not. Mat. xxiv. 38. When the women bewailed and lamented him on his way to crucifixion, his sympathizing heart turned at once from his own sufferings to the sorrows coming upon them, Luke xxiii. 28, and his prayer when nailed to the tree, was for his murderers: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Luke xiii. 34. In short he made himself one entire offering and sacrifice for the sins of others, that he might procure for those who rejected and crucified him everlasting salvation! O unequalled love! O glorious example! Blessed Jesus! give to all thy disciples grace to tread in thy steps, and with thy faithfulness, sympathy, love and self-sacrifice, to look at all thy purposes towards thy church.

But it was not merely in the dark prospect of judgment that our Saviour furnishes such a lesson for us in these days-but also in the bright prospect of glory yet to come, he bids us lift up our heads. How sweet and rich the promises which open his sermon on the mount! how enlarged the spirit of prayer which he taught us daily to use-hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven! how often he presented the richest glories of that kingdom as an animating object of hope, (Mat. v. 2-10; xiii. 43; xix. 28. Luke xxii. 28-30), and when he rose again and was seen of his apostles forty days, the subject of his intercourse during that period was the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. O may we never despise, or slight, or neglect that glorious hope which occupied the mind, and engaged the converse of our divine Lord and his apostles, during that most interesting period which intervened between his resurrection and ascension.

Our prevailing views as Christians should be cheer ful, hopeful, and joyful. Lift up your head, for your redemption draweth nigh. The present state of the world is full of sin and full of misery, the whole world lieth in the wicked one; the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now; but this state shall not long continue; the word of God leads us to anticipate, after the throes and pains of these last days, the manifestation of the sons of God, and the creature itself-delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

While then we sigh over the sins which we witness, and with all the earnestness, pity, and sympathy, like Noah of old, testify to the worldly and the wicked their danger, and the aggravated condemnation of those who hold the truth in unrighteousness; we cannot but rejoice in the conviction that the time is short;-soon the Saviour returns, and though it be first to punish the wicked, yet, beyond that dark scene, all is light and love, glory and blessedness to the church of the living God, and ultimately to the whole world.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MILLENNIUM AND FIRST RESURRECTION.

THE millennium, means a thousand years, It is the period predicted under that name by St. John in the 20th Chapter of Revelation. The first Resurrection is the event there predicted, the souls of those who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their forehead, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years—but the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished, is the first resurrection.

This

On this prediction there are various opinions : some think it past, though they differ in their exposition of its meaning. But the most general opinion of modern divines has been that it is designed to point out a spiritual resurrection of men animated by the spirit of the martyrs and a happy spiritual state of the church yet to come.

On a subject, yet as the author is persuaded, unfulfilled, and which from the early ages of the church, has occasioned so many differences of opinion, modesty of sentiment especially becomes us. It may

be well here rather to let others, and especially to let the Holy Scriptures speak, than to enter into any lengthened detail of reasons which lead the author to think that the first resurrection (Rev. xx.) is a literal, rather than a spiritual one. Some of those indeed who have pleaded most earnestly for its being a spiritual resurrection, (as Bishop Hall and the late Mr. Gipps) consider it as already past. So that Bishop Hall said nearly 200 years ago, in his Revelation Unrevealed, one of the strongest works against Millennarians, "For my part, I am persuaded in my soul, that the coming of our Saviour is near at hand." It seems as if God would lead his church to prepare for the coming Saviour, whatever views they may take of that which follows his coming.

Those who look upon Millennial views affirmatory of the restoration of the Jews, and the previous resurrection of the saints, as dangerous innovations, and opening the way to other errors, would do well to listen to the following testimony of Bishop VanMildert, who, by the extent of his learning, and the general sobriety of his judgment, is at the farthest remove from all suspicions of wildness and extravagance.

"Nothing is more certain than that the Scriptures clearly foretell the conversion and restoration of the Jews, and that a most satisfactory pledge of the fulfilment of the predictions is already given by what has actually been brought to pass in their dispersion and preservation.

"Respecting the Millennium, or reign of the saints on earth, for a 1000 years after the events shall have taken place, there is room for a great variety of conjecture. Whether with the earlier fathers of the

Christian Church, and some eminent expositors of modern times, we are to expect, that a resurrection and triumph of the saints shall precede the general and final resurrection; or whether we hold with others that it is not to be a reign of persons raised from the dead, but a renovated state of the Church, flourishing gloriously for 1000 years, after the conversion of the Jews, and the flowing in of all the nations to the Christian faith; it is not necessary to determine. The former interpretation seems to offer the least violence to the language of scripture, and is supported by great authority. But our trust in the promises of God depends not on the determination of this question; since whichsoever interpretation we adopt, the splendid predictions of the inspired writers both in the Old and New Testament, will doubtless be verified either in a literal or a figurative acceptation to their fullest extent. In the mean time the condition of the Church, antecedently to that its triumphant state may reasonably be expected to exhibit a diversified scene of trial and victory, of peril and deliverance, of depression and recovery, similar to what it has hitherto undergone."1

The sentiments also of the learned, humble, and pious Mede may well weigh with those who really know his writings. He remarks, "I incline on the whole to the opinion founded on the sentence of St. Paul, 1 Thess. iv. that all the righteous will rise again during the course of the Millennial Kingdom: but in a certain order, according to that of the Apostle (1 Cor. xv. 23.) first in the very commencement of the Millennium, the Martyrs, then the rest

1 See Van Mildert's Boyle Lectures, p. 456-458.