This is a summary of the signification of the Lord's prediction concerning his second coming; and we learn from it that it is not to consist of a personal manifestation. His first advent was in person, and this sufficiently intimates that his second will be of a different nature. The Lord, while he was in the world at his first advent, removed from mankind those states which rendered his personal manifestation requisite; and, at the same time, he provided means by the glorification of his humanity to prevent the possibility of their return: thus the Lord has actually set aside every necessity for another personal appearance in the world; consequently his second coming will be of a different nature. Indeed this fact is plainly stated in the prediction before us, when the Lord appeared at his first advent, it was as the Son of God. The language of the annunciation is, "That which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God;"[1] but he never once said that he would come again under that title; but always and invariably under his designation of "The Son of Man." This circumstance is, of itself, a plain attestation that the nature of his second advent is to be different from his first. The Lord was crucified under the title of the Son of man, and therefore the blessings intended to be communicated by means of it were not vouchsafed—they were crucified. Hence we may learn that the reason of his second coming, and under that title in which he was rejected, is for the purpose of making known the intelligences which were refused at his first. Those intelligences relate to a more full and complete development of the nature and quality of his holy Word: for it is ever to be borne in mind, that all and every manifestation of the Lord have reference to him as the Word, wherefore he is called the Word.[2] At his first advent, the Lord appeared as the word made flesh, and thus as the word humiliated; but his second advent is to be of a different order, it is to be as the word made spirit, and thus as the word glorified. The first advent caused the literal sense of the Word, which had been rendered of none effect by the traditions of men, to be acknowledged as divine truth; but its spiritual sense then remained in obscurity. It was one of those many things which the Lord had to say, but which the world could not bear; wherefore his second coming will be as the word made
