
We take the thought, and therefore we believe
that Christ has not yet revealed the fulness of His
power or uttered the last voice of His judgment.
We still say, as we look often with sad hearts on
what man has made of man, upon the terrible dis-
proportion between human capacities and human
achievements, that He who lived for us and died
for us and ascended for us shall come again to
judge the quick and the dead; and the confession,
if we enter into its meaning, is sufficient to bring
back trust.
Perhaps we need the encouragement more
than we know. For there are abundant signs of
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VII.
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94
Christ's Comings recognised by believers.
| VII.
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change about us now. New truths are spreading
widely as to the methods of God's working, as to
our connexions one with another and with the
past and with the future. Through these, as I
believe, Christ is coming to us, coming to judge us,
and His Coming must bring with it trials and (as
we think) losses. Every revelation of Christ is
through fire, the fire which refines by consuming
all that is perishable. It may then be
that we, to our bitter loss, shall fail like those of
earlier times to read our lesson as it is given. It
may be, the Spirit helping us, that we shall in
part interpret it and use it for our inspiration and
guidance. It may be at least that we shall gain
a living assurance that divine powers are working
about us, and a divine purpose going forward to
its end, and a divine judgment passing into
infallible execution: a living assurance that the
article of our Creed which we are considering
is not for the past only or for the future only, but
for the present too: a living assurance that we
may gain strength in the performance of our
every-day duties, in the study of the world about
us, from knowing that Christ shall come again,
is coming again, to judge the quick and the dead.
This aspect of Christ's Coming, the trustful
and reverent recognition of His manifestations in
history and in society, is of the highest moment
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The final Coming.
95
to us now. I have dwelt upon it because it is
often overlooked. But it does not include the
whole view of the truth of our Creed. The reality
and the meaning of these Comings are clear to
faith, but like the Presence of Christ Himself they
are hidden from the world. None but believers
saw the Risen Christ during the forty days: none
but believers see Christ in the great changes of
human affairs. But beyond all these pre-
paratory Comings there is a day when every eye
shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him. In
that Coming, that Manifestation, that Presence,
the first Coming on earth and the later Comings in
history shall be shewn in their full import. Then
all things, our actions and ourselves, shall be seen
as they are, seen by ourselves and seen by others.
Then the whole course of life, the life of creation,
of humanity, of men, will be laid open, and that
vision will be a Judgment beyond controversy and
beyond appeal.
It is a judgment universal and personal. In
its universal aspect it is the supreme declaration
of the truth that there is an end, a goal for
.creation, a purpose to be fulfilled, a will to be
accomplished. We, who see but small fragments
of social movement which distract and engross us,
are apt to regard history as an aimless succession
of changes. Such would be the judgment which
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VII.
Apoc. i. 7.
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96
Divine Judgment.
| VII.
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a being of narrower faculties might form from
observing a few days or hours of our indi-
vidual lives. But from time to time revolutions,
which are seen to be the intelligible results of the
past, reveal the reality of a law of progress in the
life of humanity. By the revelation of the final
Judgment we are enabled to see that for mankind
as for men severally there is an appointed close to
earthly work.
The Judgment is personal also. And in this
connexion we must master the thought which has
been expressed before that the judgment of Christ,
the Son of man, is the revelation of things as they
are. His judgment does not change the judged:
it simply shews them. It is not, as far as we can
conceive, a conclusion drawn from the balancing of
conflicting elements or a verdict upon a general
issue. The judgment of God is the perfect mani-
festation of truth. The punishment of God is the
necessary action of the awakened conscience. The
judgment is pronounced by the sinner himself and
he carries out inexorably his own sentence. In
our present state a thousand veils hide from us
the motives, the thoughts, the conditions which
give their real character to men and the con-
duct of men. We judge of others by what we can
see in them: and, what is more perilous still, we
are tempted to judge of ourselves by what others
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The power of the Revelation. 97
can see in us. But in the perfect light of Christ's
Presence everything will be made clear in its
essential nature, the opportunity which we threw
away, and knew that we threw away, with its
uncalculated potency of blessing, the temptation
which we courted in the waywardness of selfish
strength, the stream of consequence which has
flowed from our example, the harvest which
others have gathered from our sowing.
We know our own hearts imperfectly; but is
there one of us whom the thought of this revela-
tion does not fill with contrition ?
Our imaginations are dull; but is there one
of us who can imagine keener suffering than to
see the glory for which we were made and, feel
that we have sacrificed our birthright ?
How this last Coming of Christ to judgment
shall be accomplished, which reveals the world to
itself, we know not and it is idle to speculate.
But for each one of us death is its symbol. For
each one of us that solemn coming, which seals
our earthly work, is in a most real sense the
vision of God, instantaneous and age-long, the
vision in His light of ourselves.
So it is then, to sum up what has been said,
that we confess our belief that Christ shall come
again to judge both the quick and the dead: we
W. H.
F. 7
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VII.
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98
The present efficacy
| VI.
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believe that He will come socially in the secret
spiritual forces which mould kingdoms and
churches, and at last with open majesty; we
believe that He will come personally in those
inner flashes which shew us for a moment the
very truth of things, and at last in that supreme
hour when He will take account of our finished
service. And when we reflect upon the confession
we know that it answers to the noblest ideal of
life. It declares that there is a purpose in the
course of history and in the possibilities of our little
parts: that we may look in both for intelligible
tokens of the divine will: that it is our duty to
lift our eyes to tile end when the full work of the
Saviour shall be indicated on the scene of His
sufferings: that even now we are charged and
enabled to find an eternal element underlying the
commonest occupations, something which we
shall once see as it appears to Him Whose we are
and Whom we serve.
Our eyes are dim and our hearts are cold.
We fancy that that is far off which is about our
feet. We treat as a thought almost indifferent
that which is a revelation of the issues of life.
This article of our Creed helps us to see things
more justly and to cherish greater hopes. An old
Gentile writer said, feeling after the truth, 'All
things are full of gods': we know that 'all things
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of the Revelation.
99
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are full of God,' and that His Presence shall here-
after be made clear, clear in the world at large,
clear in our own souls, clear with the manifesta-
tion of perfect righteousness and with the
consequence of inevitable retribution:
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of
His Father with His angels, and then He shall
reward every man according to his doing.
Verily I say unto you —the words of the Lord
which follow have, I believe, a most certain
application to ourselves— There be some of them
that stand here which shall not taste of death till
they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom.
7—2
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VII.
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