History and Doctrine of the Millennium

A DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN THE CONFERENCE ON THE SECOND ADVENT NEAR,
AT BOSTON, MASS., OCT. 14, 1840.

BY HENRY DANA WARD.

[CD-ROM Editor's Note: This document was published and bound with The First Report of the General Conference of Christians Expecting the Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. However, it was paged separately, so the decision was made to code it separately as well. The following publishing information as well as pertinent portions of the Remarks of the Publishing Committee and Table of Contents are copied from the beginning of The First Report document. The CD-ROM code for the original document is FRGC.]

PUBLISHED BY JOSHUA V. HIMES.

"Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts i. 11.

BOSTON:
204 HANOVER AND 14 DEVONSHIRE STREETS.
1841.

"Almighty God, the Giver of wisdom, without whose help resolutions are vain, without whose blessing study is ineffectual; enable me, I beseech Thee, to attain such knowledge as may quality me to render Thee acceptable service. Amen."

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840,
By WILLIAM CLARK,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED BY
GEO. A. & J. CURTIS,
NEW-ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.

REMARKS OF THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE.
The discourse on the Millennium contains matter of high interest drawn from original fountains; and seems completely to overset the commonly received doctrine on that subject. For it must be confessed by intelligent divines, that the popular doctrine of the millennium is a modern one, totally unknown to the primitive and martyr church: so modern that it has never a place in the formula of the faith of any church. Catholic, Greek, Roman, or Protestant: but all their creeds involve the contrary: a doctrine alike opposed to the divine economy with all past ages, and opposed to the promises relating to this world, and to the destiny of man;-the law and the prophets uniting with the gospel to teach the vanity of this life and the reality of the resurrection and of the world to come.
HENRY DANA WARD,
JOSHUA VAUGHAN HIMES,
WILLIAM CLARK.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I. FROM THE BEGINNING TO A. D. 373 1

PART II. HISTORY AND DOCTRINE OF THE MILLENNIUM FROM THE REFORMATION TO THIS DAY 23

PART III. HISTORY AND DOCTRINE OF THE MILLENNIUM 46

PART I. FROM THE BEGINNING TO A. D. 373

[CD-ROM Editor's Note: The Part heading is inserted from the content listing.]

The word millennium simply means a thousand years. In this sense, the world has seen five millenniums, and above eight tenths of the sixth. Tradition, by an erroneous chronology, has long regarded the seventh as near, and has expected it to bear such a relation to the previous six millenniums, as the Sabbath of rest bears to the six days of labor in the week; ¹1 but it is not to be followed by another six of labor: it is to be an eternal rest, in holy bliss, for the chosen people and faithful. ²2 The time is definitely a thousand years; but it has ever been, and now is, more generally received, in an indefinite sense, for a longer period; nobody can tell how long, but as probably three hundred and sixty thousand years, as one thousand.

In this common sense I chiefly use the word millennium, to designate a period of heavenly bliss, commencing in the conclusion of this world, and running into eternity with unknown limits; a period of which all prophets have prophesied, ³3 and poets have sung; ⁴4 the golden age and restitution of all things, for which creation longs with outstretched neck in earnest expectation, ⁵6 and we ourselves groan within ourselves, constantly praying, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven so in the earth." It is the

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resurrection of the dead, in angelic natures, to inherit the promised land in the new earth forever and ever. ⁶1

THE FALL

Creation was made for man, and put in subjection to him. ⁷2 Adam rebelled against his Maker, and nature rebelled against her rightful Lord. Sin entered Eden; and not only man, but all creation felt the wound, and received the wages of sin, which is death. The lord of creation dies, and passes through death to the resurrection, and to recovered immortality. Creation itself travels to incorruption by the same pathway with its lord,-all creation must perish that it may be revived again incorruptible with its lord, in the times of anapsyxis, or resuscitation, from the presence of the Lord. ⁸3

THE PROMISES

In Eden dwelt bliss; but sin came, and bliss fled: bliss cannot abide with sin, no, not in Eden. Man felt this; all nature felt: but the blessed God, by whose righteous law they were made subject to vanity and death, mercifully subjected them "in hope." ⁹1

This "hope" was begotten by the first promise: "Thy seed shall bruise his head." ¹⁰2 Adam and Noah died in the faith, and left this hope to be cherished by their posterity; and their race have, in one form or another, ever cherished this hope, and will cherish it, until the time comes for it to be fulfilled. But the race is ever prone to anticipate the time, as Eve did when she named her first-born Cain, I have gotten the man from the Lord. ¹¹2 So James and John, when they sought the first seats in the kingdom; and all the apostles, when they inquired, "Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" ¹²3 And every age from that day to this has furnished memorable examples of anticipating the time.

The first promise was of a future triumph over the serpent, recovering what he took away:-innocence, Eden, and immortality. The "hope" it inspires belongs to this world; and so, likewise, the triumph of faith: but the triumph in fact belongs to the resurrection of the dead and the world to come, when the second Adam swallows up death in victory, and makes restitution of all things.

Possibly the old world were looking for this promise to be fulfilled in the blood, when the sons of God took wives of the daughters of men; ¹³4 but the flood came, and swept them all away: certainly they were not looking for the flood. So shall the coming of the Son of man be; expected, but wholly of an unexpected character.

The second promise, of the recovery of the holy land, was made and confirmed by a covenant oath ¹⁴5 to Abraham and his seed, which the apostle tells us is Christ, ¹⁵6 "to give thee this land to inherit it;" ¹⁶8 and "that he should be the heir of the world." It is plain Abraham did not own, or inherit, in the days of his flesh, save only the burial-place in Macphelah before Mamre, which he bought of the sons of Heth. Otherwise, he with his posterity was a stranger and pilgrim in the land of promise, having no inheritance in it, looking for a better country, even an heavenly, and a city which hath foundations. But the oath and promise

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of God cannot fail: Abraham, together with the heirs of the same promises, died in the faith and hope of receiving them in the resurrection of the dead; for this the apostle assures us was "the hope of the promise made of God unto the fathers," ¹⁷1 and fulfilled unto us their children, "in that he hath raised up Jesus again." ¹⁸2 And this promise is "sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham. ¹⁹3

It is important to mark the firmness with which the natural seed have ever clung to this promise, as if this world were to be conferred on them for a carnal possession forever! But Abraham understood that the promise had respect to the heavenly country in Paradise regained, with immortality in the resurrection. His seed should follow in his steps. The meek have also the promise with Abraham, that they shall inherit the earth: ²⁰4 but it is not Judea, says Jerome, "not this world, not the earth under a curse, producing thorns and briers, which rather the bloodiest warriors possess; but it is the earth which the Psalmist describes: I hope to see the Lords goodness in the land of eternal life." For this world is a land whose cities have not foundations, and whose inhabitants have no inheritance in it, but that of Abraham in the cave of the field of Macphelah. ²¹5

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The third and last promise which I notice, is that made with an oath to David, "That of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ, to sit on his throne." ²²1 All believers of this promise have regarded Christ's kingdom as the era of human bliss; but few, however, regard it as belonging solely to the resurrection of the dead. The natural Israel have always expected it to be a temporal kingdom, of which they are to be royal princes. The very apostles apprehended it so, while the Lord tarried on the earth; and the populace would have crowned Jesus, while they hailed him, Blessed be the King! But when he refused their kingdom, they refused him. Bent on having the millennium in this world, they rejected Jesus, as a deceiver, who would seem to be the Messiah, and yet rejected the crown!-He triumphed, he arose from the dead, and brought to light the immortality which Adam lost, and the eternal life in the Paradise of God, from which Adam fell, and also the everlasting kingdom promised to David for his Son, to whom belong salvation, dominion, and glory, in the restitution of all things, after this world has gone, with that before the flood, to final destruction in the resurrection of the dead.

In the same spirit the ingrafted Israel, also, look on the gospel dispensation, which is committed to the Gentile church, as Messiah's kingdom, ²³2 and they are expecting to see its victorious banner waving over all nations in the close-coming millennium: they are expecting this gospel dispensation to subdue, and convert, and overturn all opposition, and to govern the whole world; precisely as the natural Israel expected of the Mosaic dispensation. But the Mosaic dispensation was not Messiah's kingdom; it was only a faint shadow of it: neither is the gospel dispensation Messiah's

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kingdom; it is only the good news of it: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," and is yet to come.

THE PROPHECIES OF THIS HEAVENLY MILLENNIUM

I classify the prophecies under three heads, without discoursing of either.

The first class are those which relate to the great King, who obtains this promised land of bliss in Eden, and in eternal life regained. "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." He is the King.

The second class are those which relate to the "restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." This is the kingdom of heaven.

The third class are those which relate to the Israel of God, the chosen generation, the saints, who are the heirs of this kingdom. Their restoration is by all regarded as belonging to the millennium; and they are his people out of every nation, in the resurrection of the dead; even "the house of Jacob," and "the whole house of Israel."

The prophecies show that the King should pass through the grave to his throne, ²⁴1 and that his kingdom also must itself rise from the ashes of this world, ²⁵2 and that his citizens also must arise from the dust, to reach the inheritance of the exalted Son of God in his heavenly kingdom. ²⁶3

Under the ancient dispensation, every sacrifice on holy altars slain pointed to his death, and, under the present dispensation, every communion of his holy supper commemorates it, ²⁷4 until he comes in the dispensation of the fullness of times, to receive the inheritance of the purchased possession, ²⁸5 and to give it to the chosen seed, the saints in light, and to bruise Satan under their feet. ²⁹7 Then is the blissful millennium; for the prophecies of a latter-day glory are the in heritance of all the faithful in Christ, whether they be sons of the natural Israel or of the Gentiles; that being now revealed by the Spirit "which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men-that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ." Accordingly, the Gentiles are no longer "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise;" but are by the blood of Christ made "fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the

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household of God;" ³⁰1 not to receive a perishable kingdom in this world, but to be gathered into the kingdom of heaven in the world to come, never more to be rooted out of their land: it is their everlasting possession, and David is our king forever.

It is not a new thing for Israel to exclaim, "What portion have we in David? Neither have we inheritance in the Son of Jesse" ³¹2 And yet the ancient example affords small inducement for moderns to follow We are resolved to follow David, and to worship in Zion; and not in either Bethel or Dan.

It is not a new thing for the natural seed to exclaim," Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." ³²3 And they trouble the church with their dissension; but now "faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster;" to whom we give "place by subjection, no, not for an hour." We yield not our claims to the natural seed. "For ye are all the children of God by faith of Jesus Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus:" by faith now, and in fact in the world to come; "and if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise:" ³³4 heirs of the holy city in the heavenly land under the dominion of the Lord our King.

THE GOSPEL OF THIS FUTURE BLISS

The gospel is glad tidings of the near approach of this kingdom, which was by promise made known unto the fathers, and was by prophecy unfolded to their children The gospel is glad tidings of the kingdom at hand, which kingdom Adam lost, and the Lord Jesus regained. ³⁴5 The gospel is glad tidings of salvation; good news of the triumph over the prince of this world, which the Redeemer has wrought in his own person, and will shortly manifest in the persons of all believers, who are found worthy to attain that world, and the resurrection of the dead, at his coming and kingdom. ³⁵6 The theme of the gospel is the kingdom of heaven, or the recovery of the joys which Adam forfeited in Eden, with warning now of another death, answering the penalty of its broken law with the second death The gospel is the joyful sound of the near approach of the happy state, in which the blind shall receive their sight, the cars

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of the deaf shall be unstopped, the lame man shall leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing; glad tidings of the near coming restoration of the innocence and peace of which Satan robbed man in the garden of the blessed, and of the removal of the curse which, for Adam's sake, was imposed on creation, and of the renovation of the earth, to make it the promised holy land, "the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. ³⁶1 Then shall the merciful obtain mercy, and the pure in heart shall see God. Then is the millennium, the sabbath, or rest, which remains for the people of God, not in this wilderness of our pilgrimage, but in the heavenly Canaan.

Neither the four Gospels, nor the Acts, nor the Epistles, speak of any other millennium: all the promises and prophecies can be interpreted of this, and of no other. This is the hope of the promise made unto the fathers, both Adam and Abraham, ³⁷2 and also the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the appointed heir of all thongs. ³⁸3 These prophecies the Lord came to fulfil, and to redeem these promises, and to preach the gospel of this kingdom at hand, a kingdom first set forth to sight in his own person on the mount of transfiguration, and hereafter to be manifested in all his faithful at his coming with clouds to the judgement. Such a millennium has been looked for since the fall of Adam; a sabbath of holy joy and glorious immortality in the earth, the new earth, redeemed from the power of Satan, and the plague of sin, and the curse of death, for which creation unites her groanings with the prayers of the saints, from the first transgression to this day: that these heavens and this earth may be restored from the bondage of corruption to the glorious liberty of the sons of God, in the likeness of the Lord our elder Brother, and the first-fruits of the dead.

THE TELESCOPE OF FAITH

The telescope is an instrument of vision, by which remote objects are brought near, and laid open to the natural eye Various kinds are known by various names; but three radical principles are common to all; viz.

1. A small eye glass;

2. A large object glass;

3. A rectifying medium, through which the image made by the object glass may be presented to the eye of the beholder at the eye glass in an upright position. For with two lenses only, a telescope presents every object to the eye inverted; the world is seen turned upside down, and men

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running along the way, like flies on the ceiling Whether, therefore, the telescope be refractive or reflective, it is important in its construction to combine three things in one, at suitable distances asunder: a small glass for the eye; rectifying glasses; and a large object glass.

To illustrate my conception of divine truth, I present you the gospel plan of salvation, revealed in the Holy Scriptures, as a telescope, and the eye for it, Faith. The Promise made of God unto the fathers is the eye glass, small and apparently of little power. The Prophecies are the rectifying lenses, or the proper medium through which the eye of faith obtains a correct vision, in place of one inverted, and all things turned in it upside down. The Gospel is the capacious object glass, formed with skill divine; and the whole is an instrument of miraculous power.

When Adam fell in Eden, faith saw, through the promise of the seed of the woman, the bright vision of Paradise and immortality regained. The subsequent promises to the patriarchs, and to David, added precision to the magnifying power of the eye glass of faith's telescope, without enlarging or changing the field of vision, except by bringing into correct view things obscure, or inverted, or not discernible before. The Psalms and the prophets give through their rectifying media no other country and landscape to the eye of faith, than that which Adam forfeited and lost, of which Abraham has the promise, and into which the Joshua of heaven will lead the chosen people. However, they bring into view and clearly illustrate a multitude of interesting particulars, which assist to fill up the outline, and to beautify the scene.

The gospel lens for the object glass, completes the instrument, and brings the vision of glory so near, that one may seem to reach it with the hand.

The divine Telescope is perfect, and able with a steady eye to look out of this world upon the boundless expanse of heaven, and to search its mysterious clouds, its magnificent orbs, its ample revolutions, in one glorious kingdom of God, and to bring that realm very near. The telescope belongs to this world, and faith looks through the glass darkly; but turn the instrument toward any part of the skies, and it unfolds to the admiring view of the enraptured beholder, the same glory, immortality, innocence and honor, dominion and power, of which Satan beguiled and robbed man and Jesus is the triumphant restorer. This is the vision; and the gospel brings it very near.

Thus the Lord framed the spy-glass of faith, and put it into his disciples' hands, charging them at his departure to

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watch for his return; because he will come suddenly, and those whom he finds watching he will take with him into the beatific vision. So the apostles received it, and delivered it to their successors. The kingdom of heaven was their millennium, on which their eye rested and their hope fastened. They knew not any other. Their writings incontestably show, that they used to look steadfastly for the coming of the Lord in the end of the world, to introduce in the renovated earth that kingdom which he preached in the gospel, and to make restitution of all things in the times of anapsyxis, resuscitation, and resurrection of the dead. The earliest creeds, and all creeds of all denominations in Christendom from the apostles to this day, recognise no other millennium, whether Greek or Roman, Apostate or Apostate Reformed, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Independent, Congregational, or by whatsoever name any church may be called. ³⁹1

THE MILLENNIUM OF THE APOCALYPSE. ( A Comet .)

This is revealed in Rev. xx., and from the first notice of it by Justin Martyr, has been a stumbling-block to the curious, a sort of absurd quantity to the prophetic mathematicians; an enigma of mystery, glorious, like Melchisedec among kings, and divine like Elijah among prophets; but abstruse as the lineage of that king, and unapproachable as the chariot of fire which carried that prophet into heaven. I have no solution of it quite satisfactory to my own mind, but I have learned to regard it as a comet in the heavenly system, forming and performing a true and important part in the economy of revelation; comet-like, of an orbit so eccentric, and a revolution so diverse among the great doctrines of the heavenly kingdom, that no man has yet been able to measure its pathway, to determine its specific gravity, or to calculate its period: and seen in one view, its train on a time sweeps with terrific grandeur over a quarter of the skies, filling all hearts with dismay and alarm; and seen at another time, it dashes in among the moons of a planet, as if it would brush them all away, but absolutely passes off, and leaves them unharmed, unmoved, unshaken, itself pursuing its inscrutable way among the starry host of heaven, without any deviation or perceptible change.

Before Justin Martyr we have Barnabas, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and Hermas, whose writings record their hope of the coming and kingdom of Christ, as preached in the Evangelists; and I submit to every devout mind, how little we ought to be affected by any new view of divine truth, which first appears in the church after the middle of the second century: it seems to be safer to expound the millennium by the kingdom of heaven, as the apostles and primitive Christians did, than to open a new doctrine out of Rev. xx., which some in the third and fourth centuries attempted to do.

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A. D. 150. Justin Martyr is the first in whose writings the millenary doctrine is found united with the practical christian church and faith; therefore I quote freely what he says about it.

