sued. They may both be considered as an index of prophetical time, each in its proper season; and as a prophecy of the respective great and happy reformations which followed, but cannot possibly bear any literal sense, or be even supposed to have any reference to a first resurrection of the saints.

The conclusion drawn from this text (Rev. vi. 9) to the following effect, therefore, does not appear to me a just one." A real killing "A

always to be depended upon; especially if founded upon data of very questionable authority, and leading to results of trivial and ordinary importance, or even real importance, if the event has been otherwise sufficiently notified as the reformation has been, The three and half times seem designed only to point to one event, and Granville Sharp is the only expositor whom time and facts have entitled to say (with Pythagoras on another subject) Evenxa "the discovery is mine."

Mr Burton's time, (490) ends A. D. 539, a dreadful famine then in Italy, and Rome besieged by Vitiges! The two times (980) end A. D. 1519 with the reformation, (if indeed any year can be fixed for it.) The half time (245) ends A. D. 1764; with the expulsion of the Jesuits!—which answers to the fifth vial, and the harvest, or Marlborough's victories! * See Burton on the numbers of Daniel and St. John p. 342. &c.

* The conversion of the Jews, and reign of saints, he places at the distance of 2300 years after ADRIAN, or A. D. 2436. p. 325, 339.

is here to be understood, and of course a real resurrection with their brethren, the rest of the martyrs of Jesus, who are to reign under the whole heaven.' That the martyrs are to reign on earth is not proved from hence.That they will rise at the general resurrection with their brethren is not disputed. The only thing that can be proved from this vision of souls is, that the martyrs slain under the pagan empire were not the last martyrs which should be slain for Christ; but that after a deceitful calm for a season, they should be joined by many more holy martyrs, who should be slain by antichristian Rome; on whom in the fulness of time, the vengeance due to the innocent blood of both armies of martyrs, should be poured out, as we now see it is.— Matt. xxiii. 35, 36; Luke xi. 50; Rev. xviii.

24.

In my reflections upon the millennium, vol. ii. p. 424, I had set down St. John's declaration, that the saints only, but not the rest of the dead, should be partakers of the first resurrection, as "a distinguishing mark" of that unknown future dispensation of divine provi

dence; and I had assumed from it an additional proof of my hypothesis. Mr. Sharp considers it in a directly contrary light. "This distinguishing mark here pointed out, affords also a further proof of the reality of the first resurrection. But we must add, that not even at that time (the end of the world) shall the wicked be raised, until the dead in Christ shall have risen first; that is, all those true christians who have died a natural death, and thus are distinguished from the martyrs; that is, at the beginning of the resurrection. And if the last is true, as it doubtless is an indispensable doctrine of Christianity, all the other predicted gradations of resurrection must be true also."

But it does not clearly appear that there are any such gradations of resurrection predicted, or even hinted at in scripture, except only that mentioned by St. Paul, in his account of the process of the general resurrection, on which no argument in proof of a particular one can be founded. the millenary resurrection of the

It is not of

martyrs, but

of the rising of the dead in general, that St. Paul is speaking in 1 Thess. iv. 16, where he says-" the dead in Christ shall rise first." And that this is only an honorary and a momentary precedency in resurrection, given to them which shall be heirs of salvation, in preference to the reprobates, and by no means a first resurrection in St. John's stile, (or which bad taken place upwards of 1000 years before) is very evident from the context of the passage. The children of everlasting life, are here in a situation similar to that of Israel, pursued by the Egyptians. The saints being raised first, will now stand secure on the firm shore of everlasting salvation, and behold the wisdom and justice of God vindicated, in his dreadful retribution to the ungodly. will see their own injuries and God's violated laws avenged, by the overwhelming of the wicked in the gulph of perdition. But this affords no proof at all of a resurrection long prior to the general one, much less of a kingdom of saints actually so raised, and presiding in government and the pastoral charge over the children of mortality, a miracle perpetuated for a whole thousand years!

They

The circumstances pointed out by the apostle do all refer to the end of the world, or "the coming of the Lord," that is, to the general judgment, and what he here delivers upon the subject, amounts to an absolute negative of any first resurrection of saints, 1000 years before the wicked. "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that wE WHICH ARE ALIVE, AND REMAIN UNTO THE COMING

OF THE LORD, shall not prevent (μen @Aaowμεν, shall not be beforehand with) those that are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven (ev xeλevσμT) with a shout of command, with the voice of the arch angel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain"— (we saints and martyrs, which by special privilege of our martyrdom had been raised 1000 years before this time, having been heirs of the first resurrection, and having reigned with Christ on earth, and over whose bodies, already immortal, death has no more power,)--" shall be caught up together with them in the clouds," -(that is, the dead in Christ, the first raised} -"to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall