cometh in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth." (John v. 28, 29.) What he wanted to attain was "the first resurrection"-that from among the dead, and not the general resurrection of the dead. I cannot follow up this argument any farther, but would beg to refer any of your readers who may wish to see it handled at length, to "A Sermon on the First Resurrection," by a spiritual watchman, or an article in the first number of "The Morning Watch," a new periodical work on prophecy. I would however remark, that in treating of the resurrection, the inspired writers use a very remarkable phraseology, from which it is evident that they believed in the doctrine of two distinct and separate resurrections. Our Lord says of some that they will be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. Observe not that of the dead generally, but of the just only. Similar expressions might be multiplied, but I conceive it unnecessary to do so.

It is supposed by those who maintain a figurative interpretation of this chapter, (Revelations xx.) that the first resurrection here spoken of is to be understood as a revival of true religion in the church, and that the period of one thousand years here mentioned will be remarkable for a great extension of the religion of the Bible throughout the world. Now I would ask if such be the meaning of the inspired writer, when he speaks of those who lived and reigned with Christ one thousand years; what is his meaning in the next verse, where he says "the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished?" If the first resurrection be spiritual so must be the second, and in that case what are we to understand by "the rest of the dead" who thus spiritually revive at the second resurrection? This I conceive is a difficulty out of which it is not easy for our spiritualizing friends to escape; and I would beg that it may be calmly and seriously considered. There is no difficulty whatever in the matter according to our system, (if I may so speak); for those who are raised at the commencement of the millennium, are the faithful witnesses for the truth-the believing people of God: and those who rise at its termination are the wicked-those who obeyed not the gospel of God. The one is the resurrection of the just, the other of condemnation; and between the two there is a lapse of no less a period of time than one thousand years. Mention is made in the passage of the second death, and if the remainder is to be understood in a spiritual and not a literal sense, so must also these words. If the first resurrection be spiritual, so must the second death: if it mean a revival of true religion, the second death must be understood as the reverse of that but if, on the other hand, the one means the resurrection of the body from the grave, the other will mean the eternal death of body and soul in hell; we cannot possibly make the one spiritual and the other literal, there must be an analogy in the language used. But if the second death be spiritual, the whole context will be unmeaning and mysterious. "Death and hades were cast into the lake of fire, this is the second death." (verse 14.)

Many other passages speak of a first and second resurrection,

and particularly of a distinct resurrection of believers. I will only refer to a few : "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him. We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God,* and the dead in Christ shall rise first," (1 Thess. iv. 14-16). Here the persons who rise at the coming of the Lord, and who are brought with him are those who sleep in Jesus-the dead in Christ-and none else; not a word is said of those who died in their sins, and the reason is evident, they do not rise at all at this period, they have no part in the resurrection of the just. The same important truth is clearly revealed in 1 Cor. xv. 23, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order," and mark the order"Christ the first fruits, afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming." Again I would remark that not a word is said here of the resurrection of any at the coming of the Lord, but those who are his-who are written in the Lamb's book of life from the foundation of the world. And if this studied phraseology of the inspired writers, or I should rather say, these plain revelations of the word of God, do not clearly and distinctly support the doctrine of a first resurrection in a literal sense, I am at a loss to know how any doctrine of the Bible can be supported.

There

It is scarcely necessary for me, I conceive, to apply these arguments to the subject of the millennium, for if once the doctrine of a literal first resurrection be admitted by our opponents, it will not be possible for them any longer to resist the evidence of the glorious personal appearing of the Son of Man, and the reigning of the saints with Him upon the earth for one thousand years. are, however, many other considerations which weigh with us in maintaining these points of doctrine; and indeed they are so numerous that the great difficulty, in writing an article such as the present, is to condense the arguments into the necessarily limited space which can be allotted to it in a periodical. Fortunately, however, the subject of prophecy, and the literal interpretation of the Scriptures are now becoming so much the objects of attention, particularly in the sister country, that any person who wishes to examine these points further, can have no difficulty in doing so at present.

I now proceed to show from the prophetic history of the world, that there can be no millennium until the advent of the Redeemer ; and this I might do from numberless passages of Scripture, bearing upon the point; but for brevity's sake I shall select a few. The first I would refer to is the 2d chapter of Daniel, where we have the interpretation of the king of Babylon's dream. There was repre

* You argue that we are all to be changed at the last trump, (1 Cor. xv. 51,52) and not till then; and that this event will not take place till after the millennium, but you will find that the last trumpet is sounded, not at the end of the millennium, but at its first introduction. See Rev. xi. 14, &c.

sented to the king an image in the form of a man, its head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and sides of brass, legs of iron, feet and toes part of iron and part of clay. In this image was represented the history of the world to the end of the present dispensation, the details of which I will not occupy the time of your readers by entering into: suffice it to say that the legs, feet, and toes of the image represented the Roman empire in its several and successive forms of government, the ten toes of the feet representing the ten kingdoms into which the western empire was divided on its conquest by the Goths and Vandals; but the monarch, having his eyes fixed upon the image, saw a stone cut out without hands, which smote the image upon its feet (or toes) that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces, and the whole image became like the chaff of the summer thrashing floor, and the stone which smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

Now the question is, what is meant by the stone, and when does it strike the image? I am not ignorant that many interpreters understand by it the destruction of Pagan Rome, and the establishment of Christianity as the national religion of the west; but such an interpretation is altogether unsupported by the text; for in the first place I would observe that in the interpretation of the dream, Daniel tells the king of Babylon that the stone which became a great mountain means a kingdom which the God of heaven is to set up in the earth, which is to break in pieces and consume all the monarchies which preceded it: and in the next place it is to be observed, that the stone smites the image, not on the head, which some might suppose the most probable place, but in a very remarkable part, on the toes, that is, the divided empire; or as in the interpretation, it is in the days of these kingdoms-the ten into which the Roman empire was divided, as before stated that the Lord establishes his monarchy, and razes to the foundation the long established kingdoms of the world, bringing them all under the sway of his almighty sceptre.