Arguing with Trypho, a Jew, on the truth of the gospel, Trypho asks, as a Jew,-

Trypho. "But tell me, do you honestly allow this Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and do you expect our nation will be gathered, and with joy be brought back, together with the Messiah, and the patriarchs, and prophets, and proselytes, before the coming of your Messiah, or do you hold this that you may seem to triumph in the argument? ⁴⁰1

Justin. "I am not reduced to the miserable necessity, Trypho, of saying what I do not think. I profess to you again that myself, and many others with me, think this will take place. But I have told you, also, that many again, and they of the sort of Christians who follow sound and holy doctrine, do not acknowledge this. ⁴¹2 For I have told you that some indeed called Christians are in fact atheists, and impious heretics, because in every way they teach blasphemy, impiety, and folly. And that you may know I say this not to you only, I compose a volume of all my conversations, according to my ability, in which I record whatever passes between us, showing that I publicly profess the same which I confess to you. For I am determined to follow not men, or human authority, but God and the doctrine taught by him. For should you happen upon some, who are called Christians, indeed, and yet are far from holding these sentiments, ⁴²3 -but even dare to assail the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob with blasphemy, and say, There is no resurrection of the dead; but instantly, when they die, their souls are received up into heaven; do not count these among Christians, ⁴³4 -even as they are not Jews,

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if accurately considered, who are called Sadducees, and the like sects of GenistÊ, MeristÊ, Galileans, Hellenists, Pharisees and Baptists, and others, (that I may not tire you to hear me express all I think,) but under the name of Jews and sons of Abraham, they worship God, as he charges them, with their lips only, while their heart is far from him. But I, and all Christians properly instructed in all things, believe there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and a millennium in Jerusalem rebuilt, adorned, and enlarged, which the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah and others have explained. ⁴⁴1

"For thus Isaiah speaks of this time of the millennium: 'For there shall be a new heaven and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind; but they shall find joy and rejoicing in that which I create; because I will make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will exult over Jerusalem, and rejoice over my people: and no longer shall the voice of weeping be heard in it, or the voice of crying, ⁴⁵2 And there shall not be anymore one of unripe age, and an old man that has not fulfilled his time: for the young man shall be a son of a hundred years; but the dying sinner shall be a son of a hundred years; and also accursed. ⁴⁶3 And they shall build houses and inhabit them; and plant vineyards and eat their fruit, and drink wine. They shall not build, and another inhabit; and they shall, not plant, but others eat; for as the days of the tree of life are the days of my people. ⁴⁷4 The produce of their toils shall be multiplied; my elect shall not labor in vain, nor beget sons unto a curse, ( ei kataran ) for they shall be a righteous and blessed seed of the Lord, and their offspring

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with them. And it shall be before they cry, I will hear; and while they yet speak I will say, What is it? Then the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the serpent earth, like bread. They shall not hurt or harm in the holy mountain, saith the Lord.' ⁴⁸1

"What, therefore, is said in these words, 'For as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people; the produce of their toils shall be multiplied,' we understand mysteriously to signify a millennium: for when it was said to Adam, that in the day he ate of the tree he should die, we know he did not live out that millennium. Moreover, we understand in the same way this also: The day of the Lord is a millennium. To this agrees what one among us by the name of John, one of the apostles of Christ, foretold in a Revelation made to him: that the faithful in Christ would spend a millennium in Jerusalem, and after that will be the general, and I may say, in a word, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all together: the same as our Lord said: They shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to angels, since they are sons of the God of the resurrection." ⁴⁹2

The scope of Justin's argument in these remarks seems to be this: The Jew hears him with surprise speak of returning with Abraham and his seed under Messiah to Jerusalem; and this fills the Jew with distrust of some imposition. It was evidently a new form of gospel to the Jew.

Justin assures him it is his honest persuasion, recorded as well as spoken; nor is it peculiar to himself, though many pious men do not so receive it: but they all agree in the resurrection of the body. He quotes the prophet Isaiah, showing the Jerusalem of the risen saints to be in the new heaven and new earth, after the present world has gone out of sight and out of mind; and neither sorrow nor crying, nor any evil thing, brute, reptile or imaginary, is to enter therein; but the dumb creatures are to partake of the holiness and innocence of Eden. We cannot fail to see in this quotation from Isaiah the picture of "the restitution of all things;" the adoption of the sons of God; the renovation of nature into their glorious liberty at the redemption of the body in the resurrection of the dead; the coming of the

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Lord with the whole house of Israel, his faithful, into the New Jerusalem, adorned and enlarged, as Ezekiel and St. John describe it. This is, as it should be, in the world to come with the Lord Jesus from heaven.

There is no evidence that Justin Martyr understood the millennium of the Apocalypse much better than one of us. He was a hearty believer in the coming and kingdom of our Lord in the resurrection and day of judgment. In defence of this faith he argued with Trypho the Jew, and before the Roman emperors, and for it he died a martyr; but no scrap of his allows the supposition, that he looked for a millennium in this world, any more than himself to wear the crown of the Caesars. On the contrary, his doctrine requires Rev. xx. to be understood as wholly relating to the world to come beyond the resurrection, and in the restitution of all things.

Ireneus, A. D. 178, bishop of Lyons, and a strenuous defender of the resurrection of the body, is the second christian writer in the records of time who discourses of the millennium. He is led to speak of it incidentally, like Justin, while he treats of the hopes of Christians. He recognises with confidence the term of 6000 years for the time of this world. ⁵⁰1 He enlarges upon the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel 37th chapter, to prove the resurrection of the faithful, and their inheritance of the promised land, ⁵¹2 and he expounds the prophecy of Daniel in the order of times and kingdoms, as that the Messiah's kingdom succeeds the fourth, or Roman, which ruled over all in IrenÊus' day. ⁵²4 In the end of Antichrist's time, "The Lord will come," he says, "from heaven with clouds in the glory of his Father, and hurl him and his followers into the lake of fire, but he will introduce the times of his righteous reign, that is, 'the rest,' the seventh day sanctified; and will restore to Abraham the promised inheritance, in which kingdom the Lord says, Many shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." In this way he identifies the millennium with the kingdom of God preached in the evangelists, as Justin had done before him. But for one to suppose hence that IrenÊus believed the kingdom of heaven and inheritance of Abraham might be in this world, would be doing him great injustice, and none the less to charge him with allowing them only a thousand years' duration.

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However, from subsequent pages IrenÊus may be quoted to show, that the millennium of the Apocalypse is a day of training the risen saints for a higher glory; and that the renovated earth, in which they are to be trained, will be redeemed from the curse of barrenness and toil. ⁵³1 He enlarges on the beauty and fertility of the new earth, in the times of Christ's kingdom and Abraham's possession; he gives a famous tradition, as if from St. John by Papias and Polycarp; and concludes with quoting Is. xi. 6, and onward, which is holy writ for a glory in the earth, that this world will neither believe nor see. But IrenÊus becomes dazzled and confused in his vision, as a steady gaze on a brilliant object is sure to make poor mortals. While in the main he expounds the ancient prophets with great clearness and fairness, applying their rich and varied descriptions of the holy land to the renovated earth, and to the resurrection; he comes at last to fainting by the length of the way, and in the 35th and 36th chapters of his work, he rehearses some from Isaiah, and some he says from Jeremiah, which proves to be Baruch, and some other imputed to Isaiah, which does not come up to view in his pages; and from it all IrenÊus concludes: "Things of this sort cannot be understood of heaven above, but they must be understood of the times of the kingdom, the earth having been renewed by Christ, and Jerusalem rebuilt in the fashion of Jerusalem above." Hereby he attempts a distinction between the New Jerusalem of the new earth, and the Jerusalem above; and between the times of the kingdom in the new heavens, and in the heaven above, which I have not discovered in him before, or in any other before him; though it passes current with many at this day.

This new strain runs through his last chapter, and through volumes of millenary authors of a more recent age; authors of high respect, of fervent piety, and of varied learning, whose strain I do not well understand; but with whom I prefer myself to err, rather than to err with them who are expecting a spiritual reign of the saints in the flesh, to wield the sceptre of this world in the blood of old Adam, with a millennium on this ground, which is the rightful domain of the king of terrors.

To err, however, on either side seems unnecessary to one who lifts to his eye the telescope of faith in the promise, the prophecies, and the gospel, and by its aid obtains a clear and distinct vision of the promised kingdom of heaven; a place inconceivably more delightful than Eden; and a

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vision of the immortality, in Christ secure and imperishable, and infinitely preferable to that which Adam betrayed and lost. Direct the capacious tube toward any part of the spiritual horizon, and it opens upon the same kingdom of heaven, and brings it very near, and clearly into view. No eye can see beyond that kingdom, however far-sighted it may be; and my own eye discovers no object this side of that kingdom which is not in the valley of the shadow and under the curse of death. Our millennium is not there, in that valley. Paul's was not expected there; nor was Abraham's, or Polycarp's, or Justin's expected in the world under doom of death. Nor do the ancient millenaries expect theirs wholly there; but in an uncertain mixed state neither in this world exactly, nor that which is to come; but in transitu between both, and compounded of this and that, mortals and immortals, natural Jews and risen Gentiles, and a vast increase of the blood and comforts of life.

I subjoin in my notes some remarks on other christian writers of the second century, with an occasional extract: not a word being found in their pages to favor the doctrine of the millenaries, although they discourse much of the resurrection of the dead. ⁵⁴1

DOCTRINE OF THE MILLENNIUM IN THE THIRD CENTURY

The christian writers of the third century are important for their number and character in this inquiry. At the head of the column in time.

Tertullian stands, A. D. 220; having a character changeful, and a reputation of faith unsound at last; nevertheless, esteemed as an honest and important witness of the customs and opinions of the church in his day. He explicitly mentions the millennium, and identifies it with the New Jerusalem bride in Rev. xxi., and also with the new heavens and earth, Isaiah lxv. 17, and adds: "After the thousand years, in which is included the resurrection of the saints rising earlier or later according to their merits; then we being changed in a moment into angelic matter, shall be transferred to the celestial kingdom." ⁵⁵1 It is enough that in his view the millennium is the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, instead of springing up in this world.

A. D. 240. Origen says: "The general resurrection of the flesh, which is common to all, is yet future, to be accomplished in the second advent of the Lord:" ⁵⁶2 showing that he paid no regard to that distinction of which Tertullian speaks. It is remarkable that so great a visionary and scholar as Origen should never speak of the millennium, except to condemn, if it was much known and respected in the churches of the East, before the middle of the third century.

A. D. 250. Novatian, first antipope in the annals of Rome, wrote a treatise called Regula Fidei, the rule of faith,-which does not mention the millennium any way.

A. D. 250. St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, an extraordinary man, and one of the most eminent of the martyrs and christian fathers, has left many valuable works, in all of which he appears to have been waiting for the coming of the Lord, to overthrow Antichrist, and to give his saints their eternal portion in the promised kingdom of heaven.

"It were a self-contradicting and incompatible thing for us," he says, "who pray that the kingdom of God may quickly come, to be looking unto long life here below." ⁵⁷3 "Let us ever in anxiety and cautiousness be awaiting the sudden advent of the Lord." p. 149. For "as those things which

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were foretold are come to pass, so those will follow which are yet promised; the Lord himself giving assurance and saying, When ye see all these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Dearest brethren, the kingdom of God has begun to be nigh at hand; reward of life, joy, eternal salvation, perpetual happiness, and possession of Paradise lately lost, are already coming nigh, while the world passes away." p. 217.

Dionysius of Alexandria, A. D. 258, wrote two books on the promises, in reply to Nepos, a millenarian. The books are lost; but a portion is preserved by Eusebius, from which I copy as follows:

"But since they (the millennaries) bring forth a certain book of Nepos, on which they much rely, as if it demonstrates to conviction that Christ's kingdom will be on earth, etc., and since the book is published, and is considered by some to be most convincing; and since some teachers count the law and the prophets nothing, and neglect the gospel, and despise the apostolic epistles, and boast of the doctrine of this book, as if it were some great and hidden mystery; and permit some of the more simple of our brethren to think nothing elevated and lofty, either of the glory or divinity of our Lord's epiphany, or of our resurrection from the dead, and of our gathering, and of our likeness unto him; but persuade them to hope for only small and mortal things in the kingdom of God, even such as are visible now; it therefore becomes me to dispute the matter with Nepos."

From this it appears how little he regarded the millennium of time.

Methodius, bishop of Tyre, and a martyr, A. D. 260 nearly, said: "And truly it is expected that creation will be disturbed as if it would perish in that conflagration, that it may be renewed, for it will not be annihilated: since we ourselves renewed, and free from pain, shall live in that same renewed world. So Psalm ciii.: Thou wilt send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and thou wilt renew the face of the earth: to wit, from that time God will make a most delightful atmosphere. And since after this world the earth will be preserved yet, it is entirely necessary that its inhabitants should be such as will neither die any more, nor marry, nor be given in marriage; but should be like the angels, unchangeably in immortality, and occupied in the highest. Hence it is foolish to ask what manner of life their bodies will enjoy, seeing that this air, nor world, not any of these things, will survive." ⁵⁸1

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These are the most eminent fathers of the third century. Fragments of the writings of others remain; but nothing to give any new aspect to this inquiry can be expected from them. The millenary doctrine, as held by IrenÊus, does not appear, except as it may be reflected in Dionysius from Nepos. Certainly it does not seem to have acquired strength or favor. On the contrary, its tendency was downward; the Eastern churches reject and the Western fail to cherish the doctrine, in the third century.

DOWNFALL OF THE MILLENARIES IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

The doctrine comes forth in a fallen state through the pages of Lactantius, A. D. 310. He was tutor to Constantine's heir. In the seventh book of his Institutes he discourses freely on this topic. A cursory perusal of that book strikes me like the songs of the Roman Sibyl he loves to quote, rather than the word and counsel of the holy God, to whose word he makes less appeal. I am amazed at the mixture of truth and fable it contains, and I gaze with wonder on the image it reflects of the very spirit of Constantine's reign; the first christian autocrat of the world, and Pontifex Maximus of pagan Rome, who regulated the worship of images and demons, while he lived in the name of Christ, and was himself deified and worshipped, as a demon, after his death. Through the imperial gate corruption burst upon the church in a flood, and the millenary doctrine of Lactantius assimilated more to a sensual paradise than the kingdom of heaven. No wonder the christian fathers of that century took the alarm at length, and wholly discarded and formally rejected the fruitful source of error: for not only did the sensual abuse it; but the holy were sometimes misled, through subtilty and craftiness, to seize on all the glorious promises and prophecies and gospel of the kingdom of heaven and to appropriate them to the thousand years' reign; and thus the holy word was stealthily plundered of its eternal import, and the gracious assurances of the Most High were unwarily limited to the millennium, and all beyond that thousand years was left a blank, or at least an unexplored heaven; spending many words on the Lord's giving up his kingdom at the end of that period, and on the many multitudes who would be in a natural way born into that kingdom, without trials of faith, and persecuting pains, or cares, or any tribulation.

The millenary doctrine passed unnoticed in the great council of Nice; but it was denounced in a council at Rome

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under Pope Damascus, A. D. 373; and so effectual was the condemnation, that "the heresy, however loquacious before, was silenced then; and since that time has hardly been heard of." ⁵⁹1 Such was the testimony of Baronies in the 16th century. He adds: "Moreover, the figments of the millenaries being now rejected everywhere, and derided by the learned with hisses and laughter, and being also put under the ban, were entirely extirpated." ⁶⁰2

St. Jerome was an unmerciful scoffer at the doctrine of the millenaries, not always regarding fairness in his laughter at their Jewish temple, victims, feasts, houses, lands, wives, and children, with much of the same sort, all for a thousand years. On Ezek. xvi. 35, "And thy sister Sodom," etc., St. Jerome observes:

"The Jews, among other fables, and figments, and endless genealogies which they invent, fancy this also: that in the advent of their Messiah, (whom we know to be Antichrist,) and in the thousand years' reign, Sodom is to be restored to its ancient state, like the garden of God, and like the land of Egypt, and Samara is to recover her former felicity, when they shall return from Assyria to the land of Judea; and Jerusalem also is to be rebuilt, etc. But we, leaving the more perfect knowledge of these things to the judgment of God, are perfectly sure, that after the second advent of our Lord nothing will be base, nothing terrestrial; but then will be the celestial kingdom which was first promised in the gospel."

This is sound doctrine, worthy of profound attention. We agree with Jerome to defer all questions of strife to the final tribunal, believing the coming of our Lord in "the celestial kingdom which was first promised in the gospel," to be near at hand; and being fully persuaded that nothing base, or sensual, or temporal, or hurtful, or sorrowful, will be allowed in that kingdom. If it please the Lord, while this world is burnt up, to rescue and save the carnal Jews in the blood of the first Adam, though we cannot understand it now, we shall then, and adore his mercy; if it please him to restore the temple and sacrifices of blood at Jerusalem of the world to come, we shall know it then, and praise him, though it is utterly repugnant to our conception of his purpose now; if it please him then to chasten his saints with the assault of the hosts of our great adversary, we borrow no trouble about it, for our Savior, Joshua, will be with us; we will not be afraid; for Him we look in his kingdom, and defer all hard questions to "that day."

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Sts. Cyril, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, and a great company, held with the views of Jerome to the primitive faith, and gave no countenance, but often reproof, to those sentiments, which gathered all divine promises into the enjoyment of a temporal state, and spent the hope of them chiefly upon natural Jews in the flesh, degrading the heavenly throne to a terrestrial city, and limiting the reign and kingdom of the Lord to the definite period of a thousand years. Into so palpable errors the later millenaries fell, by separating the hope of that time from the kingdom of heaven, preached in the evangelists, with which Justin, Tertullian, and Jerome connected it.

I conclude this division of my subject with a summary of the doctrine of the fathers, taken from the Exposition of the Parables, in five volumes, by Ed. Greswell, D. D., Fellow of Oxford, Eng.:-

DR. GRESWELL

Greswell has a masterly knowledge of the millenary doctrine, reasons with great clearness and propriety, and comes in here to sum up the case for the millenaries of the ancient church, before we open the doctrine under the church of the Reformation. In the five points following, he affirms that all the fathers of the ancient church agree, and himself believes.

1. That Elijah must yet come before the end of the world.

2. That Elijah is one of the witnesses to be slain; the other is commonly supposed to be Enoch.

3. That Antichrist must come, and must be destroyed by the advent of Christ. In this perfectly agree all, whether friends or foes of the doctrine of the millennium. "The only distinction was, that the advocates of the millennium expected their kingdom to begin and proceed after the destruction of Antichrist; the opponents of the doctrine expected the same of the kingdom of heaven."

4. That Antichrist is a person, rather than a character, a bodily agent. Yet they all agree to give the name to the symbolical character of the beast in Revelation, and also to the little horn, and to the king of the North in the prophet Daniel.

5. Before the appearing of Antichrist, the Roman empire was to be broken up into ten parts, which at his appearing were to be reunited in him and he should reign over them three and a half years. Many understood "that which letteth," 2 Thess. ii. 6, to mean the empire, or imperial power. Tertullian says in his Apology, that Christians pray for the emperor and empire in the faith, that while

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these are prolonged Antichrist is kept back. Lactantius attaches the same interpretation to the city of Rome, instead of the emperor and empire. And the end of Antichrist's power is the beginning of Christ's reign; the one will begin when the other is over, and not before.-Greswell, p. 393-395, vol. i.

They expect the literal return of the carnal Jews, in that flesh and blood which is of the first Adam, to rule the earth for a thousand years in the empire of the second Adam, which empire is the palingennesia, the anapsyxis the apokatastasis pantoon, the resurrection of the just, the first resurrection, and the temporal glory of the millennium: and so he takes the answer to the prayer, "Thy kingdom come," to be fulfilled in the thousand years' reign.

PART II. HISTORY AND DOCTRINE OF THE MILLENNIUM FROM THE REFORMATION TO THIS DAY

After the millenary doctrine was condemned, A. D. 373, it ceased to appear in history until after the Reformation, save the sore alarms of the world's coming to an end, which agitated Christendom at the end of the first millennium of our era, and again in the fourteenth century, at the end of the first millennium of christian rule over the Roman empire. The terrors of these and of some other times amounted to panic, and drove many from the regular discharge of high and imperious duty, under a proper notion that, the end being within a certain time known, the obligation to prepare for anything beyond that period ceased. The error was in the calculation of the time: an error so often made, that times have fallen into disrepute, even when their calculation seems to be very clear.

