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CUNINGHAME'S REVIEW
REV. DR WARDLAW'S SERMON
ON THE
MILLENNIUM.
PRICE 3s. I

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REVIEW

REV. DR WARDLAW'S SERMON

THE MILLENNIUM;

AN ANSWER TO HIS ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE
MILLENNIAL RESURRECTION AND REIGN OF THE SAINTS
AND MARTYRS OF JESUS.

By WILLIAM CUNINGHAME, Esq.
OF LAINSHAW IN THE COUNTY OF AYR.

GLASGOW:
JOHN SMITH AND SON;
WAUGH AND INNES, EDINBURGH ; AND T. CADELL, HATCHARD
AND SON, AND NISBETT, LONDON.

MDCCCXXX.

C.03

GLASGOW:
HUTCHISON AND BKOORMAN, PRINTKR8, VILLAFIHI.r-

PREFACE.

In consequence of some expressions employed by
the Apostle Paul, in his first epistle to the Thessa-
lonians, an erroneous opinion had gone forth in that
church, that the second advent of our Lord was
very near at hand. To correct this mistake the
apostle in his second epistle addresses to them the
following caution: —
" Now we beseech you, brethren, concerning the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gather*
ing together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in
mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word,
nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is
at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means (for
that day shall not come), except there come the
apostasy first, and that man of sin be revealed, the
son of perdition."
The Apostle next gives a full description of this
great enemy> and alludes to something that hindered
his appearance, which was in due time to be taken
away, and adds these emphatic words, " Then shall
that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume
with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy by
THE BRIGHT SHINING OF HIS COMING."
Now that which the Apostle here teaches, is first,

IV PREFACE.

by implication, that the church of Christ was to
expect only one great ecclesiastical event, before
the second coming of the Lord, and this event is
the appearance and reign of the man of sin ; and
secondly, by informing the Thessalonians, that the
destruction of the man of sin is to be effected by
the bright shining* of the Lord's coming, he ex
pressly teaches, that these two events, namely, the
destruction of Antichrist, and the coming of the
Lord are synchronous, and consequently, that Anti
christ is to continue till the second coming of the
Lord. Accordingly, in affirming this, the ancient
church is perfectly unanimous, as may be seen by
referring to the writings of the Fathers.
If we next inquire what the great body of our
modern Protestant Divines hold and teach to the
people on these points, we shall find in the first
place, that they flatly contradict the Apostle Paul,
by affirnling, that besides the one great ecclesias
tical event mentioned by him, viz. the appearance and
reign of the man of sin, various other ecclesiastical
events of no less importance, namely, first, the de
struction of that power ; secondly, the conversion of
the whole world to Christ, by the ordinary means
of preaching and teaching ; thirdly, a Millennium
of spirituality ; and fourth and lastly, the rebellion of
* MaeKnig'ht so renders iz-itpxi/ucc.

PREFACE. V
Gog and Magog, are all to be expected before the
second personal advent.
In the next place these divines, in order to justify
this scheme, though they interpret the word a-ajaww*
" coming," in the first verse of the foregoing chapter
of Thessalonians, in a sense strictly literal, as refer
ring to our Lord's second personal advent, do yet
explain the stronger expression t3 .*-<?«..<? ms vaoovaixs
ctvrm the bright shining of his coming, in v. 8, as
being wholly a figure of speech, and signifying no
coming of the Lord at all, but simply the triumph
of his gospel in the world. Thus they place their
own traditions in the former instance, above the
letter of the divine word, and also above the
unanimous sentiment of the orthodox church in the
first ages ; and in order to uphold their views, they,
in the latter instance, violently wrest the language
of the Scripture, by interpreting the leading word
tccpovoix, the coming of Christ within the space of a
few verses, and in one and the same prophecy, upon
utterly discordant principles, literalizing it in the
first verse, and symbolising it in the eighth ; which,
to use an expression of Dr Wardlaw, we believe to
be an outrage upon every principle of fair and simple
exposition. Now it cannot be maintained that the controversy
upon these points is one of little moment ; for if it
be the doctrine of St Paul, as received by the whole

VI PREFACE.
primitive church, that Antichrist is to be destroyed
by the personal coming of the Lord, then they who
teach that he is to be overthrown by the ordinary
means of preaching and teaching, and that a thou
sand years of spiritual light are to intervene between
his destruction, and the coming of our Lord, are
teaching that which is directly opposed to the truth
of God. What also is the tendency of this doctrine
cannot be doubted, seeing that it is more than once
declared by the lips of Him, who spake as man never
spake. The very thought that his master delayeth
his coming, is represented by our Lord as affording
encouragement to the wicked servant in his carnal
and worldly course.* And the actual delay of the
bridegroom is said to be that which leads both wise
and foolish virgins to slumber and sleep ; nor will it
avail those who preach that the Lord is not coming
for a thousand years, to reply, that they tell men
that death is to them practically the coming of the
Lord, and that it is at hand ; for it always has been,
and always will be found a vain attempt to persuade
men in the prime of life, and vigour of health, that
death is near ; and indeed our own feelings in attend
ing the beds of the sick and dying, and at funerals,
may convince us that death in itself is very little
calculated to impress our minds.t "
* Matth. xxiv. 48.
t I wonder that our popular divines remain so blind to the philosophy

PREFACE. VU
Important however as the questions are, which are
thus involved in the argument between those who
adhere to the letter of the Scriptures, and those who
symbolize that letter, yet the writer of these pages
has been for so many years engaged in controversy,
and is so weary of it, that when he first looked into
Dr Wardlaw's Sermon, he felt an almost insuperable
reluctance to take up his pen against it, — not assur
edly from any apprehension of the intrinsic weight
of its reasoning, and the difficulty of replying to it,
but partly from the cause already assigned, and
partly from a recollection of former intimacy with

of human nature as they manifestly do, in expecting' so much from the
annunciation of death. Is it not a fact daily witnessed, that men brave
death from considerations in themselves of very small moment ; not
only in the field of battle, but iu the field of human honour, men brave
death rather than submit to the most trifling- insult from their fellows.
On the other hand, is there a man on earth who would be found brave
and fearless, were he to see an appearance from the world of spirits — the
departed spirit of a friend, or an angel of light ? In announcing, there
fore, the coming of the Lord with ten thousand of his saints, which
the apostles so frequently do, and our modern preachers so rarely, we of
the literal school do touch a string of the human heart, which, if the
annunciation be accompanied with a powerful body of scriptural testi
mony, will be found to vibrate with deeper tones, than any which cau
arise from the consideration of death. Accordingly, it is, I believe, a
fact, that wherever this doctrine is preached with any degree of compre
hension of its scriptural bearings, though it at first shocks all the pre
conceptions and prejudices of our congregations, yet at length, the com
mon people, who are the repositories of so much of the plain common
sense of human nature, more valuable by far than the learning of our
schools of theology, receive it gladly, and find it to be food for their
souls. The saints of God count it as the pearl of great price, and
would not part with it were the whole world offered in exchange.

Vill PREFACE.
Dr Wardlaw, and esteem for him as a man and a
Christian. In stating the last reason I do not mean
to vindicate it : since the more that we esteem men,
the more anxious we ought to be to combat their
errors. Having, however, a second time, after an
interval of some months, taken up the Doctor's dis
course, I at length felt that it ought to receive an
answer, and I sat down to this task soon after the
commencement of this year.
In once more examining Dr Wardlaw's Sermons'
since these sheets went to the press, it has appeared to
me doubtful, whether I have in some respects per
fectly succeeded in understanding his meaning. — In
p. 498, he seems explicitly to admit that the Mil-
lenarian interpretation accords with the plain and
literal meaning of the words. Now the Millenarian
scheme is simply as to the matter of the vision, that
John saw the souls of the martyrs arise in their
bodies ; and as to the interpretation, that this is to be
understood literally. The passage in Dr Wardlaw's
498th page, already alluded to, seems therefore to
admit, by implication at least, that the appearance
which presented itself to the mind of the Apostle, was
that of a real corporeal resurrection, though the Doc
tor rejects its literal signification, and maintains the
whole to be a symbol. On re-examining his discourse,
I however find some expressions in it,* from which
* Pa?e 501.

PREFACE. IX
it seems very doubtful whether Dr Wardlaw under
stands John to have seen any thing but disembodied
spirits. Yet, on the other hand, he expressly admits
that these martyrs, " according to prophetic figure,
rise, and live, and reign," and in one place he says,
" what more natural as a prophetic symbol, than a
resurrection of the martyrs." But as a symbol
is always an external object presented to the mind ;
if the symbol be a resurrection of the martyrs, then
the raised martyrs must have been seen in their
bodies. I must confess, I am unable to reconcile these
different passages ; or clearly to understand what the
Doctor really means. Is it a breach of charity to
suspect that he does not very well understand it
himself, or, to say the least, that in considering the
prophecy, he has never accurately discerned the dif
ference between two things which are in themselves
quite distinct, namely, the matter of a vision, or the
appearance which is presented to the mind of the pro
phet, and its meaning or interpretation ? Now a
lucid perception of such distinctions, lies at the very
foundation of all correct prophetic exposition.
If Dr Wardlaw means to admit that a corporeal
resurrection of the martyrs was that which offered
itself to the mind of the Apostle in the prophetic
vision, but that the resurrection so beheld was a
symbol, we clearly understand his argument, and I
think it has been met in the following pages.

PREFACE.

If, on the other hand, the Doctor denies that any
corporeal resurrection was presented to the mind of
John (even as a symbol,) then let him explain to us
what they were that sat down on thrones with Christ.
Were they disembodied spirits sitting on material
thrones with Christ, in his glorified body ? Did the
dead and the living One thus sit together ? Will
the Doctor also tell us how souls remaining disem
bodied, that is, dead, can be seen to live, and rise, and
reign. We assure him that the whole of this appears
to us an inexplicable mystery, or to speak more cor
rectly, a mass of contradictions. We moreover
remind him, that if, as he believes, the souls of the
just are already in heaven, then their return (even
in symbolical vision) to the surface of this earth
cannot be termed a resurrection, — it is a descent.
I shall now offer a remark upon a particular ex
pression in Dr Wardlaw's discourse. After giving the
interpretation of the first resurrection, which is
usually held by the Church in these days, he adds,
" Millenarians may smile at this as the old story."
We assure the Doctor, in answer to this observation,
that we conceive the doctrines of our Lord's personal
reign, and the first resurrection, to be precious and
glorious truths, revealed to the church by the Holy
Ghost, and we account the symbolical interpretation
to be a mere refuge of the spirit of unbelief, working
even in good men ; how then is it possible for us to

PREFACE. XI
smile at it ? We on the contrary view it with deep
sensations of pain.
The neglect of the prophetic writings, we consider
to be one of the great sins of the church in these
times ; but yet God had not left his own truth without
witnesses. The sound of the great doctrines of the
second advent and reign, and first resurrection, in
maintaining which, when the author of these pages
published his work on the Apocalypse, he stood
almost alone among contemporary writers, hath now
gone forth to every corner of these kingdoms ; and
we doubt not but that every new assault upon them,
shall bring forth their evidence, more and more
clearly like the noon day light.* March 22d, 1830.

