"things which must
shortly be done;" "Behold, I come quickly;" "The time is at hand;"
"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is holy,
let him be holy still;" "Surely I come quickly;" "Even so, come,
Lord Jesus." Herder says, in his acute and eloquent work on the
Apocalypse, "There is but one voice in it, through all its
epistles, seals, trumpets, signs, and plagues, namely, THE LORD IS
COMING!" The souls of the martyrs, impatiently waiting, under the
altar, the completion of the great drama, cry, "How long, O Lord,
dost thou delay to avenge our blood?" and they are told that "they
shall

39 Lib. ii. cap. 4, pp. 272, 273 of the English translation.

rest only for a little season." Tertullian writes, without a trace
of doubt, "Is not Christ quickly to come from heaven with a
quaking of the whole universe, with a shuddering of the world,
amidst the wailings of all men save the Christians?" The
Apocalyptic seer makes Christ say, "Behold, I come as a thief in
the night: blessed is he that watcheth." Accordingly, "a sentinel
gazed wherever a Christian prayed, and, though all the watchmen
died without the sight," the expectation lingered for centuries.
The Christians of the New Testament time to borrow the words of
one of the most competent of living scholars "carried forward to
the account of Christ in years to come the visions which his stay,
as they supposed, was too short to realize, and assigned to him a
quick return to finish what was yet unfulfilled. The suffering,
the scorn, the rejection of men, the crown of thorns, were over
and gone; the diadem, the clarion, the flash of glory, the troop
of angels, were ready to burst upon the world, and might be looked
for at midnight or at noon."40

Secondly, when Christ returned, he was to avenge the sufferings
and reward the fidelity of his followers, tread the heathen
tyrants in the wine press of his wrath, and crown the persecuted
saints with a participation in his glory. When "the time of his
wrath is come, he shall give reward to the prophets, and to the
saints, and to them that fear his name, and shall destroy them
that destroy the earth." "The kings, captains, mighty men, rich
men, bondmen, and freemen, shall cry to the mountains and rocks,
Fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb." "To him that
overcometh, and doeth my works, I will give power over the
Gentiles;" "I will give him the morning star;" "I will grant him
to sit with me on my