flood came and destroyed them all." No thousand years, therefore, are to intervene between "the day of the Lord" and the passing away of the heavens." Nor, indeed, would a thousand years' interval save the theory, since, as we have seen, the last judgment is outside of the thousand years altogether, and even after the expiry of the "little period" which succeeds the thousand years.

2. Others, constrained to admit that the conflagration and the second advent are contemporaneous, and taking both to be pre-millennial, explain the conflagration in a contracted sense, as extending no farther than the prophetic earth, or the territory of old Rome.

"As to the grand difficulty," says Mr. Elliott, "in the way of this (pre-millennial) theory, which has been supposed to arise out of St. Peter's description of the earth's being burnt up before the promised new heavens and new earth, I shall only suggest, as others before me, that the yn, or earth, of the apostle's conflagration is by no means certainly the whole habitable world (indeed the parallel prophecy of Isa. lxv. 17, 18, lxvi. 22, &c., seems to forbid it); or, in fact, any other than the Roman earth, which we have seen on Apocalyptic evidence is to be destroyed pre-millennially by fire at the time of Antichrist's destruction.

It would seem that in this state of things and of (sceptical) feeling (in regard to the coming of Christ) in professing Christendom, all suddenly and unexpectedly, and conspicuous over the world as the lightning that shineth from the east even to the west, the second advent and appearing of Christ will take place. Meanwhile it would also appear, that with a tremendous earthquake accompanying, of violence unknown since the revolutions of primæval chaos (an earthquake under which the Roman world at least is to reel to and fro like a drunken man), the solid crust of this earth shall be broken, and fountains burst forth from its inner deep, not as once of water, but of liquid fire. . . . . that this, I say, shall then burst forth and engulph the vast territory of the Papal Babylon, and the godless of its inhabitants; thence spreading even to Palestine, and every

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where, as in the case of Sodom, making the very elements to melt with fervent heat; and that there (in Palestine) the flame shall consume the Antichrist and his confederate kings, while the sword also does its work of slaughter. . . . And then immediately, it would seem also, the renovation of this our earth is to take place; its soil being purified by the very action of the fire, in all that shall remain of it, for the nations of the saved,' that is, the Gentile remnant and restored Israel," &c.-(Hor. Apoc. iv. 217, 221, 222, 224–227, ut supra.)

"It is well known," adds Mr. Elliott in a note, "that the words yn and otkovμevn are often used in a limited sense of Judæa or the Roman earth, just as the Romans themselves call their world the orbis terrarum: and, after careful consideration of the various prophetic descriptions of the consummation, I incline to think that the meaning of the term, when used in these prophecies of the concluding revolutions of the earth on Christ's advent, is thus limited, and that it refers to the Roman world alone; with this modification, moreover, that the circumstance of the separation of the Eastern and Western Empire, and political destruction of the former by the Turkish invasion, having caused the phrase to be used in the later Apocalyptic prophecies of Western or Papal Christendom only, it may be so in those of the consummation also.-The idea of SOME OTHER and more universal conflagration at the general judgment is NOT HEREBY EXCLUDED."

Mr. A. Bonar takes the same contracted view of the conflagration, as limited to Christendom, though its effects may be "felt all over the wide globe." After referring to Dan. vii. and Rev. xviii., which speak of the body of the fourth beast as given to the burning flame and of the smoke of Babylon's burning, and identifying this with the conflagration described in Peter, he says

"It appears to intimate that at the Lord's coming all that is called 'Babylon'-in short, all Christendom become Papal-shall be one blaze of consuming fire. This tremendous fire shall purge

Europe from the filth of its destroyers more effectually than Joshua's sword did Canaan; and the (European?) soil thus cleansed shall soon receive a new race of inhabitants. It may be, too, that the effects of the conflagration shall be felt all over the wide globe, penetrating through the earth, and working that change on it appointed by the Lord. And thus, not the heavens only and the elements, but earth also and its works, are visited with fire. In Heb. xii. 26, God's voice is said to have shaken the earth' when it made Sinai tremble. On that day, not only did the skies above feel the tempest, but earth shook as the Lord came down. So it may be said that 'carth' is flung into the crucible when Dan. vii. 11, and Rev. xviii. 9, are fulfilled" that is, when Papal Europe only is 'flung into the crucible.'*

Mr. Bonar himself, however, seems to stagger at this miserable explanation of the conflagration in Peter.

