That was Christ's coming second personal advent to ever comes short of the antitype. to judgment, in a sort, but not his pass "eternal judgment" upon men. Other differences will readily occur; but this is enough to show, that though there be a manifest analogy between the cases, the analogy must not be overdriven. As to the three youths, and the promise to "Zion" which we have quoted, though we should admit that it gave ground to expect the preservation of God's covenant people in the conflagration, what ground does it give to expect the preservation of God's enemies? Thus hopelessly opposed is the premillennial scheme to the Scripture testimony regarding the conflagration, and "the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." I have examined all the attempts at reconciliation deserving of notice, and shown them to be alike incompatible with the inspired descriptions of the change. On this head, therefore, nothing remains but to embody in a proposition, as under the previous heads, what is all but universally acknowledged as the truth on this branch of our subject. PROPOSITION NINTH: AT CHRIST'S SECOND APPEARING, 66 THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH THAT ARE NOW,” BEING DISSOLVED BY FIRE, SHALL The observations already made sufficiently illustrate this proposition. But as I have been silent on one of the passages which we placed in the forefront of this chapter, I may here state wherein its importance in the present argument appears to me to lie. I refer to Rev. xx. 11; xxi. 1: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away: and there was no more sea." That the change here described is posterior to the last judgment, and not prior to it, has been fully proved by writers on both sides of the millennial controversy-by Mr Birks, for example and by Mr Gipps.* By putting this passage, then, in Revelation alongside of the passage in Peter, we obtain the following argument, which I believe it to be impossible to answer: The conflagration and passing away of the heavens will be as a thief in the night, in" or "at the day of the Lord "the time of his second advent. (2 Pet. iii.) But the millennium precedes the "fleeing" or "passing away" of "the earth and heaven." (Rev. xx., xxi.) Therefore, the millennium precedes the second advent.† Here ends my chain of Scripture evidence against the premillennial theory. We have seen that when Christ comes, the Church which he hath purchased with his own blood will be absolutely and numerically complete-admitting of no subsequent accessions. We have seen that the Bible makes the hopes and the fears of all men to turn upon the second coming of Christ, as an event future to every human being, and makes no provision for the bringing in of any after it. * Birks' "Four Prophetic Empires," ut supra, p. 306, &c. Gipps' "First Resurrection," p. 13, Note H; and see p. 67. This syllogism was so expressed in my former edition as to be capable of a construction contrary to my meaning. It is now rectified. For this correction I am indebted to a brother in Guernsey, from whose correspondence, though his view of the premillennial advent be the reverse of mine, I have derived both pleasure and profit, and whose critical and minute study of the prophetic word I sincerely honour. We have seen that baptism, and with it the gathering and training of disciples for glory, and the whole mediatorial power and presence of Christ for saving purposes, are ordained to continue till "the end of the world"-the admitted period of Christ's second coming—and not beyond it; and that, in the Lord's Supper, the Redeemer's death is to be showed forth only "till he come." We have seen that the kingdom of Christ is just the kingdom of grace in the hands of the Mediator-a kingdom already in existence-virtually ever since the fall, and formally since his ascension to the right hand of power; and that it will continue unchanged, both in character and form, till the final judgment, when, in its state of glory, it becomes "the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ "" the kingdom of Christ and of God." We have seen that at Christ's second coming, his whole Church" all that the Father hath given him "—shall be made alive at once, the dead being raised and the living changed; and that, at the same time, all the wicked shall stand up in a resurrection state-the whole human race appearing together before the great white throne. We have seen that when Christ comes, the whole human race will be tried together for eternity at his judgment-seat. Finally, we have seen that at Christ's second coming, the heavens and the earth that are now, being dissolved, shall disappear, and be succeeded by "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," without the least mixture of sin-good unalloyed by aught of evil. Each of these Scripture views of the second advent is diametrically opposed to the premillennial theory, and subversive of it. Taken together, they form a chain of evidence against it of such strength, that, if rejected as insufficient, it will be hard to refute any error, or to establish any truth from the Word of God. |