Preface

I do not mean this volume for a controversial one. It touches, no doubt, upon controverted points, and to that extent must partake of this character. But I have striven to avoid the attitude of disputation as much as possible, and to treat with respect the judgment of brethren in Christ who differ from me.

I have read most of the works written against the system here maintained. They are very few in number. What may be the reason of this, I do not undertake to say. I have not referred to any of them by name, nor quoted their language; but I have endeavoured to state fairly the substance of their arguments.

In reading these, I have been struck with the peculiar method of reasoning which they adopt. Their object is rather to disprove our hypothesis than to prove their own. They take for granted that if Millennarianism be overthrown!, then their system must come in its place as a matter of course, without any further proof. They do not build up nor fortify their own system so much as they try to overturn that of their opponents. Hence their theory does not stand upon direct textual proof from Scripture in its favour, but upon the supposed absence of proof for the opposite.

Assuming that Millennarianism is in its very nature impossible, and therefore not capable of being proved, they endeavour to turn the edge of Millennarian expositions, and to shew that a different sense is possible. But surely this is not all that is needed. Millennarianism may have no foundation in Scripture; but still Anti-Millennarianism may be equally baseless. What I desire of our opposing brethren is, that they would produce the direct positive texts on which they ground their theory; not on which they rest their opposition to our theory, but on which they build their own. All the length they have advanced as yet is, that our system is false, and that theirs may be true. It remains that they prove from Scripture that theirs must be true. They have not done this. But surely, both logically and theologically, their reasoning is at fault till they do so.

Besides, in reference to most of the disputed passages, the ground which they take up appears to me very narrow and insecure. Our position is, that the texts in question must be interpreted in a certain way, and do not admit of another sense. We may be wrong in this; but such, at least, is our position. What, then, is the counter position? Only that they may be interpreted differently; that certain doctrines (supposed to be in jeopardy) demand a different sense, and that the passages themselves admit of it. Now, these passages are the hinges of the whole question. They can have but one true meaning; a meaning to be determined not by general inferences from collateral doctrines, but from the examination (textual and contextual) of the words themselves. If, then, we maintain that the principles of sound interpretation compel us to adopt the literal view, why do our brethren not take up the opposite position, and say that these same principles compel them to adopt another sense? Why do they stop short of this, and merely say that they do not feel constrained to adopt our meaning, for that the passages admit of another? Why do they not oppose their “must be” to our “must be?” If their theory be thoroughly invulnerable, and ours as thoroughly feeble, why do they not venture upon a more positive method of interpretation?

Let me illustrate my meaning by reference to a passage which I have taken up at length in the seventh chapter. I mean 2 Thess. ii. 8. It is one of the most conclusive that has been adduced in the discussion; not only because it is clear and pointed in itself, but because it occurs in a plain epistle, and not in any book of figure or symbol. Its testimony to a Pre-Millennial Advent appears to me irresistible. Our position respecting it is, that, if there be certainty in language, consistency in statement, and coherence in argument, the expression “bkightness of His coming” must refer to the literal Advent. How, then, is this met? Not by shewing that it cannot do so, or by proving that it does not imply this, but simply by trying to shew that the words may mean something else. This surely is a very feeble and indirect way of meeting our statements. Nor do I think it the fair method, either logically or scripturally. Respecting such an important passage, something more decided and direct ought to be produced. It should at least be shewn that our interpretation is wrong, and not simply that another is possible. For what is this but an admission that the natural sense of the passage is on our side, and only the non-natural on the other? * And if the natural and probable sense be ours, and only the non-natural and possible be theirs, can we hesitate in deciding which of the two is according to the mind of the Spirit?

The general line of argument adopted by Anti-Millennarians appears to me both unsound and unsafe. They argue that Millennarianism is in itself so carnal, so absurd, so inconsistent with other doctrines, that it

* No Post-Millennialist has attempted to shew that our interpretation of this passage is false, or unlikely, or unnatural. All they assert is, that another is possible, And thus they “get over” the difficulty. Would it not be better to yield to it?

cannot be believed. Hence they approach Scripture with such a bias, that one can scarcely ex])ect a calm and thorough examination of the passages under discussion. But even though the bias were not so injurious, still the method of procedure is inadmissible. If the question be one purely of Scripture interpretation, then no previous ideas of our own as to the nature of the doctrine ought to be allowed to weigh with us. Our inquiry simply is, What has God written? It is unfair, it is illogical, nay, it is deeply sinful, to come to the consideration of an important doctrine wTith minds so pre-occupied with the conviction that it cannot be proved, that the weighing of evidence is altogether unnecessary. If the case is one of evidence, let us either fairly and scrupulously weigh that evidence, or else decline to enter on it. But let us not undertake to weigh it when we have previously, and upon other grounds, settled the whole question.

