The battlefield is somewhat changed. The champion of post-millennialism proclaims the second advent to be “THE VERY POLESTAR OF THE CHURCH.” “That it is so held forth in the New Testament is beyond dispute. Let any one do himself the justice to collect and arrange the evidence on the subject, and he will be surprised—if the study be new to him—at once at the copiousness, the variety and the conclusiveness of it,” (Brown, p. 15.) “'Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me'; is a sound dear to all that love His name. They 'love His appearing' because they love Himself. To put anything in the place of it is not good. Nor will it succeed; for those who preach Him bringing His reward with Him will prevail, as indeed they ought. Nor is it in regard to the personal appearing of the Savior that only premillennialists will and ought to prevail against all who keep it out of sight. There is a range of truth connected with it, which necessarily sinks out of its scriptural position and influence, whenever the coming of Christ is put out of its due place. I refer to the RESURRECTION as a co-ordinate object of the Church's hope, and to all the truths which circle around it, in which there is a power to stir and to elevate, which nothing else, substituted for it, can ever possess. The resurrection-life of the Head, as now animating all his members, and at length quickening them from the tomb, to be forever with Him; these, and such like, are truth in the presentation of which premillenialists are cast in the mold of Scripture, from which it is as vain as it were undesirable to dislodge them.” (Brown, p. 455.)
For these and similar admissions we are thankful, and we are confident that they will not stop there. Our adversaries had long treated Christ's coming unworthily. They confounded it with the mission of the Holy Ghost, with the destruction of Jerusalem, with the departure of the spirit at death, with the judgment of the dead before the great white throne. They are now compelled to own that “Premillennialists have done the Church a real service, by calling attention to the place which the second advent holds in the word of God and the scheme of divine truth.”
More than this: the immense practical importance of the question is frankly avowed. It was passing strange and most trying to hear men of God, not combating Pre-millennialism because of a supposed lack of Scriptural proof, but neglecting it as a mere secondary, trivial notion, even if true. Such sentiments are deplorable: better to be “cold” than thus “lukewarm.” Here, again, Dr. Brown confesses the untenable ground of such of his partisans. “Some may think it of small consequence whether this system be true or false; but no one who intelligently surveys its nature and bearings can be of that opinion. Premillennialism is no barren speculation, useless though true, and innocuous though false. It is a school of Scripture interpretation; it impinges upon and affects some of the most commanding points of the Christian faith; and when suffered to work its unimpeded way, it stops not till it has pervaded with its own genius the entire system of one's theology, and the whole tone of his spiritual character, constructing, I had almost said, a world of its own; so that, holding the same faith, and cherishing the same fundamental hopes as other Christians, he yet sees things through a medium of his own, and finds everything instinct with the life which this doctrine has generated within him.” (p. 8.) This witness is true. Evidence may be asked and weighed before the Lord; but the incalculable moment of the doctrine ought to be immediately and universally felt.
An event which at once and definitively disposes of the saints who have slept in Jesus, or who may be then alive—an event which subsequently deals with all mankind, Jew or Gentile, and even with the tempting as well as accusing power of Satan—an event which brings the long-groaning creation out from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of glory, must obviously be one of the most solemn and impressive transactions which the world can behold, or the mind contemplate. To say, then, that it can be an immaterial consideration, really proves that those who so speak have never thought seriously about the matter.
It is also, perhaps, worthy of note, that in speaking of prejudice for and against premillennialism, our opponent puts in the first class of those ready to embrace it almost immediately—would the reader believe, who? The curious and marvel loving? the materializing? No, but “souls that burn with love to Christ, who, with the mother of Sisera, cry through the lattice 'Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?' and with the spouse, 'make haste, my Beloved, and be thou like to a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of spices.’” It is indeed singular that a state of heart so healthful, and so according to the evident desire of the Lord, should predispose in favor of a scheme at variance with the word of God, crude in its principles, defective as a system, and perilous in its results. (p. 454) Nearly as strange, considering his own views, is Dr. Brown's acknowledgment of the anti-premillennial tendencies, which require to be guarded against. “Under the influence of such tendencies, the inspired text, as such, presents no rich and exhaustless field of prayerful and delighted investigation; exegetical inquiries and discoveries are an uncongenial element; and whatever Scripture intimations, regarding the future destinies of the Church and of the world, involve events out of the usual range of human occurrences, or exceeding the anticipations of enlightened Christian sagacity, are almost instinctively overlooked or softened down. Such minds turn away from premillennialism.” (p. 10.) Undoubtedly true, but surely unaccountable, if as Dr. B. thinks, premillennialism be false—unaccountable, that the vigorous and spiritual, who burn with love to Christ, should be ready to embrace the doctrine, while the meager and sapless souls who search little into and expect less from God's word, “have hardly patience to listen to it.” Let the dispassionate judge.