Hitherto, however, in no single instance has the doctrine of the millennium, or of the end of the world, been found separate and disconnected from the personal coming and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in the earth. Whether the fathers of the ancient church regarded the thousand years' reign in the light of a temporal kingdom, or in the

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light of the kingdom of heaven, no one among them ventured to sever from the doctrine the hope of the blessed Lord's personal presence on the throne of that kingdom; they never dreamed that this coming kingdom would fail of the personal presence of its rightful Sovereign and everlasting King. Divers authors contended about the nature, extent, and time of that kingdom; but I do not recollect the smallest hint of doubt expressed from any side, whether the Lord would rule in his own kingdom himself personally, or by another. Many things were irreverently disputed respecting his name, his humanity, his deity, etc.; but who was bold enough to question whether he would be king on his own throne, is unknown to me. It was left for modem times to make this question, and then to decide that he will not be personally present, or appear visibly on the throne of that kingdom. The ancient millenaries gave a limited and sensual aspect to his kingdom; therefore the church condemned and repudiated them. Had they gone a step further, and preached the millennium without the Lord Jesus on the throne, it seems to me they would have repudiated themselves. As matters stood in the ancient church, it would have amounted to open rebellion of the highest treason, and a Christian would necessarily have begun the high treason in his heart, by openly renouncing the faith once delivered to the saints, before he could be ripe to come before the world, and urge that the saints would sit enthroned ever, without their Lord on the head of them.

The Latin church has never failed, in doctrine, to look for the Lord's return. Her bishop wears a triple crown, not to delay the Lord's appearing, but only to occupy for him, until he comes. The pope has sometimes diligently sought to publish his doctrine in all nations; but he has never indulged the hope, I think, of converting all; on the contrary, he has ever expected to be dethroned at last, and slain by Antichrist, in the extremity of the world and of time. Therefore, the bishop's eye has constantly been, and now is, on the survey of all Christendom, to detect that Antichrist, and to catch and to destroy him in every rising form of heresy, before he can attain a dangerous growth of power. In this spirit he gave the Waldenses, the Wickliffites, the Lollards, and others to the sword; he moved against them the iron arm of the temporal power, to dash them in pieces, and there was none to deliver them. Against the Lutherans he wielded the sword of the stoutest emperor of the sixteenth century, and Charles V. prevailed over them; yet the empire was divided in opinion; and the Reformation survived and strengthened in Christendom.

THE ANABAPTISTS AND OTHERS

Not every man, who broke the yoke of Rome, walked in Luther's gigantic steps; nor was he always equal. Many, trained by long use to spiritual bondage, could not live without a master; and not a few in the enjoyment of the liberty of reading the Scriptures, came to the interesting conclusion, that with the end of the pope's administration a new administration commenced, which, by way of dignity and scripture authority, was likely to be the reign and kingdom of the saints; and so they called it. These were the most dangerous foes of the Reformation, being an enemy in its own bosom. They began to separate from Luther, under the impression that his doctrine was not perfect enough: that he had only opened the way of reform, which others must clear up and confirm by direct inspiration. They taught a new doctrine of baptism, and also the criminality of an oath, and of being a civil magistrate, and of bearing arms. Under the banner of gospel liberty, they combined to shake off the yoke of servitude imposed by the German barons on the Israel of faith. They wished all men to be free and independent, inspiring them with contempt for the nobility and the civil authority; seeing that civil magistrates and lords are of no use in "the kingdom of heaven," which being come, the monarchs of this world have no better right to usurp than the pope himself had; but every Christian should walk in the liberty wherewith the Lord makes him free. ⁶¹1

They shook the peace of nations and the confidence of princes; they caused dissensions between brethren; they rejected authority and despised governments, having in mind the reign of the saints, which saints their leaders would sometimes feign to be. Luther sought to moderate this portion of his flock, and to extract their ill humors; but they could not stop for him, in the career of perfection.

Their reply to Luther's remonstrances, therefore, had force in it: that having been made free by the blood of Christ, they ought not to be accounted the slaves of the nobles. This naturally led them to forget one article of their faith, while they maintained the residue by the force of arms. Multitudes were infected with the leaven of their doctrines, and were uncertain to what precise point reformation should go, and there stop; while many, in the desk and in the field,

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proclaimed the freedom of the holy people from the thraldom and oppression, which only the impious were worthy to endure at the hands of the German barons.

At length Luther published a severe book against them, entreating the honest, but deluded, to forsake them; and inviting the princes to subdue the stubborn by force. Count Mansfield defeated them in battle, A. D. 1525, took Muncer and Pfiffer, their leaders, prisoners, who were publicly executed at Mulhausen. The sect did not perish in this overthrow. It was curbed, however, and made to feel, in the gory wounds of many thousands, ⁶²1 that it had no kingdom over this world, in the abused name of heaven.

Yet many indulged the hope of soon realizing the dominion of the saints, when the righteous shall possess the government of the world, and the wicked be everywhere subdued or destroyed.

THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION, A. D. 1530

Therefore, when the reformers appeared at Augsburg, before the emperor Charles V., the princes of the empire, the pope's legates, the nobles and prelates of the Latin kingdom; and, after five months' trial, from June to November, 1530, amidst the din of controversy and the terrors of the empire, and of the papacy, and from the travail of their soul gave birth, by the hand of Philip Melancthon, to the confession of that faith, in which they united stood against the thunders of the Vatican, and the horrors of persecution, and of civil commotion, they introduced in the seventeenth article the following sentiment:

"In like manner they (our churches) condemn those who circulate the judaizing notion, that, prior to the resurrection of the dead, the pious will engross the government of the world, and the wicked be everywhere oppressed." ⁶³2

This is a miniature portrait of the doctrine now current in the church, worthy of the master hand of Melancthon; and if it should make some ears tingle, to hear their loved doctrine of the millennium, "prior to the resurrection," publicly stigmatized "a judaizing notion," they may know with whom, in this world, they must reckon for it, and count the cost before they begin the war with the bold

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Martin Luther, the gentle Melancthon, and their brave coadjutors; who not only brand this child of modern adoption "a judaizing notion," but they solemnly "condemn all those who circulate" the carnal doctrine.

Vain men, who coolly pronounce upon the hallucination of the christian fathers, Clement, Justin, Cyprian, and others, and who count the fathers of the Reformation of less scripture knowledge and biblical learning than our doctors and theological professors; vain men, whose learned acumen discerns, and whose eloquence sometimes illustrates, what they call mistakes of the holy apostles, in matters of highest import, recorded plainly in the Book of books; such men may be allowed to regard the ancient fathers and the great reformers in a land of darkness, and themselves in a land of light, as living dogs know more than dead lions: but the discreet well know, and will readily admit, that any church opinion wholly unknown to the ancient fathers, and publicly reprobated by the reformers, ought not to be hastily adopted without examination at this day.

This doctrine of the fifth monarchy, "prior to the resurrection," was a tumor of the Reformation, first lanced by Count Mansfield, and laid open by the Augsburg confession. Again it formed under John of Leyden, otherwise King John of Munster. This man quit his thimble, and set up a throne, in defence of the right of the saints to reign over this world, independent of the sinners; and for above twelvemonth, he possessed the city Munster, disturbing all Germany with his potent sway of the scepter of perfect liberty and fiend-like impiety. The city was starved by a long siege, and at length betrayed, surprised, and captured; and King John was given alive to the tormentors, whose business it was to tear him in pieces with hot pincers. During his reign, a book of doctrine was published called the "Restitution;" in which it is urged "that the kingdom of Christ shall be such here on earth, before the final day of judgment; that the godly and elect shall reign, the wicked everywhere being quite destroyed;" and that ministers ought to assume to themselves the power of the sword, and by force to constitute a new form of commonwealth. ⁶⁴1

The difference is not in the doctrine of the moderns; but solely in the mode of inculcating it. The force of truth is substituted for "the power of the sword;" but the end to be attained is the same either way, to wit, the government of the world.

THE ENGLISH REFORMERS

The vitious humor of this party of the reformers never formed malignantly again after A. D. 1532; but was scattered over the whole body, threatening every part of Protestant Christendom for a time with intestine commotion. It was sufficiently formidable in England to call for a distinct article of condemnation in the creed framed under Edward VI., 1552. The Church of England had in that day a creed of forty-three articles, of which the forty-first reads as follows: "Qui millenariorum fabulam revocare conantur, sacris literis adversantur, et in judaica deliramenta sese precipitant. They who seek to restore the millenary fable, oppose the holy Scriptures, and plunge into Jewish fanaticism."

This language of the English martyrs is even more severe than that of the German reformers. The Episcopal creed of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, condemns the hope of a church millennium, "prior to the resurrection," to the grade of a heathen fable, (which in truth it may be considered,) and those who seek to revive it they pronounce to be "hostile to the holy word, and to be carried headlong into the hallucinations of Judaism."

I have been often told that the doctrine which now prevails is quite different from this, which the British and continental reformers unite to stigmatize and condemn.

And it has been well said, that if they condemned the doctrine, it is conclusive proof of the existence of the doctrine earlier than the eighteenth century. We will look at these matters.

First. It is objected against the use of the calm, public, official, and unanimous sentence of condemnation, pronounced by the great reformers of Germany and England, against those who propagate the doctrine of a millennium in this world, prior to the resurrection, that it is not the same now which they stigmatized "a judaizing notion, opposed to the holy Scriptures."

I reply. The objection is not sound on examination. For the reformers do not condemn the hope of a glory to come with Christ in the end of this world; nay, not the millennium itself, if it be held after the resurrection. They do not forbid the hope, that in the world to come with the resurrection of the dead, "the pious will engross the government of the world, and the wicked be everywhere subdued." They condemn nothing of this sort, which is an anchor to the soul.

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a hope within the veil of the eternal world, to which christian faith is in this world fastened. The error by them reprobated is not found in Justin Martyr, and ancientest millenaries, who never separated from their hope the coming of the Lord Jesus with the resurrection of the dead; but their censure is directly levelled and aimed at the modern and now prevalent error, that prior to the resurrection, the pious are to engross the government of the world; are to obtain, possess, and enjoy the dominion of this world for a long period, prior to the judgment day; and that day; and that they are to convert, or to conquer, or, any how, "to have and to hold" the temporal government of the nations, and to sway the scepter of universal empire, long before the Lord's appearing.

This is the doctrine which the reformers disallow and repudiate as "a judaizing notion," and "they also condemn those who circulate it;"-theologues in the Protestant church, high and low, without number. And in this age of light and learning, so much wiser than the fathers, the very sons of learning do neither know the malediction of their fathers, nor believe it is upon them, when recited in their hearing. "O no," they reply, "not us; but the errorists of that day the reformers condemn, who by the sword would possess themselves of the existing rule and empire of the world."

But the reformers do not regard the means of obtaining; they condemn the whole doctrine of obtaining, and include, by the terms they employ for reprobation, the very hope of possessing the government of the world for the pious, prior to the day judgement, and they stamp it truly "a judaizing notion." Judaizing,-for it is the same fanatical delusion which characterized the capital of Judea, and which rides on the breasts of her scattered sons in all ages and places of their dispersion, like a nightmare, from which they cannot be shaken by any revolution, even to confessing that Jesus is the Christ, the blessed King. Judaism,-it is scorching, withering Judaism, to entertain the doctrine of the kingdom of the saints in this mortal world; and for the most part, those who circulate it own the carnal mark on the forehead, by conceding the administration in chief of that millennial kingdom to the natural Jews and restored children of Israel.

The reformers denominate it, on the Continent, "a notion," and in England, "a fable," "a figment," deliramenta, "a doting fancy."-How perfectly characteristic this mark also is of the prevailing doctrine of the millenium in this world, a little attention will show; for a more unstable, changeable, chameleon-colored, Protean-shaped doctrine is

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not current in Christendom. Each man, woman, and child has some "notion" of the millennium, and he will tell it just as if he had learned of the reformers the proper name for the thing, "a notion;" and every one will convince most other ones, that some figment, or doting fancy, enters into the composition of his own individual notion. So far, therefore, from being another thing than the reformers condemned, it is the very same thing which is current now in the Protestant churches: a confident expectation that the pious will reign and rule over all the earth, prior to the resurrection.

Second. How, then, can it be said this doctrine was not until the eighteenth century?

Thus, my brethren: it was not received into any work or treatise of known and standard value; it was current in no denomination of the Protestant church, or individual church of acknowledged reputation, before the eighteenth century. I admit that John of Leyden, king of Munster, and his company and their books, received and cherished it. To that dignity the doctrine rises in its antiquity, but no higher can it go; and certainly no lower can it go in its dignity.

Hence it appears that these matters are both substantially consistent with each other: first, that the reformers explicitly condemned the doctrine of a millennium in this world; and that the doctrine was never received into the church, in any of its acknowledged branches, until the eighteenth century.

Since then it has come in like a flood, regardless of the hope of the Lord's coming and of the resurrection; and has cooled the ardor of the church in Apocalyptic Philadelphia to the lukewarm state of the church in Laodicea. "For my own part, I am persuaded, that the generally-received opinion, that Christ will not come again, at least for many hundred years, has had a carnalizing, yea, a demoralizing tendency. This opinion hath dimmed the eye of hope, and diminished the motives to watchfulness, made death a part of the gospel, and caused the last harmonious words of Jesus, 'Behold I come quickly,' to grate on many an ear."-(John Cox's Thoughts on the Coming and Kingdom of our Lord, p. 221.)

MODERN MILLENARIES OF THE ANCIENT SCHOOL

After the heat of the controversy with Rome had somewhat cooled, and Protestants were secure of their liberty, and of their possessions also, they looked less and less for the Lord's appearing in the great day, to overthrow Anti-christ,

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and to give his saints a reward. While Rome was ready to crush them by the arm of Charles V., and again by the Spanish Armada under Philip II.; and while the Duke of Alva slaughtered the Dutch Protestants, and Queen Mary lighted the fires of Smithfield, and the Hugonots were coldly butchered in France, the followers of the purified church continually wrestled and struggled in the primitive faith: they counted neither life nor fortune dear, for the King in his kingdom was at hand: they saw the Roman empire divided, and its kingdoms usurped and overruled by the image and demon worshiping, the idolatrous bishop of Christendom; and nothing remained for them to expect, but the Lord's coming to destroy the whole realm of Satan from the face of the earth, and to bring in the promised kingdom of heaven. But when the high peril of that controversy was over, and Protestants were comfortably in possession of the spoils of victory, in their several countries, it was no longer in human nature to look for the end of the world, as before, with strong desire, and ripe expectation: as distressed mortals are chiefly prepared in mind to die; but if lifted from the bed of anguish again, and filled with ease and plenty, they think less of their latter end: so the Protestant church of the seventeenth century said less of the coming of her Lord, in the end of the world; and yet she said nothing against that doctrine, but religiously conformed to it her creeds and catechisms, her standards and confessions of faith, her literature, and for the most part the views of her leading men.

In the seventeenth century, A. D. 1627, Joseph Mede published, in Latin, his Key of the Apocalypse, which opened the sealed book to thousands in a light never seen before, within our knowledge. He is the acknowledged father of interpreters of that wonderful book, and with him revived the ancient millenary doctrine in its purity. He holds it demonstrated that the thousand years' reign follows the time of the Beast and the false Prophet and of Antichrist, and is yet to come in the advent of the Lord. He thinks the millennium is "the great day of the Lord," "the great day of judgment." and "the day of the great judgment," celebrated in the Scriptures and the writings of the Jews; that it "is a continued space of many years, wherein Christ will destroy all his enemies, beginning with Antichrist, by his revelation from heaven in flaming fire, and ending with death itself in the universal resurrection; during which space of time shall be the kingdom of the saints in the New Jerusalem." He affirms "that Antichrist shall not be finally destroyed until the day of Christ's appearing," but dissents from the millenaries who say this reign will be after the judgment:

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"for," says he, "I give a third time, during the great day of judgment," the millennium; which being completed in the general resurrection, the wicked are cast into the lake of fire, and the saints are taken with Christ to heaven and eternal life. ⁶⁵1

This magnificent conception of holy truth has since been revived by some of the profoundest scholars and brightest ornaments of the English church, among whom might be named a galaxy of devout and learned men, especially of this age. It is impossible to read their pages in "the Literalist," now appearing among us, except with profit and delight, notwithstanding we dissent from their fashion in some points of importance. They hold to the ancient doctrine of the coming of the Lord; they regard it near. Their labors are characterized by deep reverence for the whole word of the blessed God, by a close study of its sacred pages, by logical arguments, by diligent and faithful comparison and clear deduction, by an excellent spirit of kindness towards, them who differ, and by an ardent desire to call off public attention from the vanities of time, and to fasten the faith and the hope of the church on the unseen world, which comes near with the Lord in his glory, as the angels testified, when he ascended in a cloud. I humbly think it probable they are mistaken in supposing those things spoken in the prophets respecting the return and subsequent prosperity of the Jews are to be fulfilled to the natural seed of Abraham. Should it appear so, they will be among the foremost to, reconsider that subject, and to rejoice with all saints in that interpretation, which applies all those gracious promises to Abraham's seed in Christ, in the world to come, not for a temporal, but for an everlasting possession.

I agree with the Rev. and learned author of the last number, which has come to hand, ⁶⁶2 that the proof advanced in his and in kindred pages, "requires something more than a: mere denial, to set it aside, and that no candid student of. Holy Scripture can fairly resist it, unless he can take the36th and 37th chapters of Ezekiel, and adhering consistently to the whole context, can show us a more excellent way of interpretation." The irresistible manner in which they advance to demolish the fortified positions of the spiritualists in the flesh, is worthy of all praise, and fills me with confidence in the hope that they will not be the last to discern the genuine fulfilment of the letter of the promises, in the day when the Lord returns, to build the tabernacle of David which is fallen down, and to build again the ruins thereof

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and to set it up. For, however difficult to discover the sense of the following words of the apostle, "that the residue of men might seek unto the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called," the time of their fulfilment is after the second advent: "After this will I return;" and when they are fulfilled, David will be raised from the dead: for his tabernacle, "which is fallen down," is his body, the house of his pilgrimage, now in "ruins," but to be "set up" anew in the day of the Lord Jesus. Then "the hope of Israel" will be realized, "unto which promise our twelve tribes," watching "day and night, hope to come." ⁶⁷1 The restoration of Israel being interpreted literally of the chosen seed in Christ, to be raised from the grave at the Lord's coming, "a more excellent way" opens to view, consistently to explain the 36th and 37th chapters of Ezekiel, making them describe the gathering of "the whole house of Israel" out of their graves, and the bringing of them into their heavenly land, under the Beloved their King, never more to be rooted out, but to enjoy it in safety for an everlasting possession.

The point of difference between the English millenaries, and the standard-bearers of the christian faith, seems to arise solely out of the promises to the Jews, with which the holy word abounds: and if that proves to be the sole difference, one mode of correcting it is already familiar to their readers; to wit, to regard the Jew himself as a type, to be forever done away with all types, in the day of the Lord Jesus.

This is a short and simple receipt; but if faithfully applied, it will in every case afford the desired relief.