It is most unsafe to make our ideas of the possible our standard in measuring Scripture. It is clear that, in such a case, we are dictating to God, and not submitting to be taught by Him. I know not a more melancholy instance of this than Dr Bush, of America, in his recent work upon the resurrection. He sets out in the same track which many Anti-Millennarians have adopted, viz., that the doctrine in question is an impossibility. “The physiological fact,” he writes, “of the constant change which our bodies are undergoing, is irreconcileably at war with the tenet of the resurrection of our bodies,” * Commencing by an attempt to prove that resurrection cannot be, he then goes on to shew how those passages which speak of it are to be interpreted, so as not to teach it. The replies to his work which we have seen, at once assail him here as most illogical in the arrangement of his argument. They tell him that he is no judge of what is possible or impossible. They admit the difficulties implied in a resurrection, (difficulties far greater than any which Millennarianism contains,) but they leave these in the hands of God. Is anything too hard for Him? They tell him, also, that the object of his book is to reconcile Scripture to a preconceived theory of his own. Such are precisely our answers to Anti-Millennarian works, most of which set out with similar assumptions, and go over nearly the same ground as the American Professor. We say that such a method of reasoning is unsound and untenable; that man is no judge of the possible or the impossible; that difficulties are nought to God; and that nothing can be more dangerous than to attempt to reconcile Scripture to a theory of our own. We see to what lengths this method of arguing has conducted Dr Bush, and we ought to be upon our guard against applying that method to any revealed doctrine whatsoever.

There is another American Professor to whom I * P. 390.

would refer, in connexion with some of the above remarks; I mean Moses Stuart, of Andover. He has recently published a very elaborate Commentary on the Apocalypse. In it he is compelled, as a critic, to admit that the first resurrection, spoken of in the twentieth chapter of that book, is a literal one, and that the words do not admit of being spiritualised. But to compensate for this singular admission, he gives us his opinion very freely upon the merits of Millennarianism. He calls it “a gross conception; N an “impossibility,” having no “foundation but in the phantasy of the brain.” He speaks of “the dreams of men;” “visionaries of ancient and modern times;” “phantasies of lively imaginations;” “enthusiastic visions;” “idle, yea, worse than idle, fancy dreams;” “dreams of phantasies of ancient and modern Millennarians, who make a worldly and sensual kingdom.” * I do not cite these expressions to complain of them, far less to retort them. Neither do I refer to them as

* See vol. ii. pp. 361, 362, 374, 479, 480. I have been struck with the resemblance to Jerome in these expressions. He is perpetually recurring to the Millennarians, and never fails to bestowsome hard epithet upon them; at the same time he acknowledges that very many (plurima multitude*) even in his day held that doctrine, — so much so that he tells us that he foresees “the fury which he is likely to raise against himself” in opposing it (ut prcesagd mente jam ccmam quantorum in me rabies concitanda sit). — Jerome, Proem to the Sixty-fifth Chapter of Isaiah. The reference to this passage in Kitto’s “Cyclopaedia” is inaccurate, and the translation is second-hand; but the article on Millennarianism is good and fair.

