15 — Millennial Reign on Earth

Chapter 15 THE GLORY OF CHRIST’S MILLENNIAL REIGN ON THE EARTH

[note: Rev. Springs defense of his views in this chapter should be viewed in a historical context with relationship to the doctrines with which he was wrestling in his era. lg/May 2010]

We have been contemplating a series of causes which forms the most effective chapter in the divine purposes and government; — God manifest in the flesh, teaching, obeying, suffering, dying, rising, ascending, reigning, and manifesting his power and grace in the dispensation of his Spirit. Facts like these may well be supposed to have a sensible and permanent influence on the destiny of our race. Earthly princes are not wont to visit the remote boundaries of their empire for unimportant ends; nor did this Prince of heaven and King of the universe descend to this fallen and proscribed province of his dominions, but for ends that vindicated his condescension. Well might the inhabitants of this and other worlds be looking out for important changes in human affairs, from the hour when the Sufferer of Calvary finished his work and went up on high. All orders and classes of men might well be, as indeed they were, held in eager expectancy. Kings upon their thrones would naturally be arrested by these wondrous occurrences; and the agitated nations, attracted by the greatness and novelty of their claims, would anxiously demand, what will the end of these things be?

We have in a former series of lectures, spoken of some of the "first things" which distinguished the history of the divine government; in the remaining chapters of the present series, we propose to speak of last things. Our object is not retrospective; it is the bright and dawning future that now employs our thoughts. If we look into the Scriptures, we find a day is there foretold, such as the world has never seen; a remarkable age, and distinguished for nothing so much as the manifestation of the Redeemer’s glory. When the sacred writers speak of it, it is in weighty thoughts and glowing imagery. " As I live, saith the Lord, the whole earth shall be filled with my glory. All the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the Lord. All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name. It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear. From the rising of the sun even to the going clown of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles. I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the Dragon, that old Serpent, and bound him a thousand years; and cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up, and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years should be fulfilled." Such are a very few of the many passages of Scripture which describe these coming days. Theological writers have been accustomed to speak of this period as the Latter-Day Glory; as the Millennium of holiness and happiness; and as the Millennial Reign or Christ upon the earth. From the fact that the scriptural descriptions of this period are for the most part figurative and symbolical, there has been and still is a difference of opinion in relation to some of its leading characteristics. While by far the greater portion of the church of God "believe that it is purely a spiritual reign of Christ that is here spoken of, not a few advocate the view that it is the reign of Christ in his own proper person. The former are decided in their judgment by the figurative and symbolic language which speaks of his Millennial glory; by other truths and facts which they deem inconsistent with Christ’s personal advent, and by the general scope and spirit of the Sacred Writings. The latter rest their conclusions upon the more literal import of the language which speaks of that period itself. This question is assuming such grave importance in our own land, and moreover has so intimate a relation to the conversion of the world, that we shall devote a few thoughts to the consideration of it, before we present the scriptural characteristics of the Millennium itself. The views of those who adopt the opinion of Christ’s personal reign upon the earth cannot be so clearly and intelligibly stated, as they might be if the advocates of them did not differ so widely among themselves. Those which come under review in the following chapter may be thus represented. In general terms they affirm, that at some subsequent age of the world Jesus Christ will descend in Person upon this earth, and here establish a visible and temporal kingdom, of which he himself will be the reigning Prince: — That the saints of all past generations will then be raised from the dead, be associated with him in this visible empire, hold places of power and authority under him as their Head, and with him possess the kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven: — That the particular place where this kingdom is to be established, is the Holy Land; Jerusalem is to be its recognized capital, and here the Palace of the Great King is to be erected: — That here all the tribes of Hebrew origin, and all the nations of the earth are to be assembled, and are to come up to worship the true God; and that for this purpose the order of Jewish Priests and Levites is to be restored, the altars and sacrifices of the Levitical Law renewed, and new revelations of God’s will to be made known: — That during this visible reign of Christ and his saints upon the earth, the anti-christian powers and wicked men who will not submit to his dominion are, at different times and in different places to be judged and destroyed, and that this is the day of judgment of which the Scriptures speak: — That this visible reign of Christ and his saints on the earth is to continue forever: — That the race will increase and multiply just as it does now, except that men will no longer be born in sin: — that this world will never come to an end, but be purified, made beautiful and immortal, and the everlasting residence of the righteous: — That men will always continue to be regenerated and sanctified, and thus the redemption of the race go on perpetually; and that the time when Christ will thus come to make these visible manifestations is near at hand, and may not irrationally be considered as the attendant, or the last scene in the drama of the age in which we live.

This, so far as I have been able to collect it, from volumes not a few, is the prevalent theory of what is called the pre-millennial advent. It holds that the time of Christ’s second coming with all these attendants and sequences is not at the close of the Millennium, but before that period. We have not designedly misrepresented this theory; we have not caricatured it; we have not colored it by any additions, or imaginations of our own. We have not presented it in its fulness; we could not do so without writing a volume.

We do not believe it is necessary for us to say, that we have no sympathies with this anti-scriptural theory. With the single exception of the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, on which we now express no opinion, and which is not a necessary part of the theory, we do not believe that it is anywhere taught in the Scriptures.

