MILLENARIANISM.

BY THE REV. JOHN S. EBAUGH,

OF THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

I. THE history of Millenarianism is essentially as old as the sacred scriptures. And hence, as the light of divine revelation gradually increased, even to the completion of the canon of the sacred volume, in the same degree did the views of the Church of God, both under the Old and New Testaments, become more distinct and definite on this important subject.

This doctrine was professed with great distinctness by the Jewish Church, during the three centuries preceding the incarnation of the Saviour; but their radical error consisted in their mental vision and feelings being entirely absorbed in the contemplation of those prophecies which describe, in such glowing colours, the glory and triumph which shall attend his appearance and reign as the anointed King of Zion, on his second advent, when he will come to reign and not to suffer, having once suffered for all, as the substitute and surety of sinners, so as to make an end of sin, and bring in an everlasting righteousness by the death of the cross.

Hence it was that the Jews (with comparatively few exceptions) overlooked or misapprehended those predictions, which so emphatically describe the sufferings and humiliation consequent upon his first advent, even from the manger of Bethlehem to the accursed cross on ever-memorable Calvary.

And that these were the doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles, is clearly evident from the whole tenor of their writings, as contained in the New Testament. And hence the frequency and urgency of their exhortations to their hearers, to make due preparation to meet their Saviour, when the voice shall be heard, "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him!"

These were also the doctrines of the primitive Church of Christ, for the whole of the three first centuries of its history, insomuch that

it was accounted flagrant heterodoxy by the great mass of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, to attempt to deny it.

But some time after this period, these views of sacred scripture became gradually obscured by the workings of the Man of Sin, the spirit of Antichrist, until these doctrines were at length buried, as it were, under the idle and God-dishonouring rites and ceremonies of the baptized heathenism which constituted the service of the Church of Rome.

In this condition matters remained during the lapse of centuries commonly known as the dark ages of nominal Christendom, excepting in the valleys of Piedmont, by the Waldenses and Albigenses, who constituted, without a doubt, the true Church of Christ, during those dire ages of antichristian darkness.

But in the glorious Reformation of the sixteenth century, the Bible was released from its long confinement in the antiquated convent, and, by its illuminating rays, these precious doctrines of the Millennium were again revived, and in their diffusion gave life and animation to the Church of Immanuel.

For that these doctrines were held by the Reformers, and their successors for centuries after the Reformation, no one can doubt who is acquainted with their writings.

So that Whitby, who lived a century after the Reformers had gone home to glory, may be justly considered as the great Coryphæus of introducing in the Protestant church a system of spiritualizing the prophecies, to such an extent as to leave little to be anticipated in relation to the personal reign of great David's greater Son, on the throne of his father David, as King of Zion.

But, even through this period of the church's history, many of the most gigantic minds and brightest luminaries of the different branches of the Church of Christ, held these views of Christian doctrine.

Such, for instance, as the majority of the members, who composed that august body, known as the Westminster Assembly of Divines, the profoundly learned Mr. Mead, Bishops Newton, Tillotson, Toplady, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Gill, and a host of others who lived in the last and preceding centuries.

But it was not until within the last twenty years that these doctrines have claimed the special attention of many of the great and good, both of European and American churches, so that they have, and do even now, number among their advocates many of the most distinguished divines of the present age.

Such as Dr. Chalmers, the late Rev. Robert Hall of Bristol, the Hon. Messrs. Noels, Rev. Messrs. Bickerstiths, Brooks, Anderson,

Cunningharn, Pollock, Habersham, Woodworth, McNeils, and many other transatlantic names of renown.

And in our own country we find among the advocates of the personal reign of Christ on the earth, during the Millennium, such persons as Bishops McIlvain, Henshaw, Hopkins and Ives, Drs. Broadhead, Duffield, McCarty, Andrews, Tyng, Breckenridge, Forsyth, Lillies, Lindsey, Shimeall, Winebrenner, and upwards of three hundred other divines distinguished for their zeal and learning in the different evangelical branches of the Church of Christ in these United States of America.

II. We proceed now, according to our prescribed arrangement, to give an outline of the doctrines properly denominated Millena

rian.

But in doing this, we must premise that, like every other great system of truth, these doctrines are received by their advocates and professors with some shades of difference of opinion as to their minute details, whilst they agree in the main and fundamental truths of the system.

The doctrines pertaining to the millennial reign of the Messiah on earth, are in substance as follows:

1. That the Lord Jesus Christ will come again in like manner as he ascended into heaven, at the commencement of the Millennium, at which time the sign of the coming of the Son of Man, as he himself declares, will be as suddenly manifested as the lightning's glance, and in such a manner that every eye shall behold it.

2. Upon the appearance of the Saviour in all the refulgence of his glorified human nature, as the anointed King of Zion, his voice will penetrate all the receptacles of all the righteous dead who have fallen asleep in Christ, from righteous Abel, down to the youngest son or daughter of the Lord Almighty, and consisting of all kindreds, nations, tongues, and people, under the whole heavens; and hearing his voice they will all arise, and come forth from their respective resting-places, and be conformed unto the glorious body of the Redeeming Saviour, as members of the first resurrection, so clearly predicted in the twentieth chapter of the Revelations, and as that better resurrection, to attainment of which the Apostle Paul used such unremitted diligence.