evidences of an unbecoming and uncandid spirit in the Andover Professor; of this I leave others to judge. Nor do I feel aggrieved by the epithets bestowed upon Millennarianism; they have not tended to persuade me that I am wrong, nor convinced me that I am an enthusiast or a dreamer. I cannot suppose that they will weigh much with any calm and thoughtful mind. If I can only hold fast, and defend what God has written for the instruction of His Church, I shall not be offended at these reproaches; — reproaches which both in Britain and America are but too common among the assailants of the derided system. The reason I have quoted Professor Stuart is, because his method of dealing with the subject is a specimen of the mode of reasoning which is too much indulged in by Anti-Millennarians. They tell us that our theory is visionary and impossible, and that, therefore, it cannot be scriptural. Now, did it not occur to the learned Professor that this is precisely the false position which Unitarians adopt, and which he and his fellow-Trinitarians condemn? No one knows this better than he; and we might well be surprised at his adoption of principles in one case which he would condemn in another. I was struck, too, when I remembered the calm manliness with which he argued the question of the Divinity of Christ against the Unitarians, and could not help wondering why he should speak more kindly to the cleniers of his Lord than to his brethren in Christ. When he was arguing with the former, he stood upon the broad ground of Scripture, refusing to be moved away from this by their oft-repeated charges of impossibility and absurdity. When reasoning with the latter, he both loses sight of his former principles, and leaves behind him his former spirit. He does not meet us calmly, and prove that his system is scriptural and ours unscriptural; but he assumes throughout that Millennarianism is a silly fable, and that, therefore, all texts which seem to favour it must be explained away. This, surely, is indefensible; for, however unworthy of his grave notice we may be, yet the peril of admitting such a principle ought to have deterred him from the course he has pursued. Would that he might be persuaded to return to his former position, and take up the present question calmly on the direct scriptural grounds! Of this, however, I have little hope. He has entered upon devious paths, and studied too admiringly the German school. His work on the Apocalypse is, notwithstanding its scholarship, a fearful exhibition of Eationalistic irreverence for the inspired Word of God.

I intended to have devoted a chapter to the history of Millennarianism. Tins, however, I have since resolved not to undertake. To do it thoroughly, would have occupied more time than I can at present afford; for though there are many sketches of this in various works, of which I might have availed myself, yet most of these are second-hand; and having, in the course of reading, noted down many things, both in the fathers and in later divines, I could not have satisfied myself with a brief sketch, and I had not the leisure, nor had I sufficiently digested my materials, to prepare a full history. But the conclusions to which all inquirers upon this subject have come, in reference to the early history of the doctrine, is, that during the three first centuries it prevailed universally, its only opponents being the Gnostics. This is now an acknowledged historical fact, a fact which we may well ask our opponents to account for, a fact which we believe cannot be accounted for, save upon the supposition that Chiliasm was an article of the Apostolic Creed* But I do not mean to enter further into its history. And one of my chief reasons is, that I have no wish to to prop up the system by human authority, even of the most ancient and universal kind. I would not that our faith should” stand in the wisdom of men, but in

* “The doctrine of the Millennium, or the reign of saints on earth a thousand years, is now rejected by all Roman Catholics, and by the greatest part of Protestants; and yet it passed among the best of Christians, for 250 years, for a tradition apostolical, and as such, is delivered by many fathers of the second and third century, who speak of it as the tradition of our Lord and His Apostles, and of all the ancients who lived before them, who tell us the very words in which it was delivered, the scriptures which were then so interpreted, and say that it was held by all Christians that tvere exactly orthodox.” — Whitby’s Treatise on Traditions. “Whitby, it is well known, was a Post-MUlennialist, so that his testimony is the more striking.

PREFACE. XVli

the power of God,” If it cannot be unequivocally maintained from Scripture, I will not even attempt to call in human witnesses, however numerous and however venerable. Let it stand or fall by the Word of God alone. Yet it would be well if our opponents, when casting reproach upon us, would remember that some respect is due to the honoured names that have been associated with it from the days of the apostles to our own.

As to the difficulties which are said to adhere to the system, and to render it incapable of proof, let me say a word. Previous to the fulfilment of every prophecy, there have always been difficulties connected with it, by which faith has been proved, and over which unbelief has stumbled. The predictions concerning the first Advent contained an amount of difficulty, perplexity, and apparent impossibility, which completely overshadows everything of that nature in the present case. Man’s reasoning with regard to difficulties has been thus entirely overthrown. It has been shewn that he is no judge of these, and that when he attempts to estimate them, and to mould God’s Word according to them, he is sure to err. We have been made to see how very careful we ought to be in pronouncing upon these, and how unbefitting our position it is, as finite learners, to insist upon weighing a doctrine in the balance of our difficulties, rather than in the balance of

