days, that is exactly where St. John has placed it.

The objection of Bishop Newton, mentioned above, may easily be turned in a contrary application, to the disadvantage of his argument, that if the martyrs do really reign on earth, in visible and tangible bodies, then Christ will do so too, as they are to reign with him. But that is proving too much, and is a consequence denied by the modern advocates. of the literal sense; yet it is as justly to be inferred as theirs, that a literal death of real martyrs supposes a literal rising of the same individuals to be understood. This is indeed a just logical conclusion, but very probably not adverted to as such by St. John, whose meaning (there are many reasons to suppose) was not conformable to that inference. (290) The

(290) There are perhaps few figures in more familiar use in the New Testament writers, than that of a resurrection put for newness of life, or a happy improvement in sentiments and manners, a quickening from spiritual death to evangelical life.The conversion of heathens from the power of Satan unto God, and of the Jews from unbelief to faith and a zeal of martyrdom for Christ, may well be both expressed by the same figure.

martyrs will doubtless be raised in this figure, exactly in the same sense in which they lift up their injured heads from under the altar, hold a conversation, receive an answer to their petition, are comforted, exhorted to patience, and clothed in white raiment. The whole of this scene is evidently figurative, and very expres sive, but of far other sort of things than the literal sense of the words, and the first impression of them without further reflection, might induce us to suppose. The case is the very same in this similar vision of souls, of which the spiritually dead house of Israel, and not

(of worointis, or living again.) Ephes. ii. 1, 5;-Col. ii. 13; -Rom. vi. 5, 9;-1 Pet. iii. 21.

Whitby produces many instances of the ordinary use of the very word selected by the holy spirit, to express the first resurrection. (Rev. xx. 4* ) x«ı iğnœav. “and they LIVED." In Ez. ra ix. 9, the persian kings by restoring the Jews, gives them ζωοποίησιν "Thou shalt QUICKEN me again." Psalm lxxi, 20;-and Psalm lxxx. 11,-lxxxv, 6, (adres nuas The same word is used. So in Isaiah, "thy dead men shall live.” So Hosea, vi. 2, 3;-xiv. 7, says, "after two days will he REVIVE us; in the third day he will RAISE US UP, and we shall LIVE, cóμed in his sight." A manifest allusion to the resurrection of the Jews, (as the apocalyptic witnesses) in three days and a half. See the context.-See also numerous other instances in Whitby. Millen, p. 688.

the literally dead martyrs, seem to be the ulti mate objects.

The latter clause with which the sacred writer closes the subject,-" But the rest of the dead lived not again until the 1000 years were ended. This is the first resurrection." (291) Mr Sharp considers as decisive against the figuratists, and leaving them without argument or appeal. In vol. ii. p. 424, I had viewed this text in a point of light so contrary, that I brought it as an additional corroboration of my exposition of the first resurrection in the figurative sense, and I cannot but consider it still as a very strong one. reasons for that opinion I will not repeat, but only here add, that this concluding proposition must necessarily follow the fate of that which precedes it, and be taken in the same figurative sense, unless it can be proved untenable. But St. John himself affords evidence in favor of the figurative sense even of this very clause, by the farther account he gives of " the rest of the dead," (Rev. xxii. 15.-xxi. 7, 8.) who are

(291) Mark xiv. 22. This is my body.

The

dead spiritually, as the saints within the city of the new Jerusalem are raised spiritually; both being no other than living men, only the one good, and the other wicked. (292)

" in

Unless the whole be taken in this sense, the spirit, and not in the letter," the kingdom of the raised saints is utterly inconceivable and full of difficulties, not to say impossibilities, (293) without supposing at the same time, such alterations of the divine oeconomy of grace as we have not only no warrant to expect, but are forbidden to teach. (Gal. i. 8. -2. Cor. xi. 4.) But if the first resurrection does really coincide with the spiritual resurrection of the house of Israel, as represented by Ezekiel, St. Paul, and the prophets in general; and fully answer the vast expectations they have excited of that happy event; we may then be enabled to form some conception of Ezekiel's and St. John's account of the rise of wickedness and tyranny again, led on by GOG and MAGOG, as a fact coming within the verge of comprehensible passibility, which

(292) See Section 59.

(299) See Section 43,

upon the literal scheme that insurrection sets totally at defiance. (294) For if the world be governed by kings and taught by priests

(294) Beza's remark on Rom. xi, 15, is very excellent.— "Nam si ex ista judæorum calamitate hoc lucrum retulit mundus, ut fieret reconciliationis particeps; quid aliud mundo sperandum ex ipsorum felicitate, quam ut veluti reviviscat?—Tum enim plenum ac cumulatum erit mundi gaudium, quum et ipsi judæi, una cum gentibus, Christum complexi, communi illa felicitate perfruentur. Nam quamvis reconciliatio per mundum sit dispersa, tamen quum judæorum gens maneat adhuc in morte, nondum plane mundus revixit,”.

not.

But that this spiritual resurrection will not be absolutely universal, as St. John here declares in positive terms that it will "The rest of the dead rose not.”—Is again intimated in his view of the new Jerusalem, or millenary state, which embra ces not all-Some still remaining in unbelief and wickedness through the whole time, and increasing in strength and numbers towards

the end of it.

Whitby (millennium. p. 687) exceilently observes here, that "the rest of the dead," are not the Just, but the synagogue of satan, GoG and MAGOG. For when the 1000 years are ended, satan gathers again his instruments, the nations from the most remote parts of the earth, and embodies them against the Saints. This is the living again of "the rest of THE DEAD."-Those who had " no share in the first resurrection.”—and were “not blessed and holy." Rev. xx. 6.—But were the oi xaoi, the rest that were figuratively slain, 19, 20,-and who suffered the second death, when "fire came down from heaven and devoured them, and they were cast into the lake of fire," Rev, xx. 10, 15.