of the Church, in the latter days have, ascribed to them, the names of her ancient enemies. The restoration of Israel, at the very time referred to in the text, is predicted by this very metaphor of a resurrection, in Ezekiel xxxvii. In explaining the vision of the valley of dry bones there, the Most High says, (verse 12) Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Here we have the true sense of the text under consideration, by another, which relates to the same time, and event, under the same metaphor. 3. Able expositors view this text as containing a mystical resurrection. See Pool on the passage. Its sense is this; Israel shall again live: They shall be gathered, and live to God in Palestine. Together with my dead body shall they rise. Isaiah was inspired to predict his own mystical resurrection; together with that of his people, at the time of the restoration. 4. The tenor of the Script res teach us to look for the literal resurrection at the end of the world; and never till then. It is then, that All who are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth. It is then, that Death and hell deliver up the dead that are in them. (Rev. xx, 13.)

Awake, and sing, ye, who dwell in dust: Entertain hopes, ye, who are dispersed, like bodies dissolved in the grave: For thy dew is as the dew of herbs. God will shed down his influence, and cause your restoration, as rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth:-As a kind shower to revive plants, which appear dry. "For so the Lord said unto me, "I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwell"ing place, like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud "of dew in the heat of harvest."* "I will be as the "dew to Israel; he shall grow as the lily; and cast forth "his roots as Lebanon:"-"As the tender grass spring"ing out of the earth by the clear shining after rain.‡"

And the earth shall cast out her dead. Upon this passage Pool remarks,-"The verb here used doth not signify to cast out, but to cast down." These words

*Isaiah xviii, 4. + Hosea xiv, 5. +2 Sam. xxiii, 4,

(he says) may be, and are, both by ancient and later interpreters rendered-And thou wilt cast down the land of the giants, or of the violent ones, of the proud and potent tyrants of the world. For the word here rendered, dead, is elsewhere rendered, giants; as 2 Sam. xxi, 16, 18, (and many other texts.) But the words (he tells us) seem to be better rendered, And thou wilt cast the giant down to the ground. A striking prediction of the destruction of the great enemies of the Church, soon after the restoration of the Jews, or in the battle of the great day, which immediately follows the passage. The wicked cause will then fall and be lost.

Another passage which predicts a resurrection at the same period, is in Dan. xii, 2. And many of them, that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. This prediction is found connected with the same events with the other above noted; as is evident from consulting the connexion of the passage.* The same difficulties attend the viewing of this as a literal resurrection, which attend viewing the passage just considered as a literal resurrection. The passage in Rev. xx, 4, (noted in this section,) may unfold the true sense of these predictions. For John is the best expositor of Daniel. There we find, at the same period, a resurrection. And, says the passage, This is the first resurrection; as though it were an event predicted and thus known. It does not say, this is a first resurreċtion; or an event which may be so called: But, This is the first resurrection; seeming to indicate, that we may find this very event, predicted under this metaphor. And we do find it thus, in the above noted passages in the prophets.

But Daniel speaks of some raised to shame and everlasting contempt. To whom, and to what period, does this relate? Let John, who was Daniel's interpreter, decide it. He tells us, when treating of the same period and events, of a first resurrection; which must be mys

*See the close of sec. ii, chap. i, of this Dissertation.

tical, consisting of the saints. This implies a second mystical resurrection. And he informs of one, of Gog and Magog. The subjects of the first resurrection live and reign with Christ, a thousand years. But the rest of the dead, (he tells us,) lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This thousand-year-resurrection is the first resurrection. That of Gog and Magog, therefore, a name of Antichrist, is the second. This may be Daniel's mystical resurrection, to shame and everlasting contempt. Upon the latter event the

literal resurrection soon follows, when "All who are "in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come "forth; they that have done good to the resurrection of "life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection "of damnation."

