It should be noticed also that the chronological indices in the two passages exactly agree. In Matthew, the time fixed for the advent of Christ and the gathering of the saints, was within the lifetime of the generation living when the prophecy was uttered; in other words, immediately after the tribulation' of the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. In Rev. 6 and 7, the advent and gathering take place at the opening of the sixth seal, previous to the sounding of any of the trumpets of the Gentile dispensation, and immediately after a series of tribulations, exactly corresponding to those of A. D. 79, ushered in by the opening of the first five seals. It is thus made certain that the 7th chapter of Revelations describes the same gathering as that announced in Matt. 24: 31, and of course the same resurrection of the saints from Hades and Mortality, as that announced in 1 Cor. 15: 52, and 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17. Thus also the time of this resurrec tion is fastened with a 'threefold cord' to the period immediately subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem, before the commencement of the times of the Gentiles. We must here glance at some of the details which are presented in Rev. 7. It will be perceived that while Matt. 24: 31 predicts the gathering of the saints, and the passages in 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians give us a clue to the mode of the gathering, we have in Rev. 7 a sort of statistical account of the number and national origin of the persons gathered. Twelve thousand from each of the tribes of Israel-in all 144,000 Jews-occupy the foreground of the resurrection-scene, and the picture is filled up with an innumerable multitude of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues.' This is just such a gathering as might be anticipated, on the supposition that it was the general harvest of the saints of preceding ages. The vision can not be referred with the least plausibility to any such transactions in the vis ible world as the conversion of Jews and Gentiles to Christianity; for, in the first place, the number of Jews that embraced Christianity in the times to which the prophecy refers, never approached the sum of 144,000; and, secondly, their classification by tribes, was then obsolete. It is as evident that the assignment of the 144,000 to the original twelve tribes of Israel is to be understood literally, as it is that the innumerable multitude which was gathered with them came literally from every nation and kindred and people and tongue.' If it is considered that for two thousand years the religion of the true God had made its abode with the Jews, it is easily conceivable that twelve thousand of each of the twelve tribes should have died in faith,' and have been kept in store for the resurrection at Christ's advent. And it is equally rational to suppose that they who feared God and worked righteousness' among the Gentiles, few and far between as they were in individual nations and times, would amount, when reckoned for the whole world, and for all preceding ages, to an innumerable multitude.' On the whole it is sufficiently evident that we have in the 7th of Revelations a specific account of the resurrection of the Old Testament saints," (including of course the saints of the apostolic age.) As the Gentile multitude was evidently only a secondary accompaniment of the 144,000 from the tribes of Israel, the resurrection under consideration may properly be termed by way of distinction, the resurrection of the Jewish church. The appropriate time for this resurrection was at the close of the Jewish dispensation. III. We next compare Rev. 7: 2-4, with Rev. 14: 1--4. REV. 7: 2-4. "I saw another angel... having the seal of the living God; and he cried, saying, Hurt not the earth . . . til! we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. . . . And there were sealed an hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of Israel." REV. 14: 1--4. “I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with him an hundred and forty-four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. . . . These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and the Lamb." It is obvious that both of these passages refer to the same ransomed assembly. The number in each is the same. In each, the saints are sealed in their foreheads with the name of the living God. Now as we have proved that the first passage announces a literal resurrection of the Jewish church, which took place immediately after the close of the Jewish dispensation, we transfer this information to the second passage, and by means of it determine the meaning of the concluding verse- These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and the Lamb.' Under the Jewish dispensation, the first ripe fruits were offered to God before the general harvest was gathered. In some sense, therefore, the passage before us represents the church of 144,000 as being presented to God before the general gathering of mankind. Our previous demonstrations show in what sense this was true. That Jewish church was first presented to God in the resurrection. The term 'first-fruits' is here applied to the 144,000 in the same way as it is applied to Christ in 1 Cor. 15: 23. With reference to the whole race of man, Christ was the first-fruits' of the resurrection harvest. With reference to the great mass, to be raised after the times of the Gentiles, the Jewish church was the first-fruits.' It is proved then by the explicit testimony of inspiration, as well as by every consideration of reason, that the resurrection of the Jewish church immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, was the first resurrection.' IV. We turn now to Rev. 20: 4-13, and apply to its interpretation the results of our preceding investigations. The portions of the passage which are essential to our present purpose are the following: ... I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, . . . and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. . . . But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. . . . They shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. When the thousand years are expired, [Gog and Magog are gathered and brought up to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Fire from heaven consumes them, and the devil that deceived them is cast into the lake of fire.] And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; . . . and the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works.' Here we have a description of two resurrections, separated from each other by an interval of many ages. One of them is called the first resurrection' with manifest reference to the other as the second. Both therefore are of the same kind. If one is a literal resurrection, the other must also be literal. It is admitted on all hands that the second is a literal resurrection. Of course the same is true of the first. Now as we have proved that a literal resurrection of the Jewish church took place immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, and that this was the first resurrection; and as it is evident that there can be but one first resurrection, it is fairly demonstrated that the resurrection denominated the first' in the above passage, is identical with that of the Jewish church. This conclusion will be confirmed by comparing the specific characteristics of the persons described as the subjects of the resurrection in question, with the characteristics of the church that was raised at the close. of the Jewish dispensation. 