The Jewish type of the holy people must disappear in their resurrection from the dead; and never till then can they inherit the promises. The shadow does not more certainly lose itself in the substance, or time in eternity, than the life of the Jews in this world will be lost in the life of the Jews from the dead.

The promise of the world to Abraham for his inheritance, stands good to the letter this day. It has never been fulfilled to him; nor can it be, until the resurrection: and as with him, so with his seed. The promises to them are literal, and to be literally fulfilled in the same resurrection of the dead.

Having quoted from the Psalms and the prophets twenty-five choice pages to illustrate the doctrine of the millenaries, Dr. Greswell adds: "These splendid and magnificent promises of temporal happiness, [not temporal at all, but eternal,] of peace, security, prosperity,-have never yet been realized

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in such a manner as answers to the truth and plainness of the promises themselves; and, therefore, if they are still to be verified, on this earth in particular, where alone it is supposed that they are all to be fulfilled, it must he in some future state of human society, [exactly the future state,]-different from anything which has yet been witnessed among mankind, as heaven is distinct from earth," etc. ⁶⁸1

The error seems to lie in supposing the promises and kingdom are temporal, and limited to a thousand years; whereas they are eternal, as the new heavens and new earth and New Jerusalem in which they are to be fulfilled to the letter. They are not fulfilled in this dispensation; they belong by faith to the church in the wilderness; they belong to "the whole house of Israel" in fact, on the other side of Jordan, with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. They have no value in the flesh, whether of Abraham and David, or of Polycarp and Cyprian, save only to sustain the pilgrims of the desert with the hope of rest and joy they inspire in the heavenly Canaan. They are not spoken of this world, although in language of this world; but they are spoken of the world to come with Jesus and the resurrection. The millenaries of the ancient school expect the Jews' return and reign in the flesh, I believe, universally; and to some extent the restoration of the temple and its ordinances and sacrifices: when, if they perceived that the Jews' return is the resurrection of the dead, not in figure, but in fact; nothing else "but life from the dead," ⁶⁹1 literally, they would be easily rid of the temple and blood and marriages and sacrifices, and so forth, which St. Jerome freely casts on their family with shame.

The christian world is of one mind with the English millenaries of this day, that the Jewish nation was a type of the church [and is a type of the elect,] the promises of the land of Canaan to the nation were typical of final salvation, [of a land in the new earth, "even an heavenly,"] and the whole history of the nation was typical of the experience of New-Testament believers. ⁷⁰2 Their temple and tabernacle, their Mount Zion and Jerusalem, and David, and an infinite round of ceremonies, were all typical, and were shadows of good things to come: shadows of the heavenly patterns, the patterns belonging to heaven, and never to be seen and handled in the church, except by faith; and never to be enjoyed in this world, though its rivers should flow with milk, and its rocks ooze with pure honey; but to be received in "a better country," which Abraham sought, and in the New Jerusalem, which God creates, and Jesus brings with him, in the last great day.

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The Jews have ever stumbled at this stumbling-stone of the flesh. They have, as a people, never ceased to expect the promises to be fulfilled to their nation in that "Jerusalem which is in bondage with her children;" "so that it cannot but be matter of highest admiration, to see that blinded nation groping for the door, when the house has fallen flat to the ground; and, like a company of dispersed ants, whose hill is digged up, carrying their eggs in their mouth above these sixteen hundred years, not knowing where to lay them; but expecting their old ant-hill should grow up again out of the dust-not considering that by this time, their eggs must have grown addle." ⁷¹1 But even in this they are a type still of the visible church, which judaizes in the hope of the kingdoms of this world for itself one thousand years in the name and spirit of the Lord. But these are baubles for children, rattles for babes in Christ, which men ought to forsake. These are shadows and prints, which untaught infancy may be allowed to mistake for the things themselves; but the experienced man knows their emptiness, and looks for the originals in the kingdom of heaven, and for the substance in eternal life.

THE MILLENISTS, OR THE NEW SCHOOL MILLENARIES. ⁷²2

Many sorts of error have at one time or other been connected with the doctrine of the Lord's coming; but never was the Lord himself left out of the doctrine, until the present age of the reformation; never wise men were found of old, or learned men, willing to believe and teach the coming of the Lord without the Lord's personally coming; men willing to believe and stout to maintain the hope of the Lord's being personally absent from his own epiphany; (what an absurdity!) men bold to proclaim the Lord's invisible "appearing" at hand; (which is a plain contradiction;) men who "love his appearing," which they arc sure never to behold, for it is to be afar off or else invisible: invisible, not for the brightness of its glory, but for its hidden spirituality; but now in this age, Christendom goes headlong after a doctrine that would have shamed, I think, the common sense of idolatrous Greece and Rome; to wit: that the Lord's

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parousia, or visible manifestation of himself, is one in which himself does not appear! So preposterous an idea does not admit of a plain statement without exposing it to contempt; and yet, as the blessed God has given understanding to man, this invisible "epiphany," "parousia," "coming," and "appearing," is now the millenists' doctrine, and deceitful hope: a hope of device which would astonish the primitive ages and martyrs of the church, and fill them with wonder above the admiration they could exhibit in view of our factories, steamers, and trains of men and merchandise, spinning and weaving, and running against wind and tide, through hill and dale, twenty-five miles an hour, without fatigue.

Truly, an age of inventions this, and one of the most important is least understood; one of eternal moment is everywhere coming into use; and few consider it; which is: A scripture way to look for our "Nobleman's return" without at all expecting to see himself, or any other: a spiritual way of enjoying the riches, pomp, and universal dominion of this world, for a long time, in the blood of the first Adam, by proffering the entire glory to the second Adam, in the unseen world!

The intellectual absurdity and natural impossibility of this new theory would move our laughter, were it only a grave error of the head inoperative upon the heart; but it is connected with the tenderest life of the believer, withdrawing his affections from the Lord of glory. God is manifest in the flesh, a visible object of love and adoration; he left a lively assurance, when he ascended, that he will return with judgment to his enemies, and to be admired of all his holy and chosen people. The first love of the young church was manifest in daily looking for his parousia, and in breaking of bread in memory of his dying love, and in the hope of his speedy coming. The falling away has succeeded, until the church of the nineteenth century gives up for a thousand years his epiphany, and tires of the hope of his return, and dismisses from her heart "the love of his appearing."

This fearful apostasy is one into which Protestants have fallen away beyond Rome herself; justifying the prophet's rebuke of treacherous Judah, whose wickedness exceeded that of backsliding Israel: "Yea be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters," ⁷³1 which are called Samaria and Sodom. Let us not triumph, but rather put on sackcloth, and go softly all the residue of our appointed time, seeing that we too have been carried

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away with this dissembling, and that our brethren are blindfold still in the pernicious error.

DR. DANIEL WHITBY

The first of the millenist school is Daniel Whitby, D. D., who died A. D. 1726, aged 88. Having written a Commentary on the Epistles, he concludes it with a treatise on the millennium, in which he sets forth distinctly as follows:

I differ only in three things from the ancient millenaries.

1 In denying Christ's personal reign upon earth during the thousand years.

2 I confidently deny that the temple of Jerusalem shall be there built again.

3 I differ from them in respect to the reign of the martyrs, making it only a reign of the converted Jews and of the Gentiles, then flowing and uniting into one church.

That is, he rejects from the ancient millenary doctrine its redeeming spirit, the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the just; and leaves it a mere carcass of flesh, having a flattering show of spirituality, but destitute of the power and coming of the Lord Jesus: not that he, with the many good and eminent men that have followed him, intended to lower the standard of christian hope, and trail the banner of faith in the dust, by planting it in Jewry a thousand years, for Mount Zion in the eternal world to come; not that he or they have intended to reject the Lord, saying, with his citizens in the parable, "We will not have this man to reign over us: we are triumphantly subduing nature to art, and converting the heathen to Chris: we desire not to be interrupted in our good work:" but the import and bearing of the millenist doctrine rests on such carnal hope for support; and naturally leads the believing mind to be jealous, rather then fond, of the blessed Lord's appearing; to distrust rather than to hope for the coming of the Lord; and to shrink and hide from the love, rather than to watch and wait and reach out in expectation, of catching a sound of his chariot-wheels, or the flash of his epiphany.

PRESIDENT EDWARDS, A. D. 1750

The men who first gave to this Protestant form of doctrine the sanction of their great names, (as a number of the leading divines of the last century did, and among them President Edwards and Dr. Hopkins, of our own country,) were particularly and solemnly impressed with the awful calamities and unexampled miseries which would be visited on

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the world just prior to the introduction of the happy millennium. Both Edwards and Hopkins devote chapters to the exhibition of this fearful expectation, resting on copious extracts from the holy prophets; and all their argument in defence of their views of a spiritual millennium, in this carnal world, is hedged around and guarded from sensual abuse, by the fear of the terrific judgments which are expected to separate the righteous from the wicked, the tares from the wheat, and expel the unjust from the face of the earth; until only a holy people, who have come out of great tribulation, are left to inherit it.

A memorial from certain ministers in Scotland, A. D. 1746, inviting a general concert of prayer for the coming of Christ's kingdom, "that he would appear in his glory and favor Zion," called the attention of President Edwards to this subject. He wrote a treatise on "the latter-day glory not yet accomplished," published in his works, vol. iii. 460. He takes up the same subject in the History of the work of Redemption, explicitly teaching the fall of Antichrist to be "not very distant," and accompanied with overwhelming sorrows, which are to cut off the wicked, purify the holy people, and prepare the world for the coming glory. He does not reject, neither does he admit openly the doctrine of Christ's personal appearing in his glory. He rather avoids the point; but the words of the memorial plainly indicate "that he would appear in his glory," that he, Christ, will soon "appear," perhaps in terror to his enemies, but certainly to the saints he will manifest himself "in glory."

The memorial is not inviting to pray that Christ would manifest his glory, that his glory might appear; but, on the contrary, that he, Christ, in his glory, would himself appear, and favor Zion. And President Edwards urges nothing to the contrary of this; notwithstanding, his omission to embrace the hope of the personal glory of the Lord in the earth, and to hold it up distinctly to view, was a step on the wrong side of faith, which leads others to the open rejection of the hope of the Lord's coming, and to the substitution of another hope, lukewarm, carnal, and temporal, in its place.

DR. SAMUEL HOPKINS, A. D. 1792

In his system of divinity, Dr. Hopkins treats of the millennium, referring to a sermon of Dr. Bellamy and to President Edwards for authorities; and he brings immense quotations of eternal promises from the prophets, to prove his

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temporal things, even thirty pages, to illustrate the thousand years of this world.

He considers the millennium to consist of-1. Holiness. 2. Light and knowledge. 3. Peace and love. 4. Unity of faith and practice. 5. Great enjoyment, happiness, and universal joy. "All outward worldly circumstances will then be agreeable and prosperous; and there will be for all a sufficiency and fulness of everything needed for the body, and for the comfort and convenience of every one." p. 69. "In that day mankind will be increased in number, until the earth shall be filled with them." p. 73. "All will probably speak one language." p. 75. Will any form of government be necessary for a race so holy, quiet, and happy? He answers, yes; not for the necessity, but for the utility and convenience of the people, p. 79. Among the events to take place before the millennium and to prepare the way for it, are the fall of the prophetic image of the nations, Antichrist, and Babylon, p. 92. "Previous to this, the Christian world and mankind in general will become more corrupt in practice of all kinds of wickedness; that God will arise out of his place, to do his work, his strange work, to punish the world for their wickedness,--to reduce and destroy mankind, so that few will be left; an afflicted and poor people, who will repent and humble themselves before God, and trust in the mighty Savior, for whom (the poor people) he will appear in great mercy, and pour down the Holy Spirit on them and their offspring; and they will multiply and fill the world." p. 144. Then follows the kingdom of a thousand years, in which the "afflicted and poor people" will do, what fallen Adam and righteous Noah failed of, filling the world with a pious offspring.

Half a century has transpired since these doctrines appeared; and the time for the antecedent judgments to introduce the millennium draws very near, or has already come: but, behold, the doctrine of the millenists' bliss remains, and promises to fill the whole earth, while the doctrine of the introductory judgments has given place to "smooth things," until it has wholly disappeared; and the world neither miss it, nor mourn its loss: but all at once Christendom has been furnished with a complete scheme of worldly grandeur, to be attained by a rapid advance in virtue, knowledge, holiness, and the arts, wholly independent of the painful toil and sore tribulation which was the guarded door of Edwards and Hopkins to the entrance of the millennium. How great a change in the nature and influence of the doctrine this makes, one cannot easily imagine or describe. It reverses the picture of things preceding the millennium. It does not

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only dispense with the increase of depravity, until "God will arise to do his work, his strange work, to punish the world for their wickedness,--to reduce and destroy mankind, so that comparatively few will be left; an afflicted and poor people;" but it supplies the place with a picture of a directly contrary character, in which the church makes triumphant advances from its present position, to occupy all nations in the name of the Lord, and to subdue both Jews and Pagans to the obedience of the cross, without beat of drum or loss of a battle; but by a steady succession of spiritual victories, over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Nothing could be more grateful than this to the natural heart, unless it were to have an abundant entrance into the kingdom of heaven, with its pulse beating and blood thrilling.

It were easy to furnish respectable names, and very high authority, for the connexion of almost every sort of this world's bliss, in perfection, with the flesh and blood of the spiritual millennium, making it equally a terrestrial paradise with Lactantius and the Sibyls; but it would sound so oddly in the ears of its friends, that I should hazard more to be accounted a calumniator for it, than the false hope would to be reprobated and condemned; therefore, I refrain from attempting any sketch of its chameleon colors in one view from different authors, and I exhibit it wholly in the colors and shape of each distinct author; taking up next a volume of discourses on the subject, published in Dublin, A. D. 1839, 290 pp. Oct., by the Rev. Dr. Urwick, who says: To preach the coming of the Lord at hand "is handling the word of God deceitfully;" and the preachers who do it ought to be shunned for many reasons, among which are the events that must occur prior to his advent, and inevitably require time, and the Lord's delay. These events are,-

1. The conversion of the world.

2. The wasting of popery to death.

3. The slaying of the two witnesses.

4. Mahommedanism to be broken without hand.

5. Judgments indicated by the fifth seal, and battle of Armageddon.

6. The conversion of Israel.

7. A long period of unexampled prosperity, in which the outward influences of sin are to be restrained, but inward influences will be still left in a diminished form and power. The thousand years being happily past, a period of trial and temptation follows; which the final conflagration concludes with the second advent of the Lord.

I protest against this with all my might,-in that he charges with deceit those who preach, as the Lord and his

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apostles did, that his coming is near; in that he teaches to shun the ministers who are faithful to the testimony of Jesus, believing that in due time Jesus, the faithful and true witness, will vindicate his word, though scoffers do mock for a little season; and, finally, in that he puts off the hope of Israel, the hope of creation, and the answer to the Lord's prayer, for a great while to come, (miserable comforter,) and instead of a speedy restitution of all things, offers us a millennium in sin; sin crippled, it is true, but still sin, and its wages still sorrow and death.

At this stage of my labor, the following doctrine, from Rev. xxi. 5, salutes my ear, in a New York church, Oct. 4, 1840, A. M.

"The millenial reign is the triumph of men in the flesh, but possessed of the spirit of Paul and Peter and John. From Eden to the end of the millennium, revolutions follow each other; but then this revolutionary world will be burned up, and unchangeably renewed in the glory of the Lord. ⁷⁴1 During the millennium all things will favor the cause of Christ; and in that time more souls will be saved than ever lived before. No unhallowed calling will be tolerated; no child will hear or learn to swear or to break the Sabbath. Every one will be converted at some time of life, earlier or later. All who do not obey 'that prophet' shall be cut off. A union of church and state may be expected, of which Constantine's was only a type; neither a political union, nor the reign of Christ in person. The time is at hand. After all this comes Gog and Magog, the second resurrection, the judgment, the deliverance from sin, for which we pant," etc. etc.

This is one of the most chaste sketches of the millennium I have heard given: and it is yet liable to the following objections.

1. Sin and death reign to the end of this millennium, and that can never be a state of peace and repose in which they triumph.

2. It promises the dominion of the world to the saints, the wicked being all cut off or suppressed: and that is a hope which the great reformers pronounced to be contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and which they repudiated and stigmatized as a judaizing notion, and they also condemned those who circulate it; because the prophets accord with the gospel in offering to the race of Adam neither permanent cities, nor houses, nor possessions in this transitory world; but they enjoin it upon the race to seek for such in the world to come.

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The gospel urges to sell this world for the hope of the next; to forsake houses and lands and friends, with the assurance of a hundred-fold return in the kingdom of heaven. It were easy to multiply words, but the prince of this world can pervert men still, and verily persuade, that in this land of the valley and shadow of death, here will be the millennium; and men need not fear, for he is himself indisposed to disturb or molest the peace of the world; and were it otherwise, he could do no harm; for he is about to leave this for the great abyss a thousand years, and during that time he must be otherwise engaged; meanwhile the race in the flesh have the promise of all that heart can wish, in the best style of modern improvement, together with so great an increase of dear relatives, that the six thousand years of the world have not furnished a harvest of mortals so bountiful as that one thousand will supply; and they shall long enjoy the fruit of their rest: when

"The rich shall not oppress, nor shall the poor repine."

3. The divine economy from Adam to this day has been displayed in disciplining men, through hardship, toil, and suffering in this life, to reap, by patient continuance in well-doing, eternal life. Even the Lord Jesus Christ, holy and just, was made conformable to this economy, himself not being an exception to the law of nature, as well as grace, which is a proverb among men: no cross, no crown. And to suppose a millenial state in this world, is to suppose an entire change in the divine economy, in which the disciples will not be as their Master, and the servants as their Lord, but the disciples above their Master, and the servants above their Lord; being raised to a crown without a cross, made perfect also without suffering, and marching to heaven and everlasting happiness by a royal highway, untrodden of the Lord.

My heart is sick of this new gospel, which is not the gospel our Lord preached, or that his ministers preached, until within about a century and a half past; and already it has so fastened upon the public mind, that it is exceedingly dangerous to attempt to remove it, lest we pluck up the wheat with the tares. Even the vain glory of this fleeting world is not purchased without the display of courage, the exercise of patience, the exposure of life, and the risk of all that man holds dear. The honor of a veteran cannot be cropped without toil, nor can the reputation of a hero be inherited in this world, nor can it be transmitted from father to son; it must be earned, ere it is attained. In accordance with this law of our nature, the holy apostles were called

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to endure hardship for Christ's sake, mockery, scourging, chains and death; which they suffered joyfully, having their faith firm, that for all this they should receive a crown of life in the celestial world to come: but this new gospel, on the contrary, promises the unreasonable, unphilosophical, and false hope, that Pauls and Peters and Johns, tried apostles and fearless martyrs, will naturally be born in this world during the millennium, and reared up for eternal glory, without discipline, in the lap of wealth and ease; as if men could be heroes who have never seen an enemy, and might be accounted brave veterans, who have never heard the clang of arms nor confronted the shout of battle. To such judaizers it is spoken, "God is able of these stones to raise up [such] children unto Abraham." ⁷⁵1

THE AMER. ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE

The most authentic form and official shape in which I have met with the doctrine of the millenists, or spiritualists, is in the Encycloped. of Religious Knowledge, article Millennium, of which the following is an extract.