There are two ways of refuting the manifold errors of this strange system. The one is by a patient and critical examination of the passages of Scripture which are relied on for its support. This is too tedious a process for such a work as that to which these pages are devoted; nor could it be interesting to the great mass of readers. This has been done, and ably and conclusively done already. The other method is to bring the theory to the test of those acknowledged principles and truths of the gospel with which it is at variance. The truths of God’s word are unchanging things. There are truths so clearly revealed, and so important, that the theory, or interpretation which calls them in question must always be regarded as false. It is a safe law of Scriptural interpretation thus to " compare spiritual things with spiritual;" it is one of the first and best of all laws; one which is addressed to the popular mind; and one which cannot be controlled by any systems of Literalism or Symbolization. Of how little consequence is any theory of symbolical and figurative, or literal interpretation, which should, for example, come in collision with the doctrine of God’s existence; or the perfection of his purposes and government; or the doctrine of human depravity; or the Deity and atonement of Christ! These are settled truths; the theory and interpretation that calls them in question must be unsound and false, however learnedly and ingeniously supported. Now there are features in this theory of Christ’s pre-millennial advent which, though not at war with the truths just mentioned, are directly at war with other truths equally undeniable. Men who adopt theories of interpretation which lead to these results, are not to be reasoned with except as those who deny important truths in God’s word, and important principles as sanctioned by the great mass of Christians, and as expressed in the Confessions of Faith of the Reformed churches. We must necessarily present a very brief illustration of these thoughts; and although in this illustration, even if more extended, you would have but a part of our objections to pre-millenarian theory, we hope that, partial as it is, it may furnish some protection against errors to which good men in the present age of excitement are not a little exposed.

I. Our first objection against this theory then is, that the great principle which it assumes in its interpretation of the Scriptures on this subject is a false principle. That principle is the law of rigidly literal interpretation than which nothing can be more preposterous. All agree that the Scriptures ought to be so interpreted as to express the mind of their Author, and the sense which the writers of them intended to convey. If the sacred writers were divinely inspired, they cannot be inconsistent with themselves. If there be doubtful and obscure passages in their writings, they are to be rendered clear and intelligible by those that are not obscure and doubtful. A metaphorical or symbolical passage may receive light from one that is literal; while one that is literal may receive light, force, and beauty, from those that are expressed in symbols and metaphor. The simplest interpretation, and that which presents itself most naturally to the mind, is often that which regards the passage as purely symbolical or figurative. It may require great art and subtlety, and great research, in order to justify a literal interpretation of some passages on the subject of the Millennium; while the true import of the figures and symbols they contain, is discovered with perfect facility. "The true sense is the necessary sense;" and we only wonder when we come to perceive it, that we did not perceive it before. There are passages which, if literally interpreted, would go the whole length of the statement we have already given, of the Pre-Millennial Advent; but the question is, is the literal construction the fair and true construction; or do they require some other construction, demanded by the subject, and which must necessarily be adopted, in order to make the sacred writers consistent with themselves? To affirm a literal construction of those passages which are professedly contained in the most figurative and symbolical books of the Scriptures, would go far toward destroying all the fixed laws of sound interpretation. This would be to make prose of poetry, and bold imagery as though it were doctrinal statement. No sober man would interpret such passages as one would interpret a law, a deed, a contract, or a last will and testament. To do so would be a perversion of language, and an outrage upon common sense and common honesty. The true principle of interpreting the word of God, so far as the question of literal construction is concerned, is to interpret those passages literally, which their authors designed should be thus interpreted. Enthusiasm and fanaticism would have nothing to restrain them, if allowed to put a literal construction upon those parts of the Bible which the Holy Spirit never designed should receive such a construction. If objects and events are represented to the sacred writers in a vision and are described in all the richness of imagery and glow of emotion which prophetic pens could command; instead of overlooking this fact in our interpretation, we are bound, so far as thought and piety and prayer will enable us to do so, to enter into their views and emotions. The intellect and the heart will then be in perfect coincidence; and what is true to both, will be true to the word of God.

It is easy to affirm that the prophetic and apocalyptical writings which speak of the Millennium are free from figures and symbols, and are altogether literal. Yet on this mere assumption rests the whole hypothesis of the pre-millennial advent. The strength of this argument lies in this rigid and literal interpretation, while the propriety of such an interpretation has nothing in the world to support it, but the strength with which it is repeatedly asserted. As we shall have frequent occasion to make use of these observations in the present discussion, we will illustrate our meaning. The representation, for example, which speaks of " all nations flowing to Mount Zion;" which speaks of God’s "gathering all nations and tongues," and of their " coming and seeing his glory in Jerusalem," cannot be construed literally, because it is not possible for all nations ever to go up to Jerusalem. In view of this difficulty, the advocates of this theory are constrained to abandon their own position of literal construction, and to concede that all nations will thus worship at Jerusalem in the presence of Christ, only by some selected representation, or delegation of all nations! Their theory fails them; and if it fails them in this instance, why may it not be fallible in others? Kindred prophecies speak of priests and Levites, and of the offering of sacrifices, as under the law; yet the Apostle Paul assures us that these sacrifices " have ceased to be offered;" that " God hath taken them away;" that under the Christian dispensation " there is an annulling of them;" and that by "one offering Christ hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." If literalism is thus to Judaize the church of God in the days of her millennial glory, may we, with impunity, give it our confidence? Paul says to the Hebrews, "Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burneth with fire; but ye are come to Mount Zion, and unto the City of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels." This declaration is true; but in what sense is it true? It is not true that the Hebrews were literally " come to Mount Zion;" for they were a persecuted people, scattered over Palestine and other lands. It is not true that they " were come to an innumerable company of angels;" for they were not in heaven where angels dwell. It is not true that they " were come to the general assembly and church of the First Born which are written in heaven," "and to the spirits of just men made perfect;" for they were still residents on the earth. But it is true, that instead of living under the law of terror, they were under the gospel of peace; instead of living under the Mosaic they enjoyed the Christian dispensation; instead of belonging to the earthly, they were initiated into the citizenship of the spiritual Jerusalem: they belonged to the same society with angels, and all holy men living and dead; were one with them, under the same Prince and Head, whose blood of sprinkling had purchased for them these rights and this denizenship, and to whom they were all joined in one spirit. Paul speaks of true believers, whether Jew or Gentile, as " the Israel of God;" — as " the circumcision who worship God in the spirit;" and as " a chosen generation and royal priesthood."

