CONFIRMATORY TESTIMONIES-DURHAM.

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'I saw Satan fall as lightning from Heaven;'The Prince of this world shall be cast out.'"*

"The angel," says DURHAM, "hath 'a great chain in his hand.' This showeth . . . . . his subordination to Christ's sovereignty, who effectually restraineth him. . . . . He 'layeth hold on him by his power, as one in fury and anger-he grippeth him. The party gripped and bound is described just as in chap. xii. to show (1.) that it is the same devil that was cast down to the earth that is now further bound; (2.) that we may have some help to knit this story of the serpent to the foregoing story of that same party. He 'bindeth this serpent'-tied him up as it were -and that for a long time, even 'a thousand years.' He 'casteth him into the bottomless pit,' which he feared; that is, putteth him not only from magistracy, and open persecution, as before (chap. xii.), but also restraineth him from such underhand dealing as he had before, and discovereth him and his working in a considerable degree beyond what was; and he 'shutteth him up, and sealeth it' (as Dan. vi. and 17), to show the certainty of that restraint and the superiority of the angel [by whom Durham understands Christ] over him, that he shall no more suffer Satan to go by [beyond] his order and march to see [or observe] him, than one shut up in prison can go forth either by violence or subtilty."+

"Nothing, therefore," says MARCKIUS, "is denoted by the angel's having a great chain in his hand,' but the all-sufficient power of Christ to bridle Satan, and at his pleasure to keep him in, like a captive whom he suffers not to escape or to stir. With this power, if you choose to join the word and Spirit of Christ, by which he works, we willingly agree; and we think this better than introducing here [with Paræus and others] the whole passion of Christ, by which he obtained authority over Satan." +

I think it worthy of notice, that President EDWARDS— whose excellent "History of the Work of Redemption," when it " comes to show how the success of Christ's re

The historical application which these authors make of the prophecy is of no consequence: it is their view of the symbols, and their recognition of the instrumentality of the truth, in the binding of Satan, which I quote them for.-In Apoc. Comment. ad loc. 1612.

+ Expos. ad loc.

f In Apoc. Comment. ad loc. 1689.

demption will be carried on from the present time till Antichrist is fallen and Satan's visible kingdom on earth is destroyed," is minute, interesting, and scriptural-takes no notice of the millennial binding and incarceration of Satan, as a distinct and separate exercise of Christ's power, from those other strokes by which his kingdom is to be overthrown.

"This," says he, "is a work which will be accomplished by means, by the preaching of the gospel, and the use of the ordinary means of grace, and so shall be gradually brought to pass.

The

Spirit of God shall be gloriously poured out for the wonderful revival and propagation of religion. . . . . This pouring out of the Spirit of God will not effect the overthrow of Satan's kingdom, till there has first been a violent and mighty opposition made. Christ and his Church shall, in 'the battle of that great day of God Almighty,' obtain a complete and entire victory over their enemies. . . . . Consequent on this victory, Satan's visible kingdom on earth shall be destroyed. When Satan is conquered in this last battle, the Church of Christ will have easy work of it. . . . . When the devil was cast out of the Roman Empire, it was represented as Satan's being cast out of heaven to the earth (Rev. xii. 9); but it is represented that he shall be cast out of the earth too, and shut up in hell (Rev. xx. 1-3). This is the greatest revolution by far that ever came to pass. This shall put an end to the Church's suffering state," &c.*

Once more:

....

....

"With respect," says Mr. FABER, "to that binding of Satan which immediately precedes the millennium, it must plainly be considered as a transaction not visible to human eyes. The power of the evil spirit being effectually restrained through the well-nigh universal prevalence of true religion, perhaps also his seductive influence being specially coerced by the direct, though unseen interference of the Almighty, he is said, by an easy and natural image, to be chained fast," &c.t

* History of Redemption, Period III., Part 2, Sect. 1. + Sacred Calendar of Prophecy, vol. iii. p. 468.

YET NOT URGED CONFIDENTLY.

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Such are the grounds on which I conceive that this millennial "binding of Satan" is not to be viewed as a miraculous physical removal from the earth of our spiritual adversary, apart altogether from the ordinary instrumentality by which all previous victories over him have been achieved; but, on the contrary, just by a more signal forthputting of all these instrumentalities than has ever yet been witnessed. And I have added a few extracts that go to show that this conception of the matter is far from being a novelty of my own, as has been represented.

Nevertheless, it may be without sufficient foundation; and I am far from wishing to dogmatise upon it. I leave it for the consideration of those whose familiarity with the symbolic language of prophecy, soundness of judgment, and general accuracy in conceiving of divine things, may enable them to throw further light upon the subject. In sketching the leading features of the millennial period, the practical bearings of this point will comebefore us in the following chapter, and supersede the necessity of any suminary here.

CHAPTER VIII.

LEADING FEATURES OF THE LATTER DAY-ITS CLOSE, AND

THE LITTLE SEASON" TO SUCCEED IT, UP TO THE LORD'S

PERSONAL APPEARANCE

As each of these topics has received more or less illustration in the foregoing chapters, it is but a brief concluding sketch that I intend here.

The burden of Old Testament prophecy is "THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST AND THE FOLLOWING GLORIES" (Tas para Taura došas, 1 Peter i. 11), or the glorious results of these sufferings. Under this comprehensive title may be embraced all the prophetic announcements of Messiah's kingdom, as a kingdom of truth, righteousness, peace, glory. It is seldom lined off into stages of advancement; and only in the chronological prophecies have we any thing like distinct periods in the new economy, marked eras in Christianity, indicated. Messiah's reign is for the most part held forth as one magnificent whole; and though resistance, warfare, corruption, defection, revival, victory, do at times chequer the scene, yet the prevailing aspect in which the kingdom of Christ is hymned in the prophetic Scriptures is its fullest state of development upon earth, losing itself in the superior glories of the celestial and eternal state.

This remark will enable us to correct two opposite mistakes. One class of interpreters see scarcely any thing but the millennium in prophecy; another will hardly allow that it is there at all. Professor Alexander, for example,

UNIVERSAL DIFFUSION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 425

in his admirable critical work on the Prophecies of Isaiah, anxious that we should look on all the great evangelical prophecies as a whole, is jealous of the least attempt to connect them with particular periods or specific events in the economy of grace; while Fry, and even Fraser, say of almost every prophecy, "The whole of this refers to the millennium." There is a right and a wrong element in both these views. These prophecies undoubtedly announce the kingdom of Christ as a whole; and, as the essential features of that kingdom are never wholly wanting at any period under the gospel, so there is no age at which the fulfilment of these evangelical predictions is not more or less realised, and no Christian who may not himself become a living monument of the truth of them. In this respect, therefore, to say nakedly, and without very careful explanation, that this or that prediction refers wholly to the millennium, is fitted to mislead. At the same time, since it is impossible to deny that the kingdom of Christ is to a great extent held forth under a degree of expansion and development which it has not yet reached, but is surely destined to attain; and since this future stage of the kingdom of Christ-this era of Christianity, currently styled the latter day-answers to no period in the history of the world but that which in apocalyptic phrase we call the millennium, we are not to be restrained from saying that such prophecies, in their full earthly sense, point to that wished-for day, and, in the loftiest sense of all, stretch beyond it.

Keeping this remark in view, I proceed to notice the distinguishing features of this period.

1. It will be characterised by the universal diffusion of revealed truth.

"The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the [bed, or channel of the] sca." (Isa. xi. 9.) "A very expressive figure," says Dr. Henderson, "de