"1. The church will arrive at a state of prosperity, which it never has yet enjoyed.

"2. That this will continue at least a thousand years. In this time, in which the world will soon be filled with real Christians, and continue full by early regeneration, to supply the place of those who leave the world, there will be many thousands born and live on the earth to each one that has been born and lived in the preceding six thousand years; so that if they who shall be born in that one thousand years shall be all, or most of them, saved, (as they will be,) there will, on the whole, be many thousands of mankind saved to one that shall be lost.

"3. This will be a state of great happiness and glory. The Jews shall be converted, genuine Christianity diffused through all nations, and Christ shall reign by his spiritual presence in a glorious manner.

"4. The time when the millennium will commence cannot be fully ascertained, but the common idea is, that it will be in the seven thousandth year of the world. It will, most probably, come on by degrees, and be in a manner introduced years before that time.

"How delightful then the prospect! Christianity prevails universally. Our race assumes the appearance of one vast, virtuous, peaceful family. Our world becomes the seat of

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one grand, triumphant, adoring assembly. At length, after a brief space of severe trial, the scene mingles with the heavens, and, rising in brightness, is blended with the glories on high;" etc. etc. Reference is made to Hopkins, Whitby Scott, and twenty more, all younger than Whitby, viz., How's Register, A. D. 1816, Bishop Newton, Bellamy, Lardner, Mosheim, Taylor, Bogue, Emerson, Potter, Wardlaw, Fuller, Jones, Jones' Bib. Cyclop., Cunninghame, Hall, Keith, Watson, Hend. Buck, and Jones, in this order.

This is the living, breathing form of the millenist doctrine, as it now exists in Christendom, and with it I close this history, after a brief summary of the facts.

From Adam down, a hope has been cherished among his offspring, that recovery shall be hereafter made of the immortality and paradise which he betrayed and lost: and the promise was from the first, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the robber, and should triumph over death by the resurrection, loosing his captives from the prison-house of the grave, and setting them forever free, in the liberty of the sons of God.

Abraham and his seed were a type of the true seed; to them the promise was renewed; to them the prophecies and the gospel were given; which promise, prophecies, and gospel, one and all, have respect to the same triumph over death, victory over the grave, and recovery of the holy land and blessed immortality, which the holy God gave to our father Adam, and of which Satan despoiled him. Judea, Jerusalem, and the Jews, with all their ceremonial law and temple worship, are but types of "the heavenly country," "the New Jerusalem," and "the chosen seed," in the resurrection of the dead, and in the kingdom of heaven. So Abraham and Moses, David and Daniel, understood them. So the Holy Spirit by Peter and Paul freely explains them. So the primitive and martyr ages of the church have plainly understood and proclaimed them. The promises, the prophecies, and the gospel, all centre, and are to be fulfilled, in "Jesus and the resurrection."

The carnal seed of Abraham have ever received the promise and the prophecies in a carnal sense: and flattered themselves that the Holy One has respect of persons, and truly intends to make them heirs of this world, and lords of the nations. In like manner, some of the ancient church, in the latter part of the second century, began to judaize, and to allow a certain pre-eminence of place in the promises to the carnal seed of Abraham, for a thousand years; but they covered the error still, by a constant view to the coming and kingdom of Christ himself and of the resurrection in

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that millennium: and no conceivable form of error can be supposed to exist under his personal administration. Therefore, the first error of the millenaries in regard to the carnal seed of Abraham was important chiefly in that it led after a century to the expectation, that a carnal seed will survive the coming of the Lord in the end of this world, and with him will enter into the world to come, and have a full store of carnal joys. This at once degrades the hope of our faith to the level of a heathen fable, and of a Mohammedan paradise, according with the prophecies of the Sibyls, but "contrary to the Holy Scriptures." Accordingly, the ancient church condemned the millenary doctrine, as a Jewish notion, suited to the carnal heart, and calculated to withdraw believers from the faith of Jesus and the resurrection: A. D. 373. Henceforward it came no more into view, until the days of the Reformation; when certain of the baser sort of Lutherans, who took counsel of the flesh, while they affected to be perfect in the Holy Spirit, began to despise civil government, and to claim the administration of this world's affairs, in the right of the Lord Jesus, precisely in the spirit of the idolatrous bishop of Christendom; and in the same spirit which some professing Christians now do. They seem to think this world belongs to our Lord, and they must take possession of it, for him; always for him: but if once they come into possession, they use it for "whom it may concern," which is commonly our humble selves.

This homely picture will not be admired, unless we can find one to sit for it, not of our family; and with suitable deference, we may invite the gracious pope. He is enthroned in Christendom, not for himself, neither for his family, nor for his country; but for the unity of the church, for the peace of the world, for the promotion of holy manners, and, in a word, for the glory of the Lord our God. I am free and happy to say, that both himself and his followers conscientiously believe this; and it gives me pain to add, that, in the administration of his high trust, the pope often mistakes his own will and pleasure for the divine will and the heavenly, as humbler recipients of power and riches are wont to do, even in republican and protestant Christendom. But to return.

The wise and extraordinary men, whom the Lord raised up for the great work of the Reformation, saw and rebuked the carnal doctrine of a kingdom of the church in the flesh and blood. They publicly trampled it under foot; they branded it, and unqualifiedly condemned those who circulate it, both on the continent and in England. They rested not in any hope of this world, now or hereafter; but pointed

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by faith to the coming of the Lord in his kingdom of the resurrection. Joseph Mede, of illustrious memory, revived the distinction of a thousand years' reign, and has distinguished followers to this day. But Daniel Whitby, among men of renown, first denied the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead to that reign, and limited it wholly to the flesh and blood. The eminent Christians who promulgated it after him, were careful to hedge the carnal doctrine around with such thorns to the flesh as no man would desire to encounter. But the more perfect lights of this age, seeing clearer than Hopkins, Edwards, and others of their school, and turning their back to Luther and Cranmer, and setting at naught the faith of the church in the primitive ages, have removed the hedge, and opened a highway on every side, for all nations to enter, and have a feast of fat things of wines on the lees a thousand years or more, with none to molest, or to make them afraid. A doctrine verily absurd, and for Christendom no less ridiculous, than the cats and dogs and ox, for gods of polite and learned Egypt, as I shall now proceed to show.

PART III. HISTORY AND DOCTRINE OF THE MILLENNIUM

THE ANALOGY OF FAITH

"Having then," says the apostle," gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us; whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion (or analogy) of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering."-Rom. xii. 6.

Part First of this discourse opens the doctrine of a future state of eternal bliss in the earth, as it is announced in the Holy Scriptures, and as it was received and understood in the church, until the Reformation.

Part Second opens the doctrine of a future state of temporal bliss in this world, as it began to be understood by Muncer, Pfiffer, and King John of Munster, and as it was received and is held by the learned Whitby, the profound

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Edwards, and the canonical Encycloped. of Religious Knowledge.

Part Third promises to try the prevalent doctrine of this age by the analogy of the faith, and by the word of the blessed God, and also to discuss in brief the whole subject of a millennium.

In trying any doctrine of the church, we should have an eye to the analogy of the faith; for faith has a due proportion between its component parts, which, if observed by the teacher, offers a picture of hope beautiful to the most critical, and also to the least practised eye; and a picture of fear, appalling to every sinful heart. But if the proper analogy be disregarded, the several parts become distorted, and their hideous disproportions instantly offend multitudes, who would joyfully embrace the true faith, were it presented to their view in its own elegant symmetry and proper analogy. An image of the human face may represent every feature in its true place, but out of all due proportion, as in a painted mask; and, if assumed and presented earnestly to the life, it will involuntarily fill the beholder with unaffected horror, or with convulsive laughter; and a similar disproportion in the true faith may either stultify or offend the most devout hearers, notwithstanding the due parts are all there in their relative position, but only out of all christian proportion.

Where is the analogy of faith? Who can find and tell its dwelling-place?

"Lo here!" cries the Roman; "Lo there!" says the Lutheran. "See here!" exclaims the Episcopalian, or "See, you have it there!" adds the Baptist.-"Go not after them, nor follow them." The Christ, the Son of the living God, he is the Author and Finisher of Faith. Whoever abides in him prophesies according to the proportion of faith, and hears according to the analogy of faith, and lives and walks according to the analogy of faith, directly following in the Master's pathway, through tribulation to the grave, and from the grave to glory. Sunlight is on that pathway: while gloomy darkness broods over every other. This is the way the Master trod, through many sorrows to the tomb, and from, the tomb to the heavenly glory. Did He travel this way? Yes; even to mockery of his person as a king, and to abuse as of a slave; even to bear scourging and spitting and his own cross, until exhaustion produced fainting; until he was submissively nailed to the tree and crucified, like a lamb led to the slaughter, and laid with the rich in his death. He arose, he revived, he ascended into glory. And

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do the preachers of the cross well to conceive, that a period is approaching, in which mortals may hope to reign with him, with whom they have not suffered? Can a mortal follow the Lord Jesus to the heavenly glory, and not go the way he led? Should one attempt to follow after him to the same glory, by another way, that moment he ceases to be a follower of the Lord; and if, perchance, he should strike out a new path to this same glory, he is sure to be received as a robber at last, for coming to the heavenly fold by his own way, to the neglect of the royal highway and proper gate opened by his suffering Lord.

This view of the faith strikes you, whatever name you may bear, to be simple, pellucid, scriptural, and orthodox; those who would follow Jesus to the heavenly glory must go the way he went. Christian faith follows Christ, a pilgrim and sojourner, not having where to lay his head; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, even to death and the cold grave; thence by the resurrection to eternal life and joy. This is the analogy of faith, the standard of the Master's life, by which being measured, the millennium of this world is found wanting and proved to be false; for it offers no counterpart to the temptation of the Master, or to the sorrows of the Master, or to the rejection of the Master, or to the agony and painful death of the Master.

The German reformers, in the Augsburg Confession, Art. 17, publicly stigmatize the hope of a church empire, "prior to the resurrection," as a "judaizing notion;" and the Church of England, A. D. 1552, Art. 41, brand it a fable, and condemn those who revive and circulate the doctrine, as "opposed to the Holy Scriptures." Let the great men and martyrs who framed those articles answer for it; wisdom is justified of her children; for the "judaizing notion" and "fable" bears no sort of analogy to the Christian faith: it offers no proportions corresponding to the life of Christ.

Faith follows the Lord Jesus through tribulation, to the cross, and to the grave; but the "notion" and "fable" which the reformers condemn, offers to the credulous to walk at case through this world, on flowery beds, for a whole millennium, without a thorn to pierce, or bramble to rend, or serpent to bite the well-fed flesh, and at last, to pass away in ecstasy to the higher glory, no one knows how. ⁷⁶2

Nothing can be more unlike the pathway our Master trod, and all his faithful have followed, from the apostles to our time, than this fabled mode of life in the carnal millennium.

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He was tempted by Satan; but the millenists cannot be, for in their day Satan will be close bound and shut up. He was afflicted with bodily hunger and want; but they cannot be, for all needful things are to be spontaneously produced. He was despised and forsaken of men; these cannot be, for all are to be of one heart of love in the millennium. He mourned over Jerusalem; but they cannot, for it will be both their joy, and the joy of the whole earth. He was rejected by the rulers; but they cannot be, for they are to be themselves the rulers in that day. He despised the shame of the cross; but they cannot, for they are to live joyfully all their days amid the triumphs of the cross. He died a painful death; but they are to "fall asleep, and pass into the invisible world."

Faith has a beautiful analogy, and an unimpeachable standard, in the life and example of its Author and Finisher. He was born of a woman. He endured toil in mechanical labor; he encountered hunger and the tempter in the city and in the wilderness; he suffered reproach as a lover of wine and of good living, and yet was a pilgrim, without any certain dwelling-place. He was rejected and despised of men; was betrayed by a chosen and trusted follower; was mocked by his foes, was deserted by his disciples, was buffeted by the soldiers, was condemned by the rulers, and crucified with criminals, a slave's death, as if for a base offence against the laws of God and of man. All faith must fall far below this standard, but it is not Christian unless it bears some analogy to it; and if any are without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then are they bastards, and not sons. ⁷⁷1 "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." The millennial notion offers no analogy to this trial of the sons, and admits of proportion to the faith only of bastards; it presents no counterpart to the sufferings of Christ, and, therefore, can secure no part in the glory which is to follow.

THE MILLENISTS ARE OPPOSED TO FAITH

The doctrine of the millenists is not only contrary to the analogy of faith; but it is, moreover, directly and totally opposed to faith.

Faith waits the Lord's coming. Faith endures, as seeing the invisible. Faith runs with patience, all the while looking unto Jesus. Faith walks with God. Faith climbs the mountain with Abraham, trusting in Him, who is able also

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to raise the dead. Faith suffers affliction with the people of God, counting the treasures of Egypt worthless, in comparison of the land of Canaan. Had Moses respect to a recompense in the Canaan of this world, he failed of his reward; but by faith he saw the better country, long before his eye beheld from Pisgah the whole valley of Jordan and the hill of Zion. Faith subdues kingdoms; faith obtains promises; faith works wonders, stops the mouth of lions, and triumphantly bears torture unto death, not accepting deliverance, which a retracting word might secure, being sustained by the hope of a better resurrection. Faith is the eye of the gospel, which looks above this world, and beyond its millenniums. Faith quenches the fiery darts of the Adversary.

But of what possible use can faith be to a man in the millennium? He will have no enemies there. Lions, serpents, fiends, evil men, nor mischievous boys, are to be there. As well might one come in armor of mail to a social tea-party, as to think of carrying about with him the shield of faith in the millennium; for no fiery darts come there; nor war, nor strife, nor any harmful thing can by the law of the kingdom find entrance there; and to go armed in such a state would be the most ridiculous folly. We have seen some notable examples of the anticipated millennium in the blood: men having both a foretaste, they suppose, of its peace, love, and joy; and also of its perfect liberty, and reign of righteousness in the flesh. The holy law being inscribed on their heart, they need not tax their eyes to study it. Having their conversation in heaven, from whence they do not look for the Lord Jesus this thousand years yet, they are quite independent of the ordinary means of grace. Preaching and praying and songs of praise are unprofitable to them; and with faith they have necessarily done, seeing they are absolutely translated into the kingdom of the Son of God. Ah! how deceived are these wretched men, who suppose they anticipate in their own persons and blood that degree of perfection, which the whole race of Adam is soon to recover in the millennium; a perfection of which they are the first fruits, the first ripe handfuls of the great harvest of a thousand years!

This comes of spiritualizing the word, which word is both spirit and truth, and the farther from the letter the worse the explanation. The word promises salvation, deliverance from evil, and a rescue from sin; but this promise is addressed to our faith; and by faith we stand. The moment man thinks to have the substance in the flesh, faith fails, and man falls. The word requires perfection in love

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and obedience; and man should strive for it with faith that he will attain it; but the moment he thinks in his heart, "I have attained," faith fails, and its fruit perishes. The fancied perfection swells and rises with a natural leaven, that if not checked inevitably sours the lump, and the mass returns to corruption.

Many sound and holy minds are at this day tossed on the billow of doubt between faith and perfection, seeing the latter is promised, and to reach it, the former must be let go of. The word of promise is sure: they are perfectly right in that; but the time of redemption is not in this world, not with standing the doctrine of the millenists teaches so. The time of redemption is the resurrection of the body, and perfection then safely takes the place of faith. Be holy, be perfect; and that you may be, trust in him who will raise the dead in triumph over death, as well as sin.

A CONTRAST

The gospel warns men by faith to flee from the wrath to come; but he would trifle, who, in the millenial day, should preach the terrors of the holy law, seeing every soul will have the comfortable assurance, that it is born in the millennium! Who is so blind that he will not see?

The gospel cheers men in sore troubles with the words of the apostle: through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of heaven. But this must be obsolete in the millennium, when the whole race seems to enter the kingdom by natural generation.

Our Lord in his gospel says, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Whence then comes this new saying, "In this world ye shall not see tribulation for a thousand years?" Eve learned that she might eat and not die; but the serpent deceived her, and beguiles the church now, under cover of plausible pretences.

The gospel requires believers to come out from the world and be separate: but this will be nullified in the millennium, for then all mankind are to run in the heavenly race together, neck and neck.

The gospel requires men to turn to the service of the living God, and to wait for his Son from heaven: but the doctrine of the millennium abates the latter part of that; for it is naturally impossible for mortals to wait, or expect, or look for an event, certain not to transpire until after their day a thousand years.

Christian faith from the blessed Master down the track of

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ages has been known solemnly to renounce the pride of this world, its riches, pomp, and glory, as a poor inheritance, fleeting, vain, and perishable: on the contrary, the millenial notion offers this world, its riches, power, and glory, as an object of worthy and certain attainment, and of lasting possession; "even all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them"-for a thousand years. This very offer was made to our Lord 1800 years ago, on certain terms; but he rejected both the tempter and the offer. Now, the church has a mind to accept the offer, it is worth while to search and see whether in heart also she be not consenting to the terms accompanying the offer: "If thou will fall down and worship me." Should it prove so, the good Lord help his beloved, heartily to respond his own indignant words, "Get thee behind me, Satan."

Faith looks for the Lord from heaven in his parousia, or personal coming: on the contrary, the "fable" looks for Christ in this world spiritually to engross the government of this world.

Faith sojourns with Abraham in pursuit of the heavenly Canaan, and the Jerusalem above: on the contrary, the "judaizing notion" looks for the Jerusalem that is in bondage with her children, to become the seat of universal empire, and her natural children its royal princes.

Faith puts off the carnal man with his lusts, to walk inconformity with the sufferings of Christ: on the contrary, the "judaizing notion" promises deliverance from all suffering, and seems also to offer a full satisfaction of the natural appetites.

Faith is the good fight of a Christian against well-known enemies: but of the millenial heresy it is no fight at all; having neither danger nor adversary to encounter; having Satan bound, the world converted, and all "peace and safety" a thousand years, more.

Faith overcomes the world by severe conflicts: but in the millennium, having overcome the world, faith seems to rest from its labors, and to leave sight and sense in full possession of the spoils of victory, without any competitor.

Now, by faith we stand, and are exhorted to take heed lest we fall: but in the fabled millennium men may be high minded with the most perfect security all around.

Now, men become the children of God by faith of Jesus Christ: but then they are to become his children, being in fact born an untold multitude in the millennium.

Now, are they heirs of righteousness which is by faith: but then heirs of righteousness by natural descent, as of Abraham.

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Now, must they examine, whether indeed we be in the faith: but then in as a matter of course, and full of ease in Zion.

Through faith the saints have subdued kingdoms, wrought miracles, and obtained a good report: but through the millennium, they are to have a good report beyond all controversy.

