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.

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§ 3. GENERAL SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE AGAINST WHITBY’S FUTURO-FIGURATIVE THEORY, AND IN FAVOR OF THE LITERAL THEORY OF THE MILLENNIAL FIRST RESURRECTION.

Under this head I shall hope to prove the synchronism of the departed saints’ resurrection, and of Christ’s second and glorious advent, alike with the epoch of Israel’s promised conversion and restoration, with that of the contemporarily opening blessedness of the world, and with that of the fall of Antichrist: - some other and different points of evidence being added afterwards.

And, in preparation for this important branch of my argument, it may be well first to trace the subject of Scripture promise somewhat fully, and from the fountainhead.

Every after-promise then made to man was wrapt up (if I may so say) and contained in that original and primary promise made to our first parents after their fall, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” Now on this promise we have what I may call an inspired comment, in the apostle’s saying, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” ^[1] And, as Satan’s work was the introduction of both natural and moral evil, - including alike a curse on man, with death as its special sign and accompaniment, and a curse too on the creation made for man, (“for the creation was subjected to vanity, not through any voluntary act, but by reason of him who subjected it,” i.e. if we construe the word of the instrumental cause, the Devil, ^[2] ) therefore the undoing of his work involved a twofold restoration and removal of the curse; the moral restoration of this created earth of his habitation. Nor, I think, is it mere unfounded conjecture to suppose that Adam, Abel, Enoch, so understood, and hoped themselves to profit by it, ^[3] - The promise was not jeoparded by the judgment of a flood of waters which God would bring on the earth to destroy all flesh: for, together with his declaration of the coming judgment, God made the saving declaration to Noah, “But with thee will I establish my covenant:” ^[4] that is, my original covenanted promise made to Adam. - Yet again, in the tenth generation after Noah, when the world was afresh beginning to be filled with an apostate population, and so the covenant to be afresh endangered, He virtually repeated it to Abraham; “Get thee out of thy country to a land which I will show thee; . . and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed:” ^[5] - there being added soon after, very remarkably, a grant of the land itself to which he was called, as if in some way particularly connected with the accomplishment of the previous comprehensive promise: not only “Unto thy seed will I give this land;” ^[6] but “To thee will I give it, and to thy seed, for ever.” ^[7] It is not the mere human expositor that has noted the fact of these terms of the promise having apparently given to Abraham a personal interest in the land, as its inheritor, and similarly to Isaac and Jacob after him: ^[8] else we might argue that the promise of Abraham’s possessing it was fulfilled in his seed’s possessing it. ^[9] but one inspired seems so to explain the matter: ^[10] and perhaps God himself, long before. ^[11] - But how then was the promise to be realized by him and them? He was but a stranger and sojourner in the land; not having had, nor expecting in this life to have, ^[12] so much as a foot of it in possession: - indeed it was expressly intimated to him, in a vision that had a horror of great darkness as its meet accompaniment, that he was himself to die and be buried in a good old age, like his fathers before him: ^[13] - whereas the inheritance promised implied fruition as a possessor, and that possession one for ever. ^[14] The memorable act of his proceeding according to the Divine command, to slay Isaac, the very son in whom the promise was to have its fulfillment, furnished occasion (as the inspired apostle explains to us) for the manifestation of his views on this point. “He accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead;” ^[15] and in fact did, as it were, receive him back from death (and of course all Isaac’s seed in him) in a type or figure. ^[16] That is, I conceive, his faith realized the possibility, and rested on it, of the promise connected with Isaac having its fulfillment through the intervention of, and after, a resurrection from the dead: - a figure of the manner in which he himself, doubtless, as well as Isaac and Isaac’s seed, (Christ, the promised seed cat´exochn, specially included, ^[17] ) might expect to realize the promised inheritance. ^[18] So “by faith he sojourned in the land of promise, (a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,) as in a strange country; dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:” ^[19] yet looking for the promised inheritance, with the world itself as its appendage, ^[20] after death and resurrection: and for all in a state quite different from what was then before his eyes; even as the world renovated, a Canaan made heavenly, ^[21] “a city which had foundations, whose builder and maker was God.” ^[22]

Meanwhile there had been revealed to him (it was in the vision that had the horror of great darkness accompanying it) a new and most important appendix in God’s purpose to the old covenant of grace. The question was permitted to be asked by Abraham, (by Abraham not in his individual character, I conceive, but as the representative and federal head, like Adam before him, of his seed interested in the promised inheritance,) “Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it (the land)?” ^[23] And, as in answer, God told him that his seed (his natural seed evidently) should, after 400 years, come out in the fourth generation, and, as a nation, occupy that same land of Canaan. ^[24] This therefore was to be after Abraham himself, and Isaac too, had died. So that there now opened before him the vista of a new line of covenant-promise, not annulling or superseding, ^[25] but only co-ordinate with, and corroborative of, the older covenant-promise: ^[26] - the new promise being that of his natural seed as a living nation occupying the earthly Canaan; as if for an actual guarantee, and sign to perpetual generations, of his spiritual seed (the holy election of grace out of the natural seed ^[27] ) at length after death, and through the medium of a resurrection, inheriting the same Canaan, in some way at length made heavenly, and with God himself revealed therein as their God. ^[28] Besides which important object, this new national dispensation was made subservient in a thousand ways both to illustrate, and as a schoolmaster to train up the people for participation in, the earlier covenant of heavenly promise: setting forth, as appeared afterwards in its wonderful ritual and code of law, so strikingly as probably nothing else could have done, the vastness of the alienation caused by Adam’s sin between a holy God and sinful man, and consequent vastness of the difficulty of effecting what the original covenant implied, in respect of man’s (and inclusively the creation’s) restoration and reconciliation: and the need consequently of an all-perfect atoner, mediator, and purifier, such as might indeed do the work, and realize the wonderful ideas, now first fully set forth, of redemption and a redeemer. - No wonder that the faithful servants of God in every age should have found in the varying history of the Jewish nation, - of its rebellions and its punishments, - its stubbornness, - its repentances and its partial restorations, - types of their own spiritual history, and of God’s unwearied faithfulness in his covenant to save. ^[29] That nation, and its natural history, seem to have been almost set forth to Abraham, in God’s first announcement concerning it, as a sign and type of the spiritual history, and ultimate spiritual blessedness, of the spiritual seed. I say a sign of its ultimate spiritual blessedness. For the final and ultimate view of the natural Israel, (as well as of the spiritual,) as predicated in all prophecy concerning it, - from the prophecies by Moses ^[30] to those by Christ ^[31] and St. Paul, ^[32] - was that of its ultimate blessed union with God; though not till after a long and fearful æra of alienation and judgment, and the temporary passing away in consequence of the supremacy and glory from Israel.

