that Christ will not descend personally on earth, nor reign literally over his church by his visible or corporeal presence, during the thousand years of the Millennium, nor will the dead bodies of the martyrs and saints be literally raised from the dead: But that Christ will reign in his church by his spiritual influences accompanying his gospel in a very powerful, and extraordinary degree; and that the whole world will be converted to christianity, and the ends of the earth will see the salvation of God, &c. Those who advocate a literal descent of Christ and a literal resurrection of the saints and martyrs, &c. found their sentiments on a literal construction of Rev. xx. 4 -7. On this solitary passage this strange hypothesis depends; we will therefore examine it carefully, and see whether it affords solid and sufficient ground for such an opinion.

"I saw the souls of them who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not worshipped the beast," &c.-"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. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power-and they shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison." To the idea of the souls of the martyrs living and reigning with Christ, they add several passages in the 21st chapter to prove the literal descent of Christ from heaven to dwell with his saints on earth. Verse 3d. "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." See also verse 22d and 23d, and chap. xxii. 5.

First, we are to take notice that there are two kinds of dead men spoken of in this passage; one is the martyrs who were slain for the word of God; the other kind is (HOI LOIPOI) the rest of the dead. This remnant we find in chap. xix. 21. "And the remnant (HOI LOIPOI) were slain with the sword of him who sat upon the horse." Thus we see that the martyrs were slain by their persecutors; and the persecutors were slain by Christ in overthrowing the beast and the false prophet. John saw the souls of one of these kinds of dead persons living and

reigning with Christ. It is no strange, nor uncommon thing for a soul to live when the body is dead; but it would be a very incredible thing to see a soul that never dies rising from the dead, and out of the grave. But to say that to see a soul of a man living, means that his body was raised from the dead is truly begging the question too barefacedly for an honest man either to say, or believe when it is said. And if I were to attempt to prove the resurrection of the body, by the living of the soul, I would not expect to succeed with men of good sense and sound reason. John saw the souls of the martyrs living with Christ, not their bodies. Where then is there proof for a corporeal resurrection? There is not a single syllable said about their bodies rising, unless we understand the soul to mean the body; but this would require proof. Thus this part of their theory falls to the ground. "But the rest of the dead lived not," &c. This sentence is evidently an illipsis, and according to the rules of grammar it reads in full thus: "But the souls of the rest of the dead." John is now speaking of the other class of dead persons, to wit, the persecutors, who were slain by the sword of Christ. Had he seen the bodies of the martyrs living, and then said, the rest of the dead lived not, we would have to understand him as saying, the bodies of the rest of the dead. But as he saw the souls of the martyrs living, he must of course mean that the souls of the rest lived not. Thus it evidently appears that there is no proof for the resurrection of the dead bodies of the saints in the time of the Millennium, nor of the rest afterwards.

But what are we to understand by the souls of the martyrs living and reigning with Christ, and the souls of the rest of the dead living not? That we may have right views on this subject, we must consider, that the beast, or the Pope of Rome, is not to be considered as one man, but a succession of men, occupying the same power and authority. When the beast is slain by the sword of Christ, it does not mean that the then reigning Pope is killed; this may or may not be the case; but the meaning is that a succession of men will cease, and that Christ will put an end to the papal power. The two witnesses are not two individual men, but a succession of the same kind of men; and when they die, that succession ceases. We find according to the prophecy, that

immediately before the commencement of the Millennium, both the witnesses, and their persecutors, will be slain; the persecutors will have killed the witnesses, and Christ and his army, will have killed the persecutors. See chap. xi. 7, 19, 20, 21. At this dreadful time, the church will be in a dormant state; the ministration of the gospel will, in a great measure, cease, and the ministers of the church will, no doubt, in a great degree, be actually killed, and silenced by the violence of persecution. When Christ in the awful and glorious dispensation of his providence will appear, not literally, but by terrible judgments, and destroy the papal power; the Pope of Rome, and his court of Cardinals will be totally routed, and the power of popery, and of Mahomet will be completely destroyed. This in all probability will be the state of the world when the Millennium will commence. Satan, by whose power and influence the Pope and Mahomet always acted, will be then chained; that is, Jesus Christ will lay an effectual restraint upon him, so that he will not be permitted to tempt and deceive the nations any more, during the thousand years. This will be the downfall of Satan's kingdom. Then the souls of the martyrs, or witnesses, will begin to live. Christ will begin to shed abroad the divine influences of his spirit on the hearts of men, which will revive the noble spirit of zeal, fortitude, and piety, which the old martyrs and saints used to possess. Then the souls of them who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus will revive, that is, a blessed succession of pious, zealous, brave, and spirited christians will spring up under the blessing and protection of heaven, possessing the same noble christian disposition and spirit, which formerly had possessed the witnesses of Jesus; and this noble spirit will prevail all over the world, and continue to rule in the hearts of men for a thousand mystical years. But as Satan will be completely restrained, and mankind will be perfectly free from his deceitful temptations; the souls of the rest of the dead, that is, the old spirit of Antichrist, will not revive again, until the thousand years are finished. The temper and spirit of those who had formerly persecuted, and killed the witnesses, lived not; the spirit of persecution lay dormant, the Pope and Mahomet had no successors until Satan was loosed, to stir them up again, at the close of the Millennium. This sense of the passage appears to me to be easy and natural,

