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that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 1 Peter iv. 17, 18. May the Lord himself apply these words to your conscience, and bring you into the number of his own believing and saved people! Whatever be our present difficulties, sacrifices, dangers, weakness and temptations-Come thou with us, and we will do thee good; for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel. Numb. x. 29.

Christian reader, place these things before your mind. Look not at the things seen, but at the things unseen. Come to some fixed determination in the strength of grace to be the Lord's only. Let us follow our Protestant fathers, in the part of the war now left to us, and if need be, by suffering, let us achieve the victory both for our church, our country and our world; the full blessedness of which will only be known and enjoyed in that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

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CHURCH TO THE FUTURE KINGDOM OF CHRIST
AT JERUSALEM.

THOUGH the author has abstained from giving human authority in the body of this work, yet it may be interesting to some readers to have the following short account of the sentiments of the early Fathers, which was gathered by Dr. Whitby and published in his anonymous "Treatise on Traditions." Part i. p. 73–79. 4to. 1688. It is remarkable that Dr. Whitby, who was among the first, if not the first, to introduce into the Protestant churches the idea of a spiritual millennium yet unfulfilled, should have taken

occasion, in answering the Roman doctrine of Tradition, in order to show their inconsistency, to bring forward such a strong, accumulated, and decided testimony of the early Fathers to the personal reign of Christ, though against his own views of a merely spiritual millennium. It is not given here as the proof of the doctrine, for we want no traditions of men to prove scriptural doctrines; they being ever clearer in the scriptures themselves; but as an evidence of its not being the novelty which some think it, but the old path which they profess to follow. The superior light of scripture to all human traditions and expositions, Luther most fully manifested in his reply to the bull of Pope Leo X., a translation of which the author has given in the eighteenth edition of the Scripture Help, p. 260-266.

Mr. Greswell has, in his Exposition of the Parables, vol. i. p. 273-485, given some farther early traditions in favour of this doctrine. The whole testimony is not an unfair specimen of the nature of the light which tradition gives. It originates no truth; its own light is feeble and uncertain, but it hands down and perpetuates to us God's own inspired truth in his written word. God himself, by his own Spirit indeed, from age to age, gives his servants greater insight into his truth. Blessed be his name, the knowledge of his church has on the whole been a growing knowledge, and the testimony to truth in its fulness larger from age to age.

A merely spiritual millennium, supposed to have begun with Constantine, was for many ages a common opinion among Christians. It was a convenient doctrine for Popery; the papal doctrine of the invocation of the saints being, by the Counsel of Trent, founded on the idea of the saints now reigning. Yet probably the theory of a merely spiritual millennium, either past or to come, was not without its use, in separating men's minds from that carnal idea of the millennium, to which some of the expressions of the Fathers had led. O how blessed is the truth that the great Head of the church now has, and from the beginning had all power! And he shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment on the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law.

Dr. Whitby's account of the testimony of the early Fathers is as follows:

"The doctrine of the millennium, or the reign of saints on earth a thousand years, is now rejected by all Roman Catholics, and by

the greatest part of Protestants, and yet it passed among the best of Christians, for two hundred and fifty years, for a tradition apostolical, and as such is delivered by many fathers of the second and third century, who speak of it as the tradition of our Lord and his apostles, and of all the ancients that lived before them, who tell us the very words in which it was delivered, the scriptures which were then so interpreted, and say, that it was held by all Christians that were exactly orthodox.

"(1.) This is delivered by the fathers of the second and third centuries as a tradition received from the mouth of Christ and his apostles. Eusebius confesses, that Papias declared it to be the doctrine of our Saviour, handed down to him by unwritten tradition. Lib. iii. cap. 39. Now of this Papias (Lib. v. cap. 33), Irenæus says that he was an hearer of St. John, the author of the Revelation. He himself professes that he only followed those who taught the truth, and who related "the commands given by Christ himself, and coming from the truth itself." That he received "the words of the apostles from those who followed them," or conversed with them; and only writ the things "he had well learned and well remembered." Eusebius (H. Ecc. lib. iii. cap. 29) moreover adds, that his relation touching the tradition of the millennium prevailed" with most of the clergy that lived after him to entertain it." Justyn Martyr (Dial. cum Tryph. p. 308), speaking of the same doctrine, premises, that he chose not to follow the doctrine of men, but of God, and the doctrines delivered by him. And then he adds, that " there was a man among them named John, one of Christ's twelve apostles, who, in his Revelations, had foretold that the faithful should reign with Christ a thousand years in Jerusalem, and that our Lord Christ said the same thing." Irenæus (lib. v. cap. 33), adds, that "the seniors who saw St. John the disciple of our Lord, remembered how they had heard him say, that he had heard our Lord Christ teach this doctrine;" and then he repeats the very words in which Christ taught this, and tells us that he had them also from Papias the friend of Polycarp, adding (cap. 36), that "this, according to the seniors, the disciples of the apostles, is the ordinance and the appointment concerning those that shall be saved;" and that our Lord taught this when he promised to drink new wine with his disciples in the kingdom of God; and St. Paul, when he said that the creation should be freed from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the sons of God. As