And here then there might naturally arise a question with the believer of old, as he looked forward into the distant future, Would there be any coincidence in respect of time, as well as of earthly scene, between the fulfillments of the ultimate blessings predicted in respect of either covenant? - in other words, a synchronization of the spiritual Israel’s resurrection from the dead, in order to its inheritance both of a renovated earth and of God himself its Redeemer, with the natural Israel’s restoration to their renovated land and to the favor of their Redeemer God? A question this, bearing directly, the reader will see, on the point of our present investigation: and to which the scripture answer, I believe, is this, that the chronological connection of the two consummations was a thing intended; and neither unforeshown to, nor unforeseen by, the saints of God, alike before, and at, and after, the time of Christ. - I proceed to give proof of this; and shall endeavor in doing so to keep the national Israel’s promised ultimate happiness in view, as distinguished from the renovated world’s ultimate happiness, which is to be the subject of my next head: though indeed the one is so mixed up with the other, that it is hard to keep the view of the two altogether distinct and separate.

1. The intimated synchronism of the spiritual Israel’s resurrection from the dead with the restoration  of the natural Israel to God’s favor and their own land.

On Moses’ views in this matter there is scarce evidence sufficient to enable us to pronounce: though it seems that he understood the distinction of the two covenant-promises; and, as one written in God’s book of the living, ^[33] looked himself for the reward of the same heavenly country as his fathers: ^[34] a country identified almost by the very language of his law ^[35] with that earthly Canaan to which, in fulfillment of the lesser promise made to Abraham, and in type of the future spiritual seed’s great Prophet and Leader, ^[36] he was now conducting the nation of Israel. - But, passing onward in Jewish history, in the writings of David (Christ’s most eminent type in the kingly, as Moses in the prophetic character) an expectation does, I think, appear of this synchronism; even as by one who had been taught the secret of God’s covenant. ^[37] Himself raised to be king of Israel, and foreknowing that he was to be the father according to the flesh, as well as the royal type, of King Messiah, (the selfsame seed of the woman, and seed of Abraham, that had been promised to Adam and to Abraham,) that Messiah’s ultimate reign of glory, after certain previous and mysterious sufferings, ^[38] was a subject on which he loved to dwell. And he thus spoke of it: - viz. as a reign that would be established on earth, ^[39] a manifestation of his personal glory accompanying its introduction; ^[40] with the gathering of his saints to Him, such as had made a covenant with Him by sacrifice, ^[41] and an act and process also before heaven and earth of some tremendous judgment by fire, and opening of the pit of hell, upon the wicked: ^[42] - the result being a most blessed and universal reign of righteousness: Zion, now at length restored and rebuilt, forming the central point of the Messiah’s manifestation, ^[43] with “the seed of his servants to inherit it,” and Israel now “gathered from among the heathen:” ^[44] and, on the view of  this judgment, and report from Zion of his glory, the conversion of the distant heathen following, and so the whole earth becoming filled with his glory. ^[45] Now among his seed of blessed inheritors, and saints then gathered to the King Messiah, as joined in covenant with Him by sacrifice, it would seem that David himself (who on earth felt as a stranger and pilgrim, like his fathers, ^[46] ) expected to have a part. For, when contrasting in one place death feeding on the wicked, and the upright having dominion over them in the morning, while their beauty consumed in Hades as its proper dwelling, he expresses his belief of God redeeming his soul individually from the power of the grave: ^[47] and moreover elsewhere uses the same phrase, the morning, cat´ exochn, to express the time of God’s ultimate deliverance of Israel, and overthrow of evil on the earth. ^[48] To which it may be added that, having in one place spoken of his own waking up after God’s likeness (evidently at the resurrection) as the supreme object of his satisfaction, ^[49] he yet elsewhere notices the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom on earth as the ultimate object of his prayers; ^[50] and in yet another place, connectedly with a description of the same earthly reign of King Messiah, God’s having made an everlasting covenant with himself, ordered in all things and sure, the which was all his salvation and all his desire. ^[51]

