change the living saints to an immortal state, destroy the living wicked, and burn up the world. From the ruins of the conflagration will spring up a new earth, pure and beautiful, on which the saints will dwell, and over which Jesus will reign a thousand years. At the close of this period the wicked dead will be raised, the final judgment be set, and saints and sinners be adjudged to their eternal abodes.

The passage generally relied on to support this theory, is the twentieth chapter of Revelation. It speaks of a first resurrection of the souls of martyrs raised and reigning-of a binding of Satan for a thousand years — and another resurrection after the thousand years are finished. These seem to be important elements in the pre-millennial theory. But a closer examination of the passage lessens the force of its testimony. It speaks only of the resurrection of martyrs beheaded for the witness of Jesus; and declares expressly that none but martyrs partake of the resurrection and the new life. Nor do all martyrs feel its power. It seems to be confined to those who have not worshipped the beast, nor received his mark. There is no hint of a change by which living saints are made immortal. Nor is it even asserted that the bodies of the martyred saints are raised - the inspired revelator sees in his vision their "souls" living under the reign of Christ. The passage, therefore, falls far short of confirming the premillennial theory, which requires that the bodies of all dead Christians be raised all living Christians be transformed -and all living sinners be destroyed. The passage is confessedly a mysterious one, and as it was discussed elaborately, and with great ability, in the July number of The Review, for 1862, we need not examine it minutely in the present article.

Apart from this passage, the whole teaching of the New Testament seems to bear decisively against the theory. It allows no interval between the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked. The two are simultaneous, forming a single act in the drama of human destiny.

"When (orav) the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then (tórɛ) shall he sit on

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." Matt. xxv: 312. The direct force of this passage cannot be doubted or evaded. The process of judgment is to be coincident with his second coming. The judgment of the wicked and the good is really one stage in the advent. There is no interval left for a reign of a thousand years. the nations be gathered.

When he comes, then shall

"Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." John v: 28-9. It would be hypercritical to maintain that the word "hour" (pa) has here its literal meaning; but fidelity to the laws of language forbids us to suppose that it can embrace a period of a thousand years. The meaning of the passage is obvious, that by a single act of the divine power the good and the wicked are raised, without distinction of time, and then, by the award of the judgment, are parted finally and forever.

"For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order; Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming. Then (eira, apparently in close connection) cometh the end. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." I. Cor. xv: 226. We understand the reference here to be solely to physical death and resurrection, the one as connecting the whole race with Adam, and the other with Christ. Others restrict the dying, and the making alive, to spiritual death and regeneration. If the verb Zwonoέw were never used in other than a spiritual sense, this restriction might be accepted, though apparently out of place in a discussion of the resurrection of the body. But in the 36th verse of this chapter it is applied to the development of the new germ in the buried seed; in Rom. iv: 17, it relates to the dead body, or the generative system after its vitality is lost; in I. Tim. vi: 13, to the general creative or renewing power of God; and in I. Peter iii: 18, to the

reviving of the buried Saviour, where it cannot mean the implanting of a new spiritual life. As it admits, therefore, of so wide a range of application, it is more natural to apply it here to the quickening of the dead bodies of the whole race, by virtue of their connection with Christ. And as "the end" is placed in immediate connection with Christ's coming, and "the last enemy to be destroyed is death, it would seem to be the plain teaching of the passage that at his second coming he shall manifest his power over death, the last enemy, by calling the dead of the whole human race from their graves.

Not only does the New Testament describe the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked as simultaneous, but it seems to take for granted that the chief object of the second advent is to set up the judgment, and allot men to their final destiny.

The passage already alluded to in the xxvth chapter of Matthew, gives decisive testimony on this point. Christ comes in great state and glory, attended by his angels, to sit on the throne of his glory, and gather all nations before Him.

Another passage is even more explicit. "And to you who are troubled, rest with us, when 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." II. Thess. i: 7. Several points here are worthy of note. Vengeance is to fall on the wicked, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from IIeaven, not after a long reign on Earth. The destruction is not for a limited period, but is everlasting, and is to occur when he comes to be glorified in his saints. We see no possible room here for an interval.of a thousand years between the glorifying of the saints and the eternal destruction of the wicked.

"I charge thee, therefore, before the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom." II. Tim. iv: 1. Could language teach more

plainly that the judgment of dead and living is to be synchronous with Christ's appearing; and that the setting up of the judgment is, in a peculiar sense, the setting up of his Kingdom?

"Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints (árov, angels) to execute judgment upon all." Jude xiv: 15. (ποιῆσαί κρίσιν κατὰ πάντων) That is, Christ makes his second advent for the purpose of executing judgment, and the judgment embraces all the race.

In harmony with this view are those passages which refer to the judgment as a definite and dreadful day for the whole world.

"He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness." Acts xvii: 31.

"The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night." I. Thess. v: ii. II. Peter iii: 10.

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Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God." II. Peter iii: 12.

The concurrent force of these passages can hardly be mistaken. They teach that the personal reign of Christ at his second advent cannot be identical with the Millennium, as commonly received by the Church. It will not be a continuance of the Christian economy, for that is finally closed at the judgment, when probation ends. Nor is it to endure for a limited period; for the kingdom to be set up is an everlasting kingdom, and Jesus delivers up his mediatorial rule to the Father. The second advent will introduce the eternal states of Heaven and Hell. If righteousness is to prevail on earth at any period before the final judgment, the Pre-millennial theory, it would seem, must be abandoned, or greatly modified to make provision for it.

III. The world will not be filled with true Christians at the second advent of Christ.

The parables of the tares of the field, and the fish taken in the net, teach very plainly that the wicked will be living in close connection with Christians at the time of Christ's coming. A special duty will be assigned to angels to separate the wicked from the just, and prepare them for the award of

the judgment. These parables intimate another truth of higher importance, that at no period in the world's history will the Church be composed of true converts only. False professors will live in fellowship with the saints of God, until their deception is exposed, and their hypocrisy punished at the final judgment.

The same truth is taught in the historical similitudes of the Saviour, in the xxivth chapter of Matthew: "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away: so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." That these words refer to the second coming of Christ rather than the destruction of Jerusalem is obvious from the preceding language: "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of Heaven, but my Father only." This meaning is confirmed by other allusions of the Saviour and the Apostles, to the suddenness and unexpectedness of his coming, comparing it often to the coming of a thief in the night. The language indicates that just before the end of the present economy, a general indifference to religious interests will prevail through the world, and an abandonment to sensual pleasures. This state of careless enjoyment and ungodliness will be interrupted by the appearance of the Son of Man, coming in the clouds of Heaven to the final judgment.

The sad question of the Saviour in the parable of the unjust Judge: "When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the Earth?" Luke xviii: 8, implies that in the visible church there will be a great deficiency of vital piety, when He shall come to judgment.

Most of the passages, also, which refer to the coming to judgment, assert that vengeance will be executed on the living who know not God, as well as on the wicked dead raised from their graves.

The conclusion is inevitable, therefore, that the world will not be in a state of holiness at the time of the Saviour's second advent.