rate, one believer, one saint upon earth. Whatever may constitute the felicity of that period, it will not be Christianity —it will not be saintship. Christ's coming has put an end, by your own showing, to the existence of this upon earth and

in the flesh.

Will you fall back, then, upon the Adamic theory? You ought to do it. But you will not. On opening your books again, we find you making the millennium the same Christian state that we expect it to be. The Jews, you say, looking on their pierced Saviour, will repent and believe, and be the missionary instruments of the Gentiles' conversion; and you speak of the spiritual blessedness of that period when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" when "the kingdom and dominion under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High"-when "men shall be blessed in Christ (with salvation, of course), and all nations shall call him blessed."*

Here, then, is the inextricable difficulty into which your system shuts you up; and yet you are either unaware of it, or will not face it. You expatiate with equal confidence upon two things, the one of which is destructive of the other. You rejoice that Christ will bring all his people with him, before the millennium. You no less rejoice in the prospect of a world peopled with believing men for a thousand years after his coming! Let the reader now judge with what clearness premillennialists perceive the bearings of their own doctrine, and whether the parts of that doctrine are capable of hanging together as one consistent whole.

We have thus seen that Christ, at his second appearing, will come absolutely and numerically "with all his saints""them that are his;" and have seen how remarkably this is confirmed by the enthusiastic, though suicidal testimony of * See, among others, Bickersteth's Guide, passim.

both classes of premillennialists. The first class, building their scheme upon the admission of this great truth, are thereby driven, as we have seen, into extravagances which it was unnecessary to refute, because they vanish at the touch. The second class, basing their scheme upon the denial of this truth, seem unable to want its inspiration; for thus only can I account for the strain in which they anticipate a prospect which their system repudiates. Does not this show where the weakness of the premillennial theory lies-obliging us either to deny the great scriptural doctrine of the completeness of the Church at Christ's coming, or to believe in a millennium without Christians? And I venture to affirm, that from this dilemma there is no possible escape, but in the belief which clears all up-that Christ's second coming will not be premillennial; that all the glory of the latter day—whether it be a definite or an indefinite period-together with the final efforts of the wicked, at the close of it, will PRECEDE and not SUCCEED the coming of Christ.

SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS.

The preceding argument, as it appeared in the first edition of this work, has drawn forth a number of replies, particularly from Mr Bickersteth, the Duke of Manchester, and Mr A. Bonar, -answers which, in my judgment, expose the weakness of the premillennial system, and the looseness of Scripture interpretation which it necessitates, more effectually than most of the arguments employed to refute it. They all distinguish between "the Bride of the Lamb," and the whole number of the saved; affirming that the one will be complete at his coming, but the other not. Each, however, has his own way of reconciling his readers to this conclusion.

Mr Bickersteth explains, that by "the Church," which is to appear as a complete and corporate body with Christ at his coming, he meant, not all the saved, but only a peculiar

* With whom Mr Wood agrees.

portion of them, called "the bride, the assembly of the firstborn, the kings and priests unto God, the city;" "whose privilege is distinct and peculiar-not holiness and blessedness merely, but these in a peculiar form." And who are to constitute this peculiar portion of the saved? All who have believed up to the commencement of the millennium. These alone are the mystical body of Christ. But after they are completed, at the second advent the earth will be peopled by "nations of the saved" in flesh and blood-friends, companions, servants of the Bridegroom-a totally different party from the then glorified Bride. But in what respect different? The answer is, that though they have "holiness and blessedness," they have "merely" that-they have it not in "the peculiar form" of union to Christ as his mystical body or bride. If one should ask again, what other union there is of sinners to Christ, but as "members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones" (Eph. v. 30), the answer we get is a little startling :—

"There may be," says Mr Bickersteth, "and doubtless are, A THOUSAND STAGES AND VARIETIES OF UNION WITH CHRIST, DISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST-BORN."

After this, we need not of course wonder to find the Adamic variety among the multitudinous types of millennial humanity-the curious Mosaic which is to adorn the new earth. Accordingly, Mr Bickersteth thus proceeds:

"In the first place, an Adamic state of innocence is not, as is unguardedly said (by Dr M'Neile), infinitely inferior to Christian union with God; for it is a real union, and like that of unfallen angels in kind, though a little lower in form." "In every human household," he afterwards says, "there are usually four parties-the bridegroom and bride, friends and servants. *The Divine Warning to the Church at this Time. Fourth Edition, 1846: "Answers to some objections," pp. 310, &c.-So Mr Birks, pp.

153-155.

The Duke of Manchester limits the mystical body of Christ still farther-excluding from it not only all the saints who are to live after the second advent, but also all who lived before the first, or rather prior to the ascension of Christ. "The gifts," he says, necessary for forming the Christ mystical were not conferred until after the ascension of Jesus. We could not, therefore, say with propriety that the Church under former dispensation was Christ.' The Bride is the New Jerusalem. . . .. Now the great glory of the New Jerusalem is, that it is the abode of Deity. But for the believer to be a habitation of God, is the peculiar glory of the dispensation founded by the apostles, according to the promise, 'He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.'

In what state his Grace expects the Old Testament saints to be, when they rise from the dead to inherit Canaan during the millennium, as he expects them to do-I scarcely know. Probably he distinguishes between mere resurrection and glorification, and that inhabitation of Deity which he makes the distinguishing privilege of believers under this dispensation. *

Mr Bonar differs materially from both these authors. According to him, the millennial saints will be saints in the same sense as all other saints, whether under this dispensation or before it. The only difference will be in their external circumstances. Having none of the trials of preceding saints, they will not attain to the dignity, reserved exclusively for tried Christians, of being the Bride of Christ.

"All saints," says he, "redeemed amid toil and temptation, and sorrow and warfare, shall form the Bride at the Lord's

*The Finished Mystery. Appendix: "Examination of Mr Brown's Work on the Second Advent," pp. 284-288. The modest and excellent author of "Plain Papers on Prophetical and other Subjects" (1854), No. 5 and 6, takes a view in substance the same with this, and in some respects preferable.

H

coming; and this Bride shall reign with him a thousand
years. Then, as to the saints who shall people earth during
these thousand years, they are as really saints, and as simply
dependent on this Head, as any of those already in glory.
As to state, character, and modes of spiritual life, they are
not saints of another stamp from those of the Patriarchal,
Jewish, and Gentile days; but, on the contrary, they are
converted as they were, live by faith as they did, war with
their own corruptions as they, and hang on Christ alone to
the last. It is only their circumstances that are different
from former saints. They live during these millennial days
with scarcely any, or rather with no opposition at all; with-
out persecution, and without Satan's temptations, for he is
bound. It seems good, therefore, to the sovereign God to
make a difference between them and those that lived not in
millennial days. . . .
The children of the millennium
shall be our children." .... But" children are not different
in nature from the parents. We wholly reject all theories about
an Adamic race, or any thing similar; we maintain that the
children of that age shall be found in the miry clay by the
sovereign God; converted by his Holy Spirit; led to see sin
and the Saviour, as we do; sanctified, probably far more
rapidly and thoroughly, yet still by the same Spirit, through
the Word, and so prepared for a future eternity."*

What fantastic and bewildering speculations are these! How opposed to the general strain of Scripture; how destitute even of the semblance of support; how alien from any thing that would occur to an ordinary reader of the Bible; how contrary to the belief of all churches, and the judgment of all commentators, from the beginning; and, as now put forward by the advocates of the premillennial theory, how manifestly are they suggested by the necessities of a system! A few paragraphs on each of the three forms in which this alleged distinction between "the Bride" and the whole Redemption, &c., pp. 124, &c.