forget that there were two resurrections, and are therefore ignorant of the "why and because" which led some of those who lived during the first resurrection to believe in fables. They forget, or know nothing of, the important position which the resurrection doctrine held in Apostolic preaching, and, consequently, have no excuse for falling into the comparatively pardonable mistake of a Hymeneus or Philetus, in and during days when it was neither clear nor dark, when they prophesied but in part, and knew only in part. Mr. Bush, whose writings we have so frequently quoted, entertains strange notions of the first resurrection. He allows that the thousand years' reign is past; but, at the same time, he affirms that the Saviour's second advent must be premillennial. This is the order of events according to Mr. B. First comes the second advent: then the millennium : then the overthrow of mystical Babylon, whose destruction synchronizes with that of the Beast, the symbolic designation of the fourth or Roman empire; and the passing away of the Roman empire is the result of the sounding of the seventh trumpet, at which sounding there is to be an extensive conversion of the Jews. This arrangement certainly cannot be scripturally accounted for, though Mr. B. may affirm that his theory is scriptural, and therefore irrefutable. He conceives that the second advent commenced at the destruction of Jerusalem; but between the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of mystical Babylon he places the thousand years' reign. Of course, he assumes that Jerusalem and mystical Babylon are not identical; if they can be proved to be identical, (and that they are so, the fact that on Jerusalem was charged, the blood of the prophets is quite conclusive to me), then the above arrangement presents a disorganized view, a broken chain of scripture events. * And supposing that, as Mr. B. states, the overthrow of mystical Babylon synchronizes with that of the Beast, then Babylon being old Jerusalem, we must refer the Beast to some other interpretation than that of the Roman empire, or to some other interpretation applicable to the Roman empire. It does not come within the province of this work to discuss these points, or we should be very much disposed to examine whether "the Beast," "the abomination of desolation," &c., do not find their interpretation as connected with Jerusalem, and not with Rome. But to conclude the subject of the first resurrection. As we do not find that Scripture teaches this thousand years to be yet future, so neither are we disposed, after the above Scripture investigation, to agree with any view of the thousand years past, similar to that which Mr. Bush adopts. To imagine a first resurrection after the second advent is to imagine an impossibility, for Scripture declares, plainly enough, a resurrection prior to that advent. A resurrection subsequent to it cannot properly be called a first resurrection, and therefore, this cannot have been fulfilled in the successive rising up of faithful witnesses of Jesus, and sturdy resisters of the Papacy, during the lapse of those ages of darkness and decline which throw their gloomy shadows upon the pages of ecclesiastical history. If a resurrection were predicted of such a period, it can never be proved that it occurred, and for this simple reason, that we have no one to give us the infallible proof of such *See Note L. Occurrence. In short, and in full, writers on prophecy may, if it so please them, carry Scripture predictions further down in the annals of time than the desolation of Jerusalem, and they may exercise their ingenuity in so doing; but there is one insuperable objection to such proceedings - there can be no certainty in their opinions. So long as Christians will wander out of the Bible and Bible times for the date of the fulfilment of any Bible event, no wonder that we have sect after sect springing up to advocate the most monstrous absurdities. We do believe, that to this one circumstance of the dislocation of prophecy alone, is to be attributed the deplorable confusion which now exists in the nominally Christian world. One sect looks upon one particular portion of the Scripture as yet to receive an accomplishment: another sect, another: and the one says to the other, My opinion of a future fulfilment may be the very antipodes of yours, but it is as good as yours; you cannot prove it to be erroneous. This is a fair argument: and we are at no loss for a case in point whereby to illustrate the argument. One sect fixes the end of the world to the year 1846: another carries the end some twenty years further down: which can prove the other wrong? Time alone can do this. In the meanwhile, both parties go on wrangling together. It would be a happy thing if time, while discovering the gross absurdity of this one particular of future fulfilment, namely, an end of the world, should also break up the several systems whose fixed periods for that occurrence have been proved false. But alas! it is not so: no sooner is one date worn out than the very same party reviews its calculation tables, and determines upon another; and what is most pitiable, this other prospective date is believed. Surely the word of the wise man is borne out by fact, "Madness is in the hearts of men while they live." Surely there was some truth in the following exquisite lines of one whom the world looks down upon as an unbeliever :: "And truth, a gem which loves the deep, And all things weighed in custom's falsest scale; Opinion an omnipotence, whose veil Mantles the earth with darkness, until right And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale Lest their own judgments should become too bright, And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.”