The Coming and Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ

Mr Brown’s work has now been about three years here the public. It has been very favourably accepted y the churches of Christ in Great Britain. Through. heir journals most of them have given judgment upn it in words of concurrence and admiration. It has een pronounced “one of the most able, comprehenive, and conclusive, of the numerous works which e millennarian controversy has called forth.” It is rmed to be “a work of great: power on the sober and eriptural side of the controversy.” In private fellowip and discussion, it is appealed to, at least in Scotland, s beyond an answer. By some Mr Brown is thought have settled the question conclusively. Millennarianm is supposed to have received its death-blow, which it s the prospect of surviving only a few years.

A considerable number throughout the churches (my- - lf amongst them, ) do not assent to this estimate. We ve read the volume with care, and we trust with canour also. We would not detract from its merits; nor under-prize the author’s efforts to displace error and build up truth. We esteem him very highly in love, as a brother in the Lord, “a companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Christ.” Nor would we

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be offended at the sharpness of his rebukes, and the stron’ words of censure applied to us. He has led us to recosider our position, to review our arguments, to weig anew many a passage of the Divine word, to re-exami our whole system from the foundation upwards. He h spared no pains to bring into view the defects, the ang larities, the inconsistencies, the occasional crude thought of millennarian authorship, sometimes with accuracy, other times with a stroke of caricature, — a caricature f which he has been in some measure indebted to the d vergencies of hasty or less sober-minded brethren. H has once and again tried our patience, not so much b the hard words with which he assails us in every pag as by the deductions which he would fain fasten on u and by which he hopes, as by so many mill-stones, t submerge our entire system.

Yet we owe him no grudge; nay, we can thank hi for having sent us to sift our views, ‘and for making more suspicious of unproved opinions, more jealous aught which even séems to trifle with error; or tampe with Inspiration, more impatient of rashness and intol rant dogmatism.

I am satisfied that he has done his subject fall justic — much more so than any of his predecessors in the sa field. He knows somewhat better than most, what mi lennarians really hold. He does not brandish his we pons in the dark, nor set about the demolition of ime ginary opinions instead of authentic millennarianis Thus far he has faced the real subject, and met the rea argument of the case; with what success, it is my design to consider. Ido not think that he has thoroughly grappled with the essence of the question. His mode of dealing with the subject appears to me indirect and un-PREFACE. ix

tisfactory; but still that which he attacks is, in gene- 1, real millennarianism, and not something else got up r the occasion, which nobody holds or has held.

He gives it as his opinion, that the principles contain- 1 in his volume are “untouched and immoveable.” ow, though this is strong language for a fallible man to e, especially in commendation of his own arguments, tLadmit that he has done more for the defence of ese opinions, than any others before him. He hasalso rith some skill laid his finger upon the weak points of is adversary, making quite a sufficient, I will not say

unfair use of these; which, however, are not, after all, ne weightier matters of the controversy.

That I not only dissent from his conclusions, but think is way of reaching them unsafe and charged with evil, have not sought to conceal. I believe his mode of inrpretation, his method of dealing with inspired quotaons from the Old Testament, his lowering the blessed paracter of the millennium, his departure from the inrpretations of sound commentators in pursuit of noveles harmonizing better with his system, his doctrine of e inseparability of sin and Satan, his way of transmutg the physical into the moral, the personal into the bstract, to be full of peril to sound doctrine, and inconstent with Calvinism. The carrying out of these priniples would make void many a page of inspiration, and trike the strong props from beneath many a treasured ruth. And as he has not been slow to tell us what he onceives to be the tendencies of our system, he will not, am sure, take offence at my sometimes stating what seem be the bearings of his.*

* T have frequently taken occasion to place expositions of Dr Bush and others side by side with Mr Brown’s. In so doing I xX PREFACE.

The difficulty of estimating tendencies is much greate than at first sight appears. For, as even in the creed of th most thoroughly orthodox there is sure to be some admixture of error, however slight; so, in the creed of tl most unsound there is sure to be some vestige of trutl So that the question in such a case is, Whether is it likel that the slight amount of error in the former may a as leaven to corrupt the truth; or that the very slendé quantity of truth in the latter case may spring up li seed and displace the error? There is a variable quantit here, the law of which is not easily ascertained, and n calculus can bring out a determinate result. I feel pe suaded, for instance, that the mode of exposition adopted by our opponents is one whose tendencies are in the direction of rationalism; but I have not the slightest though

most sincerely disclaim the very slightest thought of identifying the American Swedenborgian or German rationalist, with a br ther whom I esteem and honour in the Lord. At the same tim Mr Brown’s interpretations and principles of interpretation a so like theirs, that I felt bound to call attention to them, — moy especially as we are so often charged with holding principles destructive of Christianity. I find, for instance, that in all the pasg§- ages relating to resurrection, which are matters of debate in thi millennarian controversy, Mr Brown and Dr Bush agree in making the resurrection predicted, a moral or spiritual one, not a physica one: and am I not justified in marking this resemblance? Am not entitled to say, is it not singular that Dr Bush’s Swedenborfl gianism and Mr Brown’s post-millennialism should have conducted them to the same conclusions? The literality of the contested passages is felt by both to be fatal to their respective systems and both, therefore, spiritualize them. I condemn the former fo the liberty he has taken with the words of God, may I not express dissatisfaction with the latter, and say of his system, that judging from its affinities, it is far more likely than ours to demand a “‘ new dispensation,” and a new “Christianity.”

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