Immediately after this resurrection, those who are yet found in the body, having been regenerated by the grace and spirit of God, and being thus united to Christ, will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and together with the risen dead, will include all the members of his

elect church, or his bride, or the Lamb's wife; and as such will be caught up to him in the air.

At this juncture of the concerns of the human family, the declaration of the Saviour will be literally fulfilled, namely, that "Two shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left," &c. The meaning of which passage certainly is, that those individuals, in families, who are found in the Lord, shall on his appearing be changed immediately into a state of happy immortality, and thus be caught up to meet the Bridegroom of their souls; while those who are found on that occasion in their natural state, will be left behind as the inhabitants of the earth.*

While the Saviour and his saints who are caught up to meet him in the air, thus remain together, as the united bride and royal Bridegroom, in midheaven, is it not probable, from many analogies found in the Bible, especially in the forty days of Moses, for instance, communing with God on Mount Sinai; the forty days of the spics in the land of Canaan; the forty years of the Israelites journeying through the wilderness to Canaan; the temptation of Christ in the wilderness for forty days; the rains descending from heaven for forty days and forty nights, by which the antediluvian world of the ungodly was drowned, and other instances of a similar nature; judging, I say, from such analogies, is it not highly probable that the Saviour, together with all the members of his elect church, will occupy their station in the air or midheaven for something like forty years, during which period the tribes of Israel may all return to Palestine, rebuild Jerusalem, and by reason of the great multitudes returning to take possession of the country solemnly promised by God to Abraham, (for it is a remarkable fact, that this wonderful people are, notwithstanding their manifold persecutions, more numerous and more wealthy, at present, than they ever were since the call of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to the present day, numbering, if we include ten so long lost tribes of Israel, recently found in Bucharia, Thibet, and Cashmere, and consisting of more than eight millions of souls, together with the tribe of Judah and half tribe of Benjamin, consisting of upwards of five millions more, making, in all, upwards of thirteen millions;) I say, when these multitudes all return, and in fulfilment of God's promise, in the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, are planted on the mountains of Israel, how well will their swelling numbers tend to fulfil the sure prediction of God's spirit by the mouth of the prophet, Then shall the people of Israel say: The land is too straight for us, and they shall occupy the whole of the original grant to Abraham, of all the country from the river of Egypt to the great sea, and to the river Euphrates?

And thus becoming a great and notable people in point of location, of riches, and num. bers, how naturally may these combined circumstances excite the jealousy of the surrounding nations of the earth so as to bring about precisely the awful scenes so graphically described in the fourteenth chapter of Zechariah: when all nations shall be gathered together, to fight against Jerusalem; and in the midst of which tumult, blood, and carnage, the Lord shall come, and all his saints with him, when he shall gird on his great sword, and drive on conquering and to conquer, until his own right arm procures the final victory over all his combined enemies; expels Satan and all his legions from the earth, and introduces the golden age of millennial glory.

But let us take another view of this momentous subject. At the first resurrection, which shall take place, immediately after the sign of. the coming of the Son of Man

3. During the time that the Saviour, together with all the members of the first resurrection, and those members of his mystical body which have just passed through their living change, are together in the air, this world will undergo a great change, in which the atmospheric heavens, as well as the earth, will be purged from their defilements, and both be restored, in a great degree, to. their paradisical beauty and loveliness; during which process, God will find some, to us at present unknown, way of preserving a portion of the human family from these desolating judgments and convulsions in the earth, as he saved Noah and his family in the ark, so as to prevent this world from being entirely depopulated.

4. This earth having thus been prepared, the Lord Jesus Christ, together with all his saints, will descend to this earth in circumstances of awful grandeur; such as are described in Daniel vii. 914, and in Zechariah xiv. 4; in which passages it is expressly declared, that he, as the Son of Man, shall come, accompanied by his militant thousands of attendants, to take possession of a universal kingdom over all the earth; and that "His feet, in that day, shall stand on Mount Olivet."

When he is thus revealed from heaven, every eye shall see him, and especially the family of Abraham, who shall have been gathered home to Palestine, shall then look upon him as the august personage whom they and their fathers pierced, and they shall then mourn in all the ingenuousness of that godly sorrow which shall never be repented of; and the momentous inquiry shall then be affirmatively answered, which is made by God's inspired prophet: "Have a nation been born in a day?" For in that day shall all the united tribes of Judah and Israel turn with full purpose of heart unto the Lord, and constitute the happy and loyal subjects of Messiah's kingdom.

5. The law of Christ and the glad tidings of his kingdom shall

shall appear in heaven, all the righteous who have ever lived on the earth, and those then found in the body, shall be taken away from the earth, and those who are left behind are all in their natural state of enmity and rebellion against God and his anointed Son, and we may therefore well imagine into what a vortex of rioting, rapine, and heaven-insulting rebellion, the nations of the earth will speedily plunge, when the righteous, who have ever salted and savoured the earth, are all taken home, the restraining grace of God with. drawn, and Satan, as the prince of the power of the air, brings all his machinations to work in the hearts of the children of disobedience. So that through such concomitant circumstances the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, may soon be revealed, and nation shall meet nation in mad and fell encounter, and thus go on awfully verifying the sure word of prophecy, that they shall go on overturning and overturning, and overturning, until he comes, with all his saints, whose right it is to reign?