"The ingathering and glorification of the church” is the subject of Lecture 4, in which our author simply gives expression to the popular but unfounded idea, that all saints from the beginning to the end of time constitute the church. We are quite aware that Mr. W.'s views on this point are shared by many who differ from him widely on prophetic subjects; but his mistake is not the less serious on this account. On any other subjects than those of Scriptural inquiry and interpretation men would smile at such a quiet assumption of the point to be proved, as that which characterizes Lecture 4. The opening sentence declares, in the most positive terms, the affirmative view of the question which ought to be discussed. “As Christ is the exclusive Author, so is the church mystical the exclusive recipient of salvation,” (p. 140). So affirms Mr. W. But suppose any one should deny the truth of this. proposition, on whom would fairly rest the burden of proof? Surely on Mr. W. himself; but in vain would any one read his discourse with the view of obtaining it. He assumes the truth of this opening declaration, and reasons from it throughout, as though it were not only uncontroverted, but incontrovertible. “And so has it been from the very beginning. Immediately that Adam fell was the foundation of this spiritual edifice laid in the primeval promise of redemption. Successive ages beheld it rise, as one by one, Abel, Enoch, Noah, and all who, like them, by faith obtained a good report, were builded up upon the one chief cornerstone.”
It may shock the prejudices of some who differ from our author on prophetic subjects, as well as of many who agree with him, when we affirm our conviction that this paragraph expressly contradicts God's word. Such is our conviction, nevertheless: but instead of assuming its truth, we proceed at once to lay the grounds of it before our readers. Mr. W. says, that the foundation of the church was laid in the primeval promise. The Lord Jesus Christ said, four thousand years after the first promise was given, “Upon this rock (the confession of him just made by Peter) I will build” —not “I have builded,” or “I am, building,” but “I will build my church,” Matt. 16:18. That is, he speaks of it as a then future work. And though he was, in his own blessed person, as the Son of the living God, the foundation of the church, it was not as a living person upon earth that he was laid as the foundation. For this his death was indispensable. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit,” John 12:24. It was not until rejected of the Jewish builders, that he was exalted to be “the head of the corner:” and that his death was indispensable to the Church being builded on him as its foundation, the Epistle to the Ephesians largely testifies. “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, the law of commandments in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby,” (ch. 2:14-16). It was thus and then the foundation was laid; and being laid, the apostle adds, “Now, therefore, ye (Gentile believers) are no more stranger sand foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets [New Testament prophets, surely], Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone” (verses 19, 20).
Do we wish, then, to deny or call in question the salvation, saintship, life, or glory, of the Old Testament believers? God forbid! They were quickened by the Spirit beyond doubt. By virtue of the foreseen sacrifice of Christ they were forgiven and saved. They will all have part in the first resurrection, and partake of heavenly glory. But no one of these things, no, nor all of them together constitute the church. The church shares these things, life, justification, resurrection, and heavenly glory, with the saints of Old Testament times; but that which constitutes the church is something additional to all these, and of which the Old Testament bears not a single trace. It is the actual living unity with Christ and with each other of those, who, since Christ's resurrection, are formed into this unity, by the presence of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven. God had a nation in former times, and the Holy Ghost by Caiaphas teaches us, that it was for that nation Christ died. All the blessedness, therefore, of restored and forgiven Israel in days to come is as simply owing to the atoning death of Christ, as is now the salvation of individual souls. But “not for that nation only,” the Holy Ghost adds, “but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad,” (John 11:52). There were, then, children of God prior to the death of Christ; but instead of forming one body, they were isolated individuals, “scattered abroad.” For their gathering together in one, the death of Christ was absolutely needful. So was his resurrection; for it is only as “the beginning, the first-born from the dead,” that he is the “head of the body, the church,” (Col. 1:18). Nor was it till he had ascended, that the Holy Ghost could be sent down; and it is by his presence and power that the gathering together in one takes place. “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you,” (John 16:7). “The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified,” (7:39). “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2:33). “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles,” (1 Cor. 12:13). It is of Christ, ascended and glorified, that we read in Eph. 1:22, 23, that “the church is his body, the fullness (or complement) of him that filleth all in all.”
