he _end_ as
referring _exclusively_ to the termination of the Jewish age, at which
time he should come in his kingdom and commence his reign. They also
speak of the glory which should follow, and of the success that should
attend it. But not _an instance can be produced, where they speak of
the end of time_. He is to destroy the last enemy _death_; and this
work is effected progressively in this _last day_, as individuals are
in _succession_ raised from death, and established in their final and
blissful condition affording us no revelation when this order of
things will terminate. If it is a fact, that God the Father, at the
sound of the "last trump," delivered to his Son the kingdom--if this
be the correct rendering of the passage, as the whole tenor of
revelation seems to justify, then it was at the commencement of his
reign; and our views of the _resurrection day_ are irresistible. The
apostle grasps, in mental vision, the whole subject, and represents it
as one great and interesting event, big with sentiments of light and
life, in the same sense that he does the judgment of the world, which
revolved in his capacious soul as but one single day. The sudden and
interesting change he represents as taking place in the living, has
reference to the unexpected manner in which this sublime scene would
burst on the world. In this he but follows the example of his Lord,
who declared he would come as a "thief in the night"--that he would
"come quickly," and in an hour they were not aware, and exhorted his
disciples to watch.

We will notice one more passage in the context, which may be urged as
an objection. "Behold I show 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." The _mystery_, here
mentioned, refers to the change of those, who should be found alive at
the coming of Christ in his kingdom, produced by the full revelation
and establishment of that doctrine, which proclaims the immortal
resurrection of all mankind _by being made alive in Christ_. It is the
fulfillment of the following scriptures--Eph. i 9,10--"Having made
known unto us the _mystery of his will_--that in the dispensation of
the fullness of times he might gather together in one _all things in
Christ_, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in
him." This mystery was _the