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"It may be," he candidly says, we are wrong in supposing that

the tremendous Sodom-doom of Christendom shall be what is meant by earth and its works' sharing in the fire that melts the elements; but even if so, what better can the anti-millennarian say?" (p. 119, 120.)†

Never, perhaps, was more palpable violence done to the text of Scripture, than by this singular attempt to limit the conflagration predicted by Peter to Rome Papal, or Christendom. The whole context proclaims it a worldwide conflagration, and every clause of the passage itself seems framed on purpose to exclude all limitation. Scoffers, says the apostle, are to arise, who shall deride the ex

* Redempt., pp. 117, 118.

The anti-millennarian difficulty to which Mr. Bonar alludes is the fact, that in Isa. lxv. 17, to which Peter refers, there are found Jerusalem and her people, houses and vineyards, after "the new heaven and new earth" which the prophet announces. On this supposed difficulty, I have merely to refer the reader to pp. 179-189.

The excellent Mr. Maitland (of Brighton), and others, limit the "every eye" that "shall see" the Redeemer at his second coming, to every eye in Christendom!

UNIVERSALITY OF IT.

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pectation of Christ's coming, alleging that "all things have continued as they were from the beginning." To repel this, the apostle reminds them of the provision made from the first for the devastation of the old world by water. "By the word of God, the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; whereby the world that then was (ὁ τότε Koopos), being overflowed with water, perished." A like provision, he adds, has been made for the destruction of the world that now is by fire. "But the heavens and the earth, that are now (οἱ δε νον ουρανοι, και ἡ γη), are by the same word stored with fire, kept unto the day of judgment and of the perdition of ungodly men."* The analogy here so emphatically traced between "the world that then was," and "the heavens and the earth that are now"-the one "overflowed with water," the other doomed to the flames-precludes all reasonable doubt that the whole world, physically considered, is the subject of this prophecy, and the victim of the conflagration. To thrust in here Rome Papal or Christendom, is in the last degree unnatural.

But when we examine the detailed description of this conflagration in the subsequent verses, it seems inconceivable how any impartial expositor can put a limited sense upon it.

"The (sublunary and visible) heavens shall pass away (Tapeλevoorra) with a great noise," (pondov, the word conveying the idea): †

"The elements (σroixεia) shall melt," or "be dissolved (Avonoɛrai), with fervent heat."

* So I incline, with Mr. Elliott, to render the words, connecting TVɩ with Te0noavpioμevot preceding, and not with rnpovμεvos following; by which also the idea of a preparation within the bowels of the earth itself for its eventual destruction by fire, as before by water, is better conveyed.

+ Peribunt magno impetu.-(GROT.) Mr. Elliott's illustration from

The "heavens" and the "elements" seem to be here distinguished very much as "the earth" and "the works that are therein" afterwards are. Whatever "elements" mean here, as contradistinguished from the "heavens," it must be something, the "dissolution" of which would incapacitate human beings, as at present constituted, from subsisting for a moment. What, then, becomes of the theory of mortal men tenanting the new heavens and the new earth? It is nothing better than a dream.

"The earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up." "The earth," as here distinguished from "the works that are therein," doubtless means the body of the globe as distinguished from all that adorns its surface. If this is to be "burnt up," it must surely be something greatly more searching and fundamental than the mere "paring and burning" process to which Mr. Elliott, in the foregoing passage, and others, as we shall see, appear nothing loath to debase this magnificent prediction.

...

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved (λvoperwv). Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, in consequence of which the heavens being on firet shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

This crowns the description, and completes the evidence against a limited conflagration. For, as "the new heavens the noise and shock of the earthquake which accompanied the volcanic eruption at Sumbawa in 1815, and which he tells us was felt and heard 970 miles off, seems to me to be a very good illustration of the bathos, but of nothing else.

* KarakaŋGɛTai, "shall be burned down;" the Latins would say, exurentur, "shall be burnt out;" while we say, "shall be burnt up" the idea of complete consumption being alike conveyed by all these forms of expression.

Ivpovμevo, fusi igne ut metalla fundi solent:X, Ps. xii. 7; Es. i. 25; Dan. xii. 7; Zach. xii. 9, &c. (GROT.)