In the Prophets after David the same coincidence of time between Israel’s restoration and the saints’ resurrection is also expressed, only much more clearly. Take, for example, Isaiah’s prophecy (already elsewhere cited by me, ^[52] in illustration of the circumstantials attendant on Israel’s restoration) in his chapters xxiv.-xxvii. He there speaks of some terrible shaking of the earth under God’s judgment, and the host of the high ones, and kings of the earth, being then as prisoners gathered into the pit of their prison; of the contemporaneous reigning of the Lord of hosts in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, before his ancients, with a glory that should make the sun itself ashamed: of the Lord’s then opening to all people a feast of fat things, and destroying the veil of the covering cast over them, and swallowing up death in victory, and wiping away tears from off all the earth, and punishing with his great and strong sword the crooked serpent, and purging away the iniquity of Jacob, and causing them that come of Jacob to take root, and Israel to blossom and bud, and fill the earth with fruit. When partially citing this prophecy before, the reference of which to the final restoration of the national Israel seems hardly to be mistaken, I left the question as to what swallowing up of death in victory might be intended, and whether in a literal or a figurative resurrection, an open question. It is now my place to answer it. And the answer is already at hand, as given by the Apostle St. Paul; who as expressly identifies the fulfillment of those words, “He shall swallow up death in victory,” with the time of the saints’ resurrection, ^[53] as the prophet identifies it with that of the natural Israel’s restoration: at the same time that the other details of the prophecy are, I may say, almost the same, point by point, as those in the Apocalyptic prefiguration of the events introducing the Millennium. ^[54] To the same effect are the prophecies in Isaiah’s two last chapters, also cited in my last preceding Chapter: where the restoration of Israel is connected with the creation of “new heavens and a new earth,” like those in the Apocalypse; and moreover with that punishment of transgressors, of which Christ also speaks as of a punishment to be adjudged at his coming, ^[55] viz. “the worm that never dieth, and the fire that is never quenched.” ^[56] Further evidence might be easily added from the same evangelic prophet, did my limits permit. But it may be better to pass on now to two or three of the other prophets. - And first to Isaiah’s contemporary, Hosea. “The iniquity of Ephraim,” says he, with reference to the time of Israel’s ultimate repentance and restoration, “is bound up; his sin is hid: the sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son: for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking-forth of children. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death; O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.” ^[57] And what this redemption from death? That of the nation in figurative sense of the phrase? Not so. Again St. Paul may be cited, ^[58] in proof of the literal resurrection of the saints being the thing meant in the latter verses; and consequently of the chronological coincidence of this their resurrection from the grave with Israel’s restoration. ^[59] - Next turn we to Ezekiel’s celebrated vision of the dry bones. ^[60] And here, if the case be more equivocal, yet I may observe that according to the exposition of the earlier Christian Fathers, ^[61] derived in part perhaps from the earlier Jewish Rabbins, those bones and that resurrection are to be construed, not simply of the living Jewish people, and their fall and resuscitation, but of the Jewish saints departed also, and their literal bodily resurrection, in common with Christian saints, at the time of Israel’s restoration. ^[62] - Yet once more, (to close my Old Testament citations,) I must refer to two of the famous prophecies of Daniel. The first is that in Dan. vii.; which prefigured the four great persecuting empires that, commencing from the time of Israel’s unfaithfulness, and consequent temporary rejection by God, would in succession hold the world’s supremacy; until at length, after the destined 1260 days (or years) of the last of the four, in its last or antichristian form, judgment should be given to the saints of the Most High, and the time come for the saints possessing the kingdom: - possessing it, mark well, ^[63] “for ever and for ever:” their everlasting kingdom thus dating from the fall of Antichrist. The second that of Dan. xii., which depicted the two events of the resurrection of the just, so as to shine as the sun in the firmament, and Israel’s last trouble and deliverance, as occurring each and either near about the end of the same 1260 days, or years, of Antichrist’s abomination of desolation: the declaration being made in chronological terms yet more exact, that at the end of the 1335 days, or years, 75 days or years beyond the former, the time of blessedness would begin; and Daniel himself stand in his lot (i.e. his inheritance. ^[64] ) at the end of those days. ^[65]

I have hinted that it was thus that the Jewish expositors that lived between the return from Babylon and destruction of Jerusalem understood the passage cited: in proof of which statement I subjoin a few extracts. ^[66] And though a different construction has been put upon them by ancient as well as modern anti-premillennarians, as if they were simply prophecies of the revival and resuscitation of Israel, (as well as of the world with it,) from a state of national and religious depression, ^[67] still, while allowing that this is in part their subject, (and its being so is of course an essential point in my argument,) yet I cannot but think that the Jews rightly viewed them as including also predictions of the literal resurrection of the saints literally dead, contemporaneously with Israel’s figurative resuscitation. For, in some cases at least, the language ^[68] seems all but unequivocal; and the apostolic comment fixes the sense in others. ^[69]

And so the promise came down to New Testament times, - the promise of the world’s renovation, Abrahamic inheritance, and establishment of Messiah’s kingdom, all in supposed connection with the promise to the national Israel. And both in the gospel-narratives of Christ’s own life and ministry, and in the apostolic records afterwards, we shall I think find recognition of the current supposition, as really true.