for the kingdom promised to us after the resurrection for a thousand years, Ezekiel knew it, says Tertullian; the apostle John saw it; and the new word of prophecy, which we believe, gives testimony of it. Adv. Marcion, lib. iii. cap. 24. And if Gelasius Cyzicenus may be credited, this was the doctrine delivered by the Nicene Council in these words-" We expect new heavens and new earth, according to the scriptures, at the appearance of the kingdom of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; and then, as Daniel saith, the saints of the Most High shall receive a kingdom, and the earth shall be pure and holy; which David, by the eye of faith foreseeing, says, I believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living; and the son of David, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. These things we have established from the Ecclesiastical Constitutions, most diligently framed by the holy fathers." Hist. Conc. Nic. lib. ii. cap. 30.

"II. They speak of this, not as a probable opinion, but as a thing which they were certainly assured of. "We know," says Justin Martyr, "the resurrection of the flesh, and the thousand years in Jerusalem." Dial. cum Tryph. p. 307. "The benediction doth without contradiction belong to the times of the kingdom," says Irenæus. Lib. v. cap. 33. And again, “These promises do most manifestly signify the banquet of the creation, which God has promised to give them in the kingdom of the just" (cap. 34); and a third time (cap. 35), "These and other things are without controversy spoken as things which are to happen in the resurrection of the just."

"III. They confidently cite, as plain assertors of this doctrine, the prophets of the Old Testament, and the sayings of our Lord and his apostles in the New. This thousand years, says Justin Martyr, the prophets, Esaias, and Ezekiel, and others, do confess. Esaias manifestly declares, says Irenæus (lib. v. c. 34), that there shall be such joy in the resurrection of the just. Ezekiel saith the same thing, and so doth Daniel. The testimonies of the prophets touching this matter are so many, says Lactantius (lib. vii. cap. 26), that it would be infinite to collect them. That our Lord referred to it when he promised that the meek should inherit the earth, is the assertion of Irenæus (lib. v. cap. 32), and the fore-mentioned testimony of the Nicene Council; and also when He said, Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just, says the same Irenæus (cap. 33); and when he promised to them who left lands,

houses, parents, brethren, and children for his sake, that they should have an hundred fold now in this life. So Irenæus (lib. v. cap. 33), and St. Cyprian, when He said to his disciples, I will not henceforth drink of the fruit of the vine, till I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. When to that question of St. Peter's, We have left all and followed thee, what shall we have? he answers, In the new and second state, the resurrection of the just, when the Son of Man sitteth on the throne of his glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Hieron. in Matt. xix. 27. And when, having corrected their mistakes about this matter, he adds, Ye are they that have continued with me in my temptation, and I appoint to you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed to me; that you may eat and drink with me in my kingdom. This, saith Justin Martyr (p. 312), is the mystery of our regeneration.

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They cite to the same purpose that testimony of St. Paul (Rom. viii. 21), saying, that the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God; which liberty is in the next verse styled the redemption of the body, from that death to which it was subject, through the disobedience of Adam; and with which will be also a redemption of the creature from that curse which the earth suffered for his sake. Iren. lib. v. cap. 32, 34. They cite to the same purpose that passage of St. Peter, who saith, One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. And this we know, says Justin Martyr (p. 308), that these words do relate to the millennium. Again, when Esaias says, we look for new heavens and new earth, he means, says Justin, in the promise of the millennium. These things, says Irenæus, are without controversy spoken of the resurrection, in which the just shall reign on earth. Lib. v. сар. 35.

"Lastly. As for the author of the Revelation, they all with one consent declare he speaks expressly of it; and indeed he seems to do it so expressly, that when in the third century some Christians began to dislike this opinion, they began also to question the authority of this book, which was never before doubted of by any Christian.

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Fourthly. These fathers expressly teach that this docrrine of the millennium was denied chiefly by heretics, and such as were deceived by them. (Lib. 5. cap. 32.) Thus Irenæus, in the preface of his discourse on this subject, saith he found it necessary to

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