— BYRON. The thought will often suggest itself, that, look what way one will, whether back into the past or forward into the future, we see abundant evidence of the practical infidelity of religious systems. They are unbelievers, inasmuch as they do not credit the express declaration of Christ, that he would come to judgment in the glory of his Father, before some standing near him should taste of death. They are equally and alike unbelievers, as they practically avow their distrust of a coming yet future. Let it be asked, which of all of them, having houses or lands, does not recognize the propriety of the proceeding which grants a lease even for the period of nine hundred and ninety-nine years? And having asked this question, let it be judged whose doctrines are infidel, or likely to lead to infidelity! Having now considered at some length the doctrine of the first resurrection, we are prepared to take a further step in advance to our great conclusion. A first resurrection necessarily implies a second; and a second resurrection supposes a period fixed and determined to the first. That period, we undertake to show, was the fall of Jerusalem, because, as we shall endeavour to prove, the second resurrection was synchronical with that grand event. Bush, and other learned writers on prophecy, are completely at one with us in our conclusion that the Millennium, or first resurrection, is past. Mr. Bush writes as follows: "It is within the limits of this (Roman) empire, under its nominally Christian phasis, and during the prevalence of the power of the Beast and his worship, that this grand moral resurrection takes place; as such resurrection was predicted, so it occurred." Now, Mr. Bush holds that the passing away of the Roman empire, in its decem-regal form, was the destruction of the Beast. But we are not aware that the exact period of a thousand years was accomplished at such time, or that it can be shown, on such supposition of the first resurrection, that it was exactly a thousand years. Therefore, the views of this writer do not appear to attach any consequence to the term, a thousand years; and as to the views of Millennarians of our day, who are looking for a Millennium to come, on their own confession, they must, to be honest, acknowledge that those views amount to nothing better than a peradventure: they are, at best, only conjectural, and what is only conjectural, is not worthy of the nature of faith. Perhaps it may be expected that another matter in connexion with the thousand years mentioned in this chapter should not be passed over in silence; because an objection may be raised that this circumstance does not accord with our view of the Millennium. It is written in Rev. xx. 2, “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years." The exposition appears to us simple and satisfactory, in exact correspondence with the commencement and conclusion of the thousand years. Of course, we do not, as before stated, believe in a Devil with horns and hoofs, but are content, if we must speak comprehensively, to include under that name every thing that opposed and exalted itself against the Lord, and against his anointed. The angel having the key, will apply to him who affirmed that all power was given to him in heaven and earth, and who had the keys of death and hell. Now, considering the Devil and Satan to receive an interpretation in a knowledge of the two covenants, the law and the gospel, we conceive we have the exposition of the circumstance of this thousand years' binding in a former part of this discourse, wherein we interpreted the opening and shutting of the two dispensations, one whereof was shut, so that no man could open; and the other opened, so that not even the gates of hell should prevail against it. This we proved to have been accomplished on the day of Pentecost. Here, then, we conceive we have the commencement of the thousand years' binding, equally with the thousand years' reigning. On that day, the kingdom of heaven was opened by Christ, through the instrumentality of Peter; and the ministration of condemnation and death was then, as Paul writes in 2 Cor. iii., "done away." Mention of the name of Peter, reminds also of the promise, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." Now whatever meaning may be attached to the Devil and Satan, he was bound, and he was shut up: none but the binder could unbind or loosen, and, moreover, be it observed, that this personage was loosed at the expiration of the thousand years; and, above all, his "loosing" was connected with gathering all nations to battle, and an encompassing of the "beloved city." Can this "beloved city" be Rome? can any city answer to that description but Jerusalem, the holy city, that great city? Let the beloved city receive what interpretation it may, it is a city in existence before the judgment, and the judgment most assuredly precedes the New Jerusalem: therefore the New Jerusalem is not the beloved city. We have thus given a consistent exposition of the things which in this chapter are predicated of the Millennium, taking the Millennium to be the duration of the Apostolic ministry, or the first dominion of the kingdom. (Micah iv. 8.) This first dominion, or resurrection, this thousand years, is that, we conceive, which was spoken of by