whelming multitude as you represent. But be this as Lord Himself. I am not at this moment discussing it may, what ground there can be for speaking of the import of the vision, or whether it be a personal "millions upon millions of close hypocrites, mixed up coming of Christ that it sets forth. This you would, with the company of the truly converted" during the of course, dispute. But, in examining the views you millennium, I am at a loss to conceive. Forty or fifty controvert, fairness requires that you consider them years would be 'a little season" compared with a as a whole. If those on whose tenets you remark thousand;" and supposing that none were deceived see the coming of Christ in chap. xix, and His reign by Satan, but those who were born after he was with His saints in chap. xx, it will never do to ignore loosed, and who grew up without being converted, it their use of the former chapter, and assume that, in is easy to realize how this part of the prophecy might their view, the latter presents a theme which they be fulfilled. And if Satan could triumph over our first believe the former alone to handle. parents, when as yet their nature was untainted, what difficulty is there as to his permitted success with those who, confessedly, have the same need of regeneration as ourselves?

And if, as all millenarians insist, the coming is treated of in chap. xix, and the reign in chap. xx, what is there surprising in the fact that, the descent from heaven of the Lord Jesus Christ in pomp and majesty having been foretold, the saints being mentioned as mere attendants of His train, they should, in the description that follows, be mentioned first, as partaking of the glories of His reign? It is only by the arbitrary and unwarranted severance of the chapters, that this argument has show of plausibility or strength.

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The objections as to the camp of the saints and the beloved city being besieged-as though the inmates of that camp and city were the glorified saints-have been so often answered, that I will not repeat here what has thus been urged. It is easier to call such answers "castle-building," &c., than to present the slightest proof of our maintaining, or being under any necessity to maintain, that the occupants of the But you urge that the same remark applies, and beloved city are any other than Israel after the flesh, with still greater force, to Dan. vii. In it, you say, we dwelling in their own city Jerusalem. What more of have both prophecy and interpretation. The proinconsistency can there be in the idea of an attack by phet sees in vision "the Ancient of days"-God the mortal foes on such a city and its mortal inhabitants, Father. He beholds "one like unto the Son of man,” even though its name be "Jehovah Shammah," than and he "came to the Ancient of days, and they in the thought of any similar attack in days gone by? brought him near before him." To him, thus brought Then, besides, the assault is an unsuccessful one; the into the presence of the Ancient of days, all nations enemies are permitted to come up; but it is to their are rendered subject. "In the interpretation" of own sudden and overwhelming and eternal overthrow. this vision, you say, we have not so much as a hint You say, "the evangelist saw thrones, the symbols of a personal coming of the Son of God to destroy of honour and power; not one of them is specified as Antichrist: but on the contrary, what forms a powerthe throne of Christ. He is not here placed in front, ful argument against it." "In the symbolic part of nor as the principal figure, but named as an adjunct the chapter everything is consigned over to him. at the close of the verse, they lived and reigned with In the interpretative part, what we have as the Christ.' 'I saw thrones and they sat on them; they effect of transactions taking place in the invisible sat on them. Could it be the mind of the Spirit to world is simply this, the kingdoms shall be given to point out, in such a form, the great coming of the the people of the saints of the Most High, whom all Judge of all the earth, literally to fix His throne, with dominions shall serve and obey." those of glorified saints, amongst or above all the In reply to this well put argument, I would, first potentates of the earth?" "What would we think," of all, freely admit, that no coming of Christ to the you enquire, "of the coming, the instalment, &c., of an earth is expressly treated of in Dan. vii. That is, no earthly prince, related after the following fashion:-one could gather from that chapter alone, that the 'I saw chariots, and persons seated in them, and great final and universal kingdom would be introduced by honour was paid to them; they entered the city and the coming of the Son of man to the earth. I lay the palace; they took their seats and were installed stress on these words to the earth, for there is a in their high and honourable offices with the prince' ?" coming treated of, but it is, as you urge, "to the I have quoted thus largely that I may not be Ancient of days." But though the chapter itself does supposed to do injustice to your argument, which not expressly teach the coming of Christ to this earth, has, at first sight, some appearance of strength. This there is an expression used as to His coming to the appearance vanishes, however, on a moment's reflection. Ancient of days, which, when viewed in connexion No one maintains that "the coming of the Judge of with numerous quotations of it, and allusions to it, the earth" is pointed out in this vision of the millen- in other parts of scripture, makes it sufficiently nial thrones and their occupants. All who regard evident, that a coming of Christ to the earth is to this vision as depicting the personal reign of Christ and His saints, see the prediction of His coming in the latter part of chap. xix; and no one can allege that in the vision there portrayed, the central, conspicuous and all-commanding place is not occupied by our

take place at the crisis of which this chapter treats. "I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and

chapter," as you say, "everything is consigned over to Him." When the blessed Heir of these dignities was here and rejected by the people-His own earthly people, who are to hold under Him the dominion under the whole heaven-the question of His person and of His coming became the all important one; and He leaves no room for doubt, that His coming in the clouds of heaven will be visible to all; that public as was the humiliation He underwent, the insults heaped upon Him by mankind, so public shall be the display of His glory, the vindication of His outraged dignities and claims. "Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." (Rev. i, 7.)

glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."" Let it be remembered, then, that, when Daniel wrote, Jesus of Nazareth had not come in humiliation, nor was it as yet revealed that he was the " one like unto the Son of man." But there can be no doubt that this title "Son of man" was appropriated by our adorable Lord, and in His lips the phrase "came with the clouds of heaven" received a significance and application, which could scarcely have been inferred from the mere language of the prophecy itself. "And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." (Matt. xxiv, 30.) They In the remarks on John v, 28, 29, Dan. xii, 2, and shall see! True, that in Dan. vii, the coming of the on the subject of a premillennial resurrection of the Son of man to the Ancient of days might seem to be saints as a whole, there is nothing but what has been a transaction taking place in the invisible world." urged and answered by almost all who have discussed But in our Lord's quotation of its phraseology, we the subject. If the "hour" in which the Son of God find that there are to be human spectators, either of quickens dead souls has already lasted 1800 years, why this transaction, or of its immediate result. The should not the "hour" in which "all that are in the tribes of the earth are to see the coming of the Son of graves shall come forth" be of more than 1000 years man in the clouds of heaven. Equally emphatic is our duration? And why speak of a "resurrection of life" Lord's allusion to this prophecy when before Caiaphas. and a "resurrection of judgment," if there be but one Adjured by the living God to say whether he was simultaneous resurrection of those who, after being the Christ, the Son of God, the meek and holy Sufferer replies, "Thou hast said; nevertheless I say unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." (Matt. xxvi, 64.)

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raised, are divided into classes, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats? Why speak of the parable of the sheep and the goats, in Matt. xxv, as fulfilled in the resurrection and judgment of all mankind, when there is no mention of resurrection in the passage, and when the term employed is never used in scripture except of living nations?

To

Do we object, then, to listen to the angelic interpretation to Daniel, of the vision he had beheld? By no means. We only object to the understanding it in It is not a gratuitous assumption, a mere begging of such a sense as to set aside the interpretation of it by the question, that in Matt. xiii ovvτéλea Toû aiŵvos means a greater than the angel-by the Son of man Himself."the end of the age," or "present premillennial disShould it still be asked why there is no mention of pensation." It is, on the contrary, a meaning of the the Son of man by the angel, but only repeated men- words demonstrated to be correct, by the accustomed tion of "the saints of the Most High," let the force of the words themselves, and by the entire scope following suggestion be weighed. In Daniel's day the of the divine instruction which the chapter contains. question of all absorbing interest, was not so much as The subject of the chapter is, "the mysteries of the to the Person by whose coming the kingdom and kingdom of heaven;" mysteries, which have their dominion should be wrested from the hands of its existence and development contemporaneously with Gentile possessors; but as to its transfer by the Most Israel's rejection of Christ, and the judicial blindness High from these haughty oppressors of His people, to under which, in consequence, that nation lies. the very saints whom they persecuted and trod under suppose that these "mysteries" extend beyond the era foot. Daniel was a captive; the holy people were in of Israel's dispersion, and the universal triumph of bondage to the Gentiles: the holy city was in their truth and righteousness with which all scripture assohands, to waste and to destroy; and the vision and ciates Israel's restoration, would be to confound things interpretation of Dan. vii were evidently designed to which most widely and obviously differ: and nothing put in relief the assurance, ominous indeed to the can be plainer than that the transition from "mystery' Gentiles, but most consolatory to Jewish saints, that to "manifestation"-from the period of patience to the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, that of the establishment of righteousness by powerwould, in His own time, execute judgment on the is, in this chapter, identical with the harvest, the end of imperial power of the Gentiles, and transfer to His the age. The millennial saints, whom you would have own down-trodden people the sceptre of the whole included in "the net,' or amongst the wheat and earth. tares," evidently belong to "the age to come”—the period of manifestation and of power.