It is yet more to our purpose to remark, that not a few of those passages on which pre-millenarians rely for proof of their doctrine, are interpreted by the Apostles themselves not in a literal, but a figurative sense. When James, at the general Synod in Jerusalem, quotes the passage from the prophet Amos, " In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David and close up the breaches thereof," he expounds it as relating, not to a temporal kingdom, but the Christian Church; and makes use of it to prove the abolition of Jewish rites. When Paul, in writing to the Hebrews, adverts to the prediction of the Prophet Jeremiah, in which God declares that he will " make a new covenant with the house of Israel not according to the covenant which he made with their Fathers" he refers to it in order to show that the gospel dispensation supersedes the Jewish, and that the prediction itself is accomplished in the introduction of the gospel dispensation. When the same apostle, in writing to the Galatians, refers to that emphatic prophecy of Isaiah, "Sing O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing thou that didst not travail with child," he applies it to the New Testament Church, and is instituting the contrast between the church under the new, with the church under the old dispensation. The following prediction in Hosea, " Then said God, Call his name Loammi; for ye are not my people neither will I be your God; yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered, nor measured; and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them. Ye also are the sons of the living God;" the same apostle declares to have been fulfilled in the calling of the Gentile Church. There is no truth more clearly revealed in the New Testament than that, " They are not all Israel who are of Israel; neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children." Let them belong to what nation they may, they are only those who are believers in his Son who are God’s people — "sometime afar off," but " made nigh by the blood of Christ." So when the Prophet Zechariah speaks of " the man whose name is the Branch" as " building the Temple" — " sitting upon his throne" — and " a Priest upon his throne;" we are confident that the prediction is not to be interpreted literally, because Jesus Christ did not literally build the Temple, nor literally sit upon the throne of David, nor literally minister as the High Priest. Yet is the prediction fulfilled in the establishment and extension of his spiritual kingdom, and in his ministrations as the great High Priest of the Christian profession. We deem it of some importance in our argument that the literal interpretation of the prophecies on the subject of the Redeemer’s kingdom did not receive the least countenance from the Apostles; so far from this, they gave them a spiritual construction, and understood them figuratively and in a Christian sense. Though not verbally and literally true, therefore, these and other analogous predictions and descriptions express great and precious truths. Great and precious truths also are expressed by the figurative and symbolical representations of the Millennium, truths which the literal construction perverts and annihilates. The literal construction of this subject is the most arbitrary construction in the world. Such a view of human language as this theory adopts is incompatible with the very design of language. They are most certainly mistaken views which result from them; nor is there any end to the mistakes which have been made in resorting to the doctrine of literal construction. If the nature of the subject, the object of the sacred writers, their consistency with themselves, and the analogy of faith have anything to do in interpreting the Scriptures; the arbitrary law of literal construction must be given up. Nor is there any intimation in any of the scriptural descriptions of the millennial glory of the Son of God, that the language is to be thus literally understood. We have read labored dissertations on the laws of symbols and metaphors; we have observed the impatience their authors manifest because the Christian world does not bow to this dictation; we have noticed with some surprise the indecorous epithets with which they stigmatize those who differ from them as unlearned and ignorant men; but we have not found their system supported by the Bible. More especially in its application to the supposed pre-millennial advent of Christ, is it unsupported by a single proof text, a single declaration of the Scriptures, which, if properly explained, does not sustain the opposite doctrine. We give them credit for no small ingenuity and critical research, and patient labor, and great zeal; but they are distorted views which they express, and rest on no secure foundation. The subject is not a difficult one, if we consent to take the Scriptures as a whole. It is one which most certainly calls for a patient reading of the Scriptures; but the path of inquiry is a plain and simple path. Our adorable Master, when he spake of the future world did not speak in ambiguous language. There is great sublimity in his teaching, but no obscurity, unless we are on the lookout for forced and subtle interpretations. All we ask is, that intelligent and devout minds should take a common sense view of the instructions of the whole Bible on this subject. If it be true that the Son of Man is to descend from heaven before he descends to judge the living and the dead; that he is to establish his throne in Jerusalem, and there introduce the worn-out rites and sacrifices of the Jewish law, and give his sanction to a system of services which he himself abolished more than eighteen centuries ago; if it be true that he is then to raise the pious dead of all generations, and that they are thus to reign with him forever on this earth; and that those who are alive at his advent are to remain in immortal and unglorified bodies, and to perpetuate their race; we have a right to demand chapter and verse for such theories.

It must be a forced construction of the Bible, a forced literalism and a forced symbolization combined, that proves such things as these. If they seem to be contained in the words of the sacred writers, taken by themselves, they express a sense which the writers themselves never entertained. They are errors of no ordinary kind, and lead to errors still more seductive, and that wax worse and worse. We marvel not a little that their advocates are not alarmed for their own hallucination, and do not shrink from the abyss into which they are plunging. It is due, not to the boldness of which these discussions are a specimen, but to the sober thoughts of the Christian community, and their love of the truth, that these errors have not more deeply imbued the American mind. There are those who have listened to them and followed them; but we are not without hope, that, like others who have listened and followed for a while, they will be glad to return, with elastic force, to the plain and safe instructions of the Bible.