1. Compare Rev. 14: 3-5, with Rev. 20: 6. CHAP. 14. CHAP. 20. "They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection." One of these passages is manifestly the echo of the other. The peculiar blessedness and holiness attributed to the subjects of the first resurrection in the second of them, is more minutely described in the first, and is there expressly assigned to the 144,000, or, as we have before proved, to the Jewish church which was raised from the dead after the destruction of Jerusalem. 2. Compare Rev. 6: 9-11, with Rev. 20: 4-6. "When he had opened the fifth seal, "I saw thrones, and they sat upon I saw under the altar the souls of them them, and judgment was given unto that were slain for the word of God and them: and I saw the souls of them for the testimony which they held.-- that were beheaded for the witness of And they cried with a loud voice, saying, Jesus and for the word of God; How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost and they lived and reigned with Christ thou not judge and avenge our blood on a thousand years. But the rest of the then that dwell on the earth. And dead lived not again until the thousand white robes were given to them; and it years were finished. This is the first was said unto them that they should resurrection, Blessed and holy is he rest yet for a little season, until their that hath part in the first resurrec fellow-servants, and their brethren that tion." should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." The same company of the martyred dead are the subjects of discourse in both of these passages. In the first passage they are represented as awaiting the redemption of the judgment. In the second their judgment is past, and they are described as standing with Christ in the blessedness and holiness of the resurrection. The scene of the first passage occurs at the opening of the fifth seal, just after the awful tribulations that follow the opening of the former seals, (i. e. the tribulations of A. D. 70,) and just before the second advent and the resurrection-gathering which follow the opening of the sixth seal. It is manifest that these same martyrs who cried for deliverance at the opening of the fifth seal, were the subjects of the gathering under the sixth. And thus it is evident that they who are described in Rev. 20 as partakers in the first resurrection, are also identical with those who were gathered under the sixth. seal." In view of all these coinciding tokens, we cannot doubt that the true interpretation of the vision in Rev. 20: 4-6, is as follows: 1. The resurrection there described, was, as to its NATURE, a rising from Hades and Mortalitythat very resurrection which the apostles and primitive believers constantly represented as very near, and which Paul in 1 Cor. 15: 52 and 1 Thess. 4. 16, specifically defined as a literal resurrection. 2. Its SUBJECTS were the saints of all previous ages-in three classes, viz. martyrs, Jews, and Gentiles. 3. Its TIME was immediately after the tribulations of A. D. 70, between the opening of the sixth and seventh seals, and more than a thousand years previous to the time appointed for the general resurrection. We subjoin the following corollaries of this conclusion. 1. The millennium, properly so called, being the period between the first and second resurrection, is past. It was the millennium, not of saints in this world, but of the saints of the Jewish dispensation, in the resurrection. 2. We are now in a position to see why the New Testament constantly places the commencement of the kingdom of heaven at the destruction of Jerusalem. The kingdom of heaven is properly the kingdom of the resur rection. Christ entered the resurrection himself soon after his death; and, so far as the king was concerned, the kingdom of heaven began from his ascension. But his destined subjects in Hades and Mortality, did not enter the resurrection till his coming at the end of the Jewish dispensation. That therefore was more properly the era of the commencement of his kingdom. 3. We understand now what Christ meant, when he promised his apostles that at his ascension of the throne, they also should sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Probably most persons would find it difficult to tell where the twelve tribes of Israel' over whom the apostles *It should be noticed that while the church of the first resurrection is described in Rev. 7, as a complex body, consisting on the one hand of 144,000 from the tribes of Israel, and on the other of a vast multitude from other nations, the same church is designated in Rev. 14: 1-4, simply by the number of the Jewish portion of it, i. e. 144,000; and in Rev. 20: 4-6 it is designated by the still narrower expression--the souls of them that were beheaded,' &c. This variation indicates that there were three distinct grades in that church. As the 144,000 Jews were distinguished as the nucleus of the Gentile multitude, so within this nucleus there appears to have been a still more distinguished body, consisting of those who in all ages had suffered death for the word of God. This being the constitution of the church, it is obvious that it might properly and naturally be designated by reference either to the whole of its complex body, or to the Jewish portion of it, as being its soul, or to the company of the martyrs, as being its heart.We do not understand from the language of Rev. 20: 4, that none but those who literally suffered martyrdom, had part in the first resurrection, but that the martyrs of the Jewish dispensation and of the apostolie age, were the prominent persons of the drama, were to reign, could be found. In this world the original distinction of the tribes has long been obliterated, and, according to the common apprehension, no such distinction has any place in heaven. But we have found a very explicit disclosure of the fact that the central body of the church of the firstborn' consists of a hundred and forty-four thousand Jews, divided into twelve tribes of twelve thousand each. Thus we find a place for the twelve thrones of the apostles. § 51. BUSH ON THE RESURRECTION. ANASTASIS or the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body, rationally_and scripturally considered. By George Bush, Professor of Hebrew, New York City University. New York: Wiley and Putnam. 1845. ON reading this work, we find ourselves obliged to confess that our favor able anticipations of it have not been realized. The novelty of its theories evinces a mental bravery which we cannot but admire, and to some of its conclusions we cordially assent; but we are convinced that, as a whole, it presents a false view of the great subject which it undertakes to expound. We shall vindicate this opinion of its merits, not by sweeping, declamatory censures, but by 'sternly interrogating' its specific doctrines. The negative part of the main position which is assumed and defended throughout the book, is, that the resurrection of the body is not a doctrine of revelation.' Mr. Bush gives no quarter to such rhapsodies as the following from Young's 'Last Day :' "Now monuments prove faithful to their trust, To distant regions journeying, there to claim We borrow the following sketch of Mr. B's philosophical argument against the popular doctrine of the resurrection of the body, from a notice of his work in The New World:'-"Assuming this to be, in some sense or other, the positive creed of Christendom, Prof. B. enters upon the consideration of it first upon physiological grounds, and aims to show that the admitted fact of the constant flux of particles in our present bodies throws an insuperable bar in the way of the resurrection of the same bodies, inasmuch as the very idea of sameness is precluded by the evanescent nature of the subject. The conceded fact, moreover, that the constituent elements of our bodies are inces |