dispensation of religion, we are at a loss to conceive; nor shall we admit the propriety of Mr. M'Neile's definition, till he prove that an opportunity of reaping the benefit of religious instruction is the same thing with the instruction imparted. We take the times of the Gentiles to be "the times appointed for their full conversion to Christianity," and we refer to the τὸ πληρώμα τῶν ἔθνων of the Apostle, and to the ἄχρι πληρώθωσι καίροι ἔθνων of the Evangelist, as illustrative of our exposition of the phrase in question; and when their conversion to Christianity shall be proved to mean the same thing as the season ordained for it, we shall assent to the dogma of our author touching the point before us. Against which conclusion, we should struggle, however, with more resolute pertinacity, when informed of the purpose, to which he attempts to render it subservient; for upon this weak foundation Mr. M'Neile would erect the hypothesis, forsooth, that the present dispensation is to terminate by a separation of the saints from the ungodly, accompanied with a dreadful judgment upon Christendom, and succeeded by the restoration of the converted Jews, and the introduction of millennial blessedness!

The chief ground on which our author places his fanciful system, is the delay of God's purposes under all preceding dispensations.

We see (he writes) that the antediluvian dispensation held out a prospect of the glorious promise of universal blessedness being fulfilled. But the time was not yet. That dispensation fell short of the accomplishment. We see that in like manner the patriarchal and Levitical dispensations held out, with increasing clearness, a prospect of the great promise being fulfilled. But still the time was not yet fully come. Those dispensations fell short of it. Now we see this dispensation holding out a still more animating prospect of the final promise being fulfilled. But let us take instruction from what is past. Our dispensation also may fall short of the glorious consummation; and another change may take place, similar to the destruction of the world-similar to the rejection of the Jews.-P. 71.

The question at issue between those who maintain our view of the subject and those who adopt Mr. M'Neile's, is simply this ;-Is the dispensation under which we are living the final dispensation? or, is it another introductory dispensation, such as those which have preceded it? We contend that this point cannot be determined by the nature of any previous revelations, which at sundry times and in divers manners it has pleased God to make of his will; and that our author's argument drawn from such analogies is wholly inconclusive. We therefore save ourselves the toil of discussing it in detail, though we must assume the privilege of remarking, by the way, that it is founded upon data, which Divines would refuse to grant, and involves within itself a gross petitio principii. We deny that any preceding dispensations have fallen short of their promises, when rightly understood; and we deny that the promises of previous dispensations were what our author represents. He would persuade us, indeed, from

*

Acts xv. 14, that the design of Christianity is, not the conversion of all the families of the earth, but " to take and save a people out of the Gentiles," and "to provoke the Jews to jealousy." (pp. 78, 86.) In proof of which opinion he adduces "the experience, the number, and the character of the real disciples of Jesus Christ, as largely described in the New Testament." We venture to remark that his reasoning is built upon the literal interpretation of prophetic passages, which are undoubtedly figurative; for that when we read predictions of universal holiness, (such as Isaiah xi. 9; Jer. xxxi. 34; Zech. xiv. 20.) to insist upon their literal accomplishment is to forget the nature of prophetic language, and to confound declamation with argument. Upon comparing, moreover, Acts xv. 14, with Acts xv. 7, 8, our author may perceive that " to take out of the Gentiles a people for God's name," which he contrasts with the conversion of the Gentiles, is synonymous with "their hearing the word of the Gospel," and "receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost," even as the Jews. But what is this, save their conversion? The design of Christianity, then, was not the partial election of a peculiar people out of the Gentiles, but the salvation of the "whole world," it being the express object of our Redeemer σwσai rò dñoλwλòs,—(ALL that which was lost, in the concrete,) Gentiles as well as Jews. Then again, to say, that it was the design of Christianity to "provoke the Jews to jealousy," is to confound the secondary effect of that dispensation with its primary purpose.