At the very outset, on the infant Jesus’ presentation in the temple, the priestly seer who recognized in him the promised seed of the woman, and seed of Abraham, and Son of David, in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed, was inspired thus to declare the literal Israel’s foreseen share in the blessing; (I say literal Israel, because expressly distinguished from the Gentiles;) viz. that “he was to be the light of the Gentiles, and the glory of God’s people Israel:” the latter however not till after he had been first the occasion of fall, and then afterwards of rising again (in the figurative sense evidently), “to many in Israel.” ^[70] And, so to the time of that rising again and glorification of his disciples, “Ye which have followed me shall in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ^[71] sit also upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” ^[72] seemed surely to fix it as that of the saints’ resurrection. For how, at an epoch of time distant ages afterwards, could the twelve disciples be present, and have rule over the tribes of Israel, except only by a resurrection from the dead; that same which Christ elsewhere ^[73] in remarkable manner designated distinctively as “the resurrection of the just?” To the same effect was Christ’s statement, just before his passion, that “Jerusalem should be trodden by the Gentiles till the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled:” (i.e. probably the times of the four Gentiles dominant empires of Daniel’s prophecy:) especially as compared with another cognate prediction of his, “Your house is left unto you desolate; for ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” ^[74] For, whereas in the former of these two prophecies alike its connection with the disciples’ previous question, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world,” and also the almost immediately consequent context describing variously Christ’s acts of judgment on his second coming, ^[75] might seem to mark the ending epoch of Jerusalem’s treading down by the Gentiles as the epoch also of Christ’s second and glorious advent, - in the other prophecy the ending of Jerusalem’s desolation was pretty plainly hinted at as the foreseen epoch of the repentant Jews visibly recognizing the true Messiah in Jesus whom they had pierced: which recognition St. John expressly associates with his glorious second coming in the clouds, and every eye seeing him. ^[76] Nor should we omit to observe that after Christ’s resurrection, and when He had been speaking to the disciples on “the things pertaining to the kingdom of God,” upon their asking him, “Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel,” as if there were truth in the then commonly received Jewish view of the establishment of God’s or Christ’s kingdom on earth, Christ did not correct them in the idea, but only told them that it was not for them to know the times and seasons. ^[77] - And as the Master, so too the Apostles afterwards. First and foremost St. Peter in that most remarkable address to the Jews, within but a few days after the descent of the Holy Spirit, “Repent ye, and be converted, that times of refreshing may come, and he may send Jesus, &c.;” as if the epoch of the Jews’ repentance and conversion was to be the epoch of Christ’s return from heaven: a passage however which I prefer to consider in detail under my next head, as having prominent reference to the times of the world’s universal restoration and happiness, as well as to the Jews’ restoration in particular. And so again in various places the Apostle St. Paul. Such, e.g. was the purport of his declaration before Agrippa, that he was judged for “the hope of the promise made of God to the fathers; to the which promise the twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hoped to come;” ^[78] compared with his previous saying, “Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.” ^[79] For there can be no doubt that the promise to which the hopes of the twelve tribes were instantly directed, was that of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel: which event consequently was thus distinctly associated by the Apostle with the resurrection of the just. Besides which we have, as before said, his comment in 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55 on certain prophecies already cited from Isaiah xxv. and Hosea xiii., which seem plainly to refer to the time, circumstances, and blessedness of the literal Israel’s restoration: ^[80] a comment expounding them as what would be fulfilled at the time, and in the fact, of the departed saints’ glorious resurrection, and living saints’ glorious change and rapture, to meet the Lord Jesus in the air at his second coming.

Such is my first head of argument. - The anti-premillennarians of course present a very different view of the whole subject. Thus, as regards the Abrahamic covenant, there was no local interest in Canaan, they contend, given to Abraham himself, or to his spiritual seed. “Abraham expected Cananaan for his posterity, and a mansion in heaven for himself.” ^[81] But, except as contained in the promise of Canaan, ^[82] where, let me ask, was local promise given him of heaven? ^[83] And how was he to be “heir of the world?” The renovated earth (inclusive of its atmospheric heaven) seemed ever hinted at as the local scene of the saints’ inheritance. ^[84] Which being so, why should not that one part of the new earth be peculiarly the scene of Christ’s manifestation; i.e. peculiarly heavenly? - Again, as regards those passages cited from the prophets, in which predictions that the New Testament explains of the resurrection time and state are connected with predictions of the earthly happiness of the restored Jews and Jerusalem, this connection of the two, it is said, does not imply their synchronism: but arises only out of the comprehensive glancings of prophecy, embracing and interlacing together in its view the whole history and results of Christ’s redemption, in its various chief stages of development; from that of its first promulgation by Christ to that of its universal reception in the world on the Jews’ conversion, and then yet further that of the post-millennial stage of the redeemed saints’ heavenly and everlasting blessedness following their resurrection. ^[85] And, no doubt, sometimes there are comprehensive glancings at, and interminglings of different future æras in prophecy. But in various chief passages urged by me, it is not a mere intermingling of subject that we find, but a direct chronological synchronization of the saints’ resurrection and resurrection state with the earthly blessedness of the restored Jews and Jerusalem. So e.g. in Hosea xiii. 12-14; “The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up: his sin is hid: the sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy plagues: O grave, I will be thy destruction. Repentance shall be hid from my eyes.” So again in Isaiah lxv., lxvi.” “Behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy.” . . . “And I will take of your brethren for priests and Levites, saith the Lord. For, as the new heavens and new earth which I will make shall remain before me, so shall your seed and name remain: &c.” So, yet again, in Dan. xii. 13; “And thou Daniel shall stand in thy lot at the end of the days:” i.e. of the 1335 days, or years, measured from the beginning of Antichrist, when Israel’s final trial was to end in its final deliverance. Surely nothing but violence can set aside the synchronism of the resurrection state of the saints, and restoration state of the converted Israel, as exprest in such passages. - Once more, in regard to New Testament passages like that in Matt. xix. 28, which associate the apostles and the twelve tribes of Israel together, as the rulers and ruled in Christ’s glorious kingdom, the following counter-view is given; - “The world and the Church shall (at the last day) be judged according to their doctrines.” ^[86] But can the sitting as assessors in the judicial condemnation of unbelieving Jews be really the reward to his apostles here intended by Christ?

2. Next mark the predicted synchronism of Christ’s advent and the saints’ resurrection with the time of the promised blessedness of the world: - a subject, as before observed, ^[87] intermingled in sacred prophecy with the promises just considered to Israel; ^[88] but which for distinctness’ sake, in regard of a few chief New Testament prophecies, I think it well here to consider separately.

As a first example, then, take that passage from Matt. xix. 28, already cited by me to illustrate the Jewish bearing of the question under my preceding head, which makes mention of the great future expected paliggenesia or regeneration. For what the paliggenesia spoken of but the state when Christ shall make all thing new, ^[89] and this earth be restored again to Paradisiacal blessedness? ^[90] In which state, however, and over which renovated earth, Christ here declares that the apostles shall together with their Lord, have the authority and government: ^[91] a connection and rule scarcely explicable except on the supposition of their previous resurrection in order to entering on it.

