sages of Scripture usually adduced in its favour, but that there are other passages to which, both in their spirit and letter, it is directly and flagrantly opposed. We not only regard it as a baseless fabric, resting upon props which were never intended to sustain it, and which may, without much difficulty, be struck from under it; but we also feel assured that a measure of positive development has been afforded, which it is wholly inadequate to withstand, and which if applied to it, by however unskilful and inexperienced an opponent, will easily reduce it to ruins.

The inspired oracles frequently direct our attention to a solemn period denominated, THE LAST DAY. Whether by that period, we are to understand an ordinary day, or a more lengthened duration, is of but little consequence. It will unquestionably not be succeeded by another of the same kind. It is to be the last day that shall irradiate our planet. On its arrival, the heavens and the earth are to pass away; and after it, the sun shall rise and set no more, and time be no longer. It is to be the day of universal doom, and in the course of it, both saints and sinners are to congregate in one vast assembly, before the judgment-seat of Christ, and each to receive, in the presence of all the rest, a sentence either of acquittal or of condemnation, according to the deeds done in the body. It was the belief of Martha, that at that day her brother would rise again, "I know that he shall rise

again in the resurrection at the last day." But if it had really been a part of the divine plan, that Lazarus should rise a thousand years before the last day, can we imagine that the Son of God, that He who "loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus," would, in his affectionate and confiding interviews with them, have maintained an inviolable secrecy relative to a topic of such peculiar interest; or even supposing him to have been silent hitherto, is it at all likely that at this trying hour, he would have given no intimation respecting it, and that he would have suffered the disconsolate mourner, had she been labouring under a mistake, to continue still in error? And, moreover, if it be a fact, that persons united to Christ, and interested in the blessings of his salvation, are to rise from the dead, at least a thousand years prior to the consummation of all things, what are we to understand by the repeated assurances of our Lord, that those are the very persons whom he will raise up at the last day? It would seem that the eye of his all-comprehending mind had rested upon the delusions of the present age; and, hence, as if determined to place the matter beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt, he positively declares no less than four times in the course of sixteen verses, with reference to such as believe on him, that it is on the last day they shall be raised up. This is the

8 John xi. 24.

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66

Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." "This is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." To discover a compatibility between such language as this, and the doctrine of a resurrection of the saints, previous to the period during which Christ is to reign upon the earth, must, we apprehend, be difficult, exceedingly difficult to any individual, however deeply versed in the art of theorizing. The preacher has found it impossible.

In addition, however, to these announcements, clearly fixing, as we conceive, the resurrection of the just at the end of time,-the Scriptures, likewise expressly state, that the hour of their resurrection will also be the hour of the resurrection of the wicked, and that the identical act whereby the one is to be accomplished, will effect the other. They do this in a passage already quoted. "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of

John vi. 39, 40, 44, 54.

the Son of Man, 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." We are here reduced to the necessity either of believing, that He who is said to have spoken as never man spake, did, on this occasion, utter language wholly destitute of meaning; or, according to the scheme so vehemently urged upon us, of admitting that the voice of the Son of Man will actually be prolonged for ten centuries, and that while the righteous portion of our species will prove obedient to it at the commencement, the unrighteous portion will not be awakened by it till the close of that period; or else of discarding such a scheme, as preposterously fanatical and visionary, and concluding that the resurrection of the just, and the resurrection of the unjust, will assuredly be co-incident. Which opinion is most likely to be correct, and most suitable to be entertained by impartial and sober-minded persons, I trust that none hearing me to-day, are at any loss to determine.

We consider the passages now adduced to be of themselves completely fatal to the millenarian hypothesis; and so long as they stand upon the page of Scripture, and continue among the lively oracles, given by inspiration of God, we can see no possibility of its being successfully main

1 John v. 28, 29.

tained. They constitute, in our judgment, a barrier which can neither be removed nor surmounted, a fortress which can be taken neither by storm nor by stratagem,-a strong tower which cannot be overturned, a shield and a buckler, which the darts of the antagonist, however keen, and flung with whatever violence, cannot penetrate. And under such a conviction, we might at once dismiss the subject; because if persuaded that these passages will not admit of any legitimate interpretation, but what shall leave them utterly and inflexibly repugnant to the doctrine of the first resurrection, we must of course be persuaded that that doctrine is no where to be found in the sacred volume, and that the arguments brought forward in its support, and professing to be derived from Scripture, are necessarily false in their principles, or erroneous in their construction. For not to feel assured of this, would be virtually to give up the authority of revelation, by allowing it to be possible for one part of revelation to contradict another. It is, however, probably expected that the arguments just adverted to, will be more particularly noticed, and that we shall attempt to expose their unsoundness.

We are told, then, by the advocates of millenarianism, that the theory we contend against, is countenanced by the conversation which our Saviour held with the Sadducees, and which Luke has recorded in the twentieth chapter of