the sanctuary. We seem to take for granted that the

b harmony of Divine truth must be so necessarily and immediately perceptible by us in all its parts, that if there appears to us any dislocation or incoherence we are entitled to strike out the doctrine that seems to introduce the discord, previous to any consideration of the amount of scriptural evidence in its favour. Our difficulties are reckoned sufficient to place it beyond the circle of evidence altogether, and to justify us in at once throwing it out of our system upon the internal evidence of its own incongruity. But such a mode of adjusting systems is inadmissible, — especially seeing that all these systems contain in them many things which we cannot reconcile or link together in our present state. Were this method of reasoning lawful, the Jews might well have excused themselves in disbelieving the incarnation; and Unitarians might maintain the field successfully against the asserters of the Godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nay, we ourselves should be thoroughly baffled in our attempt to prove the resurrection of the body; for, beyond all question, that doctrine presents to us difficulties altogether insoluble by us, difficulties so formidable that there is absolutely no escape from them, save by a direct appeal to what God has written, and to what God is able also to perform.

Instead of being staggered by the existence of difficulties, ought we not to feel that nothing else could be expected? Had there been none such, should we not have been inclined to say that the doctrine was of man, not of God? Man may construct a scheme of the future, as a child draws a map of the stars, in which there shall appear no difficulties, no incongruities. But is God’s system of the future likely to be as smooth and comprehensible by us? It is a future which is all His own; a future where there are ten thousand movements to adjust, and ten thousand conflicting forces to calculate; a future in which there are new truths to be evolved, and, hence, new links to be formed for knitting the whole together. Surely, then, it is no great demand which God’ makes upon us, to wait in patience for a little while, and not to prejudge His system, because the links#are not visible, and the order not in keeping with our ideas of harmony. The points in which it now appears dark or even disjointed, may be the very parts where there has been most of Divine wisdom expended; and the cause of the seeming difficulty may be the vastness of the truth revealed, so far transcending the lowness and narrowness of human thought. How often does that part of a picture on which the artist has bestowed, most pains, and into which he has cast his whole soul, appear a blemish to the unpractised eye? So it is with reference to the things of God; and hence the exceeding danger, not to say irreverence, of testing a doctrine by the difficulties connected with it. These are not for us to decide upon. We are very likely to pronounce falsely upon these, or to reason improperly from them.

All this is especially true when the system in question is not only occupied with the future, but with that future in a very peculiar way. Let us, for example, assume, for a moment, that the Millennarian hypothesis is true; then, all that it involves is connected with a period after the coming of Christ. That coming must, of necessity, introduce many changes, — changes which make any calculation of ours as to the state of things then, still more difficult and hopeless. Even were we able to arrange the events and measure the difficulties of a future which was the natural and unbroken continuation of the present, still that would be no reason for our venturing to pronounce upon the difficulties of a system which is not to be developed till after Christ has come and taken into His own hands the reins of government. If our theory refer to the order of things after the Advent, then we are entirely precluded from the consideration of these difficulties. Are we at liberty to affirm, that what may seem difficulties just now, will be so then I Are we prepared to maintain that the Advent will introduce nothing new in God’s administration of the world, and that what appears to us incongruous now will really be so then? May not what is new in that future order of the world, be the very things which shall adjust all these fancied dislocations, the very tilings which were awanting to fill up that which now appears incomplete, — to knit together that which now seems loose and broken?

There is a remark of Dr Owen on another subject which may very fittingly be quoted here: “A truth, well-established and confirmed, is not to be questioned, much less relinquished, on every entangled sophism, though it should appear insoluble.” Were this statement weighed, and carefully applied to the doctrine under discussion, in the same way as sound divines have applied it to other truths, there would have been, if not a total abandonment of position, at least a greater moderation of language, and perhaps some abatement of self-confidence, on the part of those who have entrenched themselves behind certain fancied difficulties, as if they formed a bulwark against Millennarianism, which must prove absolutely impregnable.*

The present volume consists properly of two parts. The first ten chapters contain what I have called the landmarks of prophecy, and the data for ascertaining the position of the Advent. The remaining five are devoted to an inquiry into the principles of interpreta-

* There are two classes of “difficulties,” — the direct, or scriptural, and the inferential, or rational. If the objections adduced by our opponents were of the first class, they would be legitimate, even though ultimately overruled by stronger evidence. But almost all of them belong to the second class, being inferences of human reason, which can only be taken up after positive evidence has been disposed of.