My second passage is that notable one in St. Peter’s sermon, Acts iii. 19, on occasion of the miraculous restoration of the lame man by the temple-gate, just after the Holy Spirit’s effusion on the day of Pentecost, and which was also cursorily cited by me under my former head on account of what there is of Jewish allusion in it: - “Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, to the end that your sins may be blotted out; that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and he may send Jesus Christ which before was ordained (proceceirismenon) for you: whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, of which God hath spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since the world began.” A passage this of such decisive bearing on the point in hand, that it is impossible to give it too careful a consideration. I subjoin therefore the best critical text in the original; ^[92] and in order to its correct understanding premise the three critical remarks following: - 1st, that in the second clause my rendering “that the times of refreshing may come,” instead of the authorized version’s “when the times,” is just the most natural, if not necessary, rendering of the original Greek: ^[93] - 2ndly, that the word restoration or restitution, in our received English version, is also the most accurate expression of the sense of the Greek apocatastasiv in verse 21, accordantly alike with its etymological intent, and frequent use both in Scripture and elsewhere: ^[94] - 3rdly, that the antecedent of the relative wn in the same verse, which, in so far as the grammatical structure of the sentence is concerned, might be either the pantwn or the cronwn ^[95] seems clearly determined by the sense of the sentence to be the word cronwn, times: because if we took the pantwn, there would then be needed, in order to avoid absurdity, a restriction in the sense of the pantwn ^[96] quite unnatural. Let me also premise that the times of refreshing in the first clause ^[97] would seem to be the same with the times of restitution in the second: only one great æra of refreshing being foretold; and that in connection with Messiah’s glorious earthly reign. Which four points admitted, the intent of the apostle’s expostulatory address to the Jews is as follows: ^[98] - “Repent ye, in order that the Messiah Jesus may come again from heaven; and the times of refreshing and restitution begin which have been the favorite theme of all the prophets: the order and concatenation, that is, a series of events connected like links in a chain -of events in God’s purpose being this, that your conversion to him is to be the occasion of his return; and his return, as the Jew’s reconciled Messiah to be the introduction of the times of refreshing.” Thus expounded the passage assumes a decided premillennarian form. - And what the anti-premillennarian mode of evading its force? Dr. Whitby, and after him Faber and others, have tried to escape from it by a totally different rendering of apocatastasiv, as if meaning fulfillment, not restitution, and construction of the twn with pantwn as its antecedent: the result being a translation and sense as follows, “Whom the heavens must receive till the times of the fulfillment of all things that the prophets have spoken;” this “all” including, argue they, the millennium itself, and so fixing Christ’s second advent as post-millennial. But this rendering of apocatastasiv is quite untenable: and would indeed if admitted, with its connected pantwn, involve (unless doubly restricted) ^[99] the postponement of Christ’s second coming, not only till after the millennium, but till after the general judgment and everlasting happiness of God’s people; seeing that that general judgment and final blessedness is one of the things that the prophets have spoken of . - Mr. Brown, with better tact, admits the usual rendering of apocatastasiv; and contends not for the conjunction of wn with pantwn, rather than cronwn. ^[100] But he argues from the imperfection which he supposes to attend the millennary state itself that it cannot be regarded as the restitution of all things; and that for such a restitution we must look to the creation of the new heavens and earth beyond the millennium: there being however previously “times of refreshing,” answering to the Jubilean times of Old Testament prophecy, and the millennial of the Apocalypse; which times St. Peter expected would begin with the Jews’ conversion: and that Jesus Christ would descend from heaven at their termination: and then, and so, the restitution of all things take place. But, passing over just now, and till my 4th main Head, (though not without protest,) Mr. B’s unscriptural view, as I cannot but regard it, of the imperfection of the millennary state, let me here observe, 1. that the times of refreshing seem to be as much connected by Peter with Christ’s return to earth as the times of restitution: ^[101] 2. that prophecy connected the restitution of all things with Elias’ coming; ^[102] and that his coming and ministry was assuredly understood to be introductory to the Jews’ restoration and conversion, not 1000 years after it: 3rdly, that, as before shown by me, Isaiah’s new heavens and earth, and attendant restoration of all things, were prophesied of as synchronic with the earthly Jerusalem’s restoration and blessedness. - Thus, if I mistake not, Mr. Brown’s post-millennarian construction, distinguishing the times of refreshing from those of the restitution [or regeneration] of all things, and making the one to precede Christ’s coming, the other to follow it, breaks down as entirely as Whitby’s and Faber’s. ^[103] And the very striking evidence of St. Peter’s statement, taken in its most natural sense, remains unshaken; to the effect that Israel’s conversion is to synchronize with, or immediately precede, Christ’s return from heaven, his risen saints of course accompanying him; and the restoration of this fallen world, with the blessed times of refreshing told of by all the prophets, to follow as its immediate consequence.