2. Our second objection to the theory is, that it obscures the spirituality of Christs kingdom. Jesus Christ has now a kingdom on the earth. It has been long established in this apostate world; has attained to great enlargement, and will eventually cover the earth. When the great Founder of it left this world, his kingdom did not die. When apostles and martyrs died, this kingdom lived. When the reformers died, still it lived. When we and other generations die, it will live still. " Of the increase of this kingdom and government there shall be no end. Christ must reign until all things are put under his feet." It is the same kingdom now which existed in the days that are past; it will be the same kingdom during the millennium; the same forever. It does not change like the kingdoms of time; it is " A KINGDOM WHICH CANNOT BE MOVED." Its Prince, its subjects, its laws, its privileges, its rewards, are ever the same. It began in Jerusalem, is now being extended over the earth, and will be more extended in the latter days, and perpetuated in heaven. The great characteristic of this kingdom is, that it is a spiritual in distinction from a temporal and visible reign. When the Saviour founded it, he made the open avowal, " My kingdom is not of this world." When his disciples misunderstood its nature, he instructed them by the declaration, "The kingdom of God is within you." When the opinion was prevalent that it was limited to a particular locality, he uttered the truth, "the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." When men looked for its advancement amid the pompous decorations of earth and earthly power, he told them, " The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." When two of his favored followers preferred the request that they " might sit, the one on his right hand and the other on his left in his kingdom," he replied, " Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" He told them all that they should live and reign with him, but that it should not be here in this world; but that both they and all his followers to the end of time, should reign with him at the right hand of God. He never intimated to them that they should leave those high abodes, and that angel presence, and those blissful interchanges of thought and affection, and that overshadowing of the ineffable glory, and come down to reign on this earth doomed to fire. He desired they should reign with him, and where he reigned. His prayer for those who were first given to him, and for " all those who should believe on him through their word," was, that " they might be with him where he is, and behold his glory." This great characteristic of his kingdom, its holy and divine spirituality, is made as prominent as the Scriptures can make it. The passages multiply on every side, which assert and illustrate this great and important thought. Light and love are its distinctive features; wherever these are found, there is his kingdom; and though they exist in an imperfect state in the present world, there exist here the elementary preparations for it in heaven. This great truth, therefore, is to be carried into all our interpretations of those Scriptures which speak of his kingdom, whether now existing on the earth, or existing during the millennium. The glory of this spiritual reign is expressed to us not infrequently by figures and emblems and symbols addressed to our senses, because we are creatures of sense. They are instructive and affecting representations, if we carry this great truth along with us in order to interpret them; but without this, we make havoc of the word of God. This great truth is worth all the literalism and all the algebraic laws of symbolization in the world. No man supposes that the sea of glass, — the streets of the New Jerusalem, — the river of life, — the trees on its banks, — the terraces of the city sparkling with precious stones, — the gates of pearl, — the harps of gold and the white linen of the saints, are anything more than emblems of the beauty, purity, and bliss of this heavenly and spiritual kingdom. Nor does any man suppose that when the same writer, in the same metaphorical language, speaks of an "angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand," and of his "laying hold on the Dragon, that old Serpent, and binding him a thousand years, and casting him into the bottomless pit, and setting a seal upon him," that there was literally any such angel — or key, — or chain — or dragon — or seal. The meaning is, that the time is coming when Satan’s power on the earth shall be divinely and effectively restrained. And when the same writer proceeds in the next sentence to say that he " saw thrones, and they sat upon them; and the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, nor in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years;" no one supposes that these were literal thrones; nor any person that sat upon them; nor any least; nor image; nor any mark upon the forehead or hands. It was all a vision, and was designed to teach such truths as enlightened and devout minds would receive. The writer is speaking of the thousand years when the power of Satan should not only be restricted, but the power of piety revived, and the kingdom of Christ greatly advanced. The whole passage cannot be understood literally, without the most preposterous conclusions. We have a key that unlocks the whole, in the spirituality of Christs kingdom in all its progress through the millennium It was a most beautiful vision; it was piety predominant on the earth; it was the spirit of noble and martyred men living in their successors; men who had no alliance with anti-christian powers, or with wickedness. It was a resurrection of long-decayed principles in the hearts of the blessed and the holy, living and reigning with Christ on the earth, as he had not lived and reigned since the days of Pentecost; as indeed he had never lived and reigned before. It was a new creation in which God creates Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

Pre-millenarians insist on a literal construction of a vision! Very well; we hold them to this construction. What was it that John saw? " I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus." He did not see the bodies of these witnesses. It was not therefore a bodily resurrection. Literalists should abide the consequence of their own rigid interpretation; if they do so, so far as this passage is concerned, they must confess their error. John says of these souls that they lived, not that they lived again: he simply saw the souls of the witnesses alive. Their testimony was living; there was a new race of witnesses for the truth. No, it was not the bodies and persons of departed saints which were seen rising from the mighty abyss of the past. They were the souls that were thus seen coming up — everywhere coming up — from the gulf of bygone ages. They were souls which never die, and of which no literal resurrection can be predicted; they were minds, bright, and pure, and spiritual minds, multiplying on the earth, influencing it by their piety, enjoying unwonted fellowship with their exalted Saviour, falling in and co-operating with his designs of mercy, and extending his dominion over the children of men.

