Dim. W. urges (p. 9) that the saints reign with Christ, not that He reigns with them. This no sound Christian disputes; but he uses it to deny Christ's reign and ours with Him over the earth It is not wise to plead either Eph. 2:66And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: (Ephesians 2:6) or Rev. 1:66And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 1:6) to get rid of that future glory we are to share. He tell us in a note that the best MSS. of Rev. 5:1010And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:10) have the present tense. But the fact is that the most ancient extant (à) has the future, and so has the Porphyrian uncial of cent. 9., with some 30 cursives, and the best Latin copies, Coptic, &c.; whereas the Alex and the Basilian uncial (of cent. eighth) support the present with less than 30 cursives, &c. Of these the Alex. might have greater weight, but that it alone reads the present in chap. 20:6; all else give the future. The title of king given to the believer in no way means that he is now reigning, which the apostle reproves in 1 Corinthians as inconsistent with an actual call to suffer with Christ. Assuredly John 10:2828And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:28) implies simply that no hostile power can pluck out of His hand, as Phil. 3:2121Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. (Philippians 3:21) shows that at His coming He will prove Himself Savior of our bodies as He is now of our souls.
What he failed to see is that scripture is abundant and plain in assuring that, distinct from the present and before eternity, Christ will come in glory to reign over Israel and all nations according to the consentient testimony of the Prophets, confirmed by His own words in the Gospels, and the Holy Spirit's witness in the Epistles, and by the Book of Revelation. He thought such an expectation leads necessarily into low and irreverent notions concerning our Lord. Entirely do we sympathize with the hope for the glorified of our proper blessing in the heavenly places; but to slight the prospects of a blessed earth for Israel and the nations is not faith but prejudice (p. 10). O.T. and N. we have seen to be an ample and irrefutable witness to it. If sin entered there, the Son of God came there to put it away by the sacrifice of Himself. Satan achieved the greatest success there; Satan will be thence expelled, first for a long while, then forever. God there displayed His grace in Christ; in Christ God will there display His glory.
So far from there being any inconsistency the kingdom of God when manifested has its heavenly things no less than its earthly; and all things shall not only be put but seen under Christ the Heir of all, heavenly and earthly headed up in Him, as they were all reconciled to God by His work on the cross. The low view is the curtailing of Christ's glory, nor is it true reverence to explain away plain scripture. Others yielding to unbelief think that for a Divine Person to take flesh and die on the cross is incredible degradation. Why should it seem to disgrace Christ risen and glorified to reign over the earth for 1,000 years, besides the perfect and unbroken rest of eternity? It will accomplish unfulfilled scripture and display a righteous kingdom over men as Christ only can. The Deity of Christ stands distinct and intact, and indeed will derive further and rich evidence thereby.
It is all a mistake (p. 11), though made by early Fathers and those who have since followed guides so erring, that the earth is to be peopled by the risen saints. Not so; they will have heavenly glory and reign with Christ over the earth, not on it, as we see in the symbolic New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:9-ch. 22.). Israel will then be on earth a saintly people, not in name only but in reality; and the nations shall seek (as they have not yet done) unto the Rod of Jesse; and His resting place shall be glory. And all the creation that still groans shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty (not of grace, as is the new creation even now, but) of The glory of the children of God. Therefore we that have the first-fruits of the Spirit, though we too groan within ourselves, do all the more wait for the adoption, the redemption of our body; as the earnest expectation of the creature also waits for our revealing, the signal of its deliverance. What difficulty is there in believing that the unconverted among the nations, though controlled by the power of the great King, surrounded with abundance of all good, and freed from the Tempter, will relapse under his wiles when he is let loose for a little season, and be consumed with fire? It is only the “monstrous” mistake of the Bp. that the risen saints are concerned. The earthly saints, Jews or Gentiles, are threatened by Satan, not his allies.
It is false that the present mixed state (p. 12) will continue when Christ reigns. For the darnel and wheat grow together unto the end of the age (αἰῶνος), not of the world (κόσμου). The error excludes the judgment of the quick, and of the habitable earth (Acts 17), as well as of the world-kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Rev. 11:1515And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 11:15)). All the parables cited, good and bad fish, good and bad guests, wise and foolish virgins, find their separation at the end of this age; and the Millennium is no gulf (p. 13) but a blessed bridge between the age's end and the eternal state.
So the Thessalonian saints (p. 13), like others, were waiting for Christ's coming, which is followed by the Millennium. It is His appearing that destroys the man of sin before the kingdom is set up in power and glory. When Christ our life shall be manifested, then shall we also with Him be manifested in glory (Col. 3:44When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4)); we are caught up before, and follow Him out of heaven for that day of judgment of the earth (Rev. 17:14; 19:1414These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. (Revelation 17:14)
14And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (Revelation 19:14)). 2 Peter 3 warns those who mock His promised coming with His day, which fills a thousand years and does not close till the universe melts with fire; and Rev. 1:9; 11:189I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. (Revelation 1:9)
18And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. (Revelation 11:18), agrees with this.
The creeds of Christendom do not contradict (p. 16) the Millennium. The Athanasian confesses the foundations of the faith; the so-called Apostles' Creed is rather infantine like the Nicene. They do not assert the Millennium. Utterly false is it that, if true, it would falsify Christ's promises to His church; for on the contrary in the millennial day the world will see that the glory, which the Father gave Him, He gave them, perfected as they will then be into one, that the world may know the Father sent the Son and loved those glorified saints as He loved Christ (John 17:22, 2322And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:22‑23)). I am sorry to say that such language betrays infatuation, but am glad to agree that it is no question of the early Patristic writers, but of scripture (p. 15). No importance is attached to the Rabbis either (p. 15).
And as to Cerinthus or the like, one abhors their heterodoxy yet more than Montanist enthusiasm (p. 17). What matters the opinion of a worldly-minded semi-Arian like Eusebius about Papias? Neither (pp. 18, 19) is an authority, any more than the Romanist expositor who falsely attributes the decline of faith in the Apocalypse to millenarian teaching. None love, understand, or enjoy that blessed book so much as those who believe what it teaches of that kingdom (p. 20). The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse clashed with men's will, and hence were unjustly questioned by men of shallow faith, like Caius the early Roman presbyter (p. 20). Origen, learned and clever indeed, was but a sorry defender of the faith. Did not the Bp. know that he was unreliable and wild, even to the ungodliness of universalism? Surely also Dionysius of Alexandria (p. 23), an able man without doubt, cannot be acquitted of strange doctrine on Christ's person in opposing the Sabellians. Nor was Jerome (pp. 24, 25) a model of orthodoxy any more than of temper, though an erudite and laborious translator. Augustine of Hippo was one of greater weight; but we have to bear in mind that the Millennial views he opposed (pp. 26, 27) were not sound, those which were rejected by the Reformers and the Puritans (pp. 28-31). Only it is certain that some of the best instructed and most pious men in the Anglican body found no such incompatibility in its formularies with their faith in Christ's millennial reign as the Bp. argues, who himself narrows “the last day” unscripturally (p. 22). The prayer in page 33 is on the contrary consistent. “The end of the world” is the mistake repeated from the A. V. of Matt. 13:39, 4939The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. (Matthew 13:39)
49So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, (Matthew 13:49). We all value the Apocalypse at least as much as the Bp. (pp. 33, 36) and do not share in daily use the slight which the Book of Common Prayer puts on that divine book, while it honors the Apocrypha for its lessons in Oct. and Nov. and more.