As to the termination of the existing dispensation, which, Mr. M'Neile judges, "will be a separation of the saints from the ungodly," similar to the separation of Lot from the men of Sodom, accompanied with a dreadful judgment upon Christendom, similar to that upon the cities of the plain," (p. 92.) we confess ourselves unable to trace the slightest evidence for it in the oracles of truth, whether we examine "the ancient Prophecies," "the Parables of our Lord," or "the Apostolical Epistles;" to which three sources our author has appealed in support of his untenable fancy. We know assuredly, and it is our anxious prayer to God that he would impress the awful truth yet more deeply upon our hearts! we know assuredly that the end of this Christian dispensation shall synchronize with the Day of Judgment; but we utterly reject the notion that the termination of the times of the Gentiles will be immediately succeeded by the Coming of the Son of Man, in Mr. M'Neile's sense of the phrase, or that this existing dispensation will be followed by such a state of immaculate righteousness as ULTRA-Millenarians would teach us to anticipate. Nay, more than this; we see Christianity every where described as the last dispensation, to which no other revelation of the divine will shall

*See Hey's Lect. B. IV. Introd. to Pt. II. § 9.

succeed. We see but two advents of Christ mentioned in Scripture, (besides his figurative and typical coming at the destruction of Jerusalem;)—the first, when "he came to visit us in great humility; "-the second, "when he shall come again in his glorious majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead." And we are firmly persuaded with Bishop Horsley, that "the phrase of our Lord's coming, wherever it occurs in his prediction of the Jewish war, as well as in most other passages of the New Testament, is to be taken in its literal meaning, as denoting his coming in person, in visible pomp and glory, to the general judgment." We believe the unspeakable gift of the gospel to be the last largess from the treasury of heaven to fallen man; for the times of Christianity are described in Holy Writ as "the last days;"—" the last, not as importing the speedy end of this material world, but only that God had no subsequent dispensation in reserve.' We mean no

discourtesy towards our author; but his exposition of the parable of the Tares and the Wheat is so miserably wretched, and puts so forced a construction upon it, and his special pleading with regard to the words Tou alwvos ToÚTOV has been so well shewn up by the pen of Bishop Horsley, that we must beg leave to adopt that learned theologian's words to convey our ideas upon the topic under discussion. "You are told," says his Lordship, "that by the end of the world," (the words of the Evangelist are rñs ouvreλeías тov aivos,) "the Apostles meant the end of that particular age during which the Jewish Church and State were destined to endure. Such puerile refinements of verbal criticism might better become those blind leaders of the blind, against whose bad teaching our Saviour warned the Jewish people, than the preachers of the Gospel. It is not to be believed, that the end of the world, (rou aiwvos,) in the language of the Apostles, may signify the end of any thing else, or carry any other meaning than what the words must naturally convey to every one who believes that the world shall have an end, and has never bewildered his understanding in the schools of the Rabbins."

That the Jews will, in God's appointed time, be converted, and restored to their own land, and that thence a large accession of Gentile converts will be made to the Christian Church, we are, indeed, firmly persuaded; and, therefore, we pass over our author's fourth and fifth Lectures upon these interesting points without a comment; especially as our limits forbid us to expatiate upon those parts of his discussion in which there is, happily, no occasion for dissent. But the sixth Lecture, in the volume upon our table, calls for our particular notice. We utterly reject our author's hypothesis, that our blessed Redeemer, in his human nature, and "beaming in the glory of God," (p. 167.)

* Faber's Dissert. Proph. vol. i. p. 89; and Jenkins's Reasonableness of Christianity, vol. ii. c. xxiv. § 3.

shall return to this earth, and reign as King of the Jews, "exécuting judgment and justice, restoring Judah and Israel to peace and safety in their own land, and being acknowledged and proclaimed by them, with joy and gladness, Jehovah their Righteousness." (p. 158.) What! is He, who hath led captivity captive, and now sits enthroned at the right hand of God, "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come;"-Is He, who, "because he humbled himself, hath therefore been highly exalted;"-is He, who now intercedes for us in heaven,-to intermit that blessed ministration, to be mulct of his glorious honours in the immediate presencechamber of the King of kings,-to revisit "this opacous earth, this punctual spot ;"-and to descend to a poor throne in Palestine, and to rule personally over the nation of the Jews? We venture to say, with Dr. More,* that "the personal reign of Christ upon earth is a very rash, and groundless, and unsafe conceit." We do not hesitate to declare with Dr. Burnet, that the hypothesis of Christ's presence for the space of a thousand years is utterly false; and we quote his language to convey our final decision upon this much agitated question;

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"That Christ should leave the right hand of his Father, to come and pass a thousand years here below, living upon earth in a heavenly body;-this, I confess, is a thing I never could digest."