Nothing is more obvious than that the theory of Christ’s pre-millennial advent and personal reign, obscures the beautiful spirituality of his kingdom. We are told that when he comes, there is to be a splendid and magnificent temple erected for him on Mount Zion; that Jerusalem is to be rebuilt, and enlarged, and adorned with magnificence; that " he is literally to assail his enemies with the instruments of destruction," and fight with them as he fought in the day of battle," and thus showing himself the great warrior of his age. So thought the Jews in relation to our Lord’s first advent. They were literalists; nothing suited their taste but the visible manifestations of temporal royalty. Christ’s own disciples were imbued with this expectation, even after his resurrection, and until after the day of Pentecost, when they were in the highest sense "endued with power from on high." We know how prejudicial this notion was to the early propagation of the gospel; nor is the theory of modern literalists less ruinous. The day of Pentecost effected a radical cure of this evil in the minds of the disciples; and we marvel not a little that the glorious " ministration of the Spirit," does not eradicate the kindred error from the minds of those who are so intent on the personal and premillennial advent of the Son of Man.

How adverse is all this from the millennial reign of the Son of God, as described in the Scriptures! Give his spiritual kingdom the place which the Bible gives it, and you kill this theory at once. It has nothing to support it but a vain imagination, that congratulates itself in an empire decked with all the gorgeous royalty of this world, rather than one which is not meat and drink, but " righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." The world has seen in recent treatises from the press, how such an imagination misinterprets that sweet passage, " The Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." One would scarcely believe that an intelligent writer would, from such a passage, draw the conclusion that the prophet is speaking of literal nutriment to the body; yet such is the fact. Why not carry the principle through, and affirm that when the Psalmist says, " He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters," the language is to be literally interpreted? Why not apply it to the words of Paul, when he says, " I have fed you with milk, and not with strong meat, because hitherto ye were not able to bear it?" Is it not better to let the Scriptures interpret their own metaphors? There is no more difficulty in interpreting the passage, " In this mountain hath the Lord of hosts spread a feast of fat things, of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined," than there is in interpreting the passage, " I will give them pastors after mine own heart, who shall feed them with knowledge and understanding." We have no confidence in such views of the kingdom of Christ. His designs are above this. The gospel will not have free course, nor Christians be comforted and instructed, nor God’s enemies humbled and subdued by such prospects.

Ye may not utter all the objections in their full force to this sentimental, tender, and pathetic theory. We are instructed by the great Teacher, that " except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Some of the features of modern Millenarians are not difficult to be seen; nor are they altogether revolting to the natural heart. We are told that " that which is born of the flesh is flesh;" nor may we forget the truth that in the resurrection " they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God." It is the antispiritual view of Christ’s kingdom which imparts attractiveness to it which God himself has not given. We do not wonder that a theory which thus addresses itself to creatures of sense should produce excitement in the world. We do not wonder at the preposterous views concerning it in the first three centuries, nor that it sunk in silence under the burden of its own unworthiness and absurdities. We do not wonder at the wickedness of the Anabaptists of Munster, nor at the legal enactments against them; nor at the tragical issue of the " celestial republic" of John of Leyden. Nor are we surprised at the extravagances of the men of the " Fifth Monarchy," during the time of Cromwell, establishing a " heavenly kingdom" on earth, which was the resort of Deism, infidelity, and crime. Nor do later errors of the same general family in our own land surprise us. We respectfully submit to good men, who, though they disclaim all participation in principles thus ruinous, yet advocate this antispiritual and literal theory; whether the fundamental principle of their system does not lead to such results, and whether the system they now oppose and which the Bible advocates, is not the safer system?

3. A third objection to this theory is that it gives undue and unwarranted influence to the mere Personal presence of Christ in the conversion of the world. It does not assign its proper place to the agencies in this work which already exist, and which God himself has appointed. When the Son of God ascended up on high, he bequeathed to his church all the agencies that are required for the extension and final triumph of his spiritual kingdom on the earth. These are the truths of his gospel and the omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit. Just in the measure in which these are enjoyed will men turn from the error of their ways to the wisdom of the just. We hold this to be a truth of universal application — everywhere and always in Christian, Antichristian, and Pagan lands, in present and future ages, down through the millennium and to the end of time. Just in the measure in which men withhold the gospel from their fellow-men, and God withholds his Spirit, will they everywhere and always remain " dead in trespasses and sins." This is the doctrine of the Bible, and one which is illustrated in every page of the world’s history, and deeply written in the hearts of all the people of God. No doctrine is more important, or more inseparable from the existence of true piety, or from the gospel itself In the same proportion in which this doctrine is obscured, the glory of the Prince and Saviour is cast into the shade or sunk in total eclipse; in the same proportion in which it is denied, the great moral argument in favor of the truth of Christianity loses its force, and the last and most brilliant chain in the series of facts on which it rests is broken. This is one of the grounds on which we stand in our opposition to the supposed premilleunium advent. We might have said more than that this theory does not assign its proper place to the truth and Spirit of God; but we should do violence to our own feelings to say more of those whom we have long known as the advocates of evangelical truth. Yet when a recent and able writer’ made this objection to the views on which we were animadverting, the leading organ in the expression of those views in this country repelled the imputation with indignant sensitiveness. Let us see how this matter stands, and whether, according to their own showing, tins indignant disclaimer will avail them. We affirm that they deny the sufficiency of God; revealed truth in the conversion of men; because they declare that at the period when the Jewish and Gentile nations are to be, as they suppose, assembled at Jerusalem, God " is to give them new revelations and institute new laws;" that " he is to make new communications of his will;" and that " these revelations of himself will be more efficient means than any others. Is not this a plain denial of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, and does it not unite all manner of pretensions to a new revelation? God declares that his word " is able to make men wise unto salvation;" this theory declares that it is not able. God declares that " Christ crucified is the power of God;" this theory makes the bold demand, " What can exceed the error that the cause in which Christ suffered cannot prevail and be victorious, unless the work is entrusted by him entirely to his cross?" And again it declares that " if Christ is not to come anterior to the conversion of the world, it is absolutely certain that it is never to be converted."