Even this could not be made known without a revelation of the glorious One in and through whom these counsels of God are to be accomplished; and accordingly, in the vision, "in the symbolic part of the

You assert that "there is no dispensation but one, that of the gospel, so long as sin and Satan exist,-so long as there may be found in the world deceivable

This restitution, if any where, is described in 1 Cor. xv, 24. "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God,'" &c. Had Peter said, "whom the heaven must receive till all things have been restored," there might have been some force in this argument; but his language was "until the times of restitution of all things;" and surely these are millennial times. How all things can be restored when the heavens and the earth flee away, and no place is found for them, it would be difficult to explain. Having replied at large to Dr. Brown's remarks on Acts ii and iii, (see Plain Papers, pages 448-454,) I must refer you to what is there advanced as my answer to what you give on those chapters, acknowledging your obligations to Dr. B.

mortals exposed to signal divine visitation,—so long as death, the last enemy, as well as he who had the power of death, are undestroyed." If all you mean by this is, that all saved sinners, from Adam or Abel down to the last that shall be converted, are saved by grace, through faith, saved on the ground of Christ's atoning work, and regenerated by the Holy Ghost, most gladly do I concur in all this. But this is no warrant for denying the existence of separate dispensations. When the apostle says, "until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law," does he describe the same dispensation as in another passage where he says, "the words spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward ?" Is there no change of dispensation indicated by our Lord's words, No one supposes that the destruction of death is "Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an premillennial; but the swallowing up death in victory eye and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that is decided to be so by Isa. XXV, as we have already seen. ye resist not evil," &c. Was the "heir differing The fact is, that the whole millennial period, and the nothing from a servant, though lord of all," under little season which succeeds, are characterized by the same dispensation as he to whom the apostle Christ's actively subduing, by His own power, the enesays, "Wherefore thou art no more a servant, mies who are put as a footstool under His feet at the but a son and if a son, then an heir of God through moment He arises from Jehovah's throne. The last Christ ?" (Gal. iv.) Can it be all one and the same dis- of these is death, which is not destroyed till after the pensation in which Jews and Gentiles were separated by judgment of the great white throne. a "middle wall of partition," and in which, that wall Nor have I the least idea that the conflagration of having been broken down, and peace having been made 2 Pet. iii is pre-millennial. That "the day of the Lord," by the blood of the cross, Jew and Gentile are both "the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly one in Christ? It is to differences like these, that the men," includes the whole millennial period is sufficiently phrase "difference of dispensations" is applied. Call evident, I think, from many passages. And it is a day them by what names you please, who can deny their" in the which" the universal conflagration will surely existence, or the stress laid upon them in God's word? take place. But Peter says nothing to decide in what And while the proof of this point would require more part of the day, whether in its early dawn or at its time and space than would befit my present com- close, this solemn event occurs. A comparison of his munication, proof is not wanting of a future change statements with Rev. xx, xxi, seems to me to make it of dispensation. When suffering is exchanged for plain that it is at the very close of the day. The new triumph, Satan bound, and Christ and His saints fill-heavens and the new earth of Rev. xxi, 1, seem to ing the place for good, which he and his angels have done for evil and misrule, surely a change of dispensation of no small magnitude will have taken place. Christ sits, you say, "at the right hand of God till his enemies are made his footstool. He therefore sits there all through the millennium." Not so: God's making Christ's enemies His footstool, is No doubt, "the trump of God," (1 Thess. iv,) and evidently distinct from Christ's subjugation of His the "last trump," (1 Cor. xv,) denote one and the same foes by His own power. The effect of Christ's ene-signal of the resurrection and translation of the saints mies being put as a footstool under His feet is, that at the coming of the Lord. But we have seen that Zion becomes the earthly centre of His power in the Holy Ghost authoritatively associates these events judgment, the rod of His strength being sent out of with the fulfilment of a prophecy assuredly preZion, while He rules in the midst of His enemies. millennial: and unless there be mention made of the Once He was crucified through weakness. (2 Cor. xiii, 4.) Now, he waits in patience, "expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." (Heb. x, 13.) Ere long, His people shall be willing in the day of His power. (Ps. cx, 3.) And he who is now at Jehovah's right hand, "shall strike through kings in the day of His wrath." (ver. 5.) "The heavens must receive him until the time of restitution of all things." On this you remark," from what we have seen of the nature of the millennium, there is then no restitution of all things, though great progress is made towards it.

follow at once on the events foretold at the close of the previous chapter: and between these events and some of which Peter treats, there is surely a close resemblance, if not absolute identity. But it is the day as a whole, with the succeeding post-millennial state, for which Peter says we wait.

sound of a trumpet in some passage undeniably treating of post-millennial events, this declaration of the apostle ought surely to over-rule all objections founded on the expression "the last trump."