Now it is of the church thus formed and constituted that Scripture predicates completeness at the epoch of Christ's return. How easy to see that, if statements made in Scripture concerning this elect body of Christ be applied to all saints from the beginning to the end of time, false conclusions may easily be drawn from premises so unsound. All our author's reasonings as to baptism and the Lord's supper, the intercession of Christ and the preaching of the word; all his attempts to show that, on millenarian grounds, these would have no place after the completion of the church and the coming of Christ; all his endeavors to reduce us to the dilemma of holding, either that no souls will be saved after Christ comes, or that they will be saved without the present means or channels of salvation—all rest on the baseless assumption that the church consists of all saved souls from the beginning to the end of time, and all, consequently, fall to the ground. Souls were saved for four thousand years before the church had any existence, save in the counsels and purposes of God; and souls will doubtless be saved throughout the millennium, after the completion of this wondrous “workmanship” of his—this chef-d' oeuvre of his wisdom, power, and grace. If there lacked not the means and appliances of salvation before the church began, why should we suppose any lack when the church is perfected and in glory with her Lord?
On the subject of the judgment Mr. W.'s great endeavor is, first, to prove that millenarianism “deprives it of its chiefest terrors to the ungodly;” and, secondly, that these terrors consist in what he regards as the doctrine of Scripture, namely, that of a simultaneous judgment of all the righteous and all the wicked. But as all his arguments on these topics have been answered again and again in well-known works on prophetic subjects, we will not detain our readers by any detailed remarks thereon. On Mr. W.'s theory, that the millennium is already past, and that we are probably far advanced into the little season by which it was to be succeeded, the doctrine of a simultaneous judgment of all at Christ's coming may well, indeed, strike terror into the hearts of the ungodly. On this theory the coming and the judgment are both at the door. But how the postponement of Christ's coming, and of all judgment, to the end of a thousand years yet to commence, should be a doctrine of greater terror to the wicked than that of Christ's speedy appearing in the clouds of heaven, to execute judgment on his living foes, having first received his people to himself, we are perfectly at a loss to conceive.
Lecture 6 is on the “recompense of reward to be conferred upon the saints at the second coming of their Lord.” With much that it contains we heartily agree. We hold as strenuously as Mr. W., that the main blessedness of the saints hereafter is in the visible and personal presence of Christ among them, or, to be more accurate, their presence thus with Christ. Heaven itself, we delight to know, is the locality of the saints' inheritance. If some pre-millennialists have thought otherwise, our author cannot be ignorant that it is in company with some of their most distinguished opponents, that they look on the renovated earth as the eternal dwelling-place of the saints. Our own belief is, however, identical with Mr. W.'s, that the place which Jesus has gone to prepare for us is in the heaven where his own glorified body now is, and of which he says, “that where I am, there ye may be also.” Equally satisfied are we that, from the moment the saints are caught up to meet the Lord Jesus in the air, their state will “not admit of any, the very slightest admixture of evil.” But is it not a purely gratuitous assumption of our author's, that this unalloyed perfection of the future state of the saints precludes any contact or connection (by divine appointment, and as ministers of good) with a state of things less perfect, than their own? What! is the state of the holy angels imperfect, because as ministering spirits they are now sent forth to minister to them which shall be heirs of salvation? And if angels can be made thus the channels of divine beneficence, remaining undefiled and uninjured, their joy unclouded by the imperfection and need with which they come in contact (but only to succor and befriend), shall it be deemed impossible for those who are “blessed and holy,” as having part in the first resurrection, to be ministers of blessing to the earth over which they are to reign with Christ a thousand years? And yet this is the sum and substance of Mr. W.'s argument in Lecture 6.
