ever;

2452 it would appear that their retribution will be simultaneous with the reward of the saints, in whose presence, we are assured, it will be inflicted. If we may adopt this conclusion, to which the order followed in the Apocalyptic vision affords no inconsiderable support; the judgment delivered by the saints, who are assessors with Christ, will be probably passed on these delinquents. Among the characters by which the millennary reign will be distinguished, these contrary states of the persecutor and the martyr may be consequently included. In their different allotments the righteousness and justice of God will be manifested to angels and men; as the shame and everlasting contempt, to which the one is consigned, will be contrasted with the triumph and everlasting joy to which the other is promoted.

$453

On regarding the kingdom of God,' as extended to the utmost limits of the universe, the manifestation of his authority will be thus rendered commensurate with the world which he has created. Thus immeasurably shall his attributes of grace and justice be displayed, and the modes of his providence be publicly vindicated in the eyes of his rational creatures. To this reign, in which his righteous judgments shall be alone dispensed, a duration of one thousand years is assigned.15 And that this time is to be understood as a definitive

452 Rev. xiv. 11. 454 Rev. xx. 4, 5.

453 Dan. xii. 2. comp. vii. 22.

Сс

period, the order of his providence, as deducible from the dispensations by which his will has been progressively revealed, seems fully to warrant us in concluding. On omitting the earlier ages from the computation, respecting the chronology of which doubts have been raised, though on no reasonable foundation; from the epoch to which the testimony of history extends, the course of time is distributed into periods precisely of that length, with a regularity that almost surpasses credibility.455 The 455 The year 3001 from the Creation was

455 On the subject of the year A. D. 5001, which is omitted in this distribution of the course of time, by millennary portions, I shall quote the following authorities. They will not merit further observation, when it is observed, how clearly they prove the usurpation of Antichrist to have been then at the summit. Calvis. Chronol. Univ. ad A. post C. 998. Otto Imperator, ' cùm ipse destitueretur liberis, in quos imperium derivari potest, ' multique essent qui Imperio inhiarent, in Italiâ, atque etiam 'fortassis in Gallia, re deliberatâ cum Pontifice Gregorio cognato suo, constituit in frequentissimâ Synodo, principum Germaniæ, Italiæ, et Episcoporum, ut apud solos Germanos principes, tam 'politicos quàm ecclesiasticos; jus eligendi Regem esset, qui 'postea a Pontifice consecraretur Imperator.' He adds, a little lower down, under the same date, Papa Innocentius, quando Imperatorem Fridericum II. in Concilio Lugdunensi diris 'devovet et alium eligere jubet, anno 1245. septem quidem principibus, ut Duci Austria, Duci Bavaria, Duci Saxonum, Duci Brabantiæ, item Episcopis Coloniensi, Moguntino, et Salisburgensi, demandat: ut testatur qui tum vixit Matthæus Parisiensis.' Such was the authority which succeded the last of the prophetical Empires; comp. Dan. vii. 13, 14. 17, 18. 21, 22.

distinguished by the visible descent of the Divine Glory into the Temple made with hands; 456 and the 4001 by its manifestation in the Temple year ' of our Lord's body.457 As the intermediate period of 2000 years to the Millennium, and this happy period of 1000 years, accord with the same distribution, as revealed by the Prophets;458 it will not be surely deemed unwarrantable to infer, that in the year 6001, from which the commencement of the Great Sabbath is dated, that Glory will more fully occupy the Church, which is his body, a holy Temple in the Lord, builded together for a 'habitation of God, through the Spirit.459

To another and greater change, the authority of prophecy describes the constitution of nature as exposed, and the Evangelist, in placing it at the close of the thousand years which must be fulfilled, 400 refers it to the year 7001, at the commencement of the following Millennium. The awful events by which the transition from the great to the eternal sabbath is distinguished, mark the close of the millennial reign; it consequently falls within our province to bestow upon them a transient consideration,

456 1 King. viii. 10. 2 Chron. v. 14. conf. supr. p. 26. n. 64. 457 John ii. 21. i. 14. 1 Tim. iii. 16. conf. Burnet Theory, ut supr. p. 264.

459 Eph. i. 22, 23. ii. 21. 22. conf. Barnab. Epist. cap. xvi. 460 Rev. xx. 3. 11-15.

in drawing the subject to a conclusion.

' rest of the dead,' among whom we shall be then

' are finished;

9461

numbered, will live again, after the thousand years the consideration of this time is of more intimate concern to ourselves, as in it our own lot will be finally determined.

The scene of the last day, to which the great catastrophe of nature is referred by the Evangelist, is invested by him in the awful solemnity of a tribunal, seated for passing a final sentence of condemnation or acquittal.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that 'sat on it, from whose face the earth and the ' heaven fled away; and there was found no place ' for them. And I saw the dead, small and great 'stand before God; and the books were opened:

6

and another great book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.'462

Of the dreadful associations of this scene, the intimations of revelation, though brief,463 are so overpowering, that the objects of nature, and the 462 Ibid. 11–14.

461 Rev. xx. 3. 5.

463 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.

images of fancy are destitute of subjects of comparison, by which we may convey the faintest picture of its unfolding terrors. For what, in observation or conception, can be assimilated to the awakening sound of the Archangel's trump, at which even the ear of death will thrill; the descent of the Son of God, with the acclamation of an innumerable host of angels? What compared to the hideous and interminable waste of yawning graves, which the earth will then exhibit, while countless apparitions, rising from their gloomy abodes, ascend before the august and dreadful tribunal? And who, that turns from this terrific sight to the more terrible appearance of the great 'white throne, and Him that sits upon it,' shall be able to abide his presence, before whose face the heavens and the earth shall flee away?' To what display of brightness or effects of power, witnessed upon earth, can the Glorious Majesty be equalled; or the resistless force by which a world is shaken from its foundations? Compared to which the sun is as the spark that twinkles and is extinct;-the rage of the tornado, or volcano-the fury of the storm that teems the ocean from the abyss, or the earthquake that rends and shatters the continent, are as the breeze that ripples the lake, and the dimple that plays upon its surface.

6

On the tribunal, before which the population of the earth will be cited to appear, it is unnecessary