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repeated coming of Christ. This is the only kind of judicial
second advent he will ever make, and this will occur over and over
in calamitous but helpful revolutions, until all removable evils
are done away, all the laws of men made just and all the hearts of
men pure. Then the spirit once manifested by Jesus in his lonely
mission will be a universal presence on earth, and the genuine
millennium prevail without end.

It is necessary now, as preliminary to a clear exposition of the
true Christian doctrine of judgment, to explain the cause and
process of the dark perversion which the teachings of Christ
himself have so unfortunately undergone in the Church. For this
purpose we must again, for a moment, refer to the original
connection of Christianity with Judaism.

Judaism was composed of two parts: one an accidental form; the
other, essential truth. The first was the ceremonial peculiarities
of the Jewish race and history; the second was the absolute and
eternal principles of morality and religion. These two parts the
ritual law and moral law were closely joined in all the best
representatives of the nation at all the best periods of its
history. Yet there was a constant tendency to separate these. One
party exalted the ritual element, another party the spiritual
element; the priestly class and the vulgar populace the former;
the prophets the men of poetic, fiery heart and genius the latter.

Such men as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, always insisted on personal
and national righteousness, purity, and devotion, as the one
essential thing. But the natural tendency of the common multitude,
and of every professional class, to an external routine of
mechanised forms, manifested itself more and more in a party which
made an overt covenant and ritualistic conformity the all
important thing. This party reached its head in the sect of the
Pharisees, who, at the time of Jesus, possessed the offices, and
represented the dominant spirit and authority of the Jewish
nation. The character of this sect of bigoted formalists, as
indignantly described and denounced by Jesus, is too well known to
need illustration. They subordinated and trivialized the weightier
matters of justice, mercy, humility, and peace, but enthroned and
glorified the regime of mint, anise, and cummin.

What was the Jewish idea of salvation, or citizenship in the
kingdom of God? What was the condition of acceptance in the
Pharisaic church? It was heirship in th