In this way is fully manifested the entire contrast between the "judaizing notion," and the faith once delivered to the saints; a palpable, essential, indisputable, perfect contrast, Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal not being more opposed to each other. The "fable" claims to itself this world; and this world fondly embraces the fable, and returns the loving claim: while faith totally disclaims this world, and its millennium: faith turns her back on them, and journeys onward, looking steadfastly to Jesus, whose tribulation was in the flesh, and whose triumph was in the resurrection from the dead, and whose glory is in the world to come.

Many abominations have obtained footing in the holy place; but never one with basilisk eyes, like this Jewish fable, to charm the holy people out of the life of faith, and turn them into stone; to entice them with a syren's voice, from the hope of the Lord's appearing, to hope for a time of extraordinary felicity, when men will be naturally delivered from the wrath to come, and filled with blessings in this present evil world. Well did the ancient church reject and reprobate it; well did the great reformers of Germany and England stigmatize and crop it, and also condemn those who circulate it, and brand it on the forehead "a fable," "a judaizing notion," to forewarn the faithful against its seducing spirits, its sorceries, its sweet singing serpents, and doctrines of devils.

THE MILLENIST DOCTRINE EXPRESSLY CONTRADICTS THE HOLY WORD

A rest remains for the people of God: the word is faithful which promises it; but it is manifest that the place of the promised rest is not in time, is not under the gospel dispensation, and is not a season for the exercise of faith; but, on the contrary, it is a time of crowning joy, and of holy recompense, after the gospel dispensation is ended, in the kingdom of which it is the forerunning good news.

The entire volume of testimony in support of the faith of this world's millennium, with one important exception, is taken not only in a literal, but also in a carnal sense, from the Old Testament; where it should be understood in a

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spiritual sense instead of carnal. It is not my province to argue this point, and yet its importance to the right understanding of my subject has forced it into some notice already, and demands a moment's consideration here. The many promises of a return, a restitution, a gathering from all nations into the Holy Land and to Jerusalem, made in the Old Testament to the Jews, are the main support of the doctrine of the millennium in the flesh. Therefore, it is necessary to inquire for the Jews-

Who are they?

Answer, they are the holy people, the chosen of God, the elect, the saints, the seed of Abraham, not that only which is under the law, but that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. ⁷⁸2

It is the nature of a last: will and testament to revoke or explain any former will and testament which is in being. So does the New Testament, not revoke, but explain the Old Testament. They both stand together, are bound up and delivered together, and are in full force; but the New Testament is the interpreter of the Old Testament, both by the laws of men, and by the word of God. ⁷⁹2 And the New Testament expressly tells us, "he is not a Jew that is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly." ⁸⁰3 And again: "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." ⁸¹4 These and similar lessons of the New Testament are enough to open our eyes to the right view of those Jews to whom the promises are made in the Old Testament.

And whence do the Jews return into their own land?

From their graves in every land, wheresoever the Lord has sown and scattered his chosen people. For "thus saith the Lord God: Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the, Lord. when I have opened your graves. O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live: and I shall place yon in your own land." ⁸²5 This language is addressed to "the whole house of Israel." ⁸³6 and truly includes the believing Gentiles.

And whither do the Jews return?

To Mount Zion, in their own land; to the city named, "the Lord is there:" to the New Jerusalem in the new heavens and earth. "For behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." ⁸⁴7

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And when do the Jews return?

In the times of the anapsyxis, the refreshing, or recreation, from the presence of the Lord, when he shall send Jesus Christ, with power and. great glory, to make restitution of all things, (and not of the Jews only,) which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets. ⁸⁵1

And who is the king of the Jews; and what is the nature of his kingdom?

Jesus of Nazareth, the, Christ, the Son of the living God, he is the King of Israel, and he shall sit on the throne of his father David, in the resurrection of the dead, and reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his dominion there shall be no end. ⁸⁶2 His kingdom is not of this world, but is "a celestial and angelic kingdom in the end of this world." to succeed the ruin of time, itself to abide "forever, even forever and ever."

In conformity with this scheme of interpretation, which is not learned of man, but which is drawn from the word of the blessed God, the Old-Testament promises and prophecies are concentrated into our gospel focus, the kingdom of heaven and of God, to be accomplished in Jesus and the resurrection: and the testimony of the witnesses agrees; the Old and the New Testaments respond to each other.

And now, while reading the sorrows proclaimed in the gospel to believers in Jesus, understand by them the same things threatened against the Jews in the Old Testament; and while reading the joys of heaven's kingdom preached to believers in the gospel, understand in the prophets the, glorious redemption of the Jews from worse than Egyptian bondage, and their return to possess the holy land, for an everlasting inheritance: and do mark, that all the promises to the seed of Abraham, though made in different ages, are made to the hearers personally, and can never be fulfilled by coming on their offspring after seventy generations. "To thee will I give," was spoken of old: and it is not possible to discharge the obligation by handing over the amount to the promisee's children. "Hear! I will cast thee out:" it is not spoken to them, but to you. "I will forget you; and I will forsake you:" it is not spoken to the children. "I will gather you; I will bring you again:" it is not spoken to the offspring, but to you, and to you it will be fulfilled in the resurrection of the dead.

The gospel must expire when the millennium comes.

I have been drawn by force, against my purpose, into

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these remarks. They are fraught with the deepest interest, and so much seemed important, to protect me from the appearance of opposing the New Testament to the Old Testament in what follows, while contrasting the millenist doctrine with the express testimony of the Lord, whose two witnesses perfectly agree.

"This present evil world" ⁸⁷1 is no place for a blissful millennium." The whole world lieth in wickedness; ⁸⁸2 and when it becomes changed, which we are assured it will be, then it will be this world no longer. For it is absurd to say, the old and the new are the same; that this world and the world to come are the same; and one who will insist upon it, may call to-morrow "yesterday," and be contented with his ingenuity. Be the material the same, its constitution, and fashion, its complexion and character, both moral and physical, will be wholly changed: so that it will be this world no longer. Evil will go out, and the curse be removed, which will make a radical change of this lower creation. Not before the coming of the Lord have we an assurance of this; but in his second advent, we believe it will take place;" for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for that, blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ;" ⁸⁹4 not surely to give this world a millennium, in the blood of Adam; but to change these vile bodies, to fold up these aerial heavens, and to change them, with the earth itself, into the promised kingdom of heaven and holy land, which are a suitable "rest for the people of God" "No lion shall be there, nor ravenous beast; but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Some things in the. Holy Scriptures are hard to be understood, but this, which the grace of God teaches, is very simple and plain; and it does not become us to obscure the plain gospel with darker prophecies. Doing so is abusing our light, and covering what the grace of God teaches plainly, and has fully revealed, with the mystery of another portion of scripture, which may be dark and unfathomable.

"Heaven and earth shall pass away," but the word of the Lord Jesus shall not pass away. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth?" [Yes, Lord, says the millenist:]

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"I tell you nay, but rather division. [That be far from thee, cries the millenist; be it far from thee, Lord.] "For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three: the father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." ⁹⁰1

"Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able." ⁹¹2 "The friendship of the world is enmity with God." ⁹²3 "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." ⁹³5 "For if the world hate you, ye know it hated me, before it hated you." "Woe unto you that are rich--woe unto you that are full--woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets."

These are hard sayings for the hope of this world's conversion: they will never do in the millennium; they are scarcely supportable now: for so deeply have we drunk of the cup of sorcery which mingles the sweet promises of the righteous world to come with the conversion and return of the natural Jews in this carnal world, that we have, as a whole people, become insensibly intoxicated with the notion of a far different fate for this world than to be fuel for the devouring fire; though we are warned by the Lord, and by his messengers; and though we well know and confess what is sounding in the last trumpets of wo, wo, wo; and what is designated by the vials of wrath containing the seven last plagues, which usher in the consummation of the world, of time, and of all sublunary things.

Should ever this world become an elysium, men may love it and set their affections on it; and having the things promised, they will need the gospel of them no longer. Our impression, however, is deep, that this world will not survive "the everlasting gospel;" but when the present dispensation ends, the Lord will appear in his glory. It will be no question to ask then, What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? neither will that be a question to ask in the blissful millennium. So long as the gospel continues, it testifies of the world "that the works thereof are evil;" ⁹⁴7 and, therefore, the world will ever hate the gospel: and reject its testimony, as it rejected the Lord Jesus, and his testimony; and knew him not. ⁹⁵8

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But it is thought that the Lord will pour out his Spirit, and convert the world, and then it will be changed, to adore and to receive him spiritually, whom once it rejected and refused personally.

The gospel does not teach this doctrine; but the contrary: that the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth, "because it seeth him not; neither knoweth him." ⁹⁶1 "And because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." ⁹⁷2 "I have manifested thy name to the men thou gavest me out of the world--I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me." ⁹⁸4 "They are not of the world, even as 1 am not of the world."

With testimony so explicit to the contrary, it seems to be madness to look for a blissful millennium in this world, or, until after the gospel dispensation expires. Heaven and earth shall pass away, by the word of the Lord Jesus, whose word shall not pass away; and when any follower of his supposes Jesus came to introduce a millennium into this world, let that follower devoutly consider these words: "I tell you nay; but rather division."--"I came not to send peace, but a sword." ⁹⁹5 And let that follower further consider, that the Apocalypse does not unveil the millennium, until after the seven epistles to the churches are sent, in their seven ages; until after all the seals are opened, until after the seventh and last trumpet has sounded, until after the vials of the seven last plagues are poured out, and a voice from the throne in thunder proclaims GegonÈ-It is done: not until Babylon is fallen, and the harvest of the world is reaped, and the battle of Armageddon is fought, and the beast and the false prophet are taken and cast into their own place; not until after all these things have been unveiled, is any |notice of the millennium in the earth. And let that follower consider further, that neither St. Peter, nor St. Paul, nor St. Clement, nor St. Justin, nor St. Cyprian, nor St. Cyril, nor St. Jerome, nor any other saint, or father, or eminent man in the primitive church, received or admitted the doctrine of the millennium for one moment, except it was in the coming of the Lord Jesus with the resurrection of the dead; that neither the Greek nor Latin nor Lutheran, nor any one of the Reformed churches, does now, or ever at any time has acknowledged the doctrine of a millennium in this world by creeds, confessions, or approved standards of faith; and further, that never a man, (whose writings have been enough

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esteemed to be preserved in the world,) came forth to preach the doctrine of "peace and safety" to the world, and a spiritual millennium to the race of the first Adam, without any resurrection, until Daniel Whitby, D. D., who died A. D. 1726: and then, if he do not pause with wonder, and with astonishment, and with fear, at the strong delusion that has gone over the protestant churches; and if he do not withdraw instinctively from this "Newlight" doctrine, and inquire for the good old paths to the heavenly bliss our fathers trod, and to the true millennium through Jesus and the resurrection, no word of exhortation from this humble source could move or persuade him. However, this I boldly say, and challenge contradiction, that Dr. Whitby's honorable name is the first and earliest that I have seen quoted in support of the doctrine, among the writers and orators of a spiritual millennium in this world's flesh, before the Lord's appearing; and Dr. Whitby gives credit to no other man for the discovery, but puts it roundly forth as his own opinion singly. And now one hundred years have barely gone by, since he was gathered to his fathers; and so firmly planted has this new faith become in all the churches of America, that never a religious newspaper of high standing with its own sect can easily be found, in New York or Boston, to admit an article into their columns, boldly questioning this proud Philistine, which has seized the ark of our faith, and now defies the hope of Israel.

This state of things calls for mourning, as well as indignation, that in a single century, an innovation so bold in departure from the primitive faith and confessions of all the churches, should have silently intrenched itself in the heart of all denominations following the reformers; which innovation those very reformers expressly condemn and brand, as opposed to the Holy Scriptures; and now in this liberal age, and free country, we may not come into the religious newspapers, in the name of the gospel, and of Luther and Melancthon and Cranmer, there to interrogate its excellency, to question its apostolic birth, and to scruple its holy dignity. No; the religious community must not be agitated, by raising the voice, to ask this angel in glorious light either whence he comes, or whither he tends; whose minister he is, or how he escaped the observation of past ages, and came only into heavenly view within a century. The religious newspapers are right to avoid the agitation of settled questions; and their conductors were right in counting this of a spiritual millennium in the flesh fully settled in the public mind and adopted. Nevertheless, it must be turned out;-for it sounds most queer, and is really absurd: a spiritual

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millennium in the "sinful flesh," with death reigning to the end of the dispensation! Truly, if the Dragon could leave things so, he might not grudge to be chained for a little season.

You have now been presented with the promises, the prophecies, and the gospel of the recovery of Eden and Immortality by our Lord Jesus Christ, constructed and fashioned into one instrument, through which faith discerns the glory and beauty and joy and eternal life, belonging to the heirs of the kingdom of heaven. If we use this instrument, it must be directed heavenward to the invisible world. This visible world requires no telescopic vision, to scan its promises, to detect its illusions, or to display its sorrows, wants, and mortal agonies. These are all visible to the naked eye. The gracious God permits us, through his word by faith, as in a glass darkly, to see another world beyond, outside of, and after this; a new world to come, in which dwelleth righteousness; and to which he directs our hearts, our hopes, our aims. And when He speaks of a millennium, we have only to ascertain its blessed and holy, its resurrection character, and its freedom from pain and sin and the father of lies, to determine, that it belongs not to this land of the valley and shadow of death, but to the holy land of eternal life in the kingdom of God.

WHAT THEN IS THE MILLENNIUM?

Various opinions prevail, of which three have been noticed.

1. That it is the endless Sabbath of the world to come, the recreation of this heaven and of this earth, which heaven and earth by the word of the Lord Jesus "shall pass away;" that it is "the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets, since the world began," in promises, in prophecies, and in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and, finally, that it is the redemption of creation from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, for which not only groans the body of the faithful in Christ, but creation itself groans and travails in pain, expecting earnestly the triumph over death, and the recovery of immortality, which Jesus has wrought and purchased, and "in the dispensation of the fulness of times" will make manifest, by gathering "together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth." ¹⁰⁰1 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace; good will toward men." ¹⁰¹2

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2. That it is a period of a thousand annual revolutions of the earth about the sun, after the coming of the Lord Jesus in the clouds of heaven, during which the eminently just rise, and reign in the earth with the Lord, over the nations which are spared in the world, especially with the natural seed of Abraham; and in which is enjoyed an undefinable mixed state of society between the living mortals and the risen, the immortal just; not unlike that of Peter, James, and John in the holy mount of transfiguration with the Lord and Moses and Elias. In which thousand years, the earth and heaven are to be renewed with salubrity, fertility, glory, and beauty; the Jerusalem below is to be in the communion of the Jerusalem above; the temple and city are to be rebuilt, enriched, and enlarged; and all nations are to go worship there, until the loosed enemy deceives them to their ruin, in the final dissolution of all things.

3. That it is a blessed state of spiritual enjoyment in the flesh of the first Adam, for a period of indefinite bounds, not less than a thousand years, and probably exceeding that time, before the Lord's appearing in the clouds of heaven, to raise and judge the quick and dead; in which time all nations will be converted, to walk in the obedience of the gospel, and the love one of another, without an enemy to vex the flesh, or to tempt the spirit, or to disturb the beautiful harmony of nature, and the lovely quiet of the heavenly life; until after the thousand years have given birth to an immense multitude of redeemed mortals, and have peopled heaven with a great majority of Adam's race. Then the enemy, being let loose for a little season, comes into this earthly paradise, misleads the nations by his wiles, and brings them with malice against the holy city in time to meet the vengeance of heaven which is to be poured on the wicked at the coming of the Lord in the clouds to judgment.

A fourth view of this subject remains to be stated, as follows:

The millennium is past. The language in which it is described is highly figurative and symbolical; and the leading symbol is the binding of the Dragon, that old serpent which is called the Devil. In the twelfth chapter of Revelation, this dragon is, by common consent, taken to represent the pagan administration of this world's affairs, which was overthrown in the fourth century, and cast down from the supremacy to the footstool of power; therefore, it ought to be taken in the same sense in Revelation xx.; and to mean, not the prince of the power of the air, but the pagan dominion over the earth, which was seized and bound, and has been confined outside of the pale of Christendom, and of

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civilization, for a thousand or more years, while christian kings sit on the throne of this world's empire.

This fourth view of the subject has more able advocates than it has popular favor; among whom Professor Bush is distinguished in our country, and Lightfoot, and Turretine, and others, in Europe. But, notwithstanding the cogency of the argument from the character of one symbol of the millennium, other symbols compel me to withhold my assent to this conclusion, and to regard the whole scene as lying beyond the confines of this world, as a vision of bliss outside of time, in which the blood of Adam can have no part. Only the spiritual man seems to be there. "I saw the souls of them." The risen dead cast no shadow, though they live and reign, as kings and priests on the earth, with Christ a millennium. ¹⁰²1 Against their intrenchment, or camp, which is also called "the beloved city," ¹⁰³2 in his time, the enemy comes up with an innumerable host, "as the sand of the sea," in the fearful name of Gog and Magog. But how, think you, this world's arms, its artillery, and bayonets, would rattle against the defences of a spiritual city, and endanger the saints' possessions? It is plainly necessary, to carry on a war with souls of the first resurrection, that the assailants must be a spiritual host. That they come from the four quarters of the earth, will not hinder their coming in a spiritual shape; and to come in the flesh and blood would be no better than for the Syrians to contend with the angelic host of chariots and horsemen which Elisha showed to Gehazi in the mountain, when he took. Benhadad's army blindfold into the midst of Samaria. Silly mortals may imagine such a posse comitatus of this world, to be led on to the attack of the holy city of the saints; but the captain of the innumerable throng is one of more cunning and tact, than to attempt the siege of a spiritual city with a fleshly army; the camp of the first resurrection with sabres, and shells, and rockets. I do not pretend to understand the war; but knowing the one party to be souls, or spiritual bodies of risen saints, and the general of the other party to be an angel fallen, it seems no unreasonable presumption, but quite within the scope of common sense, to conclude, that his men must be like their leader, and his army a spiritual host.

This does not clear up the difficulty of comprehending the twentieth chapter of Revelation. It only removes the scene of the events recorded therein beyond this life. The comet is a comet still, whether on this side or that side of the sun;

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but because we cannot tell its period, or delineate accurately its eccentric course, we do not, therefore, refuse to see and acknowledge the order and beauty and perfect harmony of the solar system. We are admonished, and have occasion in the examination of this portion of prophecy particularly to remember, "that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation." ¹⁰⁴1 The words "any private" are in the original Greek simply idias, ( idiaV ,) one's own, or self: and the admonition is plainer by translating it, No prophecy of scripture is of self-interpretation. The eminent Bishop Horsley takes this view of the text in several elaborate discourses; and its propriety is self-evident; and its application to this chapter twenty of Revelation is alike needful and welcome to the students of prophecy. Many times in the course of the chapter the prophet says, "I saw"--; and while his whole attention was absorbed in one great event, it is plain that another, and still others, at the same instant, were transpiring. He describes them consecutively, while yet they were concurrent; for it is impossible to carry on two trains of narrative in the same sentence. Satan is at large, until the beast and false prophet are slain, and their city is destroyed. Then he is bound and confined, while "the beloved city" is manifested in the earth: for it is in the earth the saints reign; ¹⁰⁵2 and here Satan returns to assault their city with Gog and Magog in his company: yet the prophet delays the particular description of its coming with glory from heaven, until after Satan's reunion with the beast and the false prophet; when the apostle describes its coming in glorious state, and its abiding forever.