As to the resurrection and reign of the saints with Christ for a thousand years, Mr. W. judges “that the thousand years may be even now in progress, if not entirely past,” (p. 377). He does not venture to propound this view till he has occupied more than half of Lecture 7 with an exposition of the spiritualist theory held by Whitby, Dr. Brown, Mr. Lyon, and many others. This theory he prefers to the pre-millennial view; but after stating certain objections to it, he proposes, as free from such objections and as best entitled in his judgment to be adopted, his own view above stated. And though at first so modestly introduced as a question whether “the thousand years may be even now in progress, if not entirely past,” it grows, in the course of its development, into a theory of interpretation, in which the binding of Satan is reduced to his being “for that period forbidden to invent and propagate any new (!!) religious imposture among nominal Christians”; the resurrection and reign of the saints with Christ are resolved into their being, while yet on earth, “quickened together with Christ,” and seated “with him in heavenly places;” and this spiritual reign and resurrection are represented as perfectly compatible with their suffering unto death at the very time they reign as risen with Christ! But hear Mr. W. himself:
“If this view of the verso be correct, the thousand years will prove to be a period in which Christ's witnesses are witnesses even unto death-a period, in short, of martyrdom, not of triumph—a period in which Satan (being precluded indeed from the invention of fresh delusions), is able notwithstanding to wield those already in existence with such effect as to make the church of God to prophesy in sackcloth and ashes,” p. 386.
This is, no doubt, a view of the millennium quite new to most of our readers. We will not pass upon them the reflection which would be implied, in seeking to rebut a principle by which Scripture language is made to mean exactly the opposite of what it says. Such a principle is not to be met by argument, but by the moral reprobation which attaches to the calling good evil, and evil good. But we are as yet only on the threshold of our author's system. The thrones, and sitters on them, to whom judgment was given, are the powers that be, employed as executioners of Satan's malice, in persecuting the saints to death The saints reign, be it remembered, and Satan is bound all the while! “The rest of the dead,” who rise not till the thousand years are finished, are “the great body of truly living souls brought to God” during the little season in which Satan is loosed from his prison and goes forth to deceive the nations of the earth afresh! The ten centuries preceding the Reformation are suggested by Mr. W. as “the longer, the millennial period portrayed in the passage before us,” while it is intimated that the “three centuries which have rolled away since that epoch “have borne the marks of “the little season” which was to succeed the millennium.
Such is the “New Testament Millenarianism” of the Bampton. Lectures; a system commended to us by the lecturer, as one which does “not dislocate the whole frame-work of Christian truth,” which he alleges is done by expecting a pre-millennial advent of our blessed Lord. To set aside such an expectation is the great object of his book. In this object, his reviewers of the London Quarterly, and the British and Foreign Evangelical, are heartily agreed. But as to the interpretation of Rev. 20 they are wide as the poles asunder. Mr. W. declares it already fulfilled: the London Quarterly maintains “that the scenes which this Scripture portrays are yet future,” and addresses itself to the inquiry, “Is it to be interpreted literally or figuratively?” Nor is the inquiry prosecuted far, before the conclusion is arrived at and stated thus, “We have no hesitation in saying, that the only consistent interpretation is the figurative one, which recognizes the revival of the early martyrs and confessors in their spirit and character.” The British and Foreign Evangelical, while dealing most tenderly with Mr. W.'s millennial theory, is yet obliged to say, “There are, in our opinion, two fatal objections to this view. First, the text on the face of it appears plainly to intimate that the life—whatever be meant by it—was posterior to the death, not contemporaneous with it.... Throughout the New Testament wherever it [the word it ἀνάοτασις] is used in connection with death, there is not one instance in which it does not signify a state posterior to death—either the intermediate state or the bodily resurrection, which, for our own part, we think it plain that the language of this symbolical vision expresses.”
Admirable unanimity of sentiment! Here are three writers, who agree in denouncing the expectation of a pre-millennial advent of Christ, and in opposing the literal interpretation of John's millennial vision. But when asked to interpret it themselves, one says, It is already accomplished. No, says the second, its accomplishment is future, but it is to be figuratively understood. No, says the third, it is bodily resurrection, which the language of this symbolical vision expresses.
Here, for the present, we conclude our notice of these books. Dr. Brown's book is by far the ablest of any which have appeared in opposition to pre-millennialism, and we rejoice that an examination of it is in progress by another pen. The Lord grant that we may not be permitted, amid any heats of controversy, to lose sight of the solemn, sanctifying truths in which all real Christians are agreed! Whereto we have already attained, may we walk by the same rule, and mind the same thing; remembering the promise, that if in anything we be otherwise minded, God shall reveal this unto us also.