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APOLOGY

FOR

MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE;

IN THE

FORM IN WHICH IT WAS ENTERTAINED

BY THE

PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

PREREQUISITES FOR THIS STUDY: SOURCE, NATURE, AND DEGREE OF THE EVIDENCE: OVERTHROW OF ANTICHRISTIAN KINGDOMS: AND ELEVATION OF THE CHURCH TO UNIVERSAL, AND PERPETUAL EXTERNAL POWER.

"Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; yea thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be :

"But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abun. dance of peace."

BY WILLIAM ANDERSON,

MINISTER OF THE RELJEF CHURCH, JOHN STREET, GLASGOW.

PHILADELPHIA:

ORRIN ROGERS, 67 SOUTH SECOND STREET.

E. G. Dorsey, Printer.

AN

APOLOGY

FOR

MILLENNIAL DOCTRINE.

PREREQUISITES FOR THIS STUDY: SOURCE, NATURE, AND DEGREE OF THE EVIDENCE: OVERTHROW OF ANTICHRISTIAN KINGDOMS: AND ELEVATION OF THE CHURCH TO UNIVERSAL, AND PERPETUAL EXTERNAL POWER.

In a preceding department of this Apology I have vindicated the doctrine of the primitive church, on the subject of the Millenial Reign, from those objections of alleged previous improbability, which prevent an equitable treatment of the scriptural evidence. In no cause is the removal of such prejudices more necessary than in this, nor more profitable when effected.

In order, however, to a clear perception and full appreciation of the evidence, not only must the mind be dispossessed of prejudices which render it hostile to the truth; it is additionally requisite, that it be positively occupied with principles which generate a disposition in its favour. This maxim our Lord has stated, in reference to the reception of his religion in general, in these noticeable words, "if any man willeth [or is willing] to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."-I shall, therefore, previously state and illustrate a few principles with which the mind must be thus pre-occupied, in order to perceive the justness of our conclusions;-principles not entirely peculiar to a millenarian spirit indeed, although characteristic of it in a superior degree.

1. The first is nothing more than the rudimental principle of all religion, the belief that this world is the property of

God, and that he beholds with indignation, the conduct of all who defile and abuse it. Now, an acknowledgment of this, comparatively slight, will serve the purpose of the common faith, when it is only many hundreds or thousands of years hence, that he is imagined as interfering for judgment. A God "far off" may suffice for such views, but our system demands, at every point, the belief of a God "near at hand."We proclaim the gate of Heaven already thrown open, and the Almighty coming out of his place to do a marvellous work among the children of men; that not long shall matters be permitted to proceed as they do at present; that the world is on the eve of being revolutionized to its centre; and so near, that some, if not many of the generation now living may survive to feel the shock of this earth, when smitten by the sceptre of God.* It is obvious-many must feel it-that for the belief of all this, there is requisite a much stronger conviction of the presiding government of the Most High than is common in the professedly religious community; the great multitude so thinking of Him, as if he concerned himself but little, if at all, about the methods of governments and trade, about the spirit of literature, or the tone of manners, but left all these things to statesmen and merchants, and men of learning and fashion, to dispose of them as they please,-observing men only in their individual capacities, and having no purpose to reckon with them, till, what they call, the end of time, when the world shall have in a manner died of itself through exhaustion and old age,-without coming down in the midst of its career, to confound its institutions of crime, and sweep their apostate and rebellious upholders away in his wrath, and make all the administration of the earth his own.-Among such circumscribers of the Sovereignty of God, if circumscribe it they could, there is no hope of our cause succeeding. There is not that in them of a reverence for Jehovah's Godhead to which we can appeal in our exposition of his word; and they must be delivered over to learn the truth in that great day, when the bursting forth of the gathered storm of his vengeance shall teach it them experimentally.-But with us men who do verily believe, that the Creator is interested in the world, as his own world,-interested in the whole of its management,

"Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind; it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return until he have done, and until he have performed the intents of his heart: IN THE LATTER DAYS ye shall consider it." "For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now, therefore, BE YE NOT MOCKERS, lest your bands be made strong. For I have heard of the Lord God of Hosts a coNSUMPTION, even determined on THE WHOLE EARTH." Jer. xxx. and Isaiah xxviii.

that he may have out of it his lawful revenue of glory; who believe, that because of sin he once deluged it above the mountains; and who treat it as no fabulous tradition, but as sound and authentic history, that he rained down a torrent of sulphurous fire on Sodom and Gomorrah;-with those inquirers who devoutly believe, that the Eternal is nationally an avenger of national wickedness, ever rebuking it in his anger as it again gathers strength, we shall not despair of proselytes, so far as the approach of desolating judgments forms a part of our system. We shall refer them to abominations,-to blasphemy, oppression, and licentiousness,—as impious, cruel, impure, and abounding-perpetrated and poured forth in a torrent by the nations of Europe, as can ever have been those, either of the Antediluvians, or of the inhabitants of the cities of the Plain, and deeply aggravated through defiance of the light of the Gospel. And then we shall appeal to them, If they suppose that the Lord is less concerned about his glory than he was in times of old; that he has relaxed in his holiness; and that his miracles of judgment are exhausted? Or, if it appear to them, that, after all the time during which Satan has had the Princedom, it would be too soon for God to arise, and scatter the rebellion of evil-doers?-In this manner we shall have them prepared for an honest treatment of the divine oracles, without any sceptical poetizing, and evaporating into smoke of their proclamation; or erroneous and self-contradictory dating of its fulfilment, when the earth stands threatened with unutterable woe, speedily to be inflicted.*

2. The second principle requisite for an appreciation of millenarian exposition, is, an enlarged view of the Redeemer's purchase and work.-It is consolatory to find that there are now so many, who believe that Christ was substituted and died in the room of the whole of the human race, in such a manner, that the church, as the depositary of the proclamation of mercy, is bound to go forth, and, in the name of her Lord, offer for acceptance the Redemption of our Faith to all without exception. But it is not this species of the extent of the

* Wherever there is a threatening of calamity in the prophetic oracles, there are many, saying, Peace, Peace, when yet the fact is, that all is war and its rumours, who would either mollify it into a promise of the destruction of Antichristian principles merely; or, who so misapply the chronology, that, according to their reckoning, there are three or four thousand years, for which there is no note of warning in the revelation of God's purposes, concerning judgments to be inflicted on the nations, though partly the period of their most violent iniquity. First, by antedating the fulfilment, they cast the greater part back on the Babylonish captivity, the tyranny of Antiochus, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Ronians, and the wars of Constantine; And then, by postdating, they remove the remaining part forward to, what they call, the end of the earth. So that, from Constantine's time, to the final judgment, prophecy is clear of a threat, and the wicked rejoice in security.

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