To assist in the contemplation of this prophecy, which is often made not its own self-interpreter merely, but an index of all prophecy, the following parallels are exhibited.

1. Synchronism of the Millennium with Daniel's fifth Monarchy.

Daniel's prophecy is a calendar of the prophecies, as Mede well says: a holy almanac, into which we may look for the day and month and season of this world's year in the whole course of time. And the time of this world is therein set forth under the image of four metals for its four consecutive seasons; and is further represented by four beasts, which constitute its spring-time and summer, its autumn and winter. All commentators agree, that we live in the last of these four seasons of Daniel's holy almanac. The New Testament often warns us that ours is the last of the seasons:

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"this is the last time," ¹⁰⁶1 "these last days," ¹⁰⁷2 etc. And, for our more particular warning, the last season of the holy almanac is divided into subdivisions, as it were months. The first is of 450 years, during the unity of the fourth empire; the second is of 300 years, after the division of the Roman empire into ten kingdoms; the third is of 1260 years, during the usurpation of the power of the ten in the hands of one, diverse from the ten. The times of these subdivisions are not proportioned to each other, like so many months of thirty days each; but they are subdivisions of the season, made by the prophetic almanac: and every student of the Bible knows, while he reads, that we are living in the last month of the, last season, and in the latter part of the month. It is all in the holy almanac, as plain as noon-day, that we live in the last time, toward the very close of the last season, and of the four seasons. And when the new year opens, it is not the old year renewed and repeated; but it is one eternal spring day. The season, which is to succeed this fourth season, is one of endless duration in glory, immortality, and eternal life. If the holy astronomer does not make this matter plain in the calendar, to every careful reader of his heavenly almanac, no words of mine can.

Now the beast of the Apocalypse answers to the fourth season of the holy almanac, and its last month, or wicked horn, to the false prophet of the Apocalypse, which beast and prophet, season and month, terminate together, just as autumn and November terminate together, whether we read in Dan. vii. or in Rev. xix.: and when these two are passed away together, then comes the millennium of the Apocalypse, and also the fifth and endless monarchy of the prophet Daniel; and these two in their commencement perfectly synchronize, and that in Daniel never terminates. The millennium, then, belongs to the eternal state.

2. Synchronism of the Millennium with St. Paul's prophecy of the Lord's coming in the overthrow of the man of sin.

St. Paul foretells the course of events ¹⁰⁸1 from his day to the coming of the Lord in the end of time, by delineating the apostasy, the obstacle in the way of the revelation of the man of sin; the removal of that obstacle, and the display and reign of "that Wicked, whom the Lord will consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming." By "that Wicked" we understand the false prophet, or wicked horn, and his destruction is in the lake with the beast, at the final coming of the Lord: as seen in Rev. xix. 20, and in Dan. vii. 7-11 and

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23-27. "Daniel's wicked horn is St Paul's man of sin, as the church from her infancy interpreted it." ¹⁰⁹1

3. Synchronism of the Millennium with the seventh trumpet.-Mede.

At the sound of the seventh trumpet, the days of the slain witnesses, and of the beast which arose and slew them, and of the nations of this world, all run out together; and the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, the time of the dead that they should be judged, and of the saints that they should receive their reward, small and great, comes gloriously in. ¹¹⁰2 The reign of Christ is often mentioned in the Apocalypse, of whose advent the choir of angels and presbyters around the throne are wont to sing in triumph over the fall of the beast and of Babylon. ¹¹¹3 This is the eternal state.

4. Synchronism of the New Jerusalem with the seventh trumpet.-Mede.

The Lamb's marriage and kingdom follow close on the destruction of Babylon, with which the seventh trumpet begins to sound.ß ¹¹²4 The New Jerusalem is the bride, and therefore herself comes contemporary with the seventh trumpet, when God will "reward his servants the prophets, and the saints, and them that fear his name, small and great, and will destroy them that destroy the earth." ¹¹³5 This is the kingdom in which Christ will judge the quick and dead at his appearing. ¹¹⁴7 The new creation of Isaiah must be taken for the new creation of John; and these may well be supposed to synchronize with that "world to come" of Paul, and again with that of Peter, wherein dwelleth righteousness. What forbids? Common sense requires us to understand, that when this heaven and earth are folded up and changed, and the world to come is manifested by the word of God, the new heavens and earth and Jerusalem at once appear together: for to suppose heavens without an earth, or earth without heavens, or a city without an earth, is monstrous; and likewise to suppose a city without inhabitants, a city rich, compact, perfectly built and full of glory, beauty and joy, but empty of inhabitants, is monstrous. And hence the resurrection of the dead synchronizes to perfection with the coming of the Lord in the end of this world to make all things new, from heaven to earth and to Jerusalem, "the city of the great King." Therefore, all these events synchronize one with another, and with the sounding of the seventh trumpet, when "there should be time no longer,--but the mystery of God should be finished,"

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"and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged." ¹¹⁵1 That which follows is the millennium, and it belongs to the eternal world.

5. Synchronism of the times of the Gentiles with the royal image.

"Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.--And then shall they see the Son of man coming with power and great glory.--When ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." ¹¹⁶2 "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: for I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, until ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." ¹¹⁷3 Jerusalem has been under the yoke of the Gentiles from the days of Daniel, and deliverance is promised in that kingdom of "life from the dead" which Christ will bring with him, and the God of heaven will set up and forever establish in the utter destruction of the king's image, and the kingdoms of time, by the stone taken from the mountain without hands, ¹¹⁸4 in Christ's second coming.

A DISCURSION

The millennium is the hope of this world, and the vision of the world to come; the sabbath, not of time and sense, but the sabbath which remains for the holy people beyond the waters of Jordan. It is a period in which the resurrection children reign with Christ on heavenly thrones; and it is not the reign of the natural seed of Abraham in this world. Its period must embrace the descent of the New Jerusalem, "the beloved city," for that is the name of the saints' camp, ¹¹⁹1 which the enemy surround; and it must embrace the perdition of the beast and false prophet, (which is not their mortal remains, but their true followers and supporters;) for when, in the end of the thousand years, Satan is cast into the lake of fire, he finds them already there; and so follows them to perdition. ¹²⁰2 And these are not cut off until the Lord comes in the end of the world, as we have seen in our first and second synchronisms.

Again, the strong man armed keeps his house, until a stronger than he comes, and seizes, binds, and confines him; then he spoils not only his goods, but his old rookery of sin and of death, at one blow, and slays his ministers; and in the new city, which he will bring with him, he will give all his saints a place, whose glory it is that they have not worshipped

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the beast nor his image. Of course their reign is not contemporary with the beast, but subsequent to his destruction: following the last trumpet, and all trumpets; the last vial, and all vials; the fall of Babylon and the battle of Armageddon, in which all flesh appears to be slain, and the wicked to be sent to his own place. In this connection, the millennium succeeds, when the kingdom which smote the royal image, and dashed its plastic metals to primitive dust, itself becomes a great mountain, and fills the whole earth: and in that mountain nothing shall be found to hurt or to destroy, saith the Lord. ¹²¹1

It is in the destruction of Babylon, under the blast of the seventh trumpet, that the kingdom of this world is taken and overthrown by our Lord; and while the angelic host rejoice and sing, "Hallelujah; for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth;" they add also, Let us rejoice and be glad, and give glory to him; for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride hath made herself ready. ¹²²2 The New Jerusalem is that bride. She is prepared before the binding of Satan, even when Babylon falls: unless Satan is bound before that event occurs. The beloved city is the Lamb's wife; the same which in Isaiah the Lord says he will rejoice in and exult over. ¹²³3 "Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever." ¹²⁴5 "For the Lord delighteth in thee, end thy land shall be married: for as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy god rejoice over thee.--Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth."

Delightful as this theme is, and full of rich interest, regard for your patience commands me to draw to a close; and I confess my obedience is the more cheerful, for that if what I have said does not carry conviction to your mind and joy to your heart, nothing I can say will. The particular millennium seen by John, Rev. xx., is neither of this world, nor in this world; but is in the resurrection of the dead; and so, likewise, is the general millennium, the seventh day of eternal rest, which remains for the holy people in the land of promise, which land God sware unto Abraham to give it forever to him, and to his seed, which is Christ. All people

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and ages and nations, from Adam in Eden to this era of Babylon the great, have cherished the gospel, and the hope of this future bliss, not for their posterity, but for themselves. Divine revelation has unfolded it to every successive age of mankind, as their own, if they would take hold of it by faith, to be enjoyed hereafter, in the restitution of all things, which are spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began. Upon no other theme have they all with united voice spoken in harmonious accents of joyful hope and praise; but upon this they have descanted with untiring repetitions, describing its peace and holiness, its perfect beauty and fertility and thrilling joys, and chief over all its everlasting King of glory, majesty, power, and authority. Of no other than this have all the prophets testified; and of this they have testified by promises, by visions, by dreams, by types, by allegories, by metaphors, by parables, by many symbols dark and obscure, and by the open gospel, proclaiming, with angel's voice, "Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come;" ¹²⁵1 and repeating in plain terms, "that the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Now it suffereth violence, and those who are resolved to have it, take it by force: but not so in the millennium; no force is able to take it, after the Son of man has once risen up and shut to the door. To knock then will be wholly in vain. To call and cry aloud will be of no avail: Depart, (from within, will be heard;) I never knew you. To assault with all Gog's host and Satan's rage will not move one of the pearly gates on its golden hinges, to open for admission to the impenitent, faithless, aspiring soul. Faith alone has the knowledge of the way, and the key of the gate; and faith is a grace peculiar to time; it belongs not to the millennium.

Parallel of Ezekiel's Prophecy with the events of the Millennium.

I should have done, but something is here not to be overlooked, in a subject unfathomable as the mystery of the millennium. No view yet taken of it explicates the doctrine from palpable objections to my limited understanding; however, I cheerfully submit to the holy word in this matter, as in the matter of the divine decrees, and of man's free agency. Great truths are often incapable of being embraced together in the same human view, being only seen in opposite positions; but not therefore annihilating, or counteracting one another. Both stand in their infinite proportions suited together perfectly, notwithstanding their contradiction apparent

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to our limited powers of vision, which apparent contradiction is owing to our infirmity, and by no means to the want of consistency in divine revelation.

The twentieth chapter of Revelation of all others is least capable of self-interpretation; it requires to be illustrated by corresponding prophecies. The previous pages have been directed to this object, especially in the five preceding synchronisms; and with one more effort of this sort I will close; an effort deserving a discourse to itself, instead of a place at the heel of this.

Ezekiel begins his prophecy with an account of the departure of the glory of God from Jerusalem, and he concludes with a promise of the return of that glory in the new dispensation.

The sixteenth chapter descants on Jerusalem's wickedness, punishment, and merciful restoration, together with her elder sister, Samaria and her daughters, and her younger sister, Sodom and her daughters, which may only be in the new earth. Chapters thirty and thirty-one foretell the utter overthrow of Egypt and Assyria, "Pharaoh and all his multitude." The thirty-second repeats the calamity of Pharaoh, and adds to it, of Ashur, Elam, Meshech, and Tubal, Edom, and the Zidonians by name, and of the princes of the north without name. These are all "slain by the sword, and bear their shame with them that go down to the pit. Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword, saith the Lord God." ¹²⁶1

Observe here, that Gog is of the land of Magog, and is chief prince of "Meshech and Tubal," ¹²⁷2 and that "Pharaoh" is understood by the wise to be a name of the Dragon, the old serpent, familiar to the prophets.

The thirty-third chapter is addressed to the watchmen of Israel, with denunciations against the land. The thirty-fourth reproves the shepherds of Israel, and promises that the Lord himself will search out of all nations, and gather upon the mountains of Israel his scattered flock. "There shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel; and I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost, and will bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment." ¹²⁸3

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As these mountains and flocks and mercies belong to the millennium, so do the judgments detailed in chapters xxx., xxxi., xxxii., belong to the introduction of the millennium, and correspond to the overthrow of the beast and false prophet in the harvest of the earth, when all the nations by name are counted to the slaughter and consigned to the pit: "even Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword." ¹²⁹1

Ezekiel thirty-five begins the subject anew with the destruction of Edom, ¹³⁰2 which is made a perpetual desolation, never to return. ¹³¹3 This is the present evil world. Chapter thirty-six is a counter prophecy to the mountains of Israel, promising to them, and to the hills and rivers and valleys, "Ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come," (verse 8,) in the resurrection. "They shall possess thee, and thou shalt be their inheritance, and thou shalt no more hence-forth bereave them:" verse 12. O house of Israel, "I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land:" verse 24. "Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good:" verse 31. To this end their recovery must be "life from the dead."

Chapter xxxvii. explains the millennial resurrection literally of "the whole house of Israel," v. 11, which, if it do not include us, "Our hope is lost; we are cut for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them: Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live; and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord."-v. 11-15.

The ancient commentators, Sts. IrenÊus, Chrysostom, and Jerome understood this of a literal resurrection of the faithful; and if it fails to teach that, no language can teach, it: even the resurrection of Jesus might be turned into a figure as easy; for it is written that his grave was opened, and he came forth out of his grave, and lived and returned into his own land. If this proof of the resurrection be taken

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from the Old Testament, every other may, by a similar rule; and the Sadducees may be justified by the law and the prophets, and the Pharisees condemned.

The prophet proceeds to declare the purpose of God, to unite Judah and Ephraim into one nation: "and David, my servant, shall be king over them," v. 24; "their prince forever," v. 25. "And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore," v. 28.

This is the eternal state subsequent to the resurrection: for it is both impossible for David to reign on earth again without rising from the dead, and also for any condition of things in this world to continue forever; seeing that the true Witness testifies of this heaven and earth that they shall pass away, and all things belonging to them are transitory.

After this description of the resurrection of "the whole house of Israel," and of their union under David in one everlasting kingdom, which seems to accord and synchronize with the first resurrection, ¹³²1 the prophet proceeds, in chapters xxxviii. and xxxix., to speak of the coming of Gog and all his bands, from Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, or Phut, Gomer, and Togarmah, against the mountains of Israel, "as a cloud to cover the land." The Lord will then appear in his anger, so that all men and things shall shake at his presence, and he will rain upon Gog, "and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hail-stones, fire and brimstone." ¹³³2 The thirty-ninth chapter only carries out the doctrine and particulars of the preceding; leaving the reader in no doubt that this Gog and his destruction are the same which are so similarly described in Rev. xx., and no elsewhere expressly named in the Bible.

Chapter xl. to the end of the prophecy of Ezekiel enters into a particular description of the New Jerusalem, in language suited to the Mosaic dispensation, but manifestly intending that same which the Apocalypse describes coming down out of heaven, in the new creation which God will make, whose waters are waters of life, whose trees are the tree of life, whose inhabitants are the chosen people, whose temple is built of living stones, whose sacrifices are a pure offering of praise on the altar of the heart, whose form is four square, and whose walls are salvation, and her gates praise. "The Lamb is the light thereof;" and "the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there;" Immanuel; "the tabernacle of God is with men." "This is the city the patriarchs eyed from afar, while as pilgrims they traced the thorny road; this is the Jerusalem which

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Paul declares is free, which is above, and is the mother of us all." ¹³⁴1

The coincidence of these two prophets, Ezekiel and St. John, is remarkable in the description of a dreadful overthrow of the nations, followed by a resurrection of the holy people, against whose mountains Gog, an enemy of a fearful name, comes like a cloud; and deliverance is wrought by fire from heaven, to the destruction of the innumerable host. Then follows the particular description of the holy, heavenly land, and the royal metropolis, named after her King forever, as the bride takes the name of the Bridegroom.

This parallelism of Ezekiel's prophecies and the Apocalypse, and these synchronisms of Daniel, Paul, and John, constitute the materials of Jacob's ladder, "set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it." ¹³⁵2 The portion which rests on the solid earth, we can feel and handle; but the top is a dizzy height, which angels, not mortals, may climb and comprehend. "Behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.--I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." ¹³⁶3 Heaven is represented with a wall around; and that implies an enemy without. The battlements and gates are of impregnable mould; they look toward the enemies' land. What though he come like a cloud? He comes never again; but he forever perishes, outside of the beloved city. "Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem!" "Fear not, for thou shall not be put to shame: for thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called." ¹³⁷5 "For the Lord will comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein; thanksgiving and the voice of melody."

Of the present discourse, this is the sum:-

From the fall of man and of the whole creation under the curse of sin and the dominion of death, until the times of the anapsyxis, or resuscitation from the presence of the Lord, when he shall send Jesus Christ, who is now preached to us, and shall make all things new in the resurrection of the dead, the Holy Spirit has unceasingly testified of the coming of the great day of the Lord, and of his kingdom, with great

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power and glory; when Jesus will not only change these vile bodies like unto his own glorious body; but also these heavens, and earth, bestowing on them an atmosphere of blessedness, and a soil of fatness, with a salubrity that knows of no sickness, and a joy which knows of no pang, separation, sighing, or sorrow any more. For this value the fathers, Adam, Abraham, and David, received the promises. They did not dream of having them fulfilled in this land of death, in which they dwelt as sojourners and travellers; but they expected the redemption of the Lord's pledges in the resurrection of the dead, and in the heavenly land of immortal life.

In this light they, together with the prophets, foresaw Christ's day and were glad. In this light the prophets de scribed the New Jerusalem, and the righteous nation, and their everlasting King on the throne of his father David, in his endless kingdom over all God blessed forever. In this explicit manner the holy gospel describes the kingdom of heaven, and the angelic nature of those who are found worthy to attain that world, and the resurrection of the dead, through Jesus our Nobleman that is gone to receive a kingdom and to return. In this manner, and coming in this kingdom, the apostles preached "Jesus and the resurrection," through all the world. In this faith the primitive church for three centuries steadfastly looked for his coming. In this faith Luther and Melancthon and the great reformers of the sixteenth century expected the coming of the Lord, while they grappled in mortal agonies with the gigantic power of the Latin hierarchy. In this manner, and in this kingdom, all our creeds and standards of faith confess the hope of the coming of the Lord Jesus; and all believers daily pray that he will come, and will not tarry: "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." And when the hopes and prayers of all ages of the holy people, from Adam to this day, are answered and fulfilled, then will be the anticipated millennium: "The dispensation of the fulness of times," heaven in earth, when creation will no longer sigh and groan and travail in pain together, as it does now, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God; but creation itself will attain with us, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, redemption of the body from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of that eternal world, where "they neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." ¹³⁸1

¹ See Barnabas, quoted below.

² Heb. iv.5, 9.

³ Acts iii. 21. Rev. xix. 10.

⁴ Hesiod, David, Virgil, Milton, Cowper, Heber, Pollok.

⁵ St Jerome says of these words, they ask "for the kingdom of the whole world, that Satan may cease to reign in the world." St. Chrysostom interprets them of the groaning, Rom. viii. 21; St. Cyprian of the coming and kingdom of our Lord in the end of the world. So the Assembly's and Ed. Sixth's Catechisms.