Says the Revelator, "Blessed and holy is he, that "hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second "death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God "and of Christ; and shall reign with him a thousand "years."* Here we learn, that all the Church, all the elect are included in the first mystical resurrection; all, on whom the second death shall have no power. And indeed this idea is clearly taught in the preceding verses. Though the martyrs are there set in the front of those, who are said to be raised, yet they do not comprise the whole, as has been by some supposed. But we find added to them those, "who had not worshipped the "beast, neither his image, neither had received his "mark in their foreheads, nor in their hands." Descriptions which comprise all the true people of God. And, that all were designed to be comprised, is evident from their being contrasted (verse 5) with the rest of the dead, who comprise all the wicked; and contrasted (verse 6) with those, on whom the second death hath power. These two mystical resurrections then, are designed to comprise all the race of man; or the cause of Christianity, and the cause of wickedness. In the Millennium, the former is raised: And in the apostasy at the close of it, the latter.

*Rev. xx, 6.

We hence learn the true sense of Rev. xi, 18; where the elders, upon the commencement of the Millennium, give thanks to God; "Because thou hast taken to thee "thy great power, and hast reigned: And the nations "were angry; and thy wrath is come; and the time of the "dead, that they should be judged, (avenged) and that "thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the proph"ets, and to the saints, and them, that fear thy name, "small and great; and shouldst destroy them, that de"stroy the earth." Here the cause of wickedness is destroyed; and all the people of God have reward. What is the additional reward now given to all the saints, who have long been in glory? It is this,-to see their cause revived universally on earth; represented by their own resurrection for a thousand years. If there is new joy in heaven over one sinner, that repenteth, how great will be the additional joy there, when the whole earth shall be filled with penitence and salvation, for a thousand years, as the waters cover the seas! This is their new, their additional reward.

2. We are furnished in the preceding pages with a clue, by which to understand some predictions of the coming of Christ. I am induced to make this remark, from a consideration, that some authors, and especially a late noted one, have seemed to suppose, that the final judgment commences at the battle of the great day of God Almighty: An idea, which I think very erroneous. Gog and his bands, or the enemies of the Church, will sink in the judgment of the seventh vial under a coming of Christ. In Rev. xvi, 15, after the sixth vial, and just before the seventh, Christ says, Behold I come as a thief. And abundantly that event is predicted as the coming of Christ. After the Millennium, and Gog and Magog are resuscitated, Christ comes to judgment. Hence we learn, that the predictions of the coming of Christ are fulfilled in different periods, and events. And nothing is more evident than this.

In the destruction of the infidel Jews, Christ came to judgment. "Verily I say unto you, There be some "standing here, who shall not taste of death, till they see "the Son of man coming in his kingdom." (Matt. xvi,

28.) "This generation shall not pass, till all these "things be fulfilled," (Matt. xxiv, 34,) i. e. have a primary fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem. In the wounding to death of the Imperia! head of the Roman beast in the days of Constantine, Christ came to judgment. See Rev. vi, 12,-to the end, under the sixth seal; where all nature is convulsed, and the great and the wicked are in consternation, because, the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand. And the coming of Christ at the battle of the great day of God, and that at the end of the world, I have before noted. We observe here a gradual rising, in point of importance, in the fulfilments of the coming of Christ. That coming, in the destruction of the Jews, was terrible. That in the revolution. at Rome was in some respects more important. That at the destruction of Antichrist will be still more extensive, and terrible by far. And the coming at the end of the world will infinitely exceed all the preceding instances of his coming.

These different fulfilments of the coming of Christ, are to be viewed as distinct; and are not to be blended together. We are not to apply things to one of them, which exclusively belong to another. Should we apply the literal resurrection, the personal appearance of Christ, the commencement of the final judgment, or the conflagration of the world, to the coming of Christ at the destruction of Jerusalem; or to his coming in the revolution at Rome, we should greatly err. And why not as really err, to apply them, or any of them, to the coming of Christ in the destruction of Antichrist? It is true, the figures used to predict this latter event, are strong. And so were those used to predict the coming in the revolution at Rome, and in the destruction of the Jews. They appeared to predict the last coming, at the end of the world; and will then receive their final accomplishment. It is true, the prediction of the destruction of Antichrist under the seventh vial, as given in Dan. vii, 9, 10, 11, appears like a prediction of the end of the world, and may perhaps be viewed as "the mother text" from which some of the apostles' de