"The expression the last day,' simply conveys to our minds," you observe, "the idea of the termination of time." To this I do not know of any sound objection. But be it remembered that for all of whom Christ says, in John vi, repeating the statement four times, "I will raise him up at the last day," time has terminated, and it is not to another time-state-to

remnant in the approaching crisis, not for the Church, which at a previous stage of his descent, will have been caught up to meet Him in the air. "One of the days of the Son of man" will doubtless be the object of intense, longing desire, to that deeply tried remnant; and for a while their desire will be unfulfilled, drawing forth from them the well-known prophetic utterance,

natural life-that they are restored, but everlasting
life, as to their bodies, as well as their souls. But to
assume that time has therefore terminated with all
mankind, is certainly to beg the question, which in
part at least is this, Whether, during the millennium,
there be not two departments of blessedness, heaven
and earth, the one bearing all the characteristics of a
dispensation in time, the other eternal and without" Lord, how long ?"
change. Scripture does testify, that it is the purpose
and counsel of God in the " dispensation of the
fulness of times to gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on
earth, even in him." (Eph. i.) Has not "Christ the
first-fruits" entered personally on His eternal and
unchanging state? And has He no present con-
nexions with the world and time? Why should not
the harvest, of which He is "the first-fruits,"
similarly enter on a state of perfect, unchanging,
eternal blessedness and glory, and yet for a thousand
years be ministers of light, healing, liberty, and joy, to
those who are still in a mundane state?

Believing in no "millennial Adamics" different from all who bear the image of the first Adam, and need to receive, in regeneration and resurrection, the image of the second, I feel myself under no obligation to defend what may have been advanced on such a subject by others.

Millenarians do not question the sufficiency of God's word and Spirit for the conversion of any; nor do they suppose that any will be converted otherwise than by the Spirit and word of God. But God's government of the world is something entirely distinct from His gracious operations in converting souls. Souls have been converted through all the changing forms of the divine administration, in regard to the government of the world, and will, doubtless, in greater numbers than ever, be converted during the millennial age. All who will then be converted will owe their regeneration to the Holy Spirit, who will then, as now, act by the word.

But the government of the world will not be then by secret providence as it has been ever since the fall. It will not be a theocracy, administered as in Israel heretofore, by mere fallible human agents; much less will it be the imperial Gentile rule which began with the permitted overthrow of the Lord's throne at Jerusalem. It will be the reign of Christ and His heavenly saints, to whom (Satan being bound and all obstinate rebels having been destroyed) will be committed the administration of the world's government for a thousand years. Happy period! Happier still the portion of those, who, having been partakers of Christ's sufferings, shall then be the sharers of His throne, and companions of His joy.

I know not how to understand your intimation, (page 123,) that the Saviour's words, "this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled," referred to the accomplishment of that entire prophecy, Matt. xxiv, in the destruction of Jerusalem and its attendant events. You seem so definitely to quote Daniel's prophecy of the time of unequalled trouble, repeated by our Lord in this chapter, as yet to be fulfilled in the approaching crisis of nations, that I was unprepared I fear you have greatly misunderstood millenarians, for such an interpretation as that now referred to. if you suppose that we overlook the spiritual operation You do indeed, on this same page, speak of Christ's involved in Israel's conversion, or that we deem the coming " upon the Jews, and the analogous one upon agency of the Holy Ghost insufficient to effect it. the Gentile nations, which is generally expected." But if there was nothing inconsistent with these But the Saviour's words are much too precise to admit foundation truths in the peculiar circumstances of a double interpretation like this. If "this gene-attending the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, why should ration" meant the succession of men then living upon they be thought to be impugned by those who see in earth, and if our Lord thus affirmed that the men scripture (or think they see) that Israel's conversion then living should not die till everything He had fore- will be attended by their literally looking on Him told should be accomplished, any application of His whom they have pierced? Will the spiritual view be words to yet future events, is clearly out of the question. less efficacious because of His being revealed to their And yet it does appear to me that he must be a bold mortal gaze ? That their unbelief, like that of man, who would undertake to prove that all included Thomas, should demand such proof, is doubtless to by our Lord in "these things" was fulfilled during their reproach. "Because thou hast seen me thou hast the life-time of His contemporaries on earth. But believed; blessed are they who have not seen and yet this is a subject too wide to enter upon here. have believed." Such is the superior blessedness to which we have been called by sovereign grace. But how touching the grace, which in convincing Thomas and subduing Saul, by means of that which appealed to the senses, as well as to the conscience and the heart, afforded a type of the mercy yet to be extended to Israel after the flesh!

As to Luke xvii, if the heavenly saints who are, at Christ's coming, to be caught up to meet Him, and so be for ever with Him, were the only persons recognized as His people; if there were to be no Jewish saints spared throughout the unequalled tribulation; no elect for whose sakes those days are to be shortened; I could understand your argument drawn from the As to 2 Thess. ii, believing, with many others, that directions not to flee, &c. These are evidently designed Antichrist is a person, the use of the word wapovoia, for Christ's earthly Jewish disciples, the Jewish as to him, is with me no presumption against its being