tion, with some suggestions as to the predictions regarding Antichrist, and a brief glance at those “signs,” which are the outriders of the approaching King, sent forward to warn the world, and to prepare the Church for His speedy Advent. I am aware that the work is far from being complete. I have done little more than set forth a few principles for the more exact exposition of the prophetic Word, and indicate the line of argument which I conceive ought to be pursued in all attempts to determine the position of the Advent. I do not profess to have enumerated, far less to have exhausted, the proofs in favour of the doctrine here advocated. It would require many volumes instead of one, to open up and illustrate what is written in Scripture concerning the coming and the kingdom of the Lord. They greatly err who suppose that our doctrine on these points is based on a few knotty and doubtful texts. The passages on which it rests, and on the strength of which we ask the reader to hesitate before he rejects it, are neither few nor ambiguous. They give forth no uncertain sound, no feeble, no inarticulate utterance. Their testimony is not scanty and infrequent, but full and oft-repeated. No other doctrine can produce a larger, more distinct, and more vigorous testimony in its favour. Many of the truths which we receive as incontestable, are built upon a basis by no means so solid or so broad as this. Its witnesses are very numerous, and worthy of being listened to. It pervades the whole Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation. It is not confined to the figurative books; it declares itself with equal fulness, in narrative and epistle, as in symbol or type. Like a thread of gold, it runs through the whole web of revelation, crossing and re-crossing it everywhere, and imparting the richest brilliance to the whole texture. It is the burden of all prophecy. It is the summing up, as well as the unravelling of all history. It is the final and grand solution of the mystery of God’s dealings with this world of ours. It is the germ of Israel’s types. It is woven into all their ordinances, and rites, and festivals. It is the theme of many a psalm; the heart of many a symbol; the subject of many a parable; the end and point of many a promise; the seal set to the “Gospel of the grace of God,” as the “Gospel of the kingdom,” that is, the good news concerning the open gate for sinners, into that kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world!

It has been the hope of the Church through many a starless night, when other hopes had gone out one by one, like beacons shattered by the tempest, leaving her disconsolate and helpless. It is now again, in our day, pressed upon her notice, as her strength in “the hour of temptation, which is coming upon all the world,” — the only light which cannot be quenched, and by which she will be able to steer her perilous course through the gloom of the thickening storm.

It is no dream of carnal enthusiasts, enamoured of materialism, and anticipating a paradise of gross delights. It is the calm belief of spiritual men, resting upon God’s sure promise, and looking forward to a kingdom of “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” It is no hasty conjecture, no novelty of a feverish age, rashly caught up, without consideration and without evidence. It can produce the testimony of ages in its behalf; and they who have held it in our day, have been men who have studied their Bible on their knees, and have come to their conclusions after long, deliberate, and most solemn investigation. It is no fable of romance; it is sober, scriptural reality, though far beyond what fancy ever painted. It is no vision of the politician; yet it shews us how, ere long, shall be exemplified that which earthly Governments have been vainly striving to realise, — a peaceful and a prosperous world. It is no creation of the intellect; the wisdom of this intellectual age rejects it as foolishness, and rationalism resents it as one of the exploded fancies of unenlightened criticism* It

* Several of the opponents of Rationalism have embraced the doctrine of the Pre-Millennial advent and reign. I have already quoted Olshausen, I may here quote a sentence from Gess.” The dead saints, at the appearance of the Christ, are to be organised again with the material bodies. This is to take place a thousand years

before the awakening of the other dead They are to

reside again upon earth, and to live and reign with Christ for a thousand years.” — The Revelation of God in His Word, pp. 227, 228.

is no popular theory of the many; there are comparatively few throughout the Churches who receive it, — few who will even concede to it a place among the things which deserve serious study, or are accessible to proof. Yet all are concerned in it; and it comes abroad proclaiming itself alike to the Church of God and to the heedless multitude, as the consummation towards which the various lines of prophecy are rapidly converging, as the glorious issue of all the confusion, the sin, the change, the death, that have made earth so long a wilderness, as the only cure for those deep and manifold evils under which men are groaning, and which they are so earnestly, yet so vainly, striving to remedy. *

Kelso, January 1847.

* Having occasionally been called to take up some prophetical points in one of our periodical s, I have not scrupled, in the present volume, to avail myself freely of what I have written,