Bookshelf/ Vol.I / Vol. IV. Part VI. Contents. Chapter I. 1. 2. 3. II. 1. 2. 3. III. 1. 2. 3. IV. 1. 2. V. 1. 2. Appendix I. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. II. 1a. 1b. 2a. 2b. 2c. 3. 4. III 1. 2a. 2b.
§ 2. APOCALYPTIC EVIDENCE AGAINST WHITBYS FUTURO-FIGURATIVE THEORY, AND IN FAVOR OF THE LITERAL THEORY, OF THE MILLENNIAL FIRST RESURRECTION.
Under this head it may be well to consider separately what is Apocalyptically intimated concerning the death raised from, and what concering the resurrection itself.
1st, what is Apocalyptically intimated about the death.
It is of course fully granted by me that the term resurrection here made use of, and its cognate words, are often used figuratively, as Whitby says, to denote a revival national, official, or spiritual. In Ezekiels vision, Ch. xxxvii., the figure of the dry bones gathering together, and re-adjusting themselves into form, and then into life, may very possibly signify simply the political resuscitation of the Jews. [1] In St. Luke the prodigals spiritual revival was designated by the phrase, He is alive again. [2] And again, in the Apocalypse itself, both the Beasts living again, after having had the wound with the sword, and the two Witnesses living again, after being killed by the Beast, [3] indicated a revival of the persecuting empire, and revival of the witnessing line, cause, and testimony, respectively. But in these and all such cases we must mark carefully one rule that is observed, - a rule the propriety of which will approve itself at once to every discriminative mind;- viz. that of making the resurrection of corresponding character with the death, from out of which it is a revival. Thus Ezekiel it was a change from national extinction to national revival; in Luke from spiritual death to spiritual life; in the earlier Apocalyptic visions from political and official annihilation to political and official resuscitation. [4] So constant is the observance of this rule, and so stringent its requirement by the proprieties of diction, that it needs but, in any doubtfully expressed case of resurrection, to ascertain the nature of the death revived from: and, if this can be ascertained, an explanation of the resurrection conformable thereto must almost necessarily be the true one.
And what then the death in the present case? What is stated both in the passage itself, and in its Apocalyptic parallels, seems to me inconsistent with the Whitbyite theory of figurative death, as of the Christian cause or party; and such indeed as to force us to understand it of natural individual death. - For, first, we find expressly and prominently specified among these dead the souls of those that had been beheaded for the witnessing of Christ; a form of expression which identifies them with those that St. John had seen on the fifth Seals opening, long before, under the altar, the victims of the persecutions of Rome Pagan; whereas, had the death now meant been the figurative death of the Christian cause or party, the event would necessarily have been one of recent occurrence, altogether distinct from, and independent of, the deaths of those anti-Pagan martyrs ages before. - Secondly, had there been any such recent figurative death, or, in other words, extinction and overthrow, of the Christian cause and party, we might surely expect that some striking symbolization of it, would have been given previously; just as of the figurative death of Christs two sackcloth-robed witnesses in Apoc. xi. 7, some time before. But no such symbolization is to be found in the immediately preceding context; nor a hint, even the slightest, of any such great event. The last previous notice of Christs witnesses represented them as ascended into the political heaven, just before the 7th Trumpets sounding, that Trumpet of which the seven Vials are the development; and in none of those Vials is there an intimation of any fresh slaying of the witnesses. There is reported indeed, introductorily to the last of them, the gathering of the hostile powers of the Dragon Beast and False Prophet to the war of the great day of God Almighty; but this implies of itself the existence of saints to war against: while the apparently synchronical visions of the three flying Angels in mid-heaven indicated activity and life in the Christian party, not deadness or extinction. [5] And indeed the very last-noticed events prior to the Messiahs joining battle with the Beast, are first the fearful earthquake in which the Beasts great city fell into three parts, then its utter destruction. - To the same effect, thirdly, is the argument from the mention just afterwards of the rest of the dead, and their reviving and resurrection: - an argument this to which I must beg the most careful attention. For the expression is one which, as it seems to me, absolutely and necessarily connects this remainder of the dead, later raised to life, as having been originally, and prior to the abstraction of the dead first taking part and parcel of the same community of dead, in whatever sense, whether literal or figurative, the word dead be meant:- just as a remnant of cloth must needs have been once on, and of, the same piece as the part whose abstraction left it a remnant; just again as the rest said by Luke to have escaped to land, some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship, were of the same ships company with those that had escaped by swimming; [6] or (to take an Apocalyptic example) as the rest of the men in Apoc. ix. 20, that were not killed by certain plagues, were of same political community, as men of Christendom, with those that had been killed by the plagues. [7] Apply we then this test, in order to determine the death in which both the parties mentioned were once thus conjoined; alike the martyr-company earliest raised to life, and the loipoi later raised. On the nature of the death from which the loipoi were raised the Whitbyite expositors differ in opinion. The most of this class of expositors, as Faber, Scott, Brown, Clemens, and the British Quarterly Reviewer, follow Whitby in explaining the rest of the dead of the Antichristian cause and faction slain, as described in Apoc. xix, by him that sat on the white horse, and revived in the persons of Gog and Magog. [8] But will this view of the loipoi stand the test just laid down? Could the dead martyrs, previously to their rising, have been so united in death with the anti-Christians? Surely not. How could both the Christian body or cause, and the Antichristian, be dead thus figuratively at one and the same time? [9] The death of the one would be the life of the other. Assuredly, as to any community in political or official death between the two parties here spoken of, just before the millennial resurrection, the thing was nothing less than impossible. - On the other hand, Vitringa (in common with all the three first-mentioned classes of expositors) explains the death of the loipoi in the phrase I am discussing of natural death; - that natural death from which their rising would be at the general resurrection, preparatorily to the judgment of the great white throne. [10] But then what the character of the death of those whose abstraction left them the loipoi viz. of the beheaded ones, &c., mentioned verse 4? Of course the same, i.e. natural death. Very curiously Vitringa does not advert to this point. Had he done so he could scarce but have seen that it involves the overthrow of his millennial theory. [11] - To the same effect, fourthly, is the use of the term the dead, twn necrwn, generically, in the announcement on the 7th Trumpets sounding of what was to be fulfilled under it: the events announced as the grand result of that Trumpet being evidently, as indeed most of the Whitbyite expositors allow, (alike Vitringa, Faber, and Brown, [12] ) the very same with those symbolized afterwards in Apoc. xviii., xix., and xx. 1-6. We thank thee, it was said, O Lord God Almighty, because thou hast taken to thyself thy great power, and assumed the kingdom: and the nations were angry; and thy wrath is come; and the time of the dead to be judged, [13] and that thou shouldest destroy them that destroy the earth. Could the dead, thus generically exprest, designate in figurative sense a particular dead cause and party, viz. the Christian: - one by the way that at the epoch of the 7th Trumpets sounding was clearly not dead? Even so; say Vitringa and Mr. Brown. No! says Mr. Faber; the phrase is too large and generic: it means both parties, Christian and Anti-Christian. [14] But how so? The old difficulty recurs: - could both causes and parties be dead at the same time? Clemens appreciates the consequence and difficulty; and will have the dead to mean here the literally dead, small and great, who were to be judged before the great white throne: [15] so handing over this judgment of the dead, for which the time was said to have come at the sounding of the 7th Trumpet, (or at least within the period embraced by that Trumpet,) absolutely and altogether, to an epoch above 1000 years later! Can this be so? It is surely more natural, while supposing with him the dead in Apoc. xi. 18 to mean the literally dead, to suppose with Brown, Faber, and Vitringa, that the opening time, at least, of the judgment on these dead is at the opening of the millennium: the righteous dead having then adjudged them an abundant entrance into Christs kingdom; the wicked dead exclusion from it, [16] prior to their other final judgment.
Thus in fine, and upon these four accounts, I find myself absolutely constrained to view the death that the martyrs and their associated brethren were raised from as death in its literal sense: and, by consequence, the resurrection predicated of them as not, so as Whitby would have it, a figurative, but rather a literal resurrection.
2. To the same conclusion tend the following Apocalyptic intimations with reference to the resurrection itself.
For, first, it is in this resurrection, together with its immediate precedents of the fall of Babylon and the Beast, that there is confessed to be the fulfillment of what was said in Apoc. xi. 18 of the time having come to give reward (ton misqon, the reward) to Gods servants the prophets and saints: - confessedly, I mean, by most of the chief advocates of Whitbys hypothesis. The reward meant, says Mr. Brown, is just the destruction of Babylon, as the enemy of Christs truth and people, and their triumphant exaltation in her stead. [17] And so too Vitringa and Faber. But surely the reward set before Christs people in Scripture, in order to animate them amidst their many labors and trials, is something very different from this. [18] Blessed are ye, said Christ, when men shall reproach you, &c., for my sake: rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward (misqov) in heaven. And again; He that reapeth receiveth wages (misqon); and gathereth fruit unto life eternal. So again St. Paul to the Hebrew Christians; Knowing that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance, cast not away your confidence which hath great recompense of reward (misqapodosian): for ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God ye may receive the promise: for yet a little while, and He that shall come will come. And yet once more in the Apocalypse itself; Behold I come quickly; and my reward (misqov) is with me, to give every man as his work may be. Surely, it would be but poor comfort to the weary and tried and persecuted Christian, to be told that some day, at a longer or shorter interval after his death, and while he himself still rested in the world of separate spirits, the sacred cause in which he was interested would at length be successful upon earth, and all the chief enemies of it destroyed: and that, in effect, this their destruction, - and this its triumph, was the reward destined for him. [19] - Secondly, the Apocalyptic designation of the millennial resurrection as the first resurrection seems to me little consistent with the Whitbyite view of it. For, were it simply the resurrection of the martyrs cause, how, I ask, could it be called the first, and not rather the second, or, as I might indeed say, the third resurrection; seeing that the Apocalypse, as these expositors in common with myself expound it, had itself already prefigured two great previous revivals of the Christian martyr or witness cause: - the one in the Constantinian revolution; that same that was celebrated in the eucharistic song, They overcame the Dragon by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their martyr-testimony (marturia): [20] the other in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century: which latter was indeed expressly figured as a resurrection of the martyr-cause and line, in the vision of the two Witnesses death and resurrection [21] prior to the seventh Trumpets sounding? [22] - Thirdly, there occurs the important consideration that, as to any notable revival of the distinctive spirit of the old martyrs in times of millennial blessedness, such as the Apocalypse implies, with the Devil bound and the saints triumphant, it is almost a contradiction in terms. The spirit of Elias might and did revive in John the Baptist; because he, like his predecessor, had to witness in a corrupt generation for the truth, even unto death. But here, where the similarity? Mr. Gipps, one of the most decided as well as most able of all the modern opponents of the literal chiliastic theory, so strongly felt the force of this consideration, that it sufficed almost of itself to make him set aside Whitbys theory as untenable: [23] though only indeed for another on the same spiritualizing principle, which seems to me equally untenable, as I have shown elsewhere. [24] And so too the British Reviewer: at least to the extent, If I rightly understand him, of abandoning what Whitby says of the revival of the martyrs spirit; his own view being the same as Whitbys and Browns of the revival and triumph of the martyrs cause. [25]
Thus, on much various evidence inferable from the Apocalypse itself, I come to the conclusion of the inadmissibility of Whitbys millennial theory, just as decidedly as of each of the other anti-literal theories: and at the same time, since all the counter-evidence has gone to confirm the literal theory, to a conviction of all this constituting a strong presumption in favor of that literal theory of Irenęus and the early Chiliasts. A presumption further confirmed by the simple but important fact, that the doctrine of a first literal resurrection of Gods saints was no new doctrine in St. Johns time; but one that had past downward to it from early currency in the Jewish Church, as will appear in my next Section. [26]
It needs however, ere passing on from this part of my subject, that I make an explanatory observation or two, by way of answer to certain difficulties and objections that have been urged from the Apocalyptic passage against it.
And, 1st, the application of the word yucav, souls, to the saints and martyrs raised to reign with Christ, (which some have objected,) forms no real objection to the literal view. For it is but a term designative generally of their state just previous; and specially marking the identity of some of the enthroned individuals with those yucav that St. John had seen long previously, after their slaughter, under the altar. [27] And thus it no more indicates that they were still mere yucai, incorporeal souls, than the title necroi, just after in verse 12, (I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God,) implies that these last were still, at that very time of their standing before Him, dead men. [28] - 2ndly, as to the objection that St. John specifies only the souls of martyrs and of confessors against the Beast, as taking seat on the thrones of judgment, not departed saints generally, I answer that this does not necessarily imply that they were the only enthroned ones; but only that they particularly arrested St. Johns regard, or that he had particular reasons for recording them. Must not Christ, though unmentioned, be supposed to have appeared in this self-same vision, since the enthroned ones are spoken of as reigning with Christ? I have already elsewhere argued from these parallels, [29] and must beg leave to repeat the argument: [30] also, as to the fact of the martyrs not being the only enthroned ones, that it may be inferred distinctly from the generally admitted parallel passages of Apoc. xi. 17, 18, and Dan. vii. 18:- seeing that in Dan. vii. 18, 22, it was for the saints of the Most High, generally, that the thrones were set, and to whom the judgment was given: and that in Apoc. xi 18 the reward was declared to belong, not to martyrs only, but to Gods prophets and saints and all that feared his name small and great; the dead specifically. [31] - The reason of the martyrs being so prominently specified here seems to me easy of apprehension. [32] It was, I conceive, to remind the reader of the vision of the souls under the altar slain by Pagan Rome, to whom an avenging was promised: and likewise of that of the confessors under Papal Rome; on whom a similar trial of faith and patience had been enjoined, with a simple similar resting on the promise. [33] In the specification before us it was strikingly set forth that, though delayed, the promise had not been forgotten; and was now at length to have fulfillment. [34] - As to the objection from what is said of the rest of the dead not living again till the thousand years were finished, as if indicating that they lived again immediately after the ending of that millennium, (in which case all explanation of their living again by reference to the general resurrection of the dead to judgment mentioned in verse 11 afterwards, before the great white throne, then first set, as our theorists suppose, would be precluded, because of the little space of the Devils loosing, and Gogs invasion, intervening between the millenniums ending and that general judgment,) the objection is founded on a quite mistaken assumption of the requirements of the preposition till. The tempest-angels of Apoc. vii were charged not to blow till the servants of God were sealed: [35] but it was not until after the further interval of a little space, subsequent to the completion of the sealing, that the first Trumpet sounded, and the tempest began. In Luke xxiv. 49 the Saviours charge, Remain in Jerusalem till ye shall have been endued with power from on high, did not imply that they were then instantly after to end their sojourn there. And so too in other passages. [36] . Which being the case, the objection appears to be groundless: and we may without hesitation explain what is said about the resurrection, or living again, of the rest of the dead after the millennium as fulfilled in the uprising of the dead generally to judgment before the great white throne, supposing our theorists view correct of this vision; contradistinctively to the martyrs and saints spoken of just before, as raised premillennially to live and reign with Christ.
Such, and so strong, is the various proof deducible from the Apocalyptic passage itself, with its context and parallels, against Whitbys futuro-figurative view, and in favor of the literal view, of the first resurrection in Apoc. xx.; and consequently of the resurrection of the just (as it is elsewhere called [37] ) being premillennial. As the point, however, is one so important, it is clearly incumbent on every earnest inquirer after truth to consider the Scripture evidence that may bear upon it on a larger scale. This constitutes the second branch of my argument. Nor, I think, will its examination fail to issue in a deeper, fuller persuasion of the truth of the premillennial theory of Christs second advent, and premillennial resurrection coincidently of his saints.
[1] I say simply, because not Christian expositors only, but Jewish, have supposed an actual contemporary resurrection of the faithful dead of Israel to be also meant. I shall refer to this point in a later part of this chapter.
[2] Luke xv. 32.
[3] Apoc. xiii. 3, 14, xi. 11.
[4] So again in Luke ii. 34; This child keitai eiv ptwsin kai anastasin pollwn en IsranA, is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. And, somewhat similarly, Ezra ix. 8; that the Lord may give us a little revival in our bondage.
[5] See my Part v. Chap. viii.; and in this Volume p. 4, 5.
[6] Acts xxvii. 44.
[7] At p. 236 Mr. Brown half intimates a derivation and meaning to the phrase oi loipoi quite different from that which I am arguing; as if all the rest of the Beasts party were meant, except the Beast himself and his False Prophet; because in Apoc. xix. 21 it is said of the former, And the remnant (oi loipoi) were slain with the sword, &c. But, with the notice before him of the dead and risen martyrs intervening, in Apoc. xx. 4, he shrinks from insisting on it. The rest of the dead (oi loipoi), says he, p. 237: - dead, that is, in the same sense in which the other party are meant as dead, in respect of the cause they espouse.
[8] Faber, iii. 334; Brown, p. 236; Clemens. p. 92; British Reviewer, p. 189.
[9] Besides which how is it, were this explanation by Dr. Whitby correct, that anezhsan, or some such word, is not used on mention of Gogs expedition; to indicate, so as in the case of the millennial saints, the resuscitation of the fallen cause?
[10] p. 1161. He calls this view of the death of the loipoi simplex et clarus.
[11] Since writing this I see that Mr. Gipps, at pp. 111, 112, had preceded me in urging this argument from the rest of the dead against the Whitbyite millennarian theory.
[12] Vitringa, pp. 679, 680, 683; Faber, iii. 244; Brown 211, &c. I may refer the reader on this point to my remarks on Apoc. xi. 18, at the close of my 2nd Volume.
[13] The verb krinesqai is one applied to the good as well as bad. So Apoc. xx. 12, 13. And so too krima and other cognate words; as e.g. John ix. 39.
[14] Mr. Fabers observations (p. 244) are curious. Since, with reference to the literal day of judgment, the word dead imports universality as to the persons who are finally judged, either for acquittal or condemnation, in the final judgment of all mankind, - so, analogously, with reference to this figurative day of judgment [viz. that of the 7th Trumpet] the word dead must similarly import universality as to the persons who are temporally judged, either for acquittal or condemnation, in the temporal judgment of the Roman empire. So he proceeds to say that he considers the dead [in Apoc. xi. 18] to be first universally and collectively said to be judged; afterwards, in the two succeeding clauses, divided into the saints who fear the name of God, and the wicked who destroy the earth. What! both figuratively dead together?
[15] p. 104.
[16] I beg attention to this point. I conceive judgment on the wicked to have thus, even then, begun. Compare my remarks on Dan. xii. 2 and Isa. lxvi. 24, pp. 95, 96 infrą.
[17] Free Church Magazine for 1846, pp. 270, 271. The reward given to Gods servants, he adds, is not personal. I cite from his Letter addrest to me in the Free Church Magazine; as I have not observed in the 2nd Edition of his published work any so distinct notice of this particular point.
Vitringa on Apoc. xi. 18, p. 679: Martyrs sensu mystico et spirituali mercedem dicuntur accipere, quando his illorum prędictionibus et expectationi satisfit.
Faber, Sac. Cal. iii. 245: The recompence here spoken of . . must mean a recompence of vengeance upon the heads of their long triumphant enemies and oppressors.
The British Quarterly Reviewer, p. 183, half grants, half hesitates at granting that the epoch meant in Apoc. xi. 18 is the same with that in the passage before us. Mr. E. has assumed the identity of the parties described in the two passages, though he supports himself in so doing by the consent of Vitringa. . . Grant that Rev. xi. 15-18 refers to the same epoch as Rev. xix. 11 - xx. 15 (rather, - xx. 4). He does not contest the point.
Clemens however here separates from the other Whitbyite theories. He seems unable to bring himself to believe that such is the reward held out to the saints. It can scarcely be said that these things were fulfilled at the commencement of the millennium . . The time had not come that God should give reward to those who feared his name small and great: &c. p. 105. So, as before said, Clemens explains those words of the song on the 7th Trumpets sounding; The time is come of the dead to be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward, &c., to mean the time of the general resurrection after the millennium.
[18] My argument here is of course greatly strengthened by what is said in Daniel xii. 12 of his standing in his lot (klhrov) at the end of the days: i.e. at the end of the 1335 days, just after Antichrists final destruction. But of this more when I speak of the evidence of Old Testament Scripture. See p. 85 infrą
[19] I have copied the above from a Letter written by me in reply to Mr. Brown, and printed in the Free Church Magazine for 1846, p. 341. In the same Magazine for 1847, p. 29, there was an answer by Mr. Brown, but no answer to this argument. Nor do I see any in the 2nd Edition of his Book on the Second Advent.
[20] So Mr. Brown himself, p. 3, thus writes of the Constantinian revolution as a resurrection of the Christian martyr-cause: - The martyred testimony of Jesus lived and reigned: but the martyrs themselves lived not. The Gospel slew the great red Dragon: Paganism was defeated in the high places of the field: Christianity ascended the throne of the Cęsars.
[21] Mr. Brown agrees with me in referring the death and resurrection of the Witnesses to the epoch and events of the Reformation: (Free Church Mag. 267:) and so too Clemens. Mr. Faber would have the vision fulfilled in the banishment, and then re-establishment in their valleys, of the Waldenses. This makes no difference in my present argument. In explaining the vision of Apoc. xi. 7 - 13, the Whitbyite interpreters all admit that it signifies some notable death and resurrection of the Christian martyrs cause before the 7th Trumpets sounding.
[22] Mr. Brown replied to this argument when urged by me in the Free Church Magazine for 1847, p. 35, that the objection might be equally made against the literal view of the pre-millennial resurrection; because certain saints rose literally and bodily at the time of Christs resurrection, and therefore the pre-millennial resurrection, if literal, would be only a second, not first resurrection. But no, Mr. E. will say: Only a handful rose then; whereas this is the whole. Just so: and that is my answer to him. But does it make no difference that the Apocalypse itself, which uses the phrase first resurrection, should have strongly and prominently figured a previous revival of the Christian witnesses cause and party as a resurrection?
[23] p. 59.
[24] See p. 75, 76 suprą.
[25] I say, if I rightly understand him: for I am not sure that I do. He says, p. 183: The principle that where a resurrection to life is spoken of, it must be a resurrection of corresponding character with the death from out of which it is a revival, is a true principle; and, as such, is fatal we conceive to Whitbys interpretation. Yet from his remark p. 176, When the fullness of the Gentiles is brought in, and all Israel saved, . .. Gods martyrs will triumph in the victory of the cause for which they had suffered during so many centuries, and again, p. 189, that the rest of the dead, like the martyrs, are the representatives of a cause, and . . . supposed in their turn to triumph when Satan their leader is unbound, it seems to me that it is only in respect of what Whitby says of a revival of the martyr spirit that he differs from him.
Mr. Brown, p. 242, seems to think that the revival of the martyr spirit of faithfulness to Christ will suffice to answer the conditions of the case on the head. And so Clemens, p. 89. But I cannot agree with this. It seems to me contrary not only to the simple requirements of the symbol, but also to the analogy of the previous Apocalyptic case of figurative resurrection, - I mean that of the two witnesses, as explained alike by both of us. It was not the cause and faithfulness of Huss and the Waldenses that alone revived in Luther and his associates; but their martyr-spirit even unto suffering also.
[26] See especially p. 85, infrą
[27] Apoc. vi. 9.
[28] Let me add another example or two, as the point is important, and one on which arguments have been frequently founded. Luke vii. 15; And the dead man sate up; o nekrov anekaqisen Matt. ix. 33, The dumb man spake; o kwqov elalhse. So, again, Matt. xi. 5, xv. 31, Luke vii. 22, &c: and, in the Old Testament, Exod. vii. 10, 1 Sam. xxvii. 3, &c. - Thus it seems quite needless to urge the frequent use of yucai for persons, by way of explanation.
[29] p. 70, Note. 588.
[30] Mr. Brown (Free Church Mag. for 1847, pp. 31, 32) in reply to these my parallels, - 1st expresses doubt of Christ having appeared enthroned in the vision. But what says Daniel in his corresponding vision? The Son of Man (Dan. vii. 13, 14) is specially noted as the visible holder of the kingdom. 2. He thinks that the word nekroi, dead, in Apoc. xx. 12 includes in itself the living too: just as in the saying in Adam all die, albeit that some are to be alive when Christ comes to judgment. But I cannot think this counter-parallel sufficient. The death derived from Adam is spiritual death, as well as bodily. And in the former character at least it passes to those who shall be alive at Christs coming, as well as the rest.
[31] The circumstance of Mr. Browns distinctly acknowledging the parallelism of Apoc. xi. 18 with Apoc. xx. 1-4 makes me wonder that he should take so much pains to make it appear that there were none but martyrs seen in the latter vision. For he admits that in the former all the saints are noted as participators in the martyrs triumph.
[32] Why, if this is to be, [viz. a resurrection of all the saints,] was the specification so limited as it here is? We must leave the difficulty; . . for we see no solution of it. So the Brit. Qu. Reviewer, p. 184.
[33] See Apoc. xiii. 10. - In the vision too of the souls under the altar, slain by Pagan Rome, it had been said that their vindication would not be till after the slaying of other martyrs their brethren, i.e. those slain under Papal Rome; and consequently the vindication of the latter synchronous with theirs.
[34] It will already have been observed that the ancient Fathers supposed, as I do, that the pre-millennial resurrection would be one of all Gods saints, of both Old and New Testament dispensations. See p71. Note 592 suprą.
In further illustration of this being the view held by the early Fathers, let me add to my previous citations from Justin Martyr and Tertullian the following from Cyprian. Vivere omnes dicit et reguare cum Christo: non tanłm qui occisi fuerint, sed et quique in fidei suę firmitate et Dei timore perstantes imaginem bestię non adoravorint, neque ad funesta ejus et sacrilega edicta consenserint. And again; Nec solos animadversos et interfectos divinę pollicitationis manent pręmia; sed etiam si ipsa passio fidelibus desit, fides tamen integra atque invicta perstitorit, . . ipse quoque ą Christo inter martyres honoratur. Ad Fortunat. De Exhort. Mart. c. 12.
[35] acpiv au sfragiswmen touv doulouv tou qeou hmwn. Apoc. vii. 3.
[36] E.g. Matt. i. 25; Kai ouk eginwskin authn iwv ou eteke ton uion authv ton prwtotukun where, from the nature of the case, there must have past some time after the end of the ewv even supposing that the old Catholic view respecting the Virgin Mary, as still after Christs birth aei parqenov, is not to be insisted on.
So again Cyril, Catech. xv., argues from the till in 1 Cor. xv. 25, He must reign till he hath put all things under his feet.
[37] Luke xiv. 14.