My third passage is that notable one in Rom. viii. 18, &c., which defines the destined epoch of the creation’s deliverance from corruption, as coincident with the manifestation of the sons of God. - St. Paul had been speaking of Christ’s true disciples, alike Gentiles and Jews, (for the mystery had now broken on the apostles of the equal admission of believing Gentiles to the spiritual blessings of the Abrahamic covenant,) as those with whose spirits the Holy Spirit itself witnessed that they were children of God; and how, if children, they would be then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that they suffered with him that they might be also glorified together. Then he thus goes on: ^[104] - “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature ^[105] waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, (not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same, ^[106] ) in hope; - because the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, until now. And not only they, but ourselves also which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” - Now, on one point that has been controverted in this passage, viz. the meaning of the word ctisiv, rendered creature and creation, I am not careful. Unquestionably it may mean the whole visible earthly creation, animate and inanimate. And if it be so understood here, as the early Christian Fathers did in fact understand it, ^[107] and I think not without reason, then the premillennial conclusion I contend for follows immediately: the restoration of this lower world to its original paradisiacal state, and freedom from the curse consequent on man’s sin, (if only we are to believe the prophetic accounts of the earth’s blessedness on Israel’s conversion,) being in that case made to succeed after the redemption of the body, ^[108] and visible glorification of the predestinated children of God; ^[109] in other words, upon and after their resurrection. ^[110] - But the word may mean also, as Whitby would have it, and as I am content for present argument’s sake to admit, the rational creation of God in this world, that is mankind, simply and alone. ^[111] In regard of whom the earnest expectation attributed to them by the apostle is well explained by Whitby: “desire and expectation being,” as he says, “ascribed in the sacred dialect to creatures in reference to things they want, and which tend to their advantage, though they explicitly know nothing of them.” ^[112] Now, this being premised, we have only to mark carefully two particulars in the passage, in order to see that still the same conclusion as before follows from it. The one point is the distinction in it between the creature (i.e. mankind generally) spoken of, and the saints, or predestinated children of God, in particular: - a distinction expressed by the apostle, ^[113] as well as implied through the whole context. The other point is the object of the creature’s expectation; - I mean of the creature as distinguished from Christ’s elect saints. We, says the apostle, wait for the adoption, the redemption of our body. But the creature (or creation) generally has its earnest expectation bent upon the manifestation of the sons of God. Manifestation of whom? I pray the reader to mark this point. Clearly of the glorified saints, the predestinated sons of God. And to whom? Not surely a manifestation of them to themselves, (for who ever heard of a revelation or manifestation of oneself in this manner to oneself?) but to angels, to men, to the universe: more especially to that same creature, or creation, whose longing expectation is directed thereto, and which is thereupon to receive its blessing and deliverance. - Anti-premillennial expositors have too generally overlooked this in their comments; and confound the saints’ hope with that of the creation. ^[114] Taking it in its proper construction, the premillennial cogency or logic of the apostle’s statement is evident. Nor do I see how there can be escape from it, except in a depreciation of the world’s millennary Jubilean state such as Mr. Brown contends for; but against which I must again protest as unscriptural, till noticing it more directly. In sooth or truth is it credible, that in the times of millennial bliss and holiness the saints will go on groaning, and travailing in pain together, even as now? ^[115]

Let me just add, fourthly, ere I pass on from the present head, that this result to the creation in general from the manifestation of the glorified saints, (the children of God, and so children of the resurrection,) ^[116] seems to be the same that our Lord intended in a most observable, but, as I conceive, too often misapprehended and misapplied passage, in his intercessory prayer, John xvii. 23. “I pray not,” says he in the first instance, “for the world, but for them which thou hast given me out of the world;” ^[117] i.e. the election of grace. For which last his final prayer was, ^[118] that they might all be one, (evidently at the time of their glorification, ^[119] the only time of perfect unity which the Bible holds out to the Church of the faithful, ^[120] and that they might see and partake of his glory; of course after their resurrection. Then follows a notice, twice over, of the foreseen effect of this their conjoint glorification on the world: (it is to this I was alluding:) verse 21, “that the world may believe that thou hast sent me;” verse 23, “that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

Thus do these four notable passages concur to establish the 2nd synchronism contended for; viz. that of our earth’s predicted Jubilean blessedness with the manifestation of Christ’s risen and glorified saints at his second coming.

3. To the same effect is St. Paul’s synchronization, in his famous prophecy about the Man of Sin, of the time of Christ’s second coming, and the contemporary gathering of both dead and living saints, to meet him, with that of the destruction of the said Man of Sin, or Antichrist.

For let but the prophecy be considered. “We beseech you, brethren, concerning (so the world is ^[121] ) the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him, ^[122] that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means. For that day shall not come except there come first the apostasy; ^[123] and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, &c. . . And now ye know what withholdeth, that He might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he that now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked One be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” ^[124] - What, we ask preliminarily, was the occasion of this prophecy? The first verse that I have quoted expressly and professedly defines it. The Thessalonian Christians were agitated under an impression (whencesoever (or from whatever source) originating ^[125] that the day of Christ’s advent (parousia) --- was imminent. ^[126] [Editor: Strongs: (602) ajpoka>luyiv, .ap-ok-al’-oop-sis; disclosure: — appearing, coming, lighten, manifestation, be revealed] (let my readers well observe) which was associated in the apostle’s and the Thessalonian Christians’ minds with the saints’ episunagwgh or gathering to Him. And how does St. Paul meet and correct it? By telling them that some great and famous apostasy must first intervene: - an apostasy of which the seeds were even then sown and germinating; and which would at length have the Man of Sin as its child and head: not till the end of whose reign would Christ’s expected advent occur; the glory of that advent being in fact the Man of Sin’s extinguisher and destruction. - And what then the nature of this his parousia, or advent, personal or providential? Surely it were nothing less than violence to the sacred text to explain it as any other than his promised personal second advent. Four times is the expression used in this sense in St. Paul’s former Epistle to the Thessalonians; and in this sense exclusively and alone. ^[127] And then, - after solemn reversion in the first Chapter of the 2nd Epistle to the same great subject, ^[128] - in the first and introductory verse of this second Chapter, St. Paul’s connection with it of the episunagwgh, or gathering of the saints into Christ’s presence, fixes the same meaning on the parousia or advent of Christ there mentioned: (for what gathering could this be but that spoken of 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17 previously, as to take place at the saints’ resurrection?) ^[129] and, by necessary consequence, (considering not the proximity,) of the two clauses only , but their argumentative connection ,) on the parousia in verse 8 also; whereat and whereby the Man of Sin, Paul declared, was to be destroyed. - In effect few anti-premillennarian expositors contest the personal character of the parousia in verse 1. Alike Whitby allows this; ^[130] and also Scott, Brown and others. On what principle, then, can they have justified to themselves the giving it in verse 8 a quite different meaning: whether, as Whitby, that of Christ’s coming providentially to destroy Jerusalem; ^[131] or, as Schott, Faber, and Brown, that of his coming, still providentially, not personally, to inflict judgment on the apostate Roman Empire? On none, most assuredly, but that of escaping from the pre-millennial inference necessarily consequent on their giving the word the same meaning. - I say necessarily consequent. For, admitting the parousia to be Christ’s second personal coming, it follows instantly and necessarily that there can intervene no millennium of universal holiness and gospel-triumph before it. The whole interval between St. Paul’s time and Christ’s second coming is represented in this comprehensive sketch as occupied and spanned, from beginning to end, by the great apostasy: - an apostasy which, as I before said, was even then, in St. Paul’s time, sown and secretly germinating; - then destined soon to break out into fuller development; - then to reach its culminating point in the headship and domination of the Man of Sin, the Papal Antichrist; ^[132] - and, under that domination, to continue and prevail, even unto his and its destruction by the brightness of Christ’s own personal second coming. ^[133]