and appears evidently to command respect and credit. But to say that the souls of the witnesses living, means their bodies rising from the dead, is evidently up-hill work, and no man can climb it without torture, and unless he wishes to hold by a twig, like a drowning man, to obtain a favorite object.

In Malachi iv, 5. it was prophesied of John the Baptist, "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet." The Jews understood this literally; therefore, they sent messengers to John, who asked him, "Art thou Elias? and he said, I am not." John was Elias in the sense of the prophecy, but not literally, as the Jews understood it. They expected Elijah to come down from heaven; and through this wrong construction of the prophecy, they believed neither the divine authority of John, nor of Christ; and through a gross mistake, Herod beheaded John, and the Jews crucified Christ. But the angel gave to Zacharias the right meaning of the prophecy, (Luke i. 17.) "And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias;" the same pious, bold, austere, and resolute spirit of Elijah shall be in John; and therefore Christ said (Matt. xi. 14.) "This is Elias who was to In this sense also the souls of the martyrs will live, in their successors, who will live and reign with Christ a thousand years.

come."

The prophet Ezekiel (Chap. xxxvii. 1-14) by a bold prophetic emblem of a resurrection, predicted the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity. Very few of the Jews who were taken to Babylon returned, but their children did; yet their return from their state of captivity to Jerusalem was represented by the grand figure of opening their graves, and raising them from the dead. "Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come out of your graves, and bring you, into the land of Israel." The old Jews who had died in Babylon never returned to their own country; but their children did, who succeeded them; yet the return of their successors are represented as rising from the dead. So the successors of the beheaded witnesses are represented as living again in the first resurrection, by a similar figure as that, by which the Jewish nation is represented as rising, in their posterity, from the dead, and returning to their own land;

and as Elias is represented as coming down from heaven by his spirit and power, in John the Baptist.

But it is thought that because this is called the first resurrection, it is therefore a literal resurrection of the bodies of the witnesses from the dead; they take it for granted, without a single syllable of proof, that the second resurrection, is a resurrection of the bodies of the wicked. They argue thus; if the second resurrection be a literal one, the first resurrection must of course be literal also. This argument takes it for granted that the second resurrection is a literal resurrection from the dead. But let us dispute this point; then the basis of the argument falls, and the argument is good for nothing. I am truly surprised that such a learned and sensible man as Bishop Newton should argue and attempt to demonstrate his point on such flimsy ground. (See Newton on the prophecies, Vol. 2. p. 346 and 347.)

That a first resurrection argues a second, I grant; but I would beg leave to deny that either of them will be a literal resurrection; because the text does not say so, neither explicitly, nor by fair construction. And I humbly affirm the contrary; and say that they will both be mystical resurrections, to wit, the resurrection of souls and not of bodies. This is what the text means, and further it saith not; and I refer to the arguments already stated above. After the first and second resurrection, we have an accurate account from the eleventh verse of this chapter to the end, of a third resurrection, which is called, the general resurrection of all, both good and bad, and also of the final day of Judgment. And this account contradicts their whole theory. This is a literal resurrection of the bodies both of saints and sinners. "And I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it And I saw the dead small and great stand before God

And the sea gaye up the dead, which were in it, and death and hell, [death and the grave] delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were Judged every man according to their works." This is evidently a plain literal account of the final resurrection from the dead, at the last day. Thousands of dead bodies are buried in the ocean, and many thousands are buried in the earth, in sepulchres and graves, but death, whether it holds its victims in watery or earthly graves, surrenders its prey, of all sizes, ages and descriptions; and