The stone, then, is a spiritual and universal monarchy; and the time in which it is established is subsequent to the destruction of the Roman empire: and now the important question occurs, has this kingdom been as yet established, or is it still in the womb of futurity? In answer to this I would refer to the past history of Christendom, and confidently appeal to those best acquainted with it, whether any such kingdom has been set up on the ruins of imperial Rome, still remembering that this event must be subsequent to the division of the empire-that is, since the sixth century. But if it be yet future, the next question that occurs is, whether this event takes place before, or at the advent. For the solution of this question it is necessary to refer to the seventh chapter, where is related Daniel's dream and its interpretation, which I conceive perfectly clear upon the point, that this kingdom is set up at the advent, and not before. Daniel saw four beasts, one like a lion, another like a bear, a third like a leopard, and the fourth a nondescript with ten horns. "These great beasts are four kingdoms which shall

arise out of the earth," and which are to be successive the one to the other, the fourth being itself divided into ten kingdoms; but among the horns there sprang up another little horn in which were the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, and this horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.

Here, then, is the history of the world from the establishment of popery until the appearing of the Son of Man, and during all that time we have nothing but a continual and successful warfare with the saints. They are given into the hands of the little horn, and he wears them out until a time, times, and the dividing of timethree one-half times, or 1260 years; and then the judgment is set, the reign of popery is put an end to, and the kingdom and dominion and greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven are given to the saints of the Most High. Now if this be the case, how can we have a millennium before the advent? we have the judgment set, the kingdom given to the saints, and the Ancient of days appearing, and all the previous time is occupied by the sway of the little horn,(the witnesses prophecying in sackcloth) and by all manner of opposition to the word of the Lord, and to his believing people. But in fact, if it be admitted that the personal appearance of the Son of Man is synchronical with the judgment, the opening of the books, and the kingdom being given to the saints (see Matt. xxv. 34 et passim), then I maintain there can be no millennium previously, for these events are to take place at the end of 1260 years from the commencement of the reign of popery, which has already swayed its unholy sceptre over the ten kingdoms of the Roman beast considerably upwards of one thousand years; but lest any one should suppose that the advent is not synchronical with these events, I shall give you the words of the prophet himself.

"1 be

When considering the movements of the horns, he says, held 'till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire, a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him, thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him, the judgment was set, and the books were opened." Dan. vii. 9, 10. Here is language which I conceive the ingenuity of man cannot interpret in any other way than making it to declare, in a magnificent and intelligible announcement, the personal appearance of the Lord of Glory coming to judgment; and let it be observed that Daniel saw the workings of the little horn, and that it not only made war with, but prevailed against, the saints, UNTIL the Ancient of days came. (Ver. 21, 22.) In like manner we have in the 11th chapter a brief history of the world from the time of Darius until the advent, with a more minute detail of intervening circumstances than is given in of the preceding prophecies, and there it appears that so far from one thousand

VOL. IX.

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any

years of peace and happiness to the saints before the advent, they have not an hour; one enemy starts up after another without intermission, until the king, who does according to his will, who fights and conquers until that time when Michael stands up, "the great prince that standeth for the children of his people," when the Lord's people shall be delivered, when there shall be a time of unprecedented trouble, and a partial resurrection. (See Dan. xi. 35, 36-45, and xii. 1, 2.) And again, in answer to the question, "How long shall it be to the end of these wonders ?" it is said for three times and an half, "and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people all these things shall be finished," v. 6, 7. Here again I would remark, that according to the order of these events, we have no time for a millennium before the advent; the Jews are to be scattered and restored again in 1260 years, the greatest part of which is gone by; the people of God are delivered from every trouble-Daniel himself is to stand in his lot (see last verse); and all is to be finished, and when the dead in Christ rise, of whom undoubtedly Daniel is one, the Lord himself descends from heaven with a shout and with the trump of God. So that clearly there can be no millennium until the Lord himself descends from heaven.

Our Lord declares that such as the world was in the days of Noah, and such scenes as the cities of the plain presented in the time of Lot, the same will be the state of the inhabitants of the world in the days when the Son of man is revealed. Worldly-mindedness and indifference to the things of eternity have undoubtedly been the characteristic of the great mass of this world's inhabitants, not only in the days of the patriarchs, but in every period of its subsequent history, even until this very day; and I think we are fully justified, from what our Lord says on several occasions, in asserting that the world will be the same until his glorious appearing. tares are not separated from the wheat until the harvest, and the harvest is the end of the world; nor are the good fish separated from the bad until the net is full, that is, until the Lord has accomplished the number of his elect. (See Matt. xiii. 30, 39, 48, 49.) Something of the same nature is strongly implied in our Lord's question, "When the Son of man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?" Luke xviii. 8.

The

Another argument in support of this view of the millennium may be derived from the curse pronounced at the fall. This curse it will be observed was three fold, and affected not only the body and the soul of Adam and his posterity, but also the earth; "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread 'till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return;" (Gen. iii. 17-19) and accordingly we hear the apostle of the Gentiles declaring that "the creature (or creation) was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same......that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," (Rom. viii.