We have the same error expressed in somewhat a different form. We are told that in order to "bring the whole race to a full discernment of Gods being will obviously demand means far more influential than any that have hitherto been employed;" " that it will doubtless require the use of extraordinary means" — " new and peculiar means," without which the nations "must fail of adequate views." Is not this an avowal of their belief that there are to be new means of grace and salvation? Nor do these writers leave us in doubt as to what these new and extraordinary means are. They are comprised in the visible and personal appearing and manifestation of Christ on this earth. They speak of " the necessity of Christ’s interposition to make the gospel efficacious," and of his " interposing to convince and convert the nations." They affirm that " it is not the purpose of God to give essentially any greater efficacy to the means of grace than he heretofore has given," until Christ comes in Person; that " the universal prevalence of religion to be hereafter enjoyed is not to be effected by any increased impetus given to the present means of evangelizing the nations, but by a stupendous display of divine wrath upon all the " apostate and ungodly;"— that " the kingdom and universal church are to be established, not by gradual conversion more or less rapid under this dispensation, but by the Personal advent of our Lord himself, and all the remarkable events that accompany it;" — that " the rectifying comes at last, not by mercy, but by judgment; not by the sowing of grace, but by the sickle of vengeance; not by the extension of the gospel and the labors of its ministers, or any gracious instrumentality now at work but by the angels of God who are to accompany the Son of Man at his advent;" and that " it will consist not in resowing but in reaping the field." Nor may this class of writers protect themselves from the charge of error by saying that all they mean is, that these visible manifestations arrest the attention and wake up the minds of men to the divine claims; for they expressly affirm that they " are to excite love and submission."

While therefore the advocates of the Personal Reign repel this attendant upon their views, it must recoil upon them as a necessary result of their theory. When the question is asked. Will the Personal appearing of Christ on the earth exert no salutary influence? Is it unnatural to suppose that it should occasion an overwhelming sense of guilt in not having believed on him; and a realization of the necessity of submission, faith, and love in order to salvation? To this we reply in the language of Christ himself, " When he the Spirit of truth, is come, he will convince the world of sin." The Scriptures represent all true conviction of sin as produced by the Holy Spirit. " Lord, make me to know my transgression and my sin." We reply further, that these outward manifestations will not of themselves exert the least influence in the conversion of men. Were he to come again in the flesh, his Personal presence would have no more influence in subduing the hearts of his enemies than it had on the Jewish Sanhedrin, or Pontius Pilate. It might awaken the attention of men, it might produce the faith of the "intellect; but it would not touch the heart of rebellion. The solemn truth seems to be lost sight of that men are blind and dead in sin, and that no objective light converts the soul. Here lies the fallacy of the Premillenarian system in this particular article of its faith. It supposes that the unbelief of men is to be attributed to the want of objective light; whereas the true cause is subjective darkness and sin. Unbelief is never owing to the want of evidence, but to the want of an obedient heart. The burning splendor of the Millennium in its meridian glory would not convert a soul to God, unless the power of the Highest came down upon it, and the Holy Spirit take away the heart of stone and give the heart of flesh. To do this it is not necessary that Christ be personally present; his personal presence is supposed to be confined to Jerusalem. Yet he can do this in the Millennium just as he did it on the day of Pentecost. It will be no more difficult for him to convert the nations then than it was for him to convert Saul of Tarsus. This supposed efficacy of his Personal presence is the merest assumption in the world. It is worse, because it is false doctrine. The rich man in the parable thought that if one should go from the dead to his brethren, they would repent. The abettors of this theory, though they mean not so, are furnishing the world a new apology for its unbelief, and are unwittingly throwing up a strong entrenchment to defend the infidelity of the human heart. The faith of the gospel consists in believing it as it is revealed. If the light of truth is so essentially defective, men are justified in waiting for more evidence. It is not defective. Men deceive themselves when they suppose that Christ’s Personal presence will produce convictions that are not produced by that gospel which is now the power of God unto salvation. God has already given the world the best means of grace; if Christ’s personal presence had been more effective, he would never have left the earth and committed his kingdom here to the Comforter. The reason why he did not remain was, that he had selected a more excellent way, and a more fitting agent. Nor has he seen fit to amend, or alter this arrangement; nor will he during the Millennium. The "Ministration of the Spirit" is to introduce and perfect that era of glory, and is to continue until the last heir of his spiritual Kingdom is gathered in. There will be no other dispensation until the unchanging dispensation of eternity. The presence of the Comforter was forever to supersede the presence of Christ among men; and therefore it " was expedient that he should go away." In this beautiful feature of his redemption, the Millenarians have a controversy with Christ. Their theory is a fiction of their own, however ardent the piety from which it may flow, and however attractive to the imagination. What should induce them to believe, that the Personal presence of the Son of Man in Jerusalem, or in the clouds of heaven, or on the throne of judgment, or anywhere else, would be rightly regarded by men who will not regard the testimony of God in his word, it is not easy to divine. " Let not God speak with us lest we die." God told Moses he could not behold the fulness of his glory; no man can see his face and live. His presence on the Mount of Transfiguration made his own disciples afraid. The wicked would be filled with terror at such a view; they would tremble and turn pale; they would cry to the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them; but they would neither love, nor adore him. The man who remains unconvinced and at enmity with God, unsanctified and hopeless amid all the light of the Gospel, and in this world of the effusions of the divine Spirit, and amid these consecrated altars and ordinances, will not find holiness and hope from such scenes. Such scenes would disclose nothing more than is already revealed in the Bible; they would only be the Bible over again, except under circumstances not so well fitted to be the subject of serious reflection, or to impress the mind. Christ’s Personal presence is superfluous to the great objects which the Scriptural Millennium aims at. Christians in the Millennium, as in all ages, will walk by faith and not by sight. A spiritual mind needs nothing more than faith’s view; it asks no more than those views of Christ which are here imparted by the Holy Spirit. Why should they desire his Personal reign in the Millennium? Faith will then exert its high moral influences on themselves, and on all their efforts for the advancement of their ascended Saviour’s glory. " Because thou hast seen me thou hast believed; blessed are they who have not seen and yet believed." It is the high character of saving faith, to believe in an unseen Saviour: " whom having not seen we love; in whom, though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