So St. Paul; very like Daniel before him. And let me suggest, ere passing forward, how their respective prophecies of Antichrist’s overthrow by Christ’s coming do, on this point, mutually support and illustrate each other. In St. Paul it must needs be Christ’s personal coming, because it is that on which the gathering of the saints takes place round him. In Daniel’s it must needs be the same; as that which begins the saint’s eternal reign in Christ’s kingdom. ^[134]

4. With all which perfectly agrees what Christ tells us in his Parable of the Tares and Wheat of the two destined states and stages of his kingdom: the one, while preached preparatorily on earth, ever mixed, imperfect, defiled: - the other pure and glorious, after purification by fire, and the manifestation in it of the King and his saints in glory.

The kingdom of heaven, He said, would in its earthly history resemble a field sown with wheat, then, by an enemy, with tares. These both were to grow together intermixed, - the tares with the wheat, the wheat with the tares, - until the harvest; that was, until the end of the world, or rather of the world’s present aiwn. Then at length (not before) the tares should be eradicated. “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. (en th sunteleia tou aiwnov.) The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous ^[135] shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” - What is here said respecting the righteous as then shining forth like the sun in God’s kingdom, ^[136] fixes the epoch as that of the resurrection of such as shall have been previously numbered with the righteous dead. For the glory of the saints living at the time of Christ’s coming, and end of the present aiwn, is not to anticipate that of them that sleep; ^[137] nor the glory of the latter to begin till their resurrection. ^[138] And that there can have been no millennium previously, such as Whitby’s hypothesis supposes, follows surely from Christ’s statement of the mixture of tares and wheat continuing in the gospel-field uninterruptedly up to it. - Mr. Brown indeed argues strongly, that the millennial state is one of imperfection; and so, still, of tares and wheat. But does prophecy so depict it? We read that then the people shall be all righteous; all individually knowing the Lord, from the least to the greatest; as well as with the knowledge of him outwardly covering the earth as the waters cover the sea; just in fulfillment of the Church’s prayer for ages, “May thy kingdom come, may thy will be done on earth even as it is done in heaven;” - also that there will be then no anomia; the anomov and the mystery of anomia having been destroyed with Antichrist: nor any scandals; for “they shall not hurt in all my holy mountain.” Can this suit the state of the intermixed tares and wheat; with anomia and scandala ever continued onward, (Matt. xiii. 41,) till the fire purges them out? - Admit that with earth’s inhabitants, in consequence of the continued Adamic taint, holiness will in one sense not be absolutely perfect. That will not constitute them tares. ^[139] Christ’s true servants now, though imperfect, and with the taint of natural corruption remaining in them, are yet wheat, not tares. And so, I conceive, only with much less of imperfection, there will be only what then, according to the prophetic word, and no tares. How indeed could there well grow that which is the produce of the Wicked One’s sowing, at a time when the Wicked One is shut up and sealed, as in Apoc. xx. 3, from deceiving and tempting men any more?

5. A fifth argument against Whitby’s theory of the post-millennial resurrection of the saints, and in favor of that of their premillennial rising at Christ’s coming, to take part in his millennary reign, (for his appearing and kingdom synchronize, ^[140] ) is soon stated, but I think of great weight; viz. that this resurrection, glorification, and participation in his kingdom are uniformly noted, I believe, as the reward of hard service, suffering, conflict. “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom,” &c.: ^[141] - The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence:” ^[142] - “If we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together:” ^[143] “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory:” ^[144] “He that overcometh shall inherit all things:” ^[145] &c. &c. So the faithful companions of the typical David’s time of hardship, exile, and suffering, had the fit rewards of office and promotion on his establishment in the kingdom. But can the righteous in the millennial dispensation come under the same category of hard service and suffering for Christ? ^[146] To whom, however, Whitby’s theory would equally assign a part in the first resurrection, and Messiah’s kingdom of glory.

6. I might add perhaps yet another argument, of a quite different and chronological character, from the term sabbatism applied by St. Paul to the departed saints’ expected rest. ^[147] For if the word indicate, so as it might seem to do, (at least to the Hebrew Christians to whom St. Paul’s Epistle was addressed,) some septenary of time, - the which could scarce be any other than the seventh millennium of the world, ^[148] - then, without entering at all minutely into chronological details, it is evident from our present actual position near the end, on the lowest computation, of the world’s sixth millennary, ^[149] that were we to postpone its commencement yet a thousand years, - in other words, were we to admit of a millennium of earthly bliss still intervening before the departed saints’ entrance on their promised blessedness, then their rest, even though this Millennium were to begin instantly, would be postponed long after the opening of the seventh millennary; and consequently be, in the then generally understood sense of the term, no sabbatism. ^[150] - But the more exact consideration of this last argument, as well as of the ancient Jewish and Christian Fathers’ opinion concerning it, will find perhaps its fitter place in my concluding Chapter. I therefore till then reserve it.