* I believe there is scarely an individual even of the obscurest name
in the church, who has sedulously applied himself to the subject of
prophecy, that has not been honoured of God, and made the instrument
of good. I wish here to be permitted to record my own obligations to a
person, almost unknown as a writer on prophecy, and who, I have
understood, was while he lived, accounted to be of weak mind, and
almost beside himself from his attachment to this study. The person I
allude to, was Mr James Lunn, preacher of the gospel, who published a
small treatise on the Conversion of the Jews, in the year 1804. This
work would not perhaps be highly thought of in the present advanced
state of prophetic inquiry ; but at the time it was published, was of
great value, more so, I firmly believe, than many volumes of modern
divinity; my own inquiries, which commenced at a very early period of
life, (even before I reached manhood,) were greatly assisted by it, and
I was often in hours of sorrow and trial comforted by the arguments of
Mr Lunn, to show that the redemption of the church was approaching.
Mr Lunn was not so far enlightened as to see the doctrine of the Lord's
personal advent and reign, indeed this could scarely be expected at the
time he lived.

CONTENTS.

Preface, . . . • • . . iii
Section I. Introductory remarks ; Dr Wardlaw's first argu
ment against the literal sense of the first
resurrection considered, and his notion that the
spirits of the just in the separate state, are in the
heaven of heavens, . . . . 1
II. Dr Wardlaw's" second, third, and fourth argu
ments considered, . . . . 22
III. Dr Wardlaw's fifth, sixth, seventh, and eight
arguments considered, . . . . 53
IV. General scriptural arguments against the theory
of Dr Wardlaw, . 66

SECTION I.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS  DR WARDLAW'S FIRST AR
GUMENT AGAINST THE LITERAL SENSE OF THE FIRST
RESURRECTION CONSIDERED, AND THE NOTION THAT
THE SPIRITS OF THE JUST IN THE SEPARATE STATE
ARE IN THE HEAVEN OF HEAVENS.
In the volume of Sermons lately given to the pub
lic by the Reverend Dr Wardlaw of Glasgow, there
is one on the Millennium, forming the last of the se
ries, wherein this eminent preacher endeavours to
prove that the resurrection of the martyrs revealed
in the Apocalypse, is not real but figurative, and that
the second personal advent of our Lord does not
take place till the end of the Millennium. As these
sentiments of the learned preacher are not his only,
but are held by a large body in the church, it seems
to me that the arguments whereby he attempts to es
tablish them are worthy of a very careful and minute
examination. The text of his Sermon is the well known passage
in Rev. xx. 4 — 6. and the Doctor tells us that he has
adopted the plan of choosing one leading passage on
the Millenarian side of the question, in order to con
fine himself within certain definite limits, and to give

something like compactness and coherence to the dis
cussion. Otherwise, as he candidly tells us, he would
find it difficult to know where to begin and where to
end. *
Now, it cannot but here strike the discerning read
er that to select for examination and discussion a
part, and only a scanty part, of the evidence on which
an opposing theory rests, is a very unsatisfactory
mode of conducting an investigation, and very un
likely to guide us to the truth. I submit it to the
candour of Dr Wardlaw himself to say, whether he
would be satisfied with it on the part of an opponent
in the Socinian controversy. And if in a question of
property or civil immunities to be tried before a hu
man court of justice, the selection of a portion of
the evidence were to take place, at the option of the
opposite party, it is not difficult to see to what result
it would most probably lead.
In justification of his having limited himself to the
consideration of one text on this momentous inquiry,
Dr Wardlaw further observes, that " there has been
a multiplication of texts upon the subject in a way
which presents a very imposing appearance of Bible
authority. But in some instances, they have appear
ed to me to be strung together in a manner very
vague and unsatisfactory, without a due examination
of their true import, and with more regard at times
to the sound than the sense." t
The charge here brought against the Millenarian
writers, or to speak with greater propriety, the Liter-
* fiSermons, p. 492 f Ibid.

alists* since both parties profess to believe in a Mil
lennium, is of far too vague and indefinite nature to
admit of a reply ; but, as the writer of this Tract is
one of those who has been guilty of the offence of
stringing together texts, or in other words, of at
tempting to prove the literal sense of those prophecies
which predict the Advent of our Lord before the
Millennium, by producing a series of texts, and com
paring them with each other, he is free to confess,
that when he read the foregoing charge, a suspicion
at once arose in his mind that Dr Wardlaw had his
Tract on the second Advent in his mind when he
wrote the above sentences. He begs leave, therefore,
to assure the Doctor, that if any particular and spe
cific instance be mentioned of his having argued from
texts with more regard to the sound than the sense,
he will be ready in a candid and temperate manner
to consider and reply to the objections ; or, if unable
to reply, he will confess himself mistaken. In the
meanwhile, however, he may be permitted to affirm,
that he is conscious of having given to this inquiry
an intensity of application of mind, for years be
fore he submitted his thoughts upon it to the public.
He therefore pleads not guilty to the general and
indefinite charge made by Dr Wardlaw, in the pas
sage of his sermon above cited.
Having thus given his reasons for selecting a single
text from the mass of Scriptural evidence, upon which

* The term Literalists first, I think, used by Mr Faber, and applied
to those who uphold the doctrine of the personal advent and reign;
and the opposite one of Spiritualists, designate the two parties much
more correctly than the terms Millenarians and Anti-Millenarians. 1
shall, therefore, commonly use them in this Tract.
B2

we ground our expectations, the Doctor proceeds to
argue from it in a series of observations, through
which I purpose to follow him as concisely as pos
sible. " In the first place," says the Doctor, " notwith
standing all that has been said, and said at times with
a kind of indignant and lofty scorn, which might as
well be suppressed ; of the sentiment I am about to
state, I do still, I confess, retain a very strong impres
sion of the previous improbability of the thing itself
I mean of a personal advent and reign of the Son
of God upon this earth."
Now, an impression of the previous probability or
improbability of one of the sides of a question before
hearing the evidence, is precisely what writers on lo
gic term prejudice, and it is one of the most prolific
sources of error in judgment. It was, for example,
just such a strong previous impression of the impro
bability of the thing itself, which led the disciples of
our Lord to reject the doctrine of the cross, which
rejection brought upon Peter that awful rebuke :
" Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto
me ;for thou savourest not the things that be of God,
but those that be of men." * It was the same impres
sion of the previous improbability of the thing itself
which excited the scoffs of the learned Athenians
when Paul preached to them the doctrine of the re
surrection, and made the doctrine of Christ crucified
unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the
Greeks foolishness. This impression of the previous

* Matth. xvi. 23.

improbability of the thing itself, is, when closely ex
amined, nothing more nor less than the creature pre
suming to judge a priori what it is fit for the Creator
to do.
It is true, that Dr Wardlaw entirely disclaims the
intention of resting any thing upon this alleged pre
vious improbability, and admits, that we must bring
our minds humbly and entirely to the question,
" What saith the Scriptures ? Still (adds the Doc
tor) it is right and necessary for us to consider how
the case in this respect (i. e. as to its previous proba
bility) stands." *
But if we are to bring our minds humbly and en
tirely to the question, What saith the Scriptures ?
where, we ask, is the necessity for recurring to the
other question about the previous probability or im
probability of the thing itself ? Is not the Scripture
all-sufficient in matters of doctrine ? Moreover, is Dr
Wardlaw, a master in Israel, so little acquainted with
the constitution of the human heart as not to know,
that after deciding that the thing itself is previously
improbable, the mind is no longer in a condition to
weigh with impartiality the testimony of the Scrip
ture. If also we are to bring our minds humbly and en
tirely to the question, What saith the Scripture ?
whence is it, that instead of hearing, What saith the
whole Scripture ? Dr Wardlaw limits his inquiry to
a single text insulated from all others, which bear
* Sermons, p. 494.

6
most closely on the subject treated of in his Ser
mon. In pursuing the inquiry as to the previous impro
bability of the doctrine which he opposes, Dr Ward-
law reasons as follows :
He first lays down a position, that the heaven into
which our Lord is entered, is a particular region of
the universe, or in other words, that it has a locality,
and consequently, that the happiness of heaven,
though it consists substantially in character, has in
it a locality, and this locality is where Jesus is.
Here I have great satisfaction in expressing my
entire concurrence with Dr Wardlaw. That the
heaven of heavens is a particular region of the uni
verse, and that those heavens have received our Lord
till the times of the restitution of all things, are truths
which cannot be denied, without setting aside the
uniform testimony of Scripture.
Dr Wardlaw affirms in the second place, that it is
his firm conviction that the souls of all beUevers who
have fallen asleep in Jesus have in succession passed
into glory, and are now with the Lord in that heaven
to which he ascended ; and he, from these premises,
concludes, that it is a previously improbable thing
that the blessed Redeemer should leave the heaven
of heavens with all his saints, to dwell upon this earth
for a thousand years, and then to return. Now, I
am totally at a loss to see how the conclusion here
flows from the premises. For, even if all the de
parted saints be in heaven, still if any great purpose
in the developement of the mighty plan of redeeming
love is to be accomplished by the return of Christ

and his saints to this earth, I can see no previous
improbability in it. I am sure it is less improbable
reasoning a priori than the doctrine of the cross
appeared to the minds of Peter and his fellow-disci
ples. I hope Dr Wardlaw does not mean to reason
so inconclusively as to affirm, that because he thinks
it improbable, therefore it is improbable.
I observe, however, in the next place, that the
whole of this argument of Dr Wardlaw rests on a
false foundation. The notion that the souls of the
righteous enter the heavens where Christ is, imme
diately on leaving the body, is not authorized by the
language of the Scriptures, and is opposed to the
unanimous testimony of the orthodox church in the
first ages. The passages of Scripture on which the
doctrine is said to rest are three in number, and I
shall proceed to examine them.
In Philip, i. 21 — 23, the apostle Paul uses the
following language : — " For to me to live is Christ,
and to die is gain. But if Hive in the flesh, this is
the fruit of my labour, yet what I shall choose I wot
not : For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a de
sire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far
better." Now, from these words Dr Wardlaw, and the
greater part of the modern church, affirm, that the
departed spirits of the saints are present with the
glorified body of our Lord in the third heavens, and
are themselves glorified. But it is by comparing
Scripture with itself that we arrive at its true mean
ing. For, be it observed, that Christ, being God
and man, is, as to his Divine nature, omnipresent,

and has diverse modes of manifesting himself to his
saints, according to their various exigencies and cir
cumstances. Where\er two or three are met in his
name upon earth, he is in the midst of them. The
Father and the Son make their abode with those who
do the will of God. It becomes necessary, there
fore, in order to arrive at the true sense of the lan
guage of the Apostle, in the passage cited from his
Epistle to the Philippians, that we should examine
some other texts of Scripture which relate to the
glory to be given to the saints of God.
In 1 Pet. i. 5, the saints are said to be "kept through
faith unto salvation, ready to he revealed in the last
time." The phrase, the last time, is here evidently
synonymous with our Lord's words in John vi. 39,
40, where he promises to raise up his people in the
last day. In ver. 7, the trial of the faith of the saints
is to be found unto praise, and honour, and glory,
at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Ch. iv. 13. " But rejoice, in as much as ye are par
takers of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory
shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with
exceeding. joy."
Ch. v. 4. " And when the chief Shepherd shall
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth
not away''
Taking all these passages in their strict and literal
meaning, it is quite manifest that they instruct believers
not to expect their reward till the day when Christ
appears in glory to judge the quick and the dead.
The doctrine of the apostle John exactly harmo
nizes with that of Peter. It is, when God shall
appear that " we shall be like him, for ice shad see

9
him as he is."* How, indeed, could this beloved
disciple teach any different doctrine, since, in the
14th chapter of his gospel, he has recorded our
Lord's words, " And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you to myself,
that where I am there ye may be also." From these
words the apostles learned that they were not to
expect to be where Christ is till he comes again.
We now return to the writings of the great apostle
of the Gentiles. In the passage already cited, and
founded upon by Dr Wardlaw, his words are, " /
am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire, exitvpMi,
eXai>, to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far
better." But it deserves notice, that he uses even
stronger language to express the ardour of his desire
to see the Thessalonian church, in his absence from
them, 1 Thes. ii. 17. We endeavoured the more
abundantly to see your face, .* s-owifj wfoftu?, with great
desire. Now, no one questions that death was to be gain
to the Apostle in point of happiness, as it is to all
saints ; and the more especially when we recall to
memory the accounts he gives, in various parts of his
writings, of his incessant and severe labours and suf
ferings for the gospel sake. But the question to be
investigated is not, whether death was, or was not, to
be gain to him ; but whether he expected to be in the
heaven of glory when his spirit left the body. In
writing to the Romans, Rom. viii. 19 — 23, he tells
them, in the first place, that the whole creation is
* 1 John iii. 2.

