of religion itself. There may be some good also which they may have done under pretence of religion, and some vain glorious works on which they pride themselves; but this their righteousness, which they only seem to have, will be stripped from off them, in the day when the secrets of the heart shall be revealed; and their form of godliness will be proved to be hollow and unavailing. And that authority and glory, which they might have had in Christ's kingdom, (it would appear from this) shall be added to the righteous; whilst they themselves shall be cast into outer darkness-into that darkness without the palace, into which the foolish virgins were banished-who were refused the joy and honour of the marriage. feast, and left to bemoan their folly in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Such is what I apprehend to be the meaning of this awful parable! I would once more press upon the Reader this consideration: that (like the parable of the foolish virgins) its object is not so much to shew, that the thief, the fornicator, the drunkard and liar have no part in the kingdom of God and of Christ: but that the unprofitable have a heart equally fallen from God, and averse to his ways; though they may possess a more specious and plausible character. This is a circumstance of the more importance to be kept in view in these days, when evangelical profession is becoming so general and so cheap; and when we see so many associated with the people of God, and presuming that they themselves belong to him, whilst yet they are careless of their tempers and affections. And even, in regard to their works, they are not "a peculiar people zealous of good works," whose readiness and forwardness of mind are known to all; but those whose desire rather is to know how little they need do; and who are constantly opposing difficulties and objections in the way of those things which call for self-denial and renouncement of the world.

I would also notice those persons who imagine, that they could serve God better, were they placed in different circumstances, and had more money, more time, &c. Many deceive themselves in this respect, and are after all but slothful servants; since they are not endeavouring to glorify God with such ability as they do possess: and if they are not faithful in that which is least, they certainly would be unfaithful in much, and their condemnation would be so much the greater: for it must be remembered, that, in proportion to this sort of ability, the duties which God requires of us are enlarged. But many serious and sincere persons miscalculate in this respect. For how rarely do we find those who have superior advantages liva 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10.

1

ing the nearest to God! and what presumption it is that leads us to suppose, that we should do better! Yea, so entangling are some of those things, which men suppose will enable them to glorify God the better, that instances are not unfrequent of persons, who do shew some little zeal for God, when they have only one or two talents; but no sooner does the Lord send them another, than they act as if they thought, that less were then required of them. A man, for example, is industrious and self-denying for the cause of God, whilst his circumstances are straitened: the Lord then sends him wealth, perhaps, and now he acts and speaks, as if God had no longer a right to look to him for the exercise of that ability which he previously possessed; but that wealth was intended to exempt him from all personal exertion which would interfere with his comfort or pleasures. Let us therefore strive to be faithful in that which is now committed to us: let us not mind what our disadvantages are: "if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that which a man hath, and not according to that which he hath not."'e

Since writing the foregoing I have met with an interesting discussion of the Judgment of Believers, contained in an Essay on the Millennium, &c. by Dr. Sayer Rudd, an eminent Dissenter, who wrote on this subject in 1734. He presses all the texts on this subject which I have noticed, largely expounding 1 Cor. iii. 10-15; and further shews that many of the saints. will even be rebuked, and be ashamed for the moment in the presence of the Lord; which he argues from the warnings given them to walk so as that they may not be ashamed, but presented without spot and unrebukable, &c. He treats the subject however with great modesty, and concludes it with the following qualification of his sentiments; which I append to this Essay, because it excellently illustrates what I have said at page 56, that the very calling one man to come up higher, and bidding another to go down lower, would have the effect of a judgment of works, saving that it would leave it to surmise.

"I have here expressed myself in the manner commonly used on this subject. Though, that I may not conceal from the Reader what has sometimes turned upon my thoughts, in considering this doctrine I would observe, that as I am obliged to suppose every thing respecting the judgment of the saints' persons is issued in their resurrection, their being with the saints, &c.; and consequently that they are all fixed in their respective places, and share such degrees of honour as were

e 2 Cor. viii. 12.

eternally designed them, as soon as they enter upon their reign with Christ, in the new heavens and new earth: so I am inclined to think, that the judgment of the saints' works in this state is not so much that particular rewards may be distributed to them after this judgment, as that the justice of Christ may appear in having, upon entering on his mediatorial kingdom, assigned them respectively such and such stations, rewards, or honours, call them by which name you please. I imagine it is by no means feasible to suppose that the saints are kept in suspense, or prevented sharing those honours which belong to them, as members of Christ, till the works of every one are called over: this would certainly break in upon their reign. I am therefore rather of opinion (though I submit it only to the judgment of others) that they are each of them ranged in those places, near the person of the Redeemer, which God before all time had allotted them; and then, that Christ, in order to vindicate his procedure herein, and give public testimony that he had acted according to the strict rule of righteousness, will condescend to call over the works of each person, and lay them open to the public view of the saints, that all may be convinced he has, in assigning them their several places or degrees of honour, rewarded every man according to his works.