4. Our fourth objection to this theory is, that it denies the General Judgment and the final destruction of this material world. It is not necessary for us to prove that " God hath appointed a Day in which he will judge the world in righteousness;" that " the dead, small, and great shall stand before God;" that " the sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and death and hell deliver up the dead which are in them;" that before the Son of Man shall at last " be gathered all nations," and that he shall " separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats;" and that the sentence shall then be carried into execution by which " these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Nor do we suppose that it is necessary for us to prove, that at the close of this scene, " the heavens shall vanish away "like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment;" that the heavens shall pass away with a " great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also, and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up;" that all these things shall be " dissolved," and that " before the face of him who sits upon the throne, the heavens and the earth shall flee away, and there shall be found no place for them."

There are so many important ends in the divine government to be secured by this arrangement, that to deny it is a virtual attempt to disturb the pillars by which it is supported, mar its symmetry, and deface its beauty. No judgment of individual men, as such, or individual nations, can answer the end of a general judgment. That man does not preach the same gospel which Christ and his Apostles preached who denies, or even obscures this great truth. We have all our lifetime read the Scriptures in vain, if they do not instruct us that Christ’s second coming is his coming to the judgment, and if they do not connect the final and irrevocable sentence of the righteous and the wicked with his second coming. They speak only of a first and second coming; the first to save, the second to judge. The twentieth chapter of the Revelation makes it perfectly clear, that his coming to judgment is after the Millennium. If his coming to judgment is his second coming, there is no such event revealed therefore as his Premillennial Advent. There is no Advent until the judgment, and this will be the second and the last. The great event which the departed of all ages are next to look for is not the coming of their Divine Lord to establish a kingdom on the earth and there to reign with him; it is the judgment. " It is appointed unto men once to die; after that the judgment." It is not his coming to introduce, and extend and perpetuate his reign on the earth; but to bring it to its august conclusions, and announce the issues of that kingdom which he set up when he rose from the dead. It is not to convert his enemies, but to bring his kingdom of grace on the earth to an end and pronounce the sentence that puts their conversion beyond hope. It is to erect the indestructible barrier between eternity and time by striking time out of existence, and then sinking the impassable gulf. The Scriptures utter these truths as among the most important they ever utter; so that men may appreciate the privileges of the kingdom which Christ has already set up in the world; may know the value of time while it lasts, and the true worth of this world before it shall melt away with fervent heat.

Yet these truths are denied by the Premillennial theory. It does indeed recognize a judgment, but no such " Great Day" of judgment as that to which the Scriptures give such emphasis. It makes the judgment consist in the personal rule and authority of Christ during the thousand years. It does this professedly, and as it seems to us, treats with disdain and contempt the idea of the General Judgment. It argues this question deliberately and calls upon us to prove, that when Christ affirms that he will gather all nations before him in order to hear his sentence and their doom, he means all the nations of the earth. We have no desire to prove so plain a truth, except by such Scriptures as we have just referred to. Men who deny the plain and obvious sense of such declarations, and yet whose whole theory rests upon the doctrine of literal construction cannot be reasoned with. And what astonishing coolness is it with which they confront the Bible, and endeavor to show that this world will not at last be burnt up and destroyed! They tell us that the Personal reign of Christ on the earth " is to extend through eternal ages;" — that " it is to be exercised over all the world through endless ages;" and that the Scriptures " do not teach that the world is to be burned up, nor that the righteous are to be taken to heaven." We have their reasoning, if reasoning it may be called, in such sentences as the following: " Were the world to be destroyed, because Satan has held dominion over it; or the race intercepted from multiplying, and transported to some other scenes of existence on the ground that the earth had become unfit for their residence because of the curse brought upon it by sin; would it not be a triumph to Satan?" Again, " Christ is to work a perfect remedy of the disorder and ruin brought on man and the world by revolt, not by putting an end to the multiplication of the race, nor by striking the earth from existence, but by rescuing them from the dominion of sin, and causing the race to continue as it would have done if it had not fallen." What would the noble man have thought of a future state in which the righteous are to live and reign forever on this earth, and increase and multiply just as they do now, who wrote of " a better country that is an heavenly," and taught the world that " flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God?" What would a greater than he have thought of it, who uttered the words, " In my Fathers house are many mansions I go to prepare a place for you." What would the Apostle Peter have thought of it when he said, " Looking for, and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?" What would he say to the miserable subterfuge of its advocates, who in order to protect the righteous from the desolating effects of the fiery judgments which, according to their own theory", are to come upon the wicked, are driven to the conviction that the final conflagration will be partial, and limited to scenes where the destruction of the wicked will not endanger the righteous! We marvel not that the abettors of this theory speak of new revelations? May it not be that, in their enthusiastic eagerness, they themselves have anticipated those extraordinary instructions from heaven which they so distinctly intimate will be revealed during the supposed Personal reign of Christ on the earth? We must indeed have a new Bible before we can believe any of these things. Are they not a mere human device, originating in the love of novelty, fostered by the self-complacency of a severe and imperious criticism upon long received and well fortified opinions, and fitted only to mislead minds that are " carried about by every wind of doctrine?" Most fervently do we wish that our respect for the advocates of this theory could restrain us from saying that it is anything better than ingenious and learned trifling with the word of God.

