28 THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL, LIFE [CH. I nations to return into the promised land, and after Ezr had restored the ancient records of their religion, two cele brated sects, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, insensibl arose at Jerusalem.* The former, selected from the mor opulent and distinguished ranks of society, were strictl attached to the literal sense of the Mosaic law, and the piously rejected the immortality of the soul, as an opinion that received no countenance from the divine book, whic they revered as the only rule of their faith. To the autho rity of Scripture the Pharisees added that of tradition; an they accepted, under the name of traditions, several specu lative tenets from the philosophy or religion of the eastern nations. The doctrines of fate or predestination, of angel and spirits, and of a future state of rewards and punish ments, were in the number of these new articles of belief and as the Pharisees, by the austerity of their manners, hac drawn into their party the body of the Jewish people, thi immortality of the soul became the prevailing sentiment o the synagogue, under the reign of the Asmonean prince and pontiffs. The temper of the Jews was incapable of contenting itself with such a cold and languid assent as might satisfy the mind of a Polytheist; and, as soon as they admitted the idea of a future state, they embraced it with the zeal which has always formed the characteristic of the nation. Their zeal, however, added nothing to its evidence or even probability; and it was still necessary, that the doctrine of life and immortality, which had been dictated by nature, approved by reason, and received by superstition, should obtain the sanction of divine truth, from the autho rity and example of Christ. When the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to mankind, on condition of adopting the faith, and of observ ing the precepts, of the gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer should have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of every rank, and of every pro vince in the Roman empire. The ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present existence, and by *Josephi Antiquit. 1. 13, c. 10. De Bell. Jud. 2, 8. According to the most natural interpretation of his words, the Sadducees admitted only the Pentateuch; but it has pleased some modern critics to add the prophets to their creed, and to suppose, that they contented them selves with rejecting the traditions of the Pharisees. Dr. Jortin has CE. XV.] EAGERLY EMBRACED. 29 just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and perfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any adequate otion. In the primitive church the influence of truth was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion, which, however may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has not been found agreeable to experience. It was universally believed, that the end of the world, and the kingdom of heaven, were at hand. The near approach of this wonderful event had been predicted by the apostles; the tradition of it was preserved by their earliest disciples; and those who understood in their literal sense the discourses of Christ himself, were obliged to expect the second and glorious coming of the Son of Man in the clouds, before that gene. ration was totally extinguished, which had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and which might still be witness to the calamities of the Jews under Vespasian or Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy and revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error was permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in the awful expectation of that moment when the globe itself, and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their divine Judge.* argued that point in his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii, P. 103. * This expectation was countenanced by the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, and by the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians. Erasmus removes the difficulty by the help of allegory and metaphor; and the learned Grotius ventures to insinuate, that for wise purposes the pious deception was permitted to take place. [It has been explained by some modern theologians, who find in it neither allegory nor deception. They say, that Jesus Christ, after having announced the ruin of Jerusalem and of the temple, speaks of his second coming and of the signs by which it was to be preceded; but that those, who believed it to be near at hand, were misled by the wrong meaning which they gave to two words, an error still maintained in our modern versions of Matthew's Gospel (xxiv, 29, 34). In the first of these verses are the words: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened," &c. The Greek word ev0śws, which is there translated "immediately," signifies properly, on a sudden, all at once, so that it only designates the instantaneous manifestation of the signs which Jesus announces, and not the shortness of the time that was to intervene between them and "the days of tribulation," of which he had just spoken. Then verse 34 is thus rendered: "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these 80 THE MILLENNIUM: no sm en [CH. X. The ancient and popular doctrine of the millennium w intimately connected with the second coming of Chris As the works of the creation had been finished in six day their duration in their present state, according to a traditic which was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed to s thousand years.* By the same analogy it was inferred, th this long period of labour and contention, which was almost elapsed,t would be succeeded by a joyful sabbath a thousand years; and that Christ, with the triumphar band of the saints and the elect who had escaped death, who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon eart till the time appointed for the last and general resurrection So pleasing was this hope to the mind of believers, that this so New Jerusalem, the seat of this blissful kingdom, wasiod quickly adorned with all the gayest colours of the imagina tion. A felicity consisting only of pure and spiritual plea sure would have appeared too refined for its inhabitants who were still supposed to possess their human nature ander senses. A garden of Eden, with the amusements of the pastoral life, was not suited to the advanced state of society things shall be fulfilled." The words which Jesus addressed to hi disciples, are avτǹ yeved, which mean, the race, the succession of my disciples; they apply to a class of men, not to a generation. The readed se import of the passage then is, that the race of men then commencing of the ch with his hearers, should not pass away, till all this happened; that is to say, that the succession of Christians would not cease before his thr coming. See Prof. Paulus's Comment. on the New Test. edit. 1802 tri tom. iii, p. 445, 455.