THE MILLENNIUM: ITS NATURE AND BLESSINGS. The substance of a Lecture deilvered to the Derby Young Men's Christian Association, in 1849. continue for a thousand years. The term Millennium, as signifying a thousand years, is usually employed to describe this happy period. Without indulging any fanciful and visionary anticipations, unsanctioned by the Word of God, we are taught that the world will then present an aspect very different from its appearance now; and that peace and plenty, righteousness and happiness, shall abound under the holy and gentle reign of Jesus. WHEN the pious and benevolent grieve | destruction of Antichrist, and shall at beholding the scenes of sin and misery, which are witnessed now in every land, it is pleasing to expect a time when all such scenes shall have passed away; and shall be known only in the records of departed ages. Christians are encouraged to indulge these joyful expectations. No merely human experience would warrant such expectations; for where the influence of christianity has been unfelt, the world has always gone from bad to worse. Horace, the heathen poet, declared that they who then lived were more wicked than their ancestors, and that their descendants would be worse than they. This progress in vice, and its miseries, has in various instances thinned, and in some, as in the South Sea Islands, almost annihilated the population of a country. The expectation of better times and of happier scenes in this sin-stricken world, can rest surely on no ground but Divine revelation. The Scriptures, however, authorize us to indulge the expectation of a time of great prosperity to religion, and of much peace and happiness, which shall follow the VOL. 1,-N. S. N Some expositors, and among them Dr. Priestley, have supposed that the thousand years mentioned in the book of Revelation, are a thousand prophetic years, in which a day signifies a year; and thus that the period mentioned, instead of being literally a thousand years, is really three hundred and sixty thousands. To any one that loves the appearing of the Lord, such a supposition must be painful, as throwing to so vast a distance the solemnities of the judgment day. One consideration demonstrates the fallacy of the supposition. The population of the earth during such a state as that of the millennium would doubtless double | siah for the Gentiles, who, he says, much faster than while it is con- do not want one, he asks, “What stantly lessened by war; and the dis- shall the Messiah do for the Genliles? eases caused by vice. Hitherto it Shall he gather them?-they are not has doubled more than once in five dispersed. Shall he give them kings? hundred years; but if for three hun- -they have kings. Shall he give dred and sixty thousand years, dur- them lands?—they have lands. Shall ing the reign of peace and holiness, he give them nobles?-they have it were to double but once in every nobles. Shall he give them riches ?— five hundred years, such a population they have riches. Shall he give them would be produced as the earth glory?-they have glory. But Israel could not possibly sustain, and pro- has lost all these things, and therefore bably could not even furnish with they have need of the Messiah."* standing room upon its whole surface. We infer, therefore, that the years mentioned are literal, not pro phetic years. In pursuing our enquiry into the nature of the millennium, the way may be cleared by shewing first what the millennium is not. It is not a period during which our adorable Lord and Saviour, having descended from heaven, shall personally reign upon the earth. It is well known that with many Christians this wild and visionary supposition is a favourite notion, and in many cases a harmless one, as it affects not their piety; but in other instances it becomes very mischievous, as from an apprehension that nothing effectual can be done for diffusing religion, till the Lord comes, they neglect the appointed means for conveying the inestimable blessings of the Gospel to our fallen world. The notion is not a new one. It probably sprung from the worldly expectations of the Jews respecting the Messiah, and is near akin to them. They expected the Messiah to be a mighty earthly king; a great worldly conqueror, by whom their nation should be highly exalted; and this made the lowly Jesus a stumbling block to them. The modern Jews have the same expectations. Rabbi Crooll, in his controversy with Mr. Scott, says, "Messiah's kingdom is not spiritual, but absolutely earthly." Adding, that there is no Mes Connected with these worldly expectations, some of the ancient Jews looked for a resurrection of some of their forefathers to partake of these expected earthly glories. Mede, so distinguished for his learning, thus sums up their opinion: "They expect their forefathers, at least such as were just and holy, should rise in the beginning of the same Millennium, and reign in the land of Israel, with their offspring, under the Messiah."+ This Jewish notion was soon introduced into the christian church, and was held by some sincere christians, who connected the most extravagant fancies with it; but it was by no means universal. Eusebius mentions Papias about the beginning of the second century, as maintaining that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this earth;" and observes that he appears to have imagined these things, "as if they were authorized by the apostolic narrations, not understanding correctly those matters which they propounded mystically in their representations; for he was very limited in his comprehension, as is evident from his discourses."-(Euseb. L. iii. cxxxv). He further states that he was the cause why a number of others were carried away by a similar opinion. Among them was Ireneus, * Crooll's Restoration of Israel. p. 89. † Quoted in Whitby on the Millennium, c. ii . 6. Many passages prove the doctrine of Christ's personal reign on earth unscriptural and absurd. These are too numerous to be fully enumerated, but in selecting a few it may be observed that the notion is opposed To the nature of his kingdom. He solemnly asserts, "My kingdom is not of this world-Now is my kingdom not from hence." It is evident these delightful words would not be true, if his kingdom were to be set up at Jerusalem, and he were to reign there personally for a thousand years-if that would not be a kingdom of this world it is impossible to say what would. who thus relates one of Papias's ridi-, way personally to reign at Jerusaculous tales:- "The days shall come lem. In fact it appears that their in which there shall be vines that opinion is but a new version of the shall severally have ten thousand old Jewish notion which led the branches; and every one of these Jews to reject and murder the Lord branches shall have ten thousand of life. lesser branches; and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand twigs; and every one of these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes; and in every one of these clusters shall be ten thousand grapes; and every one of these grapes being pressed, shall give twenty-five metratas (i.e., according to the lowest computation, two hundred and seventy-five gallons) of wine; and when one shall take hold of one of these sacred bunches, another shall cry out, I am a better bunch, take me, and by me bless the Lord." More stuff of the same ineffably absurd kind follows, respecting wheat, apples, seeds, and herbs. Other absurdities abounded. A number were fables about sensual satisfactions, not much inferior to Mahomet's Paradise. They who reigned with Christ were to live deliciously; enjoy the richest wines and the most delicious fruits; build houses, plant vineyards, triumph over the nations, hold slaves, and, though after the resurrection, to marry and have children.* Origen pronounced these notions a wicked doctrine, a reproach to Christianity," | and said that "the heathens had better sentiments." 66 Modern millenarians generally, perhaps universally, reject these sensual fables, yet hold the foundation of them, in maintaining the corporeal reign of Christ on the earth, and the peculiar honour and happiness of living then on the earth, instead of living in heaven; and they flatter the pride and worldliness of the few, in asserting that the Messiah is in this * Whitby, C. I., where there are numerous quotations from early writers that embraced this folly. The notion that he is to come and gloriously set up a kingdom upon earth, is equally opposed to his declaration about the manner of his kingdom's appearing. "When he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come; he answered them and said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo, here! or lo, there! for behold the kingdom of God is within you."Luke xvii. 20, 21. Nothing can be more contradictory than the notions of the advocates of his personal reign, and his own declarations. maintain that there is to be a first resurrection, and that then he is to reign in glory with his saints. Could any events, except the burning of the world, excite more observation, than such a coming? But he declares his kingdom comes not with observation, but in a gentle gradual manner. He speaks of a spiritual reign-the kingdom of God is within you; theirs is in a great measure a carnal reign. They represent the coming of his kingdom as a future. They event; he declares that it was then commenced on the earth. It is within you; it was then begun in all the subjects of his grace. of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."-Matt. xiii. 39-43. "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day." Two of these passages expressly assert the personal coming of the Lord; the other implies it, and all describe it as bringing the scenes of this world to an end, and as followed by the eternal happiness or misery of all that will then appear before the judgment bar. The notion of his personal reign is opposed by the various representations that are furnished in the Scriptures of his future coming as the Judge of all. That is his only future personal coming of which the Word of God makes any mention; and that is represented as finishing the scenes of time, as fixing the eternal lot of every human being; and all beyond that awful day is vast eternity. "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."-Matt. xxv. 31, &c. When the Lord had compared the world to a field, in which wheat and tares are growing for a while together, he compared the judgment to a harvest, and said, "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so-1 Peter v. 4. "There is laid up shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things which offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire, there shall be wailing and gnashing The language of the Lord, or his inspired apostles, on these and other occasions, is altogether incompatible with the notion of two future comings of Christ, one to reign and another to judge. It points to his coming as the eternal Judge as his one future coming. "When the Son of man shall come in his glory,"-at the season when his coming takes place-then shall follow the solemn scenes described. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven-not to reign on the earth, but to judge mankind, and fix their eternal doom. With this view accords the language of the Holy Spirit on many other occasions. "When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."-2 Tim. iv. 8. "Little children, abide in him, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be unto salvation."-Heb. ix. 26-28. ashamed before him at his coming." This plain testimony that his coming -1 John ii. 28. "We know that to judgment will be his second comwhen he shall appear, we shall be ing must be rejected or wrested from like him, for we shall see him as he its obvious import by the supporters of is."-1 John iii. 2. "Ye are dead, the notion of his personal reign. Again, and your life is hid with Christ in of the Lord Jesus it is said, “Whom God. When Christ who is our life the heaven must receive, until the shall appear, then shall ye also ap- time of the restitution of all things." pear with him in glory."-Col. iii. -Acts iii. 21. Whatever else may 4. “If we believe that Jesus died be intended by the words the restiand rose again, even so them also tution of all things, they cannot poswhich sleep in Jesus will God bring sibly apply to any period anterior to with him. For this we say unto the resurrection of the dead, and the you, that we which arealive and remain glorification of the righteous, and the unto THE COMING of the Lord, shall display of God's justice, holiness, not prevent (go before) them which | and goodness, which will be maniare asleep. For the Lord himself fested in the proceedings of the shall descend from heaven with a judgment day. But these events shout, with the voice of the archan- will all take place at the end of gel, and with the trump of God; and time, and till that period it is dethe dead in Christ shall rise first; clared that Christ will dwell in then we which are alive and remain heaven; of course he will not pershall be caught up together with sonally reign on earth. them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."-1 Thess. iv. 14-17. All these passages refer to the christian's brightest hopes, as connected with the one coming of Christ as the Judge of all, and they in fact imply, by the phraseology employed, that this is his only future coming. Other passages expressly assert what is implied in these. His coming as the eternal Judge is declared to be his second coming, whereas if he were to come and reign on earth with a part of his redeemed, ages before the judgment day, his coming as Judge would not be his second, but his third appearing. "Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of and many; unto them that look for him shall he appear the SECOND time without sin The notion of a first resurrection to be enjoyed by some who shall afterwards on earth possess the privilege of reigning with Christ, is plainly opposed to the most express declarations of Scripture on the resurrection of the dead. Daniel said, "Many,"* or multitudes, "that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."-Dan. xii. 2. The Lord Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life." "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” * There is nothing in the original for these words darken the sense of the pasthe words "of them," and the insertion of sage. |