5. Our fifth objection to this theory is, that it is inconsistent with the scriptural narrative of those events which are to take place between the Millennium and the end of the world. The 20th chapter of the Book of the Revelation furnishes the following brief, but comprehensive narrative. "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the Beast and the False Prophet are, and they shall be tormented day and night forever and ever." Immediately after this, the sacred writer proceeds in highly symbolical language to describe the Day of Judgment. " And I saw a great white throne — and the dead small and great stand before God — and the books were opened, and the dead were judged." There are several things in this narrative that are absolutely fatal to the hypothesis of the Premillennial advent. In the first place. it speaks of events that are to take place on this earth; and affirms the thousand years of the Saviour’s reign upon it are to have an end; " when the thousand years are expired." This the millenarians deny, as we have before seen. In the next place, it affirms that the judgment will not take place until the dose of the thousand years; it was not until the thousand years had expired; that the books were opened, and every man judged according to his works. This also millenarians deny. And in the third place, it speaks of a great and final conflict between the powers of light and the powers of darkness, which is to take place between the close of the millennial reign and the subsequent and second coming of the Son of Man. This the millenarians also deny; and affirm that the final battle is to take place long before, and when Christ comes in Person to introduce the millennial reign and to establish his kingdom. Will they explain these incoherences in their theory: will they inform us how it is, upon their hypothesis, that the spirit of Antichrist is to rise again in the earth, after the thousand years are expired? Will they inform us how it is that the great and final conflict which they assign to a period previous to the Millennium, John speaks of as after the Millennium! Nor is this all. In the 21st chapter of the same book, we have the following narrative. " And I John saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem come down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." The writer then proceeds to describe in language that is too grand and symbolical to admit of comment, the beauty and glory of the heavenly world. This whole narrative is equally fatal to the Premillennial theory. It affirms that the first heaven and first earth are passed away; which this theory denies. It affirms that the great and glorious scenes and events which it speaks of are realized not until after the judgment. This also millenarians deny, and declare that they are realized during the thousand years of Christ’s Personal reign on the earth. Will they explain these inconsistencies between the inspired writer and their own hypothesis?

6. Our sixth and last objection to this theory is, that it is fitted to produce mischievous and fanatical impressions upon the minds of men in relation to the period of Christs second coming. There is no doubt that the dawn of the true Millennium, and that of which the Scriptures speak, is not far distant, and that God is now rapidly preparing the way for it by the diffusion of his gospel, and the political agitations of the earth. Nor is there anything in this prospect but is fitted to exert the most animating influence on the human mind. But the Millennium becomes a very different thing from what it will be in reality, when it is assumed to be such as it is described by the advocates of the Premillennial advent. Yet the same predictions and the same signs of the times which the Scriptures specify as indicative of the approach of the universal reign of holiness on the earth for a thousand years, millenarians regard as indicative of Christ’s final coming in the glory of his Father and with his angels to commence the reign of eternity. Hence they proclaim their belief that that coming day is near. They proclaim it from the press; they proclaim it from the pulpit; and we ourselves have heard some of the most intelligent and best informed among them, and men whose personal character and worth might well give weight to their convictions, declare that they were expectants of his coming, could truly say that they held themselves in the attitude of waiting for the Lord’s last advent. We know well that such men have no sympathies with the ravings of the mad prophet who has driven so many persons in this land to folly, and disappointment, and despair, and the madhouse, and that they disclaim all alliance with such extravagances. But we repeat the thought, does it not behoove them to inquire if this millennial furor is not a legitimate deduction from their own avowed principles, and whether they can throw off the responsibility of leading so many weak minds astray, and furnishing arguments in favor of their abused hypothesis to minds that are more wicked than weak?

Many are the generations, and many the centuries that will pass over the earth before the final coming of the Son of Man. Those who love him will welcome his coming whenever, and however he shall appear. His coming is virtually to every man at death, because his destiny is then unalterably decided, and his account sealed up for eternity. His actual coming " knoweth no man, no, not the angels in heaven, but the Father only." The harvest of the earth is not fully ripe. Great and important events are yet to take place, before the command is given, " thrust ye in the sickle;" and great preparations are yet to be made for that solemn catastrophe. The plans of heavenly wisdom are too vast to be consummated in a day; " the end is not yet."

We have thus presented our objections to the hypothesis of the Premillennial advent. We have omitted several strong points in the discussion, from necessity. It is unhappy that at this age of the world the church of God should be called on to go into a question which has been so often discussed, and one which we have long supposed put at rest. Forty years ago, there was not, to the best of my knowledge, but two men in New England who advocated this theory; and their works were deemed unworthy of notice. They are crude views; and though persisted in honestly at the present day, I confess I do not see for what good end.

If you ask me, Is there then to be no Millennium? I answer there is; there is a day coming when the Great Prince and Saviour will reign gloriously over this earth. What is the nature of that reign, and what the leading characteristics of that coming age, we shall endeavor to show in our next chapter.