"This indeed, at the time it is done, may be called, in a large sense, a distributing rewards to them; forasmuch as the claim which each particular person has to the reward before assigned him will then visibly appear: and, farther, because the whole body of Christ's followers will confirm (if I may so speak) what he has done, by acknowledging, that each person's rewards are answerable to his works as they appear upon trial." Page 325.

ESSAY IV.

Parable of the Sheep and Goats.-Matt. xxv.

Circumstances have rendered that portion of Scripture at which we are now arrived one of peculiar difficulty. I do not apprehend there is really any greater obscurity thrown over this subject, than over any other part of the prophecy we are considering: the embarrassment of the expositor arises entirely from the preconceived and erroneous notions which the generality of Christians have imbibed concerning it, against which he has consequently to contend. Commentators having lost

sight of and rejected the doctrine of a pre-millennial Advent of Christ, an interpretation has been sought for and persisted in necessarily at variance with that view of the kingdom of our Lord taken by me in former Essays; and accordingly it is at once concluded, that the subject now to be treated of refers to the general Resurrection and the ultimate Judgment.

In proceeding however to demonstrate, that this portion of Scripture relates to events which will occur immediately before, or at the beginning of, the Millennium, I desire to submit my sentiments upon the subject with unfeigned deference to the criticism of others. I am not, I trust, so wedded to a system of interpretation as to determine to make all things bend to it: yet there do appear to me insuperable objections to the reception of the ordinary interpretation. I shall begin first by pointing out some of these difficulties.

1. My first reason for concluding against it is derived from the whole scope of the Prophecy. I have already observed, that the discourse of our Lord, commenced in chap. xxiv. is continued throughout chap. xxv. The word "then," with which the parable of the Virgins commences, plainly evinces, that the time of the action of the events there spoken of must be the same as the time when those events are to be transacted, intimated in the latter part of chapter xxiv. The Reader will perceive that the word "for," with which the parable of the Talents commences, (v. 14,) equally connects that subject with the parable of the Virgins; and the Sheep and Goats must likewise be admitted to be a continuation of the same subject, unless we suppose that there is here an abrupt transition in the discourse of our Lord, for which I think it would be very difficult to assign a satisfactory reason. I conceive, that this chapter sets forth one and the same judgment, but under three different aspects; and of course exhibiting various circumstances of it. Commentators however interpret the Advent of our Lord described in chap. xxiv. as referring to his providential visitation on Jerusalem: and though there is not the slightest intimation that any other Advent is spoken of in chapter xxv. they nevertheless refer that, without any ceremony, to the period of ultimate judgment after the Millennium! I think the considerate Reader will find this an insuperable objection to the prevailing hypothesis.

2. Another difficulty which presents itself, if these two chapters are to be received as reaching down to the last judgment, is, that they do not contain the slightest intimation of the Millennium! It is a remarkable feature in the present state of prophetical investigation, that the thousand years period of felicity and triumph to the Church is not now questioned. A

century back numerous christians were sceptical on the subject; and, previous to that, eminent divines had laboured to prove that the Millennium had already passed. Indeed, within these last ten years only, ministers were not unfrequently interrogated for information on the subject by individuals who were acquainted with it by nothing but the name. Now, however, though men entertain very different views in regard to the character of the Millennium, and all are not agreed even in respect to the term of its duration, (some supposing that it may last for 365,000 years,*) yet, I repeat, the fact itself of a Millennium to come is not now disputed. But where (I ask) is it described in Matthew xxiv. and xxv. if the anti-millenarian hypothesis be correct? Is it credible, that a period of rest and glory to the Church, such as it is generally expected to prove, should be passed over in silence, in a prophecy which is assumed to describe the great tribulation of the Jews, the times of the Gentiles, and the connection of both with the Advent, Resurrection and Judgment! There is apparently no interval in the prophecy between the great tribulation and the final consummation of all things. Take the millenarian view, -that the Lord's second coming is to introduce the Millennium—and then the prophecy will appear consistent: take the other view, and I cannot at all reconcile it with the predictions of the prophets in general.

13. A third and very surprising circumstance is, that antimillenarians commonly appeal to the parable of the Sheep and Goats, and the last five verses of Rev. xx. as containing the most decisive and explicit descriptions of the general Resurrection and Judgment. I call it surprising, first, because both these passages are more or less involved in figure or symbol; and therefore they are not the Scriptures which one would expect to be appealed to as the basis or foundation of a system: and secondly, I shall proceed to shew, that there is no proper analogy between the two, and that they consequently do not describe the same events.

(1.) Matt. xxvi. describes an advent: "when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory;" the whole implying that he comes to the earth, and that his throne will be there placed. Rev. xx. describes not an advent, but an apparition: "I saw a great white throne and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away;" so that there is apparently no earth in this instance for the throne to be placed upon, or for Him that sits on it to come to. (2.) St. John sees "the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the dead

* See the Treatises of Jones and Gauntlett on the Apocalypse.