-Guizor.] [When such nicely-varied interpre tations support opposite opinions, on passages in Matthew's Gospel, wazale feel the loss of his Hebrew original. Scripture critics appeal to Greek expressions, as if they were the very words used by the speaker, when, a as is well known, they were uttered to Jews, recorded in their language of La and put into Greek by some unknown translator. (Hieron. de Virt Illust. 3.) The difficulty of accurately representing the true sense of Dall Hebrew in another language is admitted and notorious.-ED.] the first century, and who seems to have been half a Jew. of the s *See Burnet's Sacred Theory, part 3, c. 5. This tradition may be lenni traced as high as the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, who wrote in Dang c + The beginning the creation of the world to the birth of Christ. Africanus, Lactantius, to his tre primitive church of Antioch computed almost six thousand years from, we hundred, and Eusebius has contented himself with five thousand two he learn and the Greek church, have reduced that number to five thousand five tou which was universally received during the six first centuries. The tacitly e authority of the Vulgate and of the Hebrew text has determined the to whic moderns, Protestants as well as Catholics, to prefer a period of about Slatina S hundred years. Those calculations were formed on the Septuagint the LIV] ITS ACCEPTATION AND REJECTION. 31 ch prevailed under the Roman empire. A city was refore erected of gold and precious stones, and a superural plenty of corn and wine was bestowed on the adjaat territory; in the free enjoyment of whose spontaneous ductions, the happy and benevolent people was never to restrained by any jealous laws of exclusive property. assurance of such a millennium was carefully inculcated succession of fathers, from Justin Martyrt and Irenæus conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, n to Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Conntine. Though it might not be universally received, it pears to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox evers; and it seems so well adapted to the desires and prehensions of mankind, that it must have contributed in Very considerable degree to the progress of the Christian h. But when the edifice of the church was almost comted, the temporary support was laid aside. The doctrine Christ's reign upon earth was at first treated as a profound egory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless inion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention heresy and fanaticism.§ A mysterious prophecy, which l forms a part of the sacred canon, but which was thought favour the exploded sentiment, has very narrowly escaped proscription of the church.T thousand years; though, in the study of profane antiquity, they ten find themselves straitened by those narrow limits. *Most of ese pictures were borrowed from a misinterpretation of Isaiah, Daniel, and the Apocalypse. One of the grossest images may be found Irenæus (lib. 5, p. 455), the disciple of Papias, who had seen the postle St. John. + See the second dialogue of Justin with Tryphon, and the seventh book of Lactantius. It is unnecessary to allege all the termediate fathers, as the fact is not disputed. Yet the curious Header may consult Daillé De usu Patrum, lib. 2, c. 4. The testimony of Justin, of his own faith and that of his orthodox brethren, in the doctrine of a millennium, is delivered in the clearest and most olemn manner. (Dialog. cum Tryphonte Jud. p. 177, 178, edit. Benedictin) If in the beginning of this important passage there is anything like an inconsistency, we may impute it, as we think proper, either to to the author or to his transcribers. § Dupin, Bibliothèque Ecclésitique, tom. 1, p. 223, tom. ii, p. 366; and Mosheim, p. 720; though the latter of these learned divines is not altogether candid on this occasion. In the council of Laodicea (about the year 360), the Apocalypse was tacitly excluded from the sacred canon by the same churches of Asia to which it is addressed; and we may learn from the Complaint of Sulpitius Severus, that their sentence had been ratified fc 82 DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD. th de their Whilst the happiness and glory of a temporal reign promised to the disciples of Christ, the most dri calamities were denounced against an unbelieving The edification of the new Jerusalem was to advan equal steps with the destruction of the mystic Babylon as long as the emperors who reigned before Constadf persisted in the profession of idolatry, the epithet of lon was applied to the city and to the empire of Rome regular series was prepared of all the moral and phyt evils which can afflict a flourishing nation; intestine disre and the invasion of the fiercest barbarians from the unkr regions of the north; pestilence and famine, comets eclipses, earthquakes and inundations.* All these only so many preparatory and alarming signs of the gen catastrophe of Rome, when the country of the Scipios Cæsars should be consumed by a flame from heaven, the city of the seven hills, with her palaces, her temples her triumphal arches, should be buried in a vast lake of et Bath and brimstone. It might, however, afford some consolat to Roman vanity, that the period of their empire would that of the world itself; which, as it had once perished a charitab the element of water, was destined to experience a secc: erstes and speedy destruction from the element of fire. Insated the opinion of a general conflagration, the faith of the Christi very happily coincided with the tradition of the east, philosophy of the stoics, and the analogy of nature; a spirit even the country, which from religious motives, had bee chosen for the origin and principal scene of the conflag tion, was the best adapted for that purpose by natural a by the greater number of Christians of his time. From what cause then, is the Apocalypse at present so generally received by the Grea the Roman, and the Protestant churches? The following ones may assigned: 1. The Greeks were subdued by the authority of an postor, who, in the sixth century, assumed the character of Dionysi the Areopagite. 2. A just apprehension, that the grammarians migh become more important than the theologians, engaged the Council a Trent to fix the seal of their infallibility on all the books of Scriptur contained in the Latin Vulgate, in the number of which the Apoca lypse was fortunately included. (Fr. Paolo, Istoria del Concili Tridentino, 1. 2). 3. The advantage of turning those mysterious prophecies against the see of Rome inspired the Protestants with uncommon veneration for so useful an ally. See the ingenious and elegant discourses of the bishop of Litchfield on that unpromising subject. of the fath nd the lear ader of a De gare Do mothers w Cation of th stens were pre Ce from the Lactantius (Institut. Divin. 7. 15, &c) relates the dismal ungra later than J |