Man _coming in the clouds_ of heaven, with power and great glory." "Behold, (says the Lord) I _stand at the door_ and knock;" "Behold," says the apostle, echoing the Saviour's words, "the Judge _standeth at the door_." It would exceed my present limits to enter fully into this subject. Suffice to say, that in most passages the reference to our Lord's predictions may be plainly discerned; and in all the prophetic representatives are retained: The sun,--the moon,--the stars,--the earth,--the heavens, darkness, dissolution, and fire--the very images which are used by the Saviour, are likewise used by the apostles, and used, too, with a reference to the _same period_--the last days of the Christian church. If these images, when used by the prophets and by the Redeemer, are figurative, then, as the same _images_ applied to the _same period_, they are figurative when employed by the apostles. Or, if the dissolution and burning of the earth described by the latter are literal facts, then the burning of the earth and its dissolution described by the former, are literal facts likewise; for the _same images_ applied to the _same period_, must have the _same meaning_. If, then, these observations be correct, and I see not how they can be fairly controverted;--if the apostles did not, except in one instance, possess the power of foretelling future events, and if their descriptions of the second coming of the Lord are gathered from his own words, or from the prophetic writings, then we must judge of their meaning by that of the prophecies whence they are derived. This is a plain and self-evident conclusion. If I quote the words of any writer, the meaning of the quotation must be gathered from the works of that writer; and more especially if I quote for a similar purpose, and profess myself one of his disciples and admirers. The passages, therefore, which occur in the apostolic writings, are by no means decisive proofs of the doctrine in debate. As quotations and paraphrases of the Lord's words and those of the prophets, they must, by every rule of fair criticism, have a similar meaning. We have seen that the former are, by the acknowledgment of the most learned writers, figurative and correspondent; the just inference therefore is, that the latter, as quotations and paraphrases of them, must be figurative also.