So my premillennial argument ends. I conclude on the evidence of General Scripture Testimony, just as I did before on that of the Apocalyptic passage itself, that Whitby’s theory is as untenable as those of Augustine and Grotius, and that the only true one is the literal: - which theory, held by the earliest Fathers, has been lately revived among us, ^[151] and been embraced by most modern prophetic expositors of note: ^[152] as well as by many others also whose studies, though not directly prophetic, have yet bordered on the subject; such as Mr. Greswell ^[153] and the late learned Bishop Van Mildert. ^[154] - For my own part I cannot but feel much struck at the consistency, as well as variety, of the evidence in its favor. If evidence has been brought from Scripture to show the synchronization of the saints’ resurrection alike with Israel’s conversion and restoration, - with the world’s restoration to paradisiacal blessedness, - and with Antichrist’s destruction also, - it seems to appear from quite other Scriptures that these various events, which thus synchronize with it, are likewise to synchronize with each other: viz. Israel’s restoration with the earth’s restoration, and each and earlier with Antichrist’s destruction. ^[155] - Nor can I help observing also on the consistency of the Apocalyptic statement, thus explained, respecting the first and second resurrection, with St. Paul’s famous declaration on a similar subject in 1 Cor. xv. 23, 34, &c.: - “But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits: afterward ^[156] they that are Christ’s at his coming: then cometh the end, ^[157] when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power: for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” In this passage three several distinct epochs, as if with intervals of time between them, ^[158] appear to be marked; that of Christ’s own resurrection, - that of the saints’ resurrection at his coming, - and that finally of his destroying the last enemy, death. All which seems exactly to correspond with our Apocalyptic theory of the saints’ resurrection taking place premillennially on Christ’s second coming, long after his own resurrection; and then, at the interval of yet a thousand years, on the completion of the resurrection, Christ’s finally casting Death and Hades into the lake of fire. - On Whitby’s theory the duration of the eita of St. Paul would reduced to a nothing.

Yet a word or two ere I conclude this Chapter, on certain chief difficulties, not yet touched on, urged against it.

1. And, 1st, as to the difficulty which has been supposed to arise out of St. Peter’s description ^[159] of the earth’s being burnt up at Christ’s second coming, before the promised new heavens and new earth: and consequent impossibility of that new earth’s having living inhabitants in the flesh remaining on it.

Now on this I must beg to remark, first and foremost, that by St. Peter’s words, “We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, &c.,” the new heavens and earth, that he alluded to were identified with the new heavens and earth promised in Isa. lxv., lxvi.; ^[160] in Isaiah’s description of which alike Jews and Gentiles, distinct the one from the other, figure as the still remaining inhabitants; and Judah’s city too, the earthly Jerusalem. So that supposing their identity irrefragable or irrefutable, as I believe it to be, ^[161] inhabitants in the flesh are declared by Scripture itself to exist upon St. Peter’s new earth, however preserved to it. - Secondly, let me suggest that the earth of St. Peter’s conflagration, at its primary outbreak at least, ^[162] seems by no means certainly the whole habitable world; any more than the earth covered by the Noachic deluge must be certainly regarded as the whole terraqueous globe; (St. Peter’s own case of parallelism;) or, in fact, any other than the Roman earth, which we have seen on Apocalyptic evidence is to be destroyed premillennially by fire at the time of Antichrist’s destruction: - and, in any case, that he who saved a remnant out of the watery deluge, may well be supposed to have his own ways of saving alive a remnant now again out of the deluge of fire. Indeed he intimates as much. ^[163] - Thirdly, I am quite unable to understand, were the conflagration postmillennial, how the scoffers just before it, and with the millennium in immediate recollection, could exclaim “that all things had continued as they were from the beginning of the creation.” - Thus on this head, the anti-premillennarian difficulties seem much the greatest.

2. There is urged the objection that alike Dan. xii. 2 and John v. 28 ^[164] indicate that the resurrection and judgment of the just and of the unjust are to take place at one and the same time. - But, as regards Daniel, I must suggest that it is more than doubtful whether the Hebrew original of the passage makes any assertion at all about the resurrection of the unjust; ^[165] and, as regards St. John, that no inference as to the simultaneousness of the bodily resurrection of the two classes can be justly drawn from the circumstance of their being those conjointly mentioned; any more than the simultaneousness of the spiritual resurrection of all of the spiritually dead who might hear Christ’s voice, mentioned in the verse preceding. ^[166] It is to be remembered that if the resurrection of the just and unjust are here mentioned together, there are many other passages in which the resurrection of the just is spoken of separately; indeed as if constituting the resurrection distinctively. ^[167] So that even if from the two passages in John and Daniel, considered by themselves, we might not unreasonably have expected that the resurrection of the just and unjust would synchronize, we might just as reasonably perhaps have anticipated from the others, considered alone, that the resurrection of the just was one peculiar, and would take place separately. Which being the case, and the connection of distant times, as I have said, not unusual in prophecy, it would, I think, be very unsound reasoning to infer a refutation of the literal theory of the first resurrection, (especially evidenced as that theory is,) from this inconclusive passage in St. John, and the yet more inconclusive passage in Daniel. ^[168]

3. There is yet a third objection to the premillennial view, which has been urged with much force of late, above all by Mr. Brown. It is to the effect that at Christ’s second coming (whenever that may take place) Christ’s Church will be complete, the effective interposition of Christ’s intercession and the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying influences terminated; and so the day of salvation past, and the millennial inhabitants of earth lost. - But it seems to me that in the two last inferences Mr. Brown is not warranted by Scripture testimony. The Church of the firstborn, ^[169] the bride, may be complete; but it does not follow that none afterwards can be saved. What is said of the kings of the earth walking in the light of the heavenly Jerusalem, seems to me to imply an enjoyment of the blessing by other parties, beside those that constitute Christ’s bride, the New Jerusalem. The very statement of Christ’s being a priest upon his throne (if applicable as I think it is, in part at least, to the millennial æra) implies Christ’s still exercising his intercessory and other priestly functions. And, if I am correct in my view of John xvii. 21, 23 ^[170] it was a marked point in his earliest intercessory prayer that the world’s believing on him, generally, might be the result of the distinctive manifestation in glory of the Church of his disciples of the present dispensation; - that manifestation which, as all agree, will be only at his second coming. ^[171]

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