still experiencing an increase during the Millennium, after "the beloved city" has been once espoused? Will Christ be married to a part of his Church at the beginning of the thousand years, and to the rest at the end of them? Only in the conception of those, who imagine, that the Revelations is one uninterrupted prophecy of a continuous series of events, a notion, which I have already disproved, at p.xxii. Blessed then,are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, who are united to Christ at the first resurrection, in the kingdom and priesthood. These will not be like those foolish virgins, who, numerous as the sand, rise at the end of the thousand years, to find entrance into the beloved city by rebellion, and are for ever shut out (Matth. xxv. 10—13). Some commentators imagine, that the bride is nothing more than the Church purified, in its mortal fluctuating state; but with the Scriptures I am inclined to believe, that she is the whole company of the saved, caught up and "descended" with Christ, "from God out of heaven," to reign upon earth (Rev. xxi. 2, 10; v. 10). I believe, that she is composed of all those saints, that lived under the Pagan and Antichristian governments, literally revived, to reign with Christ the thousand years, during which the respite of the wicked lasts, and all eternity besides. But this evident signification of Scripture has been evaded, like many other truths, by the bias of party writers. These pretend, that the first resurrection is a figurative resurrection, that the Scriptures do not say, that the bodies of the saints revive, but that only their souls do, during the Millennium; and they maintain that these souls are not the proper souls of those who once lived, but the antitypes of them, as John the Baptist's was of that of Elias; and that the first resurrection means only a religious revival. But now I

should like to know, how those souls could ever be said to be revived, when, even in these writers' sense, they never died? Does not the Revelation represent them, as bearing witness without cessation to Christ, saving for three years and a half, when they are then not spiritually, but only bodily, i. e. politically dead (Rev. xi. 1— 13); and that, at last, they multiply so fast, as to devour the flesh of kings, and noblemen, and gentlemen, and free, and bond, i.e. pervade all classes of society, and fill all ranks and conditions of life? (Rev. xix. 17—21). Pray tell us then, what religious revival could there be of the saints, when they never showed themselves dead, but had always been so fierce to their adversaries, as to make them continually feel either the fire or the sword of their mouths? Now the truth is, that the saints were ever alive in spirit, and, with only a little intermission, in body besides, i. e. in the same sense, as that which the gainsayers of our blessed hope mean. Now I will tell them, why the word souls is used. St. John had already used bodies of the witnesses for their political existence; he knew, that we could never fancy that they had ever been without soul in them, when they were ever pouring out a devouring fire from their mouths, npon their enemies; he knew also, that we could never fancy, that the souls of the good had ever literally become extinct since our Lord's first advent, when they are represented as either crying to God for vengeance, or celebrating his praises: in order, therefore, that we should not confound the reunion of souls to revived bodies with the political resurrection of the saints at Rev. xi. 12, where they ascend up to heaven instead of descend from it, it is, that he uses the term resurrection of souls, instead of the resurrection of bodies. Some pretend also, that the Scriptures make not the whole Church to revive at the com

mencement of the Millennium, but only the martyrs. But pray let me ask them, if "all that dwell upon the earth, worship the beast, whose names are not written in the book of life," may not all those who have not worshipped the beast, include all the rest who have ever been saints, that are not comprised among the literal martyrs ? But in truth we all die daily if we crucify the flesh, and the lusts thereof; and are hourly beheaded for the word of God; undergoing the painful sensation of plucking out as much as an eye, or cutting off a hand or leg, after a spiritual manner, and casting them away from us. The same persons also taunt us with making strange confusion of the day of judgment, 1st, having a partial resurrection before the Millennium, and then having a general resurrection after it. Some indeed may be charged with this folly. But according to my critical division of the visions, at p. xxii, this confusion is for the first time avoided, the general judgment being made, not to come after the Millennium, but to be synchronical with it, and with the rebellion of Gog and Magog during the short season besides,whom themselves we consider to be the rest of the dead, who literally rise at the end of the thousand years. For if the Gog and Magog do not come from the dead literally, from whence do they come? For at the last holy war, all the rest, who are not already on the side of the King of kings and Lord of lords, become slain with the sword of him, that sat upon the horse, i. e. they either are killed in the struggle, or become infected with those principles of Christianity to which they were before inimical (xi. 13), and consequently are made partakers of the first resurrection, over which the second death hath no power. If all them, who survive the conflict, are made partakers of the first resurrection, and are holy and blessed for ever, where

among the living shall we get these unholy sons of Gog and Magog? If the rest of the dead are the unholy and do not live again till the thousand years are terminated, and all those, who do live during that period, are holy and incapable of apostacy, can these unholy Gog and Magog, live in any way during it, whether figuratively or literally? But I suppose it will be said, that these Gog and Magog do not regard individual persons, but nations perpetually changing their numbers with their bills of mortality, and that consequently these Gog and Magog are spiritually alive during the Millennium, and form part of the beloved city but afterwards separate from it. But then we shall be obliged to suppose, that the beloved city is also viewed not by its individual members, but as a body subject to change in the same manner as the Gog and Magog and in that case indeed some of its members, who were once a part of it, might cease to be such at the end of the Millennium. But the Scriptures seem bent upon destroying these notions, by making Satan go out to deceive, not those in the city, but "the nations, those in the four quarters of the earth," and by saying, "Blessed and holy is HE," i. e. each individual, “that hath part in the first resurrection," and that "over such the second death hath. no power:" and consequently if Gog and Magog individually, ever belonged to the first resurrection, they never could cease to belong to it. Indeed the resurrection of souls implies the resurrection of individuals, according to Ezek. xviii. 4, -20; Acts ii. 41; vii. 14; xxvii. 37. But, say our opponents, if we make the general judgment run out a period of a thousand years or more, in which the resurrections of the just and unjust are to be a thousand years asunder, we run counter-direct to the statements of Scripture, which declare the resurrection of both classes to be simultaneous, and their judgment to be immediate.

Matth. xxv. 31-46; John v. 28, 29; vi. 39, 40, 44, 54; xii. 48. Now, why do our advocates for a figurative interpretation, all of a sudden become so literal? Did they ever read our Lord's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, which in appearance are so closely connected together as to be inseparable, yet, in reality, we are certain, are more than 1700 years asunder? Did they ever read the last chapter in Zechariah, in which the same prophecy is exhibited through the same perspective medium as to make two far apart events at a distance appear close together? If they are so literal, why will they not make the resurrection of the dead at Dan. xii. 1, 2, synchronical with the standing up of Michael for his people? What will they make of one shall be taken and the other left, when our Lord comes in fire to destroy a portion of mankind, if both good and bad rise together? Luke xvii. 24-37; 2 Thess. i. 9. Have they not forgotten the figure, that "one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day," and that even a spiritual hour, Rev. xvii. 12, consists of 1260 years or more? Why will they not then allow the last hour and the last day to be of the same dimensions? Now, "speaking the truth in love," I am altogether afraid, that our spiritual opponents are not spiritual enough, that they do not adhere to our Lord's definition of the kingdom of heaven, that "it is within us," sufficiently. I am afraid that they confine heaven to place and circumstance, and that they imagine that there is one particular portion in the regions of space, where our Lord literally sits at the right hand of God, or reclines on his bosom, in all the external pomp of splendour, perhaps in floods of light, surrounded by his angels and saints, who perpetually cry Holy, holy, holy, before him. I am afraid that they have become so judaical and temporal, I may say carnal, as to take