We are sensible, after all, that our belief on this point is very contemptible; yea, we are willing to acknowledge that the authority of man (though we could adduce a huge army of commentators to support our doctrine,) is comparatively worthless, and that recourse must be had to Holy Writ, for "that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith." To the Word of God, then, we appeal for the refutation of Mr. M'Neile's view of the personal reign of Christ. There we read that the kingdom of our Redeemer "is not of this world;” (John xviii. 36.) there we read that "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation; for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you;” (Luke xvii. 20, 21.) there we may see, comparing Matt. xvi. 28, with Mark ix. 1, that the "coming of the kingdom of God," and "the coming of the Son of man," are phrases employed by the Evangelists as synonymous expressions, and that the latter is used where it cannot possibly signify Christ's personal advent; there we read that "the heaven must receive Christ until the times of restitution of all things,"‡ (Acts iii. 21.) "when He shall be

*Mystery of Godliness, p. 181.

†Theory of the Earth, vol. ii. p. 308. † σε Αχρι χρόνων ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων, h. e. quamdiu tempora N. Τ. durant, quibus per religionem Christianam omnia in meliorem statum sunt redigenda:-usque dum omnia eventum habeant, quæ sunt prædicta a prophetis."-Schleus. Lex. Græc. apud verbum-Αποκατάστασις.

revealed from heaven with his mighty angels" (2 Thess. i. 7.) to judge the quick and the dead; there we see, that Christ is gone "to prepare a place for his disciples," and that when he shall "come again he will receive them unto himself, "that where he is, there they may be also ;" (John xiv. 1-3.) a reception, which will take place, unquestionably, at the general resurrection, before which era our Redeemer, therefore, will make no personal advent amongst us; for as, at his first coming, he offered himself as a sacrifice to take away our sins, so, “unto them that look for him shall he appear THE SECOND time without sin unto salvation :" (Heb. ix. 28.) Indeed, we see the Scriptures uniformly connecting these two advents of Christ, to the exclusion, we submit, of any other personal coming; and we cite the words of the Apostles' Creed as fairly conveying the same notion, when we are taught to profess our belief, that "he sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." If there be mention made of a presence, or an advent, or a reign of Christ between these his first and second coming, (and that there is, we readily allow,)-it is quite certain that they must be of a different nature; and, as his first and second advent are personal, what can the others be but spiritual? There will, doubtless, come an hour when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord; but the reign of Christ will not be personal, for we are expressly told by the Prophet, that, at this auspicious era of universal righteousness, "the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given," to Christ? No; but " TO THE PEOPLE OF THE SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH!" (Dan. vii. 27.) It should be remembered also, that the word Christ is frequently used in the sacred writings for the doctrine of Christ; in which sense we are said to "put on Christ," to "grow in Christ," and to "learn Christ." And, therefore, we are supported by the strongest analogy, when we interpret all those passages which seem to predict a personal reign of Christ upon earth, spiritually and figuratively, rather than in their literal acceptation.

Upon the whole of this question, we ask, whether the spiritual presence of Christ be not infinitely more advantageous than his personal advent could be? We ask whether the hypothesis touching Christ's carnal rule over the Jews be not a rebuilding of the wall of partition, which was thrown down by Christianity, and a restoration of the temple, the vail of which was rent in twain? We ask, again, whether to adopt Mr. M'Neile's creed on this point, be not to forget that the great purpose for which the Jews were chosen of God as his people, having been accomplished by the establishment of the faith of the cross, the personal reign of Christ at Jerusalem would not be the restoration of a system of favouritism, when the reason for it had ceased,