10
waiting, with earnest expectation, for the manifestation
of the sons of God — that it is all groaning and travail
ing together in pain ; and he adds, that not only they,
but ourselves also (the saints), which have the first
fruits qf the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within
ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of
our body. Dr Wardlaw, I think, admits, that this
redemption means the resurrection. Now, we ask,
if the apostle expected to be in glory, and in the
immediate bodily presence of Christ, as soon as he
left the body, how is it that he omits all reference to
it in this passage ? and if he be, as Dr Wardlaw sup
poses, now in glory, we ask, is he still groaning in
spirit, in waiting for the redemption of the body ?
In 1 Cor. i. 7> he represents the Corinthian saints
as " waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus
Christ ;" that is, not as waiting for death and the
separate state, but for that rest which he promises to
the Thessalonians, " when the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in
fiaming fire. When he shall come to be glorified
in his saints, and to be admired in all them that, be
lieve."* Here, also, there is not a word about the
saints entering heaven before the coming of Christ.
In the 15th chapter of the same Epistle his whole
reasoning does most evidently tend to show, that the
hope of the believer rests wholly on the truth of the
doctrine of the resurrection of the body ; nor, from
the beginning to the end of that most beautiful pas
sage, do we find so much as a hint of any glory or
* 2 Thes. i. 7—10.

11
incorruption while the body is lying under the curse
of death, and the spirit in the separate state.
We now come to 2 Cor. v. 6, the second of those
texts from which Dr Wardlaw attempts to prove that
the souls of all believers who fall asleep in Jesus do
at once pass into glory. The Apostle there says,
" We are always confident, knowing that whilst we
are at home in the body we are absent from the
Lord ; for we walk by faith, not by sight .- we are
confident, and willing rather to be absent from the
BODY, AND TO BE PRESENT WITH THE LORD." Now,
in arguing from this text, it may well be asked, why
Dr Wardlaw has left out of view the context, wherein
the apostle enters at large into his views . and expec
tations. He says, first, that " we know that if our
earthly house qf this tabernacle were dissolved, we
have a building qf God, an house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens " and that this house means
the celestial body, with which the saints shall be
clothed at the resurrection, is evident from what
follows, " For in this (tabernacle) we groan, earnestly
DESIRING TO BE CLOTHED UPON WITH OUR HOUSE
which is from heaven, if so be, that being clothed
upon we shall not be found naked. For we that are
in this tabernacle do groan, being burthened .• not
FOR THAT WE WOULD BE UNCLOTHED, BUT CLOTHED
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life."
The being unclothed evidently means the separate
state, when the soul shall be destitute of her bodily
covering, and this the apostle says expressly he does
not desire, -- dfrofiw ix.lvottat)u.i. What then is it he does
desire ? It is to be clothed upon with his celestial

12
body at the resurrection, when mortality shall be
swallowed up of life. And he afterwards adds, for
the comfort of believers, that he was always confi
dent, knowing that even when absent from the body
he should, in a more intimate manner than now, be
present with the Lord ; and this, doubtless, is the
case, seeing that, in the interval between death and
the resurrection, the saints are where our Lord was
with the penitent thief, i. e. in the Paradise of God.
But were it true, as the modern church believes, that
the saints enter heaven immediately on leaving the
body, how is it that Paul says, this we do not desire 9
And let the reader also carefully mark the great dif
ference of the Apostle's expressions with regard to
the resurrection of the body and the intermediate
state. " For in this (tabernacle) we groan, earnestly
desiring to be clothed upon." Again, " W^e groan,
being burthened, not because we desire to be uncloth
ed, but clothed upon." So in the passage quoted from
the Romans, " We that have the first fruits of the
spirit, do groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption qf the body."
On the other hand, when speaking of his depar
ture from the body, he merely says, " We are will
ing rather to be absent from the body ;" and in Phi-
lippians, " Having a desire to depart and be with
Christ." Now, it may well excite our wonder that
the Apostle should use language implying indeed
desire, but by no means ardour of desire, or groan
ing of spirit, for the period when he should leave
the body, if he expected at that moment to enter the
heaven of heavens.

13
When this great Apostle contemplated his own
departure as being near at hand, we find him com
forting himself with the expectation of " a crown oj
righteousness, which," says he, " the Lord, the right
eous judge, shall give me at that day ; and not to me
only, but unto all them that love his appearing."*
Now, that the phrase that day denotes the day of his
second coming, is undeniable ; and has, I believe,
never been disputed. There is, it will at once be
seen, no hint here given by the Apostle that he ex
pected to be in glory before that day ; on the con
trary, we find him simply expressing his confidence in
the 18th verse of the same chapter, that the Lord
would preserve him to his heavenly kingdom ; evi
dently the same as is mentioned in Luke xxii. 30,
when the twelve apostles are to eat and drink at his
table, and sit on thrones, judging the tribes of
Israel. Now, as we cannot conceive such things of
the disembodied spirit, we are compelled to refer
these promises to the period subsequent to the resur
rection ; and as I have proved in another place,!
this kingdom of the Son of Man is no other than
that revealed in Dan. vii. 14, which is coincident
in time with St John's reign of the martyrs.
In like manner, when the Apostle Peter speaks of his
decease as being near at hand, he calls it simply a put
ting off of this tabernacle, and his departure, without
using a single expression intimating any expectation
of being at once in glory ; indeed, he immediately

* 2 Tim. iv. 8.
f See my Critical Examination of Mr Faber's Sacred Calendar of
Prophecy, p. 108, 109.

14
afterwards speaks of the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, as if he wished to direct believers to it, as the
one great object of their hope.*
Doctor Wardlaw, in the third place, quotes in a
note the dying words of Stephen, " Lord Jesus, re
ceive my spirit ;" and reasons from them, that Stephen
expected his departing soul to be immediately re
ceived into heaven, where he at the time saw the
Lord. But, did not -our Lord on the cross utter the
words, " Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit ;" and is not the import of Stephen's prayer
exactly similar, though the words are different ?
Now, where was the spirit of our Lord in the interval,
between his death and resurrection ? Assuredly
not in the heaven of heavens, for he himself tells
Mary Magdalene, " / am not yet ascended to my
Father ;"t but it was in Paradise, as he assures the
thief on the cross, on the very day that he suffered.
Moreover, we learn from the words of Peter, Acts
ii. 27, 31, " That his soul was not left in hell, or
Hades." Now, if it was not left there, it must have
been there, for we do not predicate of a thing that
never was in a particular place, that it was not left
there. We should say in that case it was never
brought, or carried, or never went to that place. Ac
cording to these texts, therefore, and the uniform
testimony of primitive antiquity, we infer, that when
our Lord's spirit left his body, it went directly to
that part or division of Hades, called Paradise, where
the spirits of the just dwell till the resurrection ;
* 2 Pet. 13—16. t John xx. 17.

15
where Abraham and Lazarus are seen by Dives, in
the parable of our Lord ; and where he himself said
that he should be, when he declared to the Scribes
and Pharisees, " As Jonas was three days and three
nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son qf Man
be three days and three nights in the heart qf the
earth." It is trifling with our Lord's words to say,
as some modern commentators* do, that this refers
to the burial of his body in the tomb of Joseph. To
affirm this tomb to be the heart of the earth, is to
speak nonsense. The ancients always interpreted
the passage as having relation to the descent of the
Lord into Hades.t In like manner the passage in
Romans, " Say not in thy heart who shall descend
into the deep, that is to bring up Christ from the
dead," is understood by the ancients to refer to
Christ's descent into Hades. Indeed the Syriac
version, which is almost of apostolic antiquity,
renders the Greek up™™; in Rom. x. 7> by the Syriac
bw> which no one will deny to be the word for
Hades. I observe, finally, that our Lord's words, on two
different occasions, seem to me evidently to negative
the modern notion of the soul entering heaven in the
intermediate state.

* Mr Scott takes this view of the passage : and those under the earth
who bow at the name of Jesus, Philip, ii. 10, he makes to be the bodies
of the dead! ! ! Such is the theology of the authorities of the church
in our days.
f Theophylact on this text, Matth. xii. 40, writes : ra xoy oa'ao^oti
KetTa/i»i, Toivifiioos etvidTn. ' Having descended into Hell, he arose on the
third day.' The other fathers held the same view of the words. — See
Athanasius in his 3d Oration against the Arians, Cyril Cateches. xiv. and
Tertullian.

16
He counsels the rich Pharisee, when he makes a
feast, to call " the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the
blind," and then adds, " Thou shalt be blessed .- for
they cannot recompense thee : for thou shalt be recom
pensed AT THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST."*
When speaking to the multitude at the sea of
Tiberias, he says, " This is the Father's will which
sent me, that qf all which he hath given me I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the
LAST DAY."t
The inference to be drawn from these words, I
think is, that salvation is in our Lord's mind so en
tirely identified with the resurrection of the body,
that if any were not a partaker of this he would be
lost ; consequently, to expect an entrance into the
heaven of glory in the separate state, is directly con
trary to our Lord's words. It would be a recom
pense, not at the resurrection of the just, but entirely
independent of that resurrection.
I have, accordingly, observed in those who hold
the common doctrine, an evident disposition to
undervalue the resurrection, as if it were of secondary
importance ; and they speak of the body, as if it were
the only vail of separation between the saints and
Christ; than which sentiment I scarcely know any
thing more decidedly opposed to the whole of Divine
Revelation, which rests its promises on the resurrec
tion of our Lord himself, as on an adamantine rock ;
and always sets before us our own resurrection as the
great object of desire and earnest expectation.
* Luke xiv. 13, 14. f John vi. 39.

17
¦ I trust that enough has now been said to convince
every impartial Scriptural inquirer, that the Scriptures
give no support to the modern doctrine of the en
trance of the soul into heaven when it leaves the
body ; and, that the whole orthodox Church, in the
first ages, held a doctrine on this point quite opposed
to that of the moderns, may be seen by a reference
to the 4th chapter of the learned work of Dr T.
Burnet, De Statu Mortuorum and Resurgentium,
wherein he has collected a powerful body of evidence
on this subject, of which I shall now place a small
part before the reader.
Justin Martyr in his dialogue with Trypho, affirms
that " the souls of the pious remain in a better
place,* the unjust and wicked in a worse place, ex
pecting the time of the judgment."
Irenaaus says, " As the Lord went into the midst
of the shadow qfdeath,f where the souls of the dead
were, and afterwards rose in the body, and after his
resurrection was received up ; it is manifest also,
that the souls of his disciples, on account of whom
the Lord hath wrought these things, shall go into the
invisible place, fixed for them by God, and shall
dwell there till the resurrection, awaiting the resur
rection : afterwards receiving bodies, and rising per
fect, that is corporeally in the same manner the Lord
arose, they shall so come to the presence of God."t
Tertullian § thus writes : " But if Christ, God
and man, having died according to the Scriptures,

* %v xjs/ttow voi j£4if_i finnu. t A term for Hades.
% Iren. Adv. Hseres. Lib. v. c. xxxi. § De Anima. Cap. Iv.

18
and having been buried, satisfied this law also, under
went the likeness of human death among those under
the earth,* and did not ascend into the highest hea
vens, till he had descended into the lower parts of
earth, that he might there make the patriarchs and
prophets partakers of himself : you have both grounds
for believing in the region of the deadt below the
earth, and for refuting t those, who proudly enough,
do not consider the souls of the faithful as deserving
of Hades, § placing the servants above the master,
disdaining the comfort of waiting for the resurrec
tion in the bosom of Abraham."
If we inquire into the sentiments of the earlier, or as
they are usually called, the Apostolic Fathers, we find
them, in like manner, altogether silent upon the sup
posed glorification of the saints when they leave the
body. Clement of Rome having recounted the la
bours, and sufferings, and martyred death of St Paul,
merely affirms, that " He departed out of the world,
and went to a holy place." ||
Polycarp, in his Epistle to the Philippians, speak
ing of the saints and apostles, thus writes : " Being
confident of this, that all these have not run in vain,
but in faith and righteousness, and are gone to the
place that was due to them from the Lord." *
It were easy for me to cite the other authorities
enumerated by Dr Burnet, including in them the

* Latin, " apud inferos?' f Latin, " inferum."
% Cubito pellere. § Latin, inferis.
|| The words in the original Epistle, c. v. are ovtu; airriK-hwyn tov xw-
fcov Kai £tg tov u.yiov tottoj/ eirooevdvi.
* Archbishop Wade's Apostolic Fathers, p. 212.

19
names of men, eminent in the earlier ages of the
church — Origen, Macarius, Victorinus, Lactantius»
Andreas, Arethas, Chrysostom, Augustin, Theo
doret, CEcumenius, Theophylact, Hilary, and Am
brose. But I have said enough on this subject to
convince, as I hope, every reader who is disposed to
pay any deference to the testimony of the primitive
church in the interpretation of Scripture — support
ed, as it evidently is, by those passages which have
been produced from the Scriptures themselves.
Dr Burnet further informs us, that it was at the
Council of Florence, in the fifteenth century, that
the modern doctrine of the immediate reception of
the spirits of the saints into heaven, was first de
creed ; and that, with the single exception of
Cyprian, none received it in the earlier ages but the
Gnostics, Valentinians, Marcionites, and other
heretics. Other and collateral arguments may be mention
ed in confirmation of the doctrine of the primitive
church, on the point now under discussion. In the
Levitical dispensation, no imperfect man, or deform
ed, of the seed of Aaron, could minister unto the
Lord ;* and eunuchs were even excluded from the
congregation of the Lord.t Now, as the whole of
that dispensation was one of types or shadows, it
cannot be doubted that the exclusion of such per
sons from the tabernacle and congregation, had in it
an important signification.
In the day of creation God looked upon his
finished work, and " Behold, it was very good."X But

* Levit. xxi. 17—23. f Deut. xxiii. 1. \ Genes, i. 31.

20
sin, the thing which God hateth, entered, and this
lower world became filled wittfconfusion, rottenness,
and death ; which are all infinitely abhorrent to the
Divine nature, the everlasting source of order, health,
beauty, purity, and life. The reason, therefore, why
persons mutilated, or deformed, were debarred from
the ministrations of the sanctuary, and eunuchs from
the congregation, seems to have been to show, that
no creature in a mutilated and defective state, that
is, wanting any of the parts which are essential to its
condition in the scale of creation, can be presented be
fore the Eternal Father, since all such mutilation and
defect, even in our bodies, are to be traced to sin as
their original cause. The moment that the creature
fell from its original purity, and became obnoxious to
disease and death, it was, by an eternal necessity, ex
cluded from the presence and glory of the Eternal
Father, and the light of his countenance ; as it would
have been a derogation from his glory to have looked
upon an imperfect and corrupt thing. The work
which Christ undertook was the reconciliation of
this fallen and corrupt creature to the Father, and
its complete restoration to purity, health, and
beauty, and life. Now, it does not consist with the
glory of the Father or the Son, that any part of the
redeemed creation should be presented before the
presence of his glory, while this work is incomplete.
Man in his original state consisted of body and
spirit ; and it is manifest, that at the resurrection of
the just, they are to be formed of bodies glorious,
which are to be the everlasting tabernacles of their
spirits, made perfect in holiness. When thus re-

21
stored to a condition of perfect and complete har
mony and beauty, and when the ruins of the
fall are more than repaired, the church shall in one
body be presented by Jesus, the Eternal High Priest,
to the Father, without spot or wrinkle, or any such
thing. Such seems to be the doctrine of the Scrip
ture ; whereas the church of Rome, and some of the
modern Protestant churches, by affirming that the
spirits of the just are in their separate state translat
ed to heaven, do in effect teach that an imperfect
and mutilated humanity, for such is the disembodied
spirit, while the body is the food of worms and under
the curse of death, is presented by the Eternal High
Priest before the Eternal Father, a doctrine which
is conceived to be entirely inconsistent with the glory
of the Godhead, as it is utterly without support from
the Scriptures.

SECTION II.
DOCTOR WARDLAW'S SECOND, THIRD AND FOURTH
ARGUMENTS CONSIDERED.
Leaving to the attentive consideration of the
reader what has been offered in refutation of the
notion entertained by Dr Wardlaw, in common with
a great part of the modern church, with respect to
the glorification of the saints in the separate state, I
proceed to consider his direct arguments against the
literal interpretation of the first resurrection of St
John. He first affirms, negatively, that it is not to be re
garded as an evidence of the Millen arian interpreta
tion being the true one, that it accords with the
plain and literal meaning of the words ; and not sa
tisfied with putting this argument in a negative form,
he goes further. " It appears to me (adds the
Doctor) a proof of the very contrary. It should be
recollected that the passage forms part of a pro
phetical book ; of a book that is constructed on the
very principle of symbol, and figurative almost
throughout. Is it not then a fair and reasonable
principle of interpretation, that this particular inter
pretation should be understood in harmony with the
general character of the book ? Did the words occur
in an historical or epistolary composition, it would

23
be justly pronounced unnatural to explain them
symbolically. Now, in a professedly symbolical
book, there is the very same force of objection
against their being interpreted literally. The inter
pretation is not in harmony with the avowed and
universally admitted style of the writer, and the
principle on which his entire work is constructed. It
is just as unfair to interpret prophecy on the princi
ples of simple history, as it would be to interpret
simple history by the symbols of prophecy."*
I have preferred giving the foregoing argument
in the very words of the preacher, that I may not, by
any abridgment, abate one iota of its strength ; for
I abhor in controversy, that species of injustice, which
consists in detracting from, or giving an unfair state
ment of our opponent's reasoning.
With regard to the argument itself, which has
thus been set before the reader, it seems to me to
betray a degree of unacquaintance with the prophetic
style, which marks, that the subject itself has engaged
a very small part of Dr Wardlaw's attention. He,
indeed, in the earlier part of his discourse,t makes a
very candid confession of his very limited knowledge
of this department of theological learning ; and the
argument to which I am now to offer a reply, com
pletely justifies the avowal there made.
That the general character of the book of Revela
tion is symbolical, admits of no dispute : but it is far
from being true, as Doctor Wardlaw affirms, that it
is symbolical and figurative throughout. On the
* Sermons, p. 498, 9. f p- ±92-

24
contrary, there is every where a mixture of the letter
with the symbol. Nay, I will add, that there is every
where a sort of anxiety manifested by the Prophet,
and by the Spirit who guides his pen, to emerge, as it
were, from the symbol to the letter. Of this I shall
proceed forthwith to give some examples from the
book itself, premising a remark or two upon the
reasons why symbols are so often employed in the
prophetic writings. From the poverty of all human
language to express the forms and characters of con
crete existences, whether political, or moral, or
spiritual, the language of symbol and allegory seems
to have been given to us by our Creator, as a sort of
supplement and auxiliary to that of sounds. Thus,
when Christ is called a Lamb, it at once presents to
our minds the ideas of harmlessness, innocence,
gentleness, and sacrificial atonement ; and the sym
bol, from its concentrating in itself, attributes and
qualities so various, possesses a power and a beauty,
which we shall in vain seek for in the most skilful
combination of words. It deserves notice, however,
that this symbolical language can never be perfectly
understood by us, till it is either by a mental pro
cess or by a living interpreter analyzed, and, as it
were, translated into the language of sounds ; or, in
other words, the symbol must be reduced into the
letter, before its meaning is made apparent. The
literal signification is therefore the end, and the sym
bol is merely a mean, or instrument for arriving at
the end. The language of symbol seems thus
to bear a relation to that of words, analogous to that
which the symbols of Algebra bear to real quantities.

25
To give examples of this — Pharaoh could understand
nothing of his own dreams, till the meaning of the
symbols was revealed by Joseph. In like manner
when Daniel, in vision, saw the four beasts arise
from the stormy sea, and the celestial vision of judg
ment, and heavenly rule which followed, he is driven,
as it were, by his own deep anxiety to know the signi
fication of the symbols, to seek the aid of his celestial
interpreter.* We see a similar solicitude manifested
by him in the vision which follows, being that of the
Ram and He Goat.t
Thus, we discover, that when symbols are employ
ed by the Holy Ghost to convey to his servants the
knowledge of things future, they are intended always
to lead to the letter ; and if they fail in doing this,
they, in effect, remain utterly unintelligible. I pro
ceed now to confirm this from the Apocalypse it
self. Having, in the symbols of the first four seals,
given a view of the visible church, from its early
career of triumphant progress in the conversion of
the Roman world, till it was, under the tyrannical
rule of Rome, converted into a theatre of relentless
persecution and butchery ; the Spirit does, in the
fifth seal, in a mixture of the type and the letter, ex
hibit to our view the terrible effects of the persecu
tions of the preceding seal. That part of the imagery
of this seal which discovers to us the souls of the
slain martyrs, seems evidently literal ; while their
collocation under the altar, and their white robes, are
* Dan. vii. 15, 16. f Dan. viii. 15, 1C.

26
symbols. Again, the command given them to rest
for a season till their fellow servants and their bre
thren should be fulfilled, is altogether literal, intimat
ing, that though they now had rest, their glorifica
tion must be delayed till the season when the gospel-
net being filled at the end of the age, the unjust
shall be destroyed, and the just gathered into the
kingdom. *
The Sixth Seal occupies the last six verses of chap.
vi. and the whole of chap, vii, ; the former exhibiting
to us its political and the last its ecclesiastical results.
In the concluding verses of the sixth chapter, the
awful convulsions in the political world which are to
usher in the Millennium, are placed before us under
the symbol of a mighty earthquake, shaking and re
moving all earthly things, and then laying aside the
symbols, and advancing to the letter, the prophetic
vision describes the fear, and horror, and conster
nation which shall overwhelm the inhabitants of the
earth, when they see the approach of the Lord to
judge the world in righteousness. The seventh chap
ter, which contains the ecclesiastical results of the
same Seal, begins in like manner with a symbolical
description of an interval of rest and peace for the
sealing of the servants of God, in order to their
preservation from the approaching whirlwind of
wrath. They are described as consisting of a mystic
number of 144,000 Israelites. In the last part of the
chapter, the symbols are laid aside, and the saved are
set before us in terms strictly literal, as a great mul-
* Matth. xiii. 47—49.

27
titude whom no man could number, out of all kin
dreds, and peoples, and tongues, having come out of
the last great tribulation ; and they are represented
as celebrating the antitypical feast of tabernacles in
the temple of God. *
It were easy for me to go through the whole pro
phecy, and show, that there is in almost every part a
recurrence to the literal, and a commixture of it with
the symbolical. Examples of this may be seen in
ch. viii. 3, 4, 13 ; ix. 6, 16, 20, 21 j x. 6, 7, 11 ; xi.
9, 10, 15—18 ; xii. 17 ; xiii. 7 ; xiv. 20 ; xv. 2 — 4 ;
xvi. 6, 9, 10, 15 j xvii. 12, 13, 15, 18 j xviii. 20,
24 ; xix. passim. On carefully considering the whole
of the foregoing passages, it will, I think, be seen,
that there is no difficulty whatever, in any instance,
in distinguishing the letter from the symbol, nor is
there the least reason for maintaining, that in any
one case the order of the Spirit, which is invariably
to proceed from the symbol to the letter, is to be re
versed by bringing back the letter to the symbol ;
or, in other words, symbolizing that which is literal.
This process of theological alchymy does, in effect,
set aside the plain unvarnished testimony of the
Spirit of God ; and when we trace it to its conse
quences, it will be found near akin to some of those
errors which infested the first churches, which led
Hymenaeus and Philetus to spiritualize the resurrec
tion, and the Gnostics and other sects to deny that
our Lord was come in the flesh.

* For the spiritual signification of the Feast of Tabernacles, I refer
to a paper on the typical and mystical import of the great Jewish Feasts,
in my volume of Jewish Essays, p. 191.

28
Let us now proceed to try more closely Dr Ward-
law's reasoning with regard to the language of Rev.
xx. 4 — 6. His first argument, of which we have
cited the words, is, as we have seen, founded on the
general character of the book itself, which being
confessedly symbolical, the words of the passage
under discussion must not, according to the Doctor,
be interpreted literally. Although the observations
already made, be in themselves, as I conceive, suffi
cient to overthrow this argument, -yet we must press
the Doctor a little more closely.
In the same book, there occur such passages as
the following, " Behold he cometh with clouds, and
every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced
him : and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because
of him." We ask Dr Wardlaw then, whether these
words, occurring in this book, confessedly symboli
cal, are to be symbolized, and if so, what is their sig
nification ?
Again, are the persons mentioned in ch. vi. 15,
one of the passages already cited, " And the kings
qf the earth, and the great men, and the rich men,
and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every
bondman, and every freeman ;" who are described as
saying to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us .- are these
persons not real but symbolical, and what are the
significations of the symbols ?
Are the persons described in ch. ix. 20, as not
having repented of the works of their hands, and
their idolatries, symbolical and not real, and what or
who are they ?
Are the saints on whom it was given to the beast

29
to make war, ch. xiii. 7. symbols, and what do they
signify ? Are the kindreds, tongues, and nations,
over whom the beast had power given to him sym
bols, and of what are they symbolical ?
Now, in one and all these examples, we think that
Dr Wardlaw must admit, that the letter itself ex
presses the mind of the Spirit, and, therefore, that
to symbolize them, even if it were possible to do so,
would be to reject their true and obvious significa
tion. If so, the whole of the Doctor's argument
against the literal sense of the resurrection of the
martyrs, which rests on the allegation, that the book
is " figurative almost throughout," falls at once to
the ground. For if all the foregoing passages must
be understood literally, then the resurrection of the
martyrs, as it is an event which shall really occur in
the course of the Divine administration, and not a
matter in itself fictitious and symbolical, must, ac
cording to every rule of sound reasoning, be under
stood, and believed to happen, when John declares
that he saw it happen, that is, at the beginning of
the Millennium. To convert that which is in itself
a real occurrence into a symbol, merely because it
seems to us to occur at a wrong time, to which the
Doctor's whole argument ultimately resolves itself,
cannot be done without rejecting the testimony of
the word of God.
Dr Wardlaw thus continues his argument : " The
whole of the very vision where the text lies, is sym
bolical. We have in the preceding verses the dra
gon — the binding of him with a chain, and setting a
seal upon him, or upon the entrance of his prison.

30
Why then are we immediately to make a transition
from the symbolical to the literal ? Why are we in
the text to understand literal thrones of earthly do
minion, and a literal and corporeal resurrection of
men to sit upon these thrones, when all around is
symbolical and figurative ?"*
Now, were I to press these words of Dr Wardlaw
to their genuine meaning, I should be forced to sus
pect him of the heresy of denying the existence of
Satan, from which I am persuaded he recoils with
horror. I shall content myself with simply re
marking, therefore, in answer to his argument, that
as the dragon, who is mentioned in the passage of
the Apocalypse here referred to, is expressly said to
be the Devil and Satan ; he is certainly a real per
sonage. How then, I ask Dr Wardlaw, is the whole
passage symbolical and figurative 9 Is it because
Satan is called the dragon, that old serpent 9 If so,
then I reply, that in our Lord's awful denunciation
of woes against the Scribes and Pharisees, t he calls
them serpents, and a generation of vipers ; and I ask
Dr Wardlaw, is the whole discourse, therefore, sym
bolical and figurative 9 So, in the words spoken by
John the Baptist to the Pharisees and Sadducees,
as recorded by Matthew, % there are, in five verses,
eight or nine metaphors : Is, therefore, the whole
discourse symbolical If Dr Wardlaw shall answer
these questions in the affirmative, then how is he to
refute those Socinian heretics, who maintain, that the

* Sermons, p. 499.
f Matth. xxiii. 29. J Matth. iii. 7—12.

31
account of the fall of man in Genesis, is an allegory,
and not a real history ; and what is he to make of
the whole Bible ?
To constitute a narrative or discourse to be of the
nature of symbol, it is not enough that there be in
it terms and expressions metaphorical or symbolical,
but it is moreover necessary that there be a com
plete body of symbols, with something to common
apprehension of recondite meaning.
If the first verses of Rev. xx., which Dr Wardlaw
has incautiously affirmed to be wholly symbolical, be
examined according . to this rule, it will be found to
be no less literal than if it were a matter of history.
A mighty Angel, one of those ministers of God's
providence, who " excel in strength," * comes down
from heaven and lays hold of Satan, binding him
with an adamantine chain ; and does Dr Wardlaw
deny the possibility of this to omnipotence ? — I can
not suspect him of doing so. Having thus bound
him, he casts him into that abyss, which, even when
our Lord was upon earth, was known to the devils
as their destined place of confinement, and which,
as appears from 2 Pet. ii. 4, is the subterranean re
gion, called by the ancients Tartarus, t He sets a
seal on him, that is, he so closes the entrance into
this vast prison, that it is wholly impervious even to
the gigantic strength of this fallen angel ; and this
for a thousand years. Now, how this is wholly sym
bolical, I am quite at a loss to conceive ; and if Dr

" Ps. ciii.
^ See Schlcusncr on the word Tecorxgau.

32
Wardlaw, having asserted this, were to meet in ar
gument an infidel denying the very existence of Satan,
I suspect, that having surrendered the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God, by denying its plain
meaning, he would find himself powerless in contend
ing with his acute adversary. When, without neces
sity, we deny the literal sense of the word of God, we
give more weapons to infidelity than a great part of
the Evangelical Church suspect. And if there were
a man possessing the acuteness of Hume to arise in
our times, I think he would find enough to do for
Dr Wardlaw in defending Christianity itself with the
armour which remains to him. I shall conclude what
I have to offer on this point, by an unqualified and
simple denial of the symbolical sense of the passage
respecting the binding of Satan, and by calling on
Dr Wardlaw to prove it. The burden of proof cer
tainly rests upon those who deny, and not on those
who receive the literal sense of the word of God.
The third .argument of the Doctor, wherein he
infers, from the language in which the resurrection
of the Martyrs is predicted, that it is to be inter
preted symbolically, and not literally, is far too long
for quotation. I must content myself with a general
reference to it.* The very word used by the Apos
tle, namely, " souls," he thinks decidedly to favour
the idea of a figurative and spiritual, in opposition to
a literal and corporeal resurrection.
To his whole argument, I return the following
answer : —
* Sermons, p. 499.

33
If the dead martyrs were to be exhibited at all to
the eyes of the Apocalyptic Seer, it could only be
by his having a vision of their souls in the separate
state ; for their bodies having been turned into dust,
had no longer an individual existence : and that the
souls or spirits of the dead, no less than their bodies,
are said in the Scriptures to be dead, or are called
the dead, is quite evident. Thus, the proposal of
Dives to Abraham to send the soul of Lazarus to his
brethren, is called sending one out of, or from
amongst the dead.* In Rev. xiv. 13, the words,
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, refer
also to their souls in the separate state, for the chro
nology of that passage manifestly precedes the first
resurrection. So also in Rom. xiv. 9, when it is said,
that Christ both died, and rose and lived again, that
he might lord it t over both the dead and living ; it
refers to the souls or spirits of the dead, over whom
he exercises absolute authority in the separate state.
Now, as souls in the separate state are said to be
dead, or are called the dead, so when they arise in
their bodies, and not until then, they are said to live,
or live again. But this is precisely what John affirms
of the souls of the martyrs. He tells us .first, that
he saw their souls, and then, that they lived and
reigned with Christ.
But in order to have a full understanding of this
vision, it is necessary for us to turn back to Rev. vi.
9 — 11, when the apostle first saw these souls of the
* Luke xvi. 30, 31. Tig airo vsxguv, ti; sk vsxpgiv. t 'lux xvpuvgvj.
D

34
slain martyrs under the altar, and heard their cries
to God, and the promise made to them. They were
then numbered among the dead. Their enemies
were triumphant upon earth. Nor were these souls
(as is vainly imagined by the modern church) in
heaven ; for of heaven the Holy of Holies of the
temple is confessedly the type ; * but they were un
der the brazen altar as having been offered in sacri
fice to God, and the place under the altar here seems
to be a type of that place under the earth, where the
saints do bow the knee to Jesus ; t and from whence
also John heard-the voice of praise to ascend ; X or,
in other words, that compartment of Hades occupied
by the spirits of the just.
In Rev. xx. 4, the same souls are again exhibited
to the beloved disciple ; and that they are the same,
is quite manifest from the description in both places,
which is identical, and without variation ; for surely it
will not be said, that the substitution of the words,
" were beheaded" for " were slain," does constitute
a variation. John goes, on to say, that these very
souls lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Now, I presume, that it will not be denied even by
Dr Wardlaw, that these words are a continuation of
the vision seen by John. A change in the condition
of these very souls was exhibited to him. The words
xxi eiiou, and I saw, refer not only to the thrones but
the souls he saw, and their altered state when they
lived and reigned with Christ. Even the learned and

* Heb. ix. 12, 23, 24. t Philip, ii. 10.
X Rev. v. 13.

35
candid Vitringa, though he rejects the literal inter
pretation, acknowledges the literal sense of the words-
Alludit autem apostolus manifeste ad id quod ante
scripserat, ch. vi. 9 ; soluto sigillo quinto se vidisse
sub altari ra? ^-x«f» animas mactatorum propter ser-
monem Dei et testimonium quod habebant. Has
animas nunc vidit revixisse in corporibus ; hoc est
corporibus suis redunitas, in ccelesti comparere aula
et occupare solia sibi parata.*
What the apostle then intends by informing us,
that these souls lived and reigned with Christ, cer
tainly is, that they arose in their bodies, and sat
down with Christ on the thrones of judgment ; and
I think this must, as to the matter of the vision, be
admitted by Dr Wardlaw himself. Indeed, I do not
see how it can be denied, consistently with the mean
ing of words, since there is no way of conceiving a
disembodied human soul to live again but by receiv
ing a body.
Still, however, Dr Wardlaw, and the greater part
of the modern church affirm, that the resurrection
which the Apostle here saw, is not to be understood
literally, but must be interpreted on the same prin
ciple as we explain the Beasts and other living sym
bols that passed before the eyes of the prophets,
which were not real existences but images, called up
before their eyes by the power of Spirit, intended to

* The apostle manifestly alludes to what he had before written in
ch, vi. 9, that on the opening of the fifth seal, he saw under the altar the
souls of those slain for the word of God. and the testimony which they
had. These souls he now saw live again in bodies, that is, reunited to
their bodies, and appearing in the celestial hall, and occupying thrones
prepared for them.

36
signify future events. In like manner, says Dr
Wardlaw, the resurrection of the martyrs, seen in
vision by John, was simply a symbol, signifying " a
glorious revival and extensive prevalence of the spirit
and character of those who had laid down their
lives for the word qf God, and for the testimony of
Jesus. The martyrs, according to prophetic figure,
rise, live, and reign, when a race of successors ap
pears signally animated by their spirit, and pursuing
their glorious career ; and when their principles be
come predominant and extensively influential." *
Now, I observe, in the first place, with respect to
this strange, however common hypothesis, that it is
utterly destitute of evidence. The Spiritualists re
ject the plain and literal meaning of the word of God,
upon no better evidence than their own assertions ;
and assuredly, we feel no disposition to receive their
assertions as being of the nature of evidence. I re
mark, secondly, that this interpretation betrays either
an entire ignorance of, or to say the least, a total in
attention to the nature of the dispensation to which
this resurrection of the martyrs belongs. In that
glorious age, the cause of Christ shall no longer be
militant but triumphant. There was given to him
(the Son of Man) dominion and glory, and a king
dom, that all peoples, nations, and languages, should
serve him.\ The spirit of martyrdom belongs only
to the church militant, which having suffered with
Christ, are to reign with him. There can be no
martyrdom where all is subjection. It were easy to
* Sermons, p. 500. \ Dan. vii. 14.

37
amplify these remarks, but the hints given will
enable the intelligent reader to follow out the argu
ment. In the third place, thus to symbolize the resurrec
tion of the martyrs, is in direct opposition to the
principle of literal interpretation, which Dr Wardlaw
himself adopts, with respect to the souls of the same
martyrs when seen under the altar. " Their souls"
(says the Doctor) " must be their separate spirits."*
But I shall have occasion to return again to this ar
gument, and shall therefore at present only mention
it. In the fourth place, if Dr Wardlaw makes these
risen martyrs reigning with Christ, to be symbols of
another race of martyrs, it is to make reigning a
symbol of suffering. This destroys and subverts the
whole principles of symbolization, which always sup
pose a likeness between the properties of the symbol,
and that which it signifies.
In the fifth and last place, if Dr Wardlaw makes
the martyrs sitting with Christ upon thrones to be
symbols, consistency requires, what I almost tremble
to write, that he should make Christ himself 'to be a
symbol, for if he hesitate in doing so, he himself is
chargeable with that which he, without reason, im
putes to us, " making a transition from the obscure
and figurative to the direct and simple, from the
style of prophecy to the style of history.t Now, I
ask Dr Wardlaw, whether he will not shrink back

I quote Dr Wardlaw's words, p. 501.
t Sermons, p. 499.

38
with fear and trembling from this inevitable conse
quence of his own principles of interpretation ? But,
as I have found myself compelled to charge the in
terpretation given by Mr Faber of our Lord's Ad
vent with the clouds of heaven, in Dan. vii. 13, with
a like consequence, I shall place before Dr Wardlaw
for his attentive consideration, a passage from my
Critical Examination of Mr Faber's Sacred Calendar
of Prophecy, in which I enter at some length into
this subject.
" I remark, in the last place, on this branch of the
argument, that Mr Faber's figurative interpretation
of the advent of the Son of Man is opposed to the
whole principles of the types as they are developed
in other parts of the Scriptures.
" I think it must be admitted, that in typical illus
tration it is an invariable rule, that the type is always
inferior in worth, and in the scale of the creation to the
antitype : Thus, Adam, earthy, and a living soul, is
a type of Christ, the second Adam, the Lord from
heaven, and a quickening spirit. Thus, David, a
fighting and conquering king, and Solomon a pacific
and triumphant king, are respectively types of Christ
as the head of the church militant and triumphant :
thus, the lamb of sacrifice is a type of Christ the
true Lamb of God : thus, the Levitical high priest is
his type in the priestly office : thus, the holy of
holies is a type of heaven. We might, in like man
ner, go through the whole types of the Old Testa
ment, and show that the less is always a type of the
greater. Even the sun, moon, and stars, when used
as types of earthly sovereignties, form no exception

39
to this general rule, which rests on the deep princi
ple of nature itself, that the picture of an object, or
its shadow, must be inferior in dignity to the object
which it represents. So the sun, moon, and stars,
being inanimate and without reason, are inferior in
the scale of creation, to those sovereignties and prin
cipalities of the moral, and political, and rational uni
verse, which they represent.
" Let us now, by this principle, try Mr Faber's
theory respecting the Advent of our Lord, predicted
in those passages which form the subject of argu
ment. Daniel, rapt in the inspiration of the Holy
Ghost, is carried in rapid succession through the
prophetic scenes of future and distant ages. He
sees to arise before his eyes in mystic procession
those four great Gentile sovereignties which were to
wield the energies of the ruling nations of this ter
restrial globe, till the establishment of the everlasting
sovereignty of the Son of God and his saints. Their
earthly principles, their savage policy, their relent
less wars, their cruel thirst for blood, are fitly re
presented by the types of four hideous wild beasts,
which pass before the eyes of the prophet. The de-
cemregal partition of the territories and dominion of
the fourth beast ; the rise, the episcopal character,
the ever watchful policy and cunning, the blasphem
ous pretensions, and the cruel persecutions of the
Papal power, are depicted with equal conciseness
and strength under the symbols of the ten horns,
and an eleventh little horn with eyes. While the
eyes of the seer continue rivetted on the scene be
fore him, it suddenly changes : — A blaze of celestial
light shoots athwart the thick gloom — the Ancient

40
of Days, attended by ten thousand times ten thou
sand, and thousands of thousands, appears — thrones
of judgment are set, and the great assize begins — the
fourth beast is slain, and his body given to the flames.
While this judgment is proceeding, Daniel beholds
(one) like the Son of Man come with the clouds
of heaven, and he came to the Ancient of Days, &c,
and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a
kingdom. " Mr Faber stoutly affirms that this whole vision
of the coming of the Son of Man is simply a figure,
or symbol, or type, denoting the conversion of the
world ; and he alleges that by such a diffusion of pure
and practical religion, as the world has never yet
witnessed, will the Millennial reign of Christ and his
saints commence. Now, throughout the whole
Scriptures, Christ himself is the Great Antitype. Of
him were the holy men of old, Adam, David, Solo-
man, illustrious types— of him were even the beasts
slain for sin, types ; and when the beYoved John saw
in the visions of Patmos, a lamb as it had been slain,
with seven horns and seven eyes, nothing will satisfy
or fulfil the meaning of this typical repi esentation
from the animal creation, but Christ himself the
sacrifice and the priest. Yet, when Daniel by the
energy of that eternal Spirit of God, who sees and
declares the end from the beginning, beholds at the
end of the ages this great antitype coming in person,
and invested with glory and dominion, Mr Faber, by
rashly and fearlessly converting the whole scene into
sl figure, does in effect affirm, that Clirist himself
here appears simply as a type of the progress of his
own gospel in the hearts of men ; and therefore, a

41
type, signifying something infinitely inferior in dig
nity to that which was pointed out by the morning
and evening lamb of the daily sacrifice. Thus a
consequence, which must fill every genuine Chris
tian with horror, and I doubt not has been hitherto
unperceived by the learned author himself, does ne
cessarily flow from this most unscriptural and absurd
hypothesis." The fourth argument of Doctor Wardlaw in sup
port of the alleged symbolical signification of the
resurrection of the martyrs, is founded upon the
vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel,* to which the
Doctor assigns a meaning wholly symbolical, affirm
ing, that " their resurrection is not a literal re
surrection of the deceased children of Abraham ;"
and he hence argues, that John's resurrection of the
martyrs, is to be interpreted on a like principle. Now,
I must here ask my respectable opponent whether he
is not aware of the fact, that the Jewish church
viewed the prophecy quite in a different light, con
ceiving it to contain a promise of the literal resurrec
tion of the whole nation at the coming of Messiah ?
I refer Doctor Wardlaw for evidence of this to Dr
Gill's annotations on the passage, and David Levi's
Dissertation on the Prophecies of the Old Testa
ment ; and believing it to be the true interpretation
of the prophecy, with the limitation assigned to it by
St Paul's words, they are not all Israel which are qf
Israel,^ I shall only say, that viewed in this point of
light, it affords no support whatever to the figurative
* Ch. xxxvii. 11 — 14. f Rom. ix. 6.

42
sense of St John's resurrection of the martyrs, but
the reverse.
It may here, however, be objected by some, that
if this be the true sense* of the vision of Ezekiel, how
is it that our Lord in reasoning with the Sadducees,
did not at once put them down by citing this pro
phecy, rather than a passage in Exodus, which, to
common view, does not appear directly to bear testi
mony to the resurrection of the dead.* To this we
answer, that our Lord, when he appeared in the
flesh, did in all respects bear the form of a servant,
and in no degree affected superiority over his bre
thren of the Jewish nation. In arguing, therefore,
with the Sadducees, and other heretics, he strictly
observed what amongst us are acknowledged as the
principles of just reasoning between man and man,
one of which is, that we are never to argue from au
thorities which are denied by our adversary. The
Sadducees, as is well known, did not acknowledge as
divinely inspired, any part of the Old Testament,
saving the five books of Moses ; and, hence, in com
bating their pernicious errors, it became necessary
that our Lord himself, according to the usual rules of
human reasoning, should found his arguments solely
on the Books of Moses, leaving entirely out all the
testimonies of the Prophets to the doctiine of the
resurrection. In like manner, the Jewish writers tell
us, that their most eminent doctors of the law were
wont chiefly to meet the Sadducees, by passages se
lected from the Pentateuch. Gamaliel, the master of
* See Matth. xxii. 31, 32.

43
St Paul, being pressed by the Sadducees to say where
the resurrection was taught, answered out of the law,
by Deut. xxxi. 16. the prophets, Is. xxvi. 19. and
the holy writings, Cant, vii.* 9* Again, the Sad
ducees asked Rabbi Gamaliel whence he would prove
the resurrection of the dead, and they did not rest
till he had produced Deut. xi. 21, t from which text,
and also Exod. vi. 4, the ancient Jewish church cor
rectly reasoned, that since neither Abraham, nor
Isaac, nor Jacob, had in their own lives possessed the
promised land, God would in the days of Messiah
raise them up from the grave, and give it to them.
Indeed, it was impossible for those who received the
word of God in its plain and literal sense, to avoid
coming to this conclusion, when they considered the
words of the passage last mentioned : I have also
established my covenant with them, to give them
the land qf Canaan,- the land qf their pilgrimage,
wherein they were strangers. The ancient doctors
had not learned that wonderful device of the modern
church, whereby under pretence of doing honour to
the word of God, by turning its letter into spirit, and
its annunciations into symbols, they in effect reject
its plainest promises. The orthodox part of the Jew
ish church, were Literalists no less than the modern
Millenarians. Returning now to Doctor Wardlaw's
argument from Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry
bones, I observe, that while with the Jewish church
we maintain that this prophecy contains a promise of
the first resurrection at the coming (yet future) of
Messiah, and thus we do receive it, according to the
* Mede's Works, book iii. p. 718. f Ibid. B. iv. Epist. xiiii.

44
strict letter, as corroborative of John's prophecy of
the resurrection of the martyrs ; we, in the second
place, are quite ready to acknowledge, that in a sym
bolical sense, it is also to be received as signifying
the spiritual and political resurrection of the whole
nation, from its present degraded and scattered con
dition. Both events are conjoined in chronology, as
they are both to be equally accomplished at the se
cond advent of Messiah, and we believe that both
are comprehended in this prophecy. But we deny
that any argument can be thence deduced in support
of the symbolical meaning of John's resurrection of
the martyrs • because, if we strictly analyze this in
terpretation, it will be found to have nothing in
common with the former one. In the vision of
Ezekiel, the bones in the valley are the whole house
of Israel ; * and their resurrection signifies the spi
ritual and political resuscitation of that very thing
which they are declared to be. On the other hand, the
resurrection of the martyrs is by Dr Wardlaw made
to signify the appearance of a body, quite different
from themselves, a race of successors animated by
their spirit, and pursuing their glorious career. It is
true, that the Doctor, to support this hypothesis, calls
in the aid of a principle which no one denies, that
Christians during successive generations continue the
same community. But then, I nowhere learn that
one part of this community is a type of another part
of itself, which Dr Wardlaw's interpretation affirms
to be the case. Nor will it form any valid reply to
this objection, to say that the Levitical church is a
* Ezek. xxx vii. 1 1.

45
type of the church of the New Testament. It is
one thing for the whole church of a former dispensa
tion, to be a type of the whole church in another dis
pensation, and quite a different thing for a portion of
the church in this dispensation, to be a type of an
other part of itself Moreover, where the Spirit of
God purposes to narrate any of the great events of
the history of the church in this dispensation, in the
language of symbols, He, I think, invariably places
before our eyes a symbol denoting the church itself
in a concrete form. The Woman clothed with the
Sun in ch. xii., and the two Witnesses in ch. xi.,
are both examples of this, as they are unquestionably
symbols, having no primary or real existence, but as
the hieroglyphical representations of their common
archetype the church of Christ, in its varied circum
stances and vicissitudes.
This leads me to remark in the next place, that,
Dr Wardlaw's interpretation of St John's prophecy
is in direct opposition to the whole principles of
Scriptural symbolization. There is a fundamental
difference between a type and a symbol. Adam, the
first man, is a type of Christ, the second man. So
David, Solomon, and various other saints were types
of Christ. But we never say that Adam, or David,
or Solomon were symbols of Christ ; and were any
one to assert this, the impropriety of the word used
would at once strike us, though perhaps we should
not immediately discern the reason of it. A symbol,
properly speaking, has no individual or primary ex
istence, but as the designed representative of that
which it signifies. Thus in Pharaoh's dream, the

46
kine and the ears of wheat, and in Daniel's vision the
four beasts are respectively the symbols of those
things they represent. Hence there is a marked
difference in the Scriptural phraseology with respect
to types and symbols. Of Adam it is said, that he
is the type of bim who was to come. * So the events
that happened to Israel in the wilderness were types
of analogous events in the New Testament Church, t
But when an object is presented to us in the Scrip
tures as the symbol of another, it is identified with it.
Thus the seven well-favoured kine and seven good
ears are seven years of plenty, t These four beasts
are four kings. §
It undeniably follows from what has now been
said, that the souls of the martyrs seen by the apostle
in Rev. xx. 4. were not symbols. For, as has already
been proved, they were the very same souls which
had been exhibited to him in the fifth seal. In that
vision they were, Dr Wardlaw himself being the
judge, || real existences, the separate spirits of those
slain for the word of God • they were then dead,
and " were for a specified time to continue dead."
But at length the scene is changed. These- very

* Rom. v. 14. f 1 Cor. x. 6. J Gen. xii. 18—27.
§ Dan. vii. 17. I foresee that two objections may be made to these
remarks. First, It may be said that the verb substantive are, is not in
the Hebrew original. But what we affirm is, that it is evidently under
stood, and must be supplied. Secondly, The words of St Paul in Gal.
iv. 25. may be quoted as showing that a similar phraseology is applied to
objects which were, though types, certainly not symbols. This Agar is
mount Sinai in Arabia. But then let it be observed, that Paul had just
before used the expression, which things are an allegory, thereby show
ing in what sense, viz. that of type, he identifies Agar with the dispen
sation of Sinai.
|| Sermons, p. 501.

47
souls which were for a time to continue dead, are
again seen by the apostle. They live, and sit upon
thrones, and reign with Christ a thousand years.
Now, as their former death was, according to Dr
Wardlaw himself, real and literal death, and separa
tion from the body, so must their present life be real
and substantial life in the body. We cannot permit
Dr Wardlaw to put the language of the Scriptures
to the rack and the torture, by affirming of their
death that it was real and literal, and of their life
that it is fabulous and symbolical. No lawyer even
in a human court of justice would dare thus to torture
the language of a legal paper.
Reverting once more to the vision of the dry
bones in Ezekiel, to which, in harmony with the
Jewish Church, I have assigned a meaning both
literal and symbolical, I remark, that the bones in
that prophecy which receive life are of two descrip
tions. First, Those in the open valley — these bones,
it is manifest, had no real existence, but were simply
images presented to the mind of the prophet by the
power of the Spirit, and were in the strictest sense of
the word symbols. But Secondly, there was another
description of bones not symbolical but real, which
the Prophet did not see, but which are the subject
of the divine declaration ; " O my people, I will
open your graves and cause you to come up out of
your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel."
Now, the last declaration is referred by the Jewish
writer David Levi, to the literal resurrection of the
dead of his nation when Messiah comes, and the
vision of the resurrection of the bones in the valley

48
to which Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy, is
supposed by him to relate to the political restoration
of the nation itself from its captivity among the
Gentiles. I think this arrangement of the prophecy
is correct. I hope I have now said quite enough to show, that
in Dr Wardlaw's argument from the two prophecies
of Ezekiel and St John, there is manifested an entire
confusion of symbols with real existences ; yet after
bringing forward two auxiliary arguments (to be
shortly noticed) in support of his view of the resur
rection of the martyrs, the Doctor adds the following
remark : — " To any one at all acquainted with the
symbolical language of prophecy, such an explanation,
so far from appearing strained and unnatural, will
recommend itself by its appropriateness and simpli
city." In these words, a charge is evidently implied
against all those writers who interpret the first resur
rection literally, with being utterly ignorant of, or
not at all acquainted with the symbolical language of
prophecy. And yet we can tell the .Doctor that
some of us have studied that language for as many
years, or nearly so, as he has been in the public
ministry. The Doctor, on the other hand, in the
beginning of his sermon, candidly acknowledges
himself to be a novice in these inquiries. " The
general field of unfulfilled prophecy," says he, " is a
field on which, in the present state of my reading
and information in the various departments of it, I
should deem it the most unpardonable presumption
for me to enter." Now, I ask Doctor Wardlaw what
would men of human science think of it were a per-

49
son to publish a treatise on Chemistry, beginning
with an acknowledgment of his unacquaintance with
the whole subject, and proceeding afterwards to
charge the greater part of the chemical students of
the age with ignorance of the first elements of their
favourite science. Dr Wardlaw may be assured that
Prophecy is in Theology a peculiar study, as much
as Chemistry is in general physical science. It
would be well for our general and popular divines to
study it more deeply before they preach and write
upon it.
The two auxiliary arguments to which I have just
alluded, now demand a few words in reply. Dr
Wardlaw reasons in support of his interpretation of
the resurrection pf the martyrs, from the fact of the
conversion of sinners being called a resurrection from
the dead. Now, if the Doctor can prove from the
Scriptures that the resurrection from the dead of one
person or one body qf men whom we shall call A, is
used to signify the conversion of another person or
another body of men whom we shall call B, then will
this hitherto unheard of figure of speech prove avail
able to him in support of his view of the resurrection
of the martyrs. But if the resurrection of A simply
denotes the conversion of A, then it cannot aid Dr
Wardlaw in his attempt to prove that the resurrec
tion of the beheaded martyrs of a former age, is in
tended to prefigure the rise of another body of
martyrs in a future age.
The second of the arguments, to which I am now
to reply, rests upon the fulfilment of Malachi's pro
phecy of the coming of Elias, not by the personal

50
coming of Elijah the Tishbite, but by the ministry
of John coming in the spirit and power ofFlias.
My answer is, that it is not said by Malachi that
the Elijah who was to be sent is Elijah the Tishbite
who ascended up to heaven, but Elijah the Prophet.
The name Elijah no more indicates that it was Eli
jah the Tishbite, than the name " David my servant,"
given to Messiah in Ezek. xxxvii. 24. nor " David
their King," attributed to him in Hos. iii. 5. points
out the son of Jesse as there intended. The terms,
"prophet," " my servant," " their king," are in these
passages designations of office, and the names Elijah
and David are both descriptive of character and
privilege. On the contrary, when John sees the
souls of the martyrs to arise, he tells us they were
the souls of the very persons beheaded for the word
of God, since the expression rm ¦stm-kauaii.tim has evi
dently this force. It is not a description primarily
of character, (though it includes character,) but of
personal identity ; of persons to whom a certain
thing had happened, viz. their suffering an ignomi
nious death for the testimony of Jesus. The diffe
rence between a description of personality and char
acter is quite familiar to our minds. Were I to say,
for instance, that I am preparing for the press a
Tract, in answer to the sentiments of an eminent
Scotish minister, — it might be Dr Thomson of Ed
inburgh, or Dr Wardlaw of Glasgow, or twenty other
individuals. But, were I to affirm further, that what
I am preparing is in answer to an eminent Scotish
minister, who has recently published a volume qf ser
mons, the last qf them on the millennium, I should

51
thereby designate the eminent minister alluded to, in
quite as definite a manner as if I named Dr Wardlaw
himself. Now, if Dr Wardlaw will apply to the
vision of the resurrection, of those who had been be-
lieaded for the witness qf Jesus, the same principles
of common sense which guide us to the right under
standing and interpretation of the ordinary phrase
ology, whether of colloquial or epistolary intercourse,-
the controversy will soon be ended. But, if our op
ponents choose to interpret the language of Scripture
upon principles utterly at variance with the received
meaning of words, though we entirely despair of
convincing them, we know that we shall not write in
vain, as men of simple hearts, who discard from their
minds all ideas of the previous probability or impro
bability of things revealed, and ask only what is writ
ten, will continue to receive the testimony of the
word in the plain and unvarnished sense of all hu
man language.
I have, in the foregoing reply to Dr Wardlaw's
argument, thought it better to reason with him on
principles which he himself will acknowledge to be
true, as far as the passage in Malachi is concerned,
than to advert to the sentiments of the great body of
antiquity, with respect to the promise of the mission
of Elijah. It is well known to all who are conver
sant with these subjects, that the Fathers believed,
as the Jews still do, that Elijah is to come in person
before the great day of the second advent. Thus, ,
as there are two advents of Messiah, they attributed
to the first a precursor in the person of John, com
ing in the spirit and power of Elias, and, to the se-
e 2

52
cond, a forerunner in the person of Elias himself.
Their opinion was founded on the version of the
Seventy, who render the words of Malachi, I will
send you Elijah the Tishbite before the coming of
the great and dreadful day of the Lord. In confir
mation of this view, the Fathers are wont to remark,
that our Lord, in Matth. xvii. 11, still appears to
speak of a future coming of Elias : " Elias shall
indeed come and restore all things." It is not my pre
sent intention to give any opinion whatever on this
point, further than to say, that if the rendering of
the Seventy gives the true sense of Malachi, and if
by Elijah the prophet, Elijah the Tishbite was signi
fied then, assuredly, what God hath promised he shall
perform, by sending Elijah himself. But, as already
said, I have reasoned with Dr Wardlaw upon the
usual acceptation of the meaning of the passage, that
not Elijah the Tishbite, but one in his power and spi
rit, was in the mind of the Spirit when the prophet
Malachi received and recorded this promise.

SECTION III.
DR WARDLAW'S FIFTH, SIXTH, SEVENTH, AND EIGHTH
ARGUMENTS CONSIDERED.
Having, in the preceding pages, endeavoured to
follow Dr Wardlaw through his leading arguments,
I purpose, as I have no wish that this pamphlet
should swell into a volume, to review the remain
ing pages of his sermon with much greater concise
ness. In his fifth head of argument, the Doctor charges
us with being singularly inconsistent with ourselves,
because we argue, from the words in the text, for a
general resurrection of the righteous at the com
mencement of the supposed millennial reign of
Christ ; whereas, in the passage, there is not a word
about the righteous generally ; but it speaks of the
martyrs only, and even not the martyrs generally, but
a particular class of them, those who had suffered
under the Papal Antichrist.
I observe, in answer to this, 1st, that all Millena-
rians do not affirm that the whole body of the righte
ous are to be raised at the commencement of the
millennial reign. Even Mede supposed that there
shall be an order in the resurrection of the righteous,
the martyrs having the precedence.* 2dly. Those
• Mede's Works, Book III. Epist. ad Amicum.

54
Millenarians, who do hold the simultaneous resurrec
tion of the righteous at that time, ground their belief,
not on this text only, but on other passages. 3d.
Even if it be proved, that the Millenarians are incon
sistent with themselves on this or twenty other points,
this will not overthrow the evidence for the first re
surrection of the saints and martyrs of Jesus.
I remark, however, in the next place, that Dr
Wardlaw's restriction of the words to one class of
martyrs, will not bear the test of examination.
Vitringa, than whom there are few higher authorities
on questions of scriptural criticism, remarks, that
there are two classes of martyrs mentioned — the
former in the first clause, " the souls of them that
were beheaded," &c. ; the second in the words, " and
(of those) which had not worshipped the beast," &c.
" Est enim (adds Vitringa) ellipsis familiaris et facile
siipplenda, x*i exuuav oinues ov iroooixwnoxu. Esse enim hanc
alteram martyrum classem satis ipsa arguit locutio
xat oiTmes." Now, if we turn back to Rev. xiii. 8,
comparing its words with ch. xx. 4, we shall find,
that the description of the risen saints in the last
passage, does in effect and reality describe all the
saints of God during the period of the beast's reign.
And if the description be not even more universal,
the reasons for this must be derived from the general
structure and imagery of the whole book. I pre
sume, also, that Dr Wardlaw himself may, consist
ently with the principles of his own objection, be
called upon to answer the following question : —
" Does the fact, of only_the seven Asiatic churches
being mentioned in the epistles to the churches,

55
prove that our Lord exercised no care over the other
churches ?'*+ If this question must be answered in
the negative, then the doctor must permit us also to
write a negative upon the conclusiveness and sound
ness of his argument, founded on the want of uni
versality in St John's words, describing the raised
saints, particularly as it might be shown, that he sup
plies the omission in other passages corresponding in
chronology with the one in question.
• In his sixth head of argument, Dr Wardlaw enters
into the consideration of the resurrection of the rest
of the dead at the end of the thousand years. This,
consistently enough, it must be admitted, with his
interpretation of the resurrection of the martyrs, he
symbolizes also, making it to denote the same events
as the rebellion of the nations Gog and Magog at
the end of'the millennium. Thus, according to the
Doctor, the first resurrection, and the second or post-
millennial one, are equally symbols. It is not my
intention to enter at all into the argument of the
learned preacher upon this point, since, if my reason
ing against the former part of his Sermon be at all
conclusive, it must equally apply to the refutation of
what he offers under this head. I, however, cannot
forbear remarking, that the Doctor has cautiously
abstained from offering any solution of the words of
the 6th verse, Blessed and holy is he that hath part in
the first resurrection; on such the second death hath
no power, but they shall be priests qf God and qf
Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Now, if human language have any intelligible mean
ing, this clause can only have reference to a resurrec-

56
tion real and personal ; and if this be denied, I see
not why a Socinian may not retort upon Dr Wardlaw
his own weapons, and fearlessly affirm, the account
of the Divine word, in the first chapter of John, to
be a mere personification of Divine wisdom. In
short, there seems to be no heresy, however awful,
which may not bid defiance to all scriptural reason
ing, if such words, as have now been cited from the
Apocalypse, be held to be merely a symbolical de-.
scription of the conversion of a future race of men.
For it is manifest* that the resurrection here men
tioned, whatever be its nature, is an event of a parti
cular and future agey revealed to the Apostle in the
same divine prophecy as the rise of the beast and
the harlot, and all the other things which were dis
played to him in the varied imagery of this wonder
ful book. And if this resurrection, though express
ed in terms as literal as the death of the martyrs in a
former passage, ch. vi. 9, may be explained away, as
is done by our spiritualists-— what, I ask, is to pre
vent the Jesuits and priesthood of the Romish church,
from explaining away, and blotting out, the genuine
meaning of all those highly symbolical passages which
describe that fearful apostasy ?
This event, moreover, called a resurrection of those
beheaded for the word of God, is said, by Dr Ward-
law, to mean nothing more than the conversion to
God of a race of men, in that future age, who are to
tread in the steps of former martyrs. But if so,
whence the peculiar blessedness which is attributed
to them, Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the
first resurrection. Are they to rank higher than the

57
holy apostles and prophets, and primitive martyrs?
What is to be jhe peculiar merit o£ the saints ofthat
age, when the paths of obedience shall be no longer
rugged angLpajnM, to give them a peculiarity of
blessedness and holiness above all that have preceded
them, and Have ascended the holy hill of Zion through
the fires and crosses of persecution and martyrdom ?
I remark, finally, on this point, that upon Dr
Wardlaw's scheme, the words, " he that hath a part
in the first resurrection" simply mean, being among
the number of the converted at that time, or to have
part in conversion to God. Now, on opening the
New Testament, I find such expressions as the fol
lowing : "To have a part in the book of life, and
the holy city ;" * or, " in the lake of fire :"t " Mary
hath chosen that good part (wisdom), which shall
not be taken from her :" t " Who hath made us meet
for a part of the inheritance of the saints in light." §
But I have in vain searched for any such expression
as having a part, paps, in conversion to God, or a
part in the meetness for the inheritance of the saints ;
and I believe that no such phrase exists in the scrip
tures. It seems to me, that to symbolize this passage,
has, in this respect also, the effect of violating all the
proprieties of the scriptural phraseology.
In his seventh and eighth heads of argument, Dr
Wardlaw proceeds to trace the literal doctrine to the
consequences which he pretends to deduce from it.

* Rev. xxii. 19. t Rev. xxi. 8. $ Luke x. 42.
§ Col. i. 12. In all these passages the word fte^os is used; but in
various other passages, other Greek words are translated by our English
noun substantive /mi/.

58
But I must say, that he manifests a very imperfect
acquaintance with the scheme which he is combating.
His first charge is, that we annihilate the judgment
of the righteous. Now, had he charged this conse
quence upon his own system, or, at least, had he
confessed the apparent incongruity, not to say absur
dity, of bringing back the righteous from the heaven
of glory to this earth, not to reign, but to undergo
the judgment of the deeds done in the body, it would
have evinced a larger measure of the spirit of discern
ment, than is to be seen in his vituperative remarks
against the literal scheme. There is nothing incon
sistent with our scheme, in the account of the judg
ment given in Mat. xxv. 31 — 46, which we hold to
be the judgment of the quick before the millennium.
But as I have treated of the chronology and nature
of this judgment in works already before the public,
I do not feel myself called upon again to enter upon
it, while what I have previously said remains unan
swered.* I shall however say, in reference to Dr
Wardlaw's objections to that part of our doctrine
which affirms the day of judgment to be commensu
rate with the millennium, that we are quite ready to
enter upon the discussion of the evidence of this posi
tion from the scriptures. But if, instead of consider
ing its evidence, our opponents choose another course,
and confine themselves to objections founded on such
things as the rebellion of Gog and Magog at the

* See my tract, The Doctrine of the Millennial Advent, &c. Vindicated
from the Objections of the Edinburgh Theological Magazine, p. !8, 19.
Also, my Critical Examination of Mr Faber's Sacred Calendar of Pro
phecy, p. 107 — 10.

59
close of the millennium, or other difficulties which
may be raised to any doctrine, we shall, in that case,
leave them to solve the difficulties for themselves.
There is, in fact, no end to arguments conducted in
this manner. For eighteen hundred years the Jews
have continued to raise objections to Christianity it
self, and similar has been the line of argument adopt
ed by the Socinians, The illustrious Mede met with
an opponent of this kind in the person of a Mr Hayn,
who continued to ply him with objections against the
prophetic axiom, that the fourth beast of Daniel is
the Roman kingdom. Wearied out with these cavils,
Mede at length put an end to the discussion, saying
in the last letter he addressed to Hayn : — " The wit
of man is able, where it is persuaded, to find shifts
and answers until the day of doom — as appears in so
differing opinions held among Christians, with so
much and so endless pertinacity on both sides. It is
sufficient, therefore, for a man to propound his opin
ion with the strongest evidence and arguments he
can, and so leave it. Truth will be justified of her
children." If my time and space would permit me,
I should be glad to quote the whole passage, which
deserves to be written in letters of gold, as a model
to the defenders of truth in every age.
That Dr Wardlaw has not met the evidence of the
literal advent and reign, I have already, I hope,
made manifest to the attentive reader ; but I shall,
before I close, more fully show it. In the mean
while, I proceed very briefly to notice some of the
objections from the scriptures comprised in his eighth
head of argument, premising that I shall reserve the

60
consideration of his remarks upon our Lord's para
bles of the grain of mustard seed and the leaven, for
the concluding section of this tract.
The words of our Lord in John v. 28, 29, " The
hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall
hear his voice, and shall come forth," must be inter
preted according to the analogy of the Scriptures.
Our Lord said to the woman at the well of Samaria,
" The hour is coming, in which, neither in this moun
tain, nor in Jerusalem, ye shall worship the Father.
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in
truth." v It is manifest, therefore, from these decla
rations, that the word hour is sometimes used to de
note a long period ; since Dr Wardlaw cannot but
admit, that the spiritual worship intended by our
Lord has been going on for the last eighteen centu
ries. Now, it is not denied by us, that the final resurrec
tion of all in the graves, after the millennium, shall
take place at once. But then, it is a matter of his
toric verity, that many saints arose after our Lord, as
St Matthew tells us, that the graves were opened,
and many bodies of the saints that slept arose, and
came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went
into the holy city, and appeared unto many* What
became of these saints afterwards, Dr Wardlaw