⁶ This view of the course of time in six days of a thousand years appears not to have been confined to Jews. The Chaldeans, according to Plutarch, believed in a struggle between good and evil for the space of six thousand years; "and then Hades is to cease, and men are to be happy, neither wanting food, nor making shade." Zoroaster taught, that after six thousand years of suffering, men would be happy under one government, speaking one language. Plutarch assigns no reason for these opinions; but Daubuz, from whom I extract them, supposes they are of patriarchal origin. He adds: The Tuscans had an opinion, which the Persians still hold, that "God has appointed twelve thousand years to his works; the first six thousand were employed in creation; the other six are appointed for the duration of mankind."

Mr. Mede, p. 535, informs us that the whole school of Cabbalists call the seventh millennium "the great day of judgment," because then they think God will judge the souls of all men; and he quotes many of their Rabbis to show that they defined the day of judgment, "millennium," or a thousand years, together with the resurrection and Messiah's kingdom. For example, David Kimchi, on Is. lv. 5, says, "The observance of the Sabbath is essential to the faith; for such only as observe the Sabbath confess that the earth will be renewed: because he who created it out of nothing will renew it." As if he who observes the holy Sabbath testifies his faith in the great Sabbath, in which God will renew the world.

The learned Dr. Gill has some valuable citations on this point. On 2 Pet. iii. 8, he says, The Jews interpret days, millenniums; the seventh is the Sabbath, and the beginning of the world to come. On Rev. xx. 4, The Rabbis say, The days of Messiah will be a thousand years. In these thousand God will renew his world, and then the righteous dead will be raised and die no more.

The following is in the name of St. Barnabas, the companion of St. Paul, and is of his age, whether the hand-writing be that of Barnabas, or another.

"In six thousand years (from creation) the Lord God will bring all things to an end; for with him one day is a thousand years, as himself testifieth, saying. Behold, this day shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, shall all things be accomplished. And what is that he saith, He rested the seventh day? He means this, that when his Son shall come, and abolish the season of the wicked one, and judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun and moon and stars; then he shall gloriously rest in the seventh day."-Apoc. Test., Barn. xiii. 3.

⁷ Gen. i. 28.

⁸ Acts iii. 19. Isa. lxv. 18. Matt. v. 18. xxiv. 35. Heb. i. 11. 2 Pet. iii. 7.

⁹ Rom. viii. 20.

¹⁰ Gen. iii. 15. Rom.xvi.20.

¹¹ Gen. iv. 20.

¹² Acts i. 6.

¹³ Gen. vi. 2, 3.

¹⁴ Gen.xv.9, 10.17, 18.

¹⁵ Gal. iii. 16.

¹⁶ Rom. iv. 13.

¹⁷ Acts xxiii. 6.

¹⁸ Ib. xiii. 32.

¹⁹ Rom. iv. 16.

²⁰ Matt. v. 5.

²¹ I confirm this view of the promise made unto the fathers, by reciting from Mr. Mede, Dr. Gill, and others, certain opinions of learned Rabbis, going to show that they also received the promise in the sense it is expounded here. The promise is of the inheritance of the land forever. Rabbi Eleazar, who lived just after the second temple was built, writes thus: "As I live, saith the Lord, I will awake you hereafter in the resurrection of the dead, and will gather you with all Israel into the land of Israel."

Jonathan the Paraphrast, who lived before the Christian era, says on Hos. xiv. 8, "They shall be gathered from their captivity; they shall live under the shadow of Messiah; the dead shall rise, and good shall increase in the earth," etc.

"Where does the (Mosaic) law teach the resurrection of the dead? Truly, where it says, Ex. vi. 4. 'And I have also established my covenant with them, that I will give to them the land of Canaan:' for it is said not to you but to them. Again, the Sadducees asked Rabbi Gamaliel, (Paul's teacher,) whence he could prove that God would raise the dead. Nor would they rest, until he had brought them this verse. Deut. xi. 21, 'Which land the Lord smart to your fathers that he would give them.'" God covenanted with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give them the land in which they were strangers, for an inheritance; and not having received the inheritance, they must needs live again, or in respect to them the promise has failed, which is impossible.

The above are found in Mede, with the following also: "Rabbi Kimchi, on Obadiah, says, When Rome shall be laid waste, there shall be redemption for Israel.-And on Is. xxvi. 19, The holy blessed God will raise the dead at the time of deliverance.-And on Jer. xxiii. 20. In that he saith ye shall consider it, and not they shall consider it, he intimateth the resurrection."

Dr. Gill furnishes the following, 1 Cor. xv. 54: "When the King Messiah comes, the holy blessed God will raise up those that sleep, as it is written, He shall swallow up death in victory."

²² Acts ii. 30. 2 Sam. vii. 12. 13.

²³ Villipand, a Jesuit of the year 1600, expressly says, "The church militant, which is called the kingdom of heaven, and is descended from heaven," etc. Vol. i. 217. E. i.

On Matt. xxii. 31, "The holy blessed God promised to our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give them the land of Israel. We learn from hence that they shall be raised, and that God will hereafter give them the land of Israel."

It will greatly increase our interest in the prophets, if we observe, from Moses to Malachi, that the promises and threatenings are directly to you and to us, who read and hear, and not to them who may come after us. In all the glorious prophecies of Israel's restoration, scattered up and down the sacred page, the word is to you, and is not to them; the word is spoken to you in the second, and not to them in the third person: and in order to be fulfilled to the persons to whom it has in past ages been spoken, they must revive, and come out of the grave, and live again; which assuredly they will at the coming and kingdom of Christ in the resurrection of the dead.

²⁴ Ps. xvi. 10. Isa. liii. 8. Dan. ix. 26.

²⁵ Dan. ii. 44. vii. 13, 14, 27. Isa. xxiv. 19, 20, 23. 2 Pet. iii. 12, 13.

²⁶ Isa. lxvi. 8, 10. Job. xix. 25. 1 Cor. xv. 22, 23, 50. 1 Thess. iv. 17. Ezek. xxxvii. 12-14.

²⁷ 1 Cor. xi. 26.

²⁸ Eph. i. 14.

²⁹ Eph. iii. 5, 6.

³⁰ Eph. ii. 19.

³¹ 1 Kings xii. 16.

³² Acts xv. 1.

³³ Gal. iii. 25-29.

³⁴ Phil. ii. 9. Heb. i. 2. ii. 8 Col. i. 20. Eph. i. 21, 22.

³⁵ 2 Tim. iv. 1. 1 John iii. 2. Rom. xiv. 9. John xvi. 11.

³⁶ Is. lx. 14.

³⁷ Acts xxvi. 6, 7, 8.

³⁸ Heb. i. 2.

³⁹ For authority, I refer not only to the writings themselves, the New Testament, and the remains of St. Clement, St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and St. Barnabas; but to the treatises of Justin Martyr, Irenaous, Tertullian, Cyprian, and others with whose pages I have some personal acquaintance; and likewise to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bush on the Millennium, and other works accessible to every English reader.

But seeing the case is important, let the witnesses take the stand. Saints Peter, James, John Paul and Jude speak by the Spirit as follows:

2 Pet. iii. 12: "Looking for and hasting the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat: nevertheless, we according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness."

Jam v. 8, 9: The coming of the Lord draweth nigh: grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned; behold, the Judge standeth before the door."

John, in Rev i. 2, 7: "The time is at hand-Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wall because of him Even so amen."

Paul to the Phil. iv. 5: "Let your moderation he known unto all men; the Lord is at hand; be anxious, for nothing."

Jude 14: "Behold the Lord cometh with myriads of his saints."

The above is the sentiment of the Spirit, and that it was so understood by the successors of the apostles, I prove by the independent testimony of,

1. St. Barnabas, A. D. 73.

"For the day is at hand, in which all things shall be destroyed, together with the wicked one; the Lord is near, and his reward is with him."-Apoc. Test., Barn. xv. 10.

2. St. Clement of Rom, A. D. 95.

"If therefore we shall do what is just in the sight of God we shall enter into his kingdom, and shall receive the promises, which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man. Wherefore, let us every hour expect the kingdom of God, in love and righteousness, because we know not the day of God's appearing."-Apoc. Test, St. Clem. 2 Cor. iv. 15.

3. St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, A. D. 107.

"We ought to endure all things for God's sake, that he may bear with us: Be every day better than other: consider the times: and expect him who is above all time, eternal invisible though for our sakes made visible."-Apoc. Test, Igar. to Polycarp. i. 15.

4. Justin Martyr, A. D. 150.

"We acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, who was crucified, who arose, and ascended into heaven, and is about to come again to judge all men even to Adam."-Jus. to Trypho, sec. 132.

The number of witnesses may be multiplied to any extent, as their number increases in succeeding ages. Several have been already cited in this volume, and others will be in proof of the same point, but in some different connexion. I subjoin an extract from three most ancient creeds.

⁴⁰ This was evidently a new mode to the Jew of understanding the gospel; since he suspects some trap in it.

⁴¹ The learned Mede thinks the "not" here is interpolated by the enemies of the millenaries. Bishop Newton and Mr. Vint concur with him. They suppose the sense and the construction require its omission; but, with great deference, as to the construction. I differ; as to the sense, that depends on the reader, whether the "not" be rejected or retained. But it is there, and as the sense does not forbid it, and as the adversative character of the preceding requires no less than the subsequent seems to refuse it, the "not" will stand; and that the better, because Justin is the first to notice this doctrine, and the Jew distrusts it for its novelty.

⁴² "These sentiments" mean the general sentiments of the dialogue, rather than the particular sentiments of this clause; and the dialogue maintains at, large the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, according to the power and wisdom and goodness of God, the righteous Governor and just Judge of the universe.

⁴³ This is a blow at Platonism, which will his much current doctrine of the day. According to the gospel, all the faithful enter into the promised inheritance together. Heb. xi. 40. 2 Tim. iv. 8. This part of his argument is levelled not against the opposers of the millennium, but at the heretics who say there is no resurrection.

⁴⁴ Justin Martyr evidently set the highest Value on the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, as all primitive Christians and martyrs did. His reference to the millennium is sufficient to prove him a millenary, but the manner of reference also proves him to have been one of a peculiar sort; for he speaks of it only in the light of the resurrection of the dead, and of the New Jerusalem, in the world to come, with the Lord from heaven.

⁴⁵ The millennium, as Justin describes it, is the kingdom of heaven in the new heaven and earth; the Jerusalem Bride, coming as one adorned for her husband over which the Lord exults with joy and greatly rejoices. It is the very thing we pray for, and all creation is in pain to procure: when the earth is renovated, and the creation itself is delivered from the thraldom of death and corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

⁴⁶ Though long expiring, he is accursed to the last.

⁴⁷ They are immortal, or else, being removed by death, others would inhabit their houses, and eat the fruit of their vineyards, which is not to be in the new heaven, earth and Jerusalem. Therefore, in the millennium, according to Justin and Isaiah the inhabitants of the earth are immortals, enduring as the days of the tree of life.

⁴⁸ Is. lxv. 17 to end.

⁴⁹ Justin indicates a resurrection of "the faithful," a millennium before the general resurrection. Rev. xx. 4, limits the first resurrection to martyrs. The day of the millennium indicates a thousand years, and the whole time at that rate would be three hundred and sixty millions of years. I shrink from speculation of this sort with instinctive dread, lest, in attempting the unfathomable word. I speak what is not, or contradict what is spoken.

⁵⁰ Iren. Con. Her. B. 5. c. 28.

⁵¹ Idem c. 15.

⁵² Idem c. 20.

⁵³ C. 33.

⁵⁴ 1. Tatian, A. D. 150. Oration vs. Greeks, bound with Justin Martyr. "Sec. 7. Wherefore, we believe there will be a resurrection of the body, after the end of all things: not as the Stoics teach, according to whom there is a continual round of worlds, forever coming and going without any use; but to be once and forever, in the fulfilment of our times, for the sake of judgment, according; to the constitution of man."-He does not name any church glory for the hope of this world.

2. Hegesippus, A. D. 178, relates the story of Domitian and the grandsons of Jude, in a way which proves that Domitian feared, as well as the historian looked for, the epiphany and kingdom of our Lord, preached in the gospel, to be manifested soon in the end of the world.

3. Theophilos, A. D. 180, bishop of Antioch, wrote three books to Autolicus, a heathen friend, which are well written, to contrast the purity and truth of the divine records with the fables of the poets and darkness of the philosophers; but throwing no light on this history and doctrine.

4. Athenagoras, A. D. 180, who wrote an Apology for Christians, addressed to the emperors Aurelian and Commodus; and also a treatise on the resurrection of the dead. I have been interested by his pages; but he makes no allusion to any hope of the faithful, to be realized prior to the resurrection. Of the time, circumstances, place, or condition of the resurrection he gives no intimation; having in view to satisfy heathen dignities of its propriety, rather than to comfort believers with its hope.

5. Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 192. This writer seems to me the most vapid of the fathers, having no salt in him; and though quoting the pure word, yet losing it again instantly, as a man does the fashion of his face the moment he turns from the glass. I have no pleasure in his pages. He says much more of Plato than of Christ, and takes notice neither of the millennium, nor of the coining of Christ, nor of the judgment, nor scarcely of the kingdom of heaven.

This name concludes the list of christian authors of the second century. In the text and these notes the name of every Christian is mentioned whose writings are transmitted to us from the first two centuries of our era; and their individual sentiments I have sought carefully to spread in their own words before the reader, if they have spoken to the point in hand. If they neglected it, yet I have not neglected them; but have faithfully sought light on this subject from all their surviving works.

⁵⁵ Ter. ad. Mar. L. iii. c. 24.

⁵⁶ On Rom. vol. iv. 565.

⁵⁷ Oxford Trans. Cyp. 188.

⁵⁸ Epiphanius, Her. 74. Mede, 843.

⁵⁹ Bar. A. D. 373. 14.

⁶⁰ Bar. A. D. 411. 48.

⁶¹ Ency. Methodique Anabaptist. They had a variety of doctrine, but one sign identified them all, to wit, the immersion of their adult followers.

Their oppression under the yoke of the barons may be understood by a reference to the fact, that, so late as the time of Washington, they were sold by the tale at so much a head, to be paid to their master, if they fell in the battles of a strange country.

⁶² It is estimated that in the controversies of this sect in that age, a hundred thousand souls perished.

⁶³ See Schmucker's Popular Theology. The confession was presented both in Latin and in German. The form of expression in this seventeenth article varies in the two languages. The above is from the Latin; the following is from the German; both translated by Professor Schmucker: "In like manner they condemn those who circulate the judaizing notion, that, prior to the resurrection of the dead, the pious will establish a separate temporal government, and all the wicked be exterminated."-Pop. Theol., Aug. Con., Art. 17.

⁶⁴ Harlcian Mis., vol. viii. 257.

⁶⁵ Mede, B. iii. c. xi. p. 602.

⁶⁶ Hugh M'Neile of Liverpool.

⁶⁷ Acts xxvi. 7.

⁶⁸ Expos. Para., p. 252.

⁶⁹ Rom. xi. 15.

⁷⁰ M'Neile in the Liter., p. 82.

⁷¹ Smith's Christian Appeal to the Sceptic, L. 2. c. 8. s. 2. p. 87.

⁷² I thankfully adopt this distinction of the spiritual millenaries, made by the Rev. Joshua Spaulding, of the Tabernacle Church, Salem, Mass., in a volume of lectures on the "Coming and Kingdom of Christ," published at Salem, 1796. They are sound lectures, and call the teachers of the spiritual reign millenists, to distinguish them from the millenarians, who teach the personal reign of our Lord in the millennium.

⁷³ Ezek. xvi. 52.

⁷⁴ 2 Pet. iii. 7.

⁷⁵ Matt. iii. 9.

⁷⁶ "They will die, or rather fall asleep, and pass into the invisible world."-Hopk. Mill. State, p. 75.

⁷⁷ Heb. xii. 8.

⁷⁸ Rom. iv. 10.

⁷⁹ See the Epistles to the Gal. and Heb.

⁸⁰ Rom. ii. 28.

⁸¹ Gal. iii. 29.

⁸² Ezek. xxxvii. 11.

⁸³ Ezek. xxxvii. 11.

⁸⁴ Is. lxv. 18.

⁸⁵ Acts iii. 19.

⁸⁶ Luke i. 33.

⁸⁷ Gal. i. 4.

⁸⁸ 1 John v. 19.

⁸⁹ Is. xxxv. 9-19.

⁹⁰ Luke xii. 51.

⁹¹ Ib. xiii. 24.

⁹² James iv. 4.

⁹³ John xv. 18.

⁹⁴ John vii. 7.

⁹⁵ John i. 10.

⁹⁶ John xiv. 17.

⁹⁷ John iv. 19.

⁹⁸ John xvii. 14.

⁹⁹ Matt. x. 34.

¹⁰⁰ Eph. i. 10.

¹⁰¹ Luke ii. 14.

¹⁰² Rev. v. 10, and xx. 4.

¹⁰³ Rev. xx. 9.

¹⁰⁴ 2 Pet. i. 20.

¹⁰⁵ Rev. v. 10. Dan. vii. 27, "under the whole heaven."

¹⁰⁶ 1 John ii. 18.

¹⁰⁷ Heb. i. 2.

¹⁰⁸ 2 Thess. ii.

¹⁰⁹ Mede, p. 762.

¹¹⁰ See Rev. xi. 7-19.

¹¹¹ Rev. xix. 1-7.

¹¹² Rev. xix. 6, 7. xxi. 2, 9.

¹¹³ Rev. xi. 18.

¹¹⁴ Isa. lxv. 17. Rev. xii. Heb. i. 12. ii. 5. 2 Pet. iii. 13.

¹¹⁵ Rev. xi. 18.

¹¹⁶ Luke xxi. 24, 27, 31.

¹¹⁷ Matt, xxiii. 38.

¹¹⁸ Dan. ii.

¹¹⁹ Rev. xx. 9.

¹²⁰ Rev. xx. 10.

¹²¹ Is. lxv. 25.

¹²² Rev, xix. 6.

¹²³ Is. lxv. 19.

¹²⁴ Is. lxii. 4-7.

¹²⁵ Rev. xiv. 7.

¹²⁶ Ezek. xxxii. 30, 31.

¹²⁷ Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3.

¹²⁸ Ezek. xxxiv. 14, 15, 16.

¹²⁹ See Rev. xix. 20.

¹³⁰ Edom is taken by the wise to mean the beast of the Apocalypse, as also Pharaoh means the Dragon. Jew and Greek and Roman understand it so, and I make their conclusion without examining the grounds of it, only to show you how remarkably it fits with, the details of the millennium.

¹³¹ Ezek. xxxv. 9.

¹³² Rev. xx. 4.

¹³³ Ezek. xxxviii. 22.

¹³⁴ Gal. iv. 26. Cox's "Second Coming," p. 134.

¹³⁵ Gen. xxviii. 12. John i. 51.

¹³⁶ Gen. xxviii. 13, 15.

¹³⁷ Is. li. 3.

¹³⁸ Luke xx. 35.