Zechariah the prophet, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark, but it shall be one day, which shall be known to the Lord; not day nor night; but it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." Paul, in his inspired ministry, gives us the exposition, where he writes, "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face;" now, in this one day of the first resurrection, which is known to the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. So also Moses, when lamenting over the children of Israel, in their forty years' travel through the wilderness, makes his complaint in the 90th Psalm, saying, "A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, as a watch in the night." It has sometimes occurred to us, remembering the typical nature of Israel's wanderings, considering the to-day of the forty years, that there is more meant in this verse than usually meets the eye; that this thousand years' watch in the night may have some connexion with the word of the Lord concerning his coming again; "And if he shall come in the second watch (of the night, which was divided into four watches), or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants." But this by the way. We must proceed to investigate the sacred records concerning the final resurrection; and if this be done very briefly, let it not be put down to inability or want of matter, but rather to the necessity of concluding this treatise, which has already far exceeded its intended limits. It must here again be observed, and will, we presume, be admitted, that the second advent, the end of the world, the resurrection of the last day, and the day of judgment, are all bound up together, as being cotemporaneous. Therefore, let it not be forgotten that all scriptures which speak of a resurrection, however difficult of interpretation they may appear, must bow down and submit themselves to the second advent, if that event be proved to be past. But we have another object in view, in thus adverting to a proof of the past second advent, as connecting itself with the resurrection, and that is to bring all the exhortatory portions of the Epistles to bear upon the fulfilment of the resurrection; so that, bringing the exhortations to bear upon one doctrine, one future event, we shall consequently bring them to bear upon all, though for our present purpose we shall only make one event the subject of investigation. As an illustration of our meaning, take the following lines: Exhortations, and comforts, and threats, Were addressed to a church under grace; Or, Now, the exhortatory parts of the Epistles are a bone of endless contention between Calvinists and Arminians. Arminians will have it, that there is no final perseverance, sure and certain, promised in such passages as the following: "Let us labour, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief: fall so that it shall be impossible to renew to repentance." Or again, Arminians cannot credit final perseverance, when they read of some bringing on themselves swift destruction, by denying the Lord that bought them. Or again, Arminianism grasps a double-edged sword, when it finds even a Paul confessing, that he is constrained to keep under his body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when he has preached to others, he himself should be a cast-away. Or again, the Arminian glories in his covenant of works, when he reads such necessity to be up and doing as is conveyed in scriptures like this; "Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many shall strive, and shall not be able:" or when he is exhorted, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him:" or when he is upbraided, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." once more, the Arminian prides himself upon the proclamation, "Know ye not that they which run in a race, run all; but one receiveth the prize. So run, that ye may obtain ;" thereby implying, that many might run, and fail of attaining the prize. Arminianism makes her boast of these and such like scriptures, all the day long. Now we do not say that Calvinism, or that which is got beyond Calvinism, does not attempt to meet the boast, but as having formerly been initiated into the mysteries of Calvinism, we do mean to say that Calvinism is very loth to come to the meeting, and is conscious that she makes but a poor affair of it at the best of times, and would have been delighted beyond measure if the all-wise God would only have been so wise as to have omitted such scriptures altogether. Calvinism cannot see that to such scriptures God appointed a certain day; set them their bounds which they could not pass, even the bounds of a church, and a ministry, and service, and ordinances, and preaching, which was like unto a net cast into the sea, enclosing fish of every kind, both bad and good; in short, the limit of a dispensation of the fulness of times. Calvinism cannot recognize this glorious conditionality as having passed away, and consequently must believe that those scriptures, which prove to be Arminian strong-holds, are applicable now; and Calvinism, be it observed, is not alone in the difficulty. There is, what we must call a nondescript Christianity, which professes to reject Calvinism, and all conditionality; which puts aside altogether the exhortations and threats, so much in favour with the Arminian, and so terrific a bugbear to the Calvinist, and which explains that putting aside, by telling us that the gospel was proposed, in the times of the Apostles, under the |