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if he had a moral and spiritual Millennium in view, he might appropriately employ it, just as the apostle (Rom. 12: 2. Tit. 3:5) speaks of the renewing of our minds. When the Saviour speaks of spiritual regeneration, he calls it being born again. He does so, because language furnishes him with no more appropriate and significant means of indicating the nature and consequences of a change of heart. Nicodemus, however, could understand him only in the carnal and material sense; and this I take to be exactly what Mr. D. has done with the words of Peter. The language of this apostle, after all, may be easily explained. In the first creation, God made all very good. Order and harmony held joint sway over all his dominions. Satan and sin, and sinning angels and men, have destroyed and disturbed this harmony and order. When the great period of man's probation and the process of redeeming sinners shall be completed-when (as Paul says) the end cometh-then all will be restored. "A new heavens and a new earth" will arise, by the mighty power of God and the Redeemer, wherein will dwell righteousness, and righteousness only. Nor does this at all involve the final and universal salvation of all impenitent men, and of the devils also, any more than the restoration of order and peace throughout the domains of an earthly prince, after a great and dangerous rebellion, necessarily implies that all the rebels should be retained in his kingdom and pardoned, instead of their being sent into remote banishment and exile. Such plainly are the times of restitution to which Peter alludes. It would, in fact,

be just as congruous to interpret being born again literally, as it would to apply the text in question to the terrestrial, "geological and atmospherical transformations" to which Mr. D. applies it. I aver this in all sincerity and earnestness, because, (as I shall attempt to show in the sequel), the kingdom of Christ, and the restoration which he is to introduce, are essentially and fundamentally of a moral and spiritual naOf course, if this be true, such an exegesis as Mr. D. gives of the passage, is altogether incongruous and inappropriate.

ture.

In proof that Peter refers very properly to "the holy prophets" as predicting the restoration pleaded for, Mr. D. refers us (on p. 277) to nearly every one of them, for passages of the like tenor with that in Acts 3: 21; that is, as he expounds them. How easily are objects magnified or the colour

of them changed, when we look through a glass appropriate to produce these effects. If we can only forget that we are using a magnifying glass, or one which has a stain upon its surface, we may believe that we see every thing with our own proper eyes. And this is what Mr. D. has succeeded in completely doing, while inspecting the numerous texts which he has enlisted into his army.

Having thus disclosed the fundamental principle of Mr. D., by the aid of which he summons help to his cause from the Scriptures; and having advertised the reader by what means all texts come to be shaped so as to suit his purpose; I must content myself, for the rest, with merely giving, for the most part, a list to the reader of the passages on which he places his main reliance.

These are Dan. 7: 7, 8, 19-25. Matt. 24: 50. 1 Thess. 4: 14-17. 5: 1—6. Here "the descent of the Lord from heaven, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; the resurrection of the dead, and Christians being caught up to meet the Lord in the air;" are all applied to the coming of Christ before the Millennium, i. e. at the commencement of it; and so of all other remaining texts. In various ways he lays under contribution, 2 Thess. 2: 5—7. Rev. 19: 11-21. Is. 63: 1–6. Ezek. chap. 38. 39. Rev. 16: 14-16. 14: 14-20. 1: 7. (The author every where quotes this book by a new title, viz. Revelations.) Zech. 12:9-12. Matt. 24: 30. 26: 64. Mark 13: 26. 14: 62. Luke 21: 24-27. 1 Tim. 6: 14. 2 Tim. 1: 10. 4: 1, 8. Tit. 2: 13. A few other passages are incidentally quoted; but the main reliance is on these.

Specially and at length does he argue the point, that 2 Thess. 2:8, which speaks of the "man of sin being destroyed by the breath of the mouth and the brightness of the appearing of Christ," admits of no other than a strictly literal sense, p. 310 seq. For myself, after turning this matter round and round, in order to view it on every side, I have not been able to make out what the breath of the mouth, in a strictly literal sense, is, of a being which at most has only a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15: 44, comp. Phil. 3: 21); for such must be the case in respect to the body of Jesus in the world of glory. Nor am I able to see how brightness (in the original, éлıqavɛia), in the strictly literal sense, can destroy either the man of sin, or any other man. It might put out their eyes, if carried to a certain extent; but

this would not be to destroy them.

And as to this last word,

destroy, if all the rest of the verse is strictly literal, of course this part of it is so. The consequence then is inevitable, that when Christ comes, the man of sin and his adherents are to be annihilated; for nothing less than this can meet the full and literal import of the word avalciσsı, destroy.

Such are the Scripture-proofs. Next comes the effort by Mr. D. to remove the great stumbling-block to his system, viz. the day of judgment, and the coming of the Son of Man, when this day shall be ushered in.

Matt. 25:31-46 stands apparently much in his way; more, as he thinks, than any thing in the Scriptures. Hence 32 pages (p. 336-367) are occupied with efforts to remove the obstacles which this presents. The sum of his results is as follows: (1) The nations in the flesh, and such only as have persecuted the Jews and the church (p. 364), are to be gathered, judged, and destroyed; and this judgment is to last through centuries, (p. 366). (2) No resurrection of the wicked precedes this judgment, but only the resurrection of saints. (3) Christ, with the saints, who are his messengers, is to come literally, and the bodies of the latter being united to their souls, they are to be employed in arranging and governing the new terrestrial kingdom.

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Comment, on my part, upon this effort of Mr. D., (and it is his principal one), need be but short. (1) Christ himself says, that he will come in his glory, with all his holy angels, when he is about to sit upon his throne of judgment, Matt. 25:31. Mr. D. says that he will come with all his saints, thus making yɣɛhoi (angels) to mean holy men or saints. (2) Christ says no more about the resurrection of the bodies of saints here, than he does about that of sinners. He says, in truth, nothing of either; knowing, of course, that the mass of his hearers took the resurrection for granted. (3) Christ says, that all nations are to be gathered before him; Mr. D., that only persecutors of Jews and Christians are to be judged, and these while in the flesh. (5) The separation of the two parties-sheep and goats-is affirmed by Christ to be complete, universal, and of eternal duration, vs. 32, 46; Mr. D. makes it the work of centuries, a long and difficult and gradual process, and finally extends it only to persecutors of Jews and Christians.、

Many other difficulties in the way of Mr. D.'s scheme here,

it would be easy to suggest. But enough. He contradicts directly the assertions of the passage in Matthew respecting all nations; he violates the idiom of the Greek by making angels into saints; he foists into the account just so much, and no more, of the doctrine of the resurrection as suits his own purpose; and he makes the process (and of course the punishment) a mere temporal and terrestrial matter. Besides all this, he continues the connection of the sheep and goats for centuries, after a final and eternal separation is asserted by Christ to be made.

What shall we say now to such argumentation as this? It would be difficult to find in any or all the adventurous works on the prophecies which have hitherto made their appearance, any thing which exceeds this, either in boldness of assertion, or in unfounded and presumptuous criticism and philology.

The remainder of the work is occupied with discussion respecting the seasons and the signs of Christ's coming.

As to the latter; all that is said in Scripture with respect to his coming in order to destroy Jerusalem, and coming to vindicate his church, etc., is applied by him, with little exception, to the antemillennial coming of Christ, and applied in what he names the literal sense. On this method of construing the Scriptures, no more need here be said; after what has already been said in the preceding pages.

As to the time of his coming, Mr. D. is not quite positive. Whoever wishes to see how singularly one can grope about, who does not distinctly know the whence or the whither of his course, may consult p. 386 seq. Mr. Miller, in the judgment of Mr. D., has not quite proved his point, respecting the coming in 1843, (p. 389); but somewhere between 1843 and 1847 will be marked, according to our author, "by very clear and decided movements in God's providence," preparatory to the great epoch; ib. The famous era of 1260 years he makes to have ended in 1792 (p. 406); yet the Millennium has not come. It seems therefore to be rather dependent on the great period of 2300 years (Dan. 8: 14); and these he has arranged in the most convenient manner possible. They may have commenced in the year B. C. 536, or 518, or 457, or 456, or 444, or 434; and of course they may end in A. D. 1764, 1782, 1843, 1856, or 1868. So then, the g eat crisis, although not arrived, still draws nigh. Twenty-six years more, at most,

and then we must all go up, at least once in a week (so Is. 66: 23 decides), to worship in the antitype of Ezekiel's temple at Jerusalem!

If any thing could be strange to the reader, in the way of exegetical development, after what we have already seen, one might think it passing strange, that after expending about 150 pages to prove the necessity of interpreting the prophecies literally, Mr. D. should every where, without even the semblance of an apology or justification, convert all the dayperiods of the prophets, so far as his purpose demands, into year-periods. Where now, we are constrained to ask, is the strenuous zeal for literality? Not a trace of it seems to be left. The difficulty which doubters have about a day as meaning a year, is not even, noticed, much less removed. How convenient such a power of metamorphosis! From one stage or form of development to another the author moves on, now vehemently urging the absolute and indispensable obligation to construe every expression literally, and then winking every thing of this nature entirely out of sight, or trampling it under his feet. How convenient, too, to have the choice out of six different periods, as to the time when the august drama in question is to commence! The latest of these periods may come, perhaps, even during the life-time of our author, and he himself may see what he believes to be the salvation of God with his own eyes. But if not, then he will at least be out of the way of critics and commentators, who might be disposed to point their finger at some of his wanderings, or to remind the public of certain faux-pas made by him. He is, in this respect, somewhat more prudent and wary, than the men of April 3d, A. D. 1843. In respect to these, if I can be allowed for a moment to interfere, I would respectfully suggest, that in some way or other they have in all probability made a small mistake as to the exact day of the month when the grand catastrophe takes place, the FIRST of April being evidently much more appropriate to their arrangements than any other day of the month.

A short chapter closes the work, the object of which is, to prove to skeptics, that the events which the scheme of the author supposes will take place, are neither beyond the power of God, nor even, in many respects, aside from the physiological constitution of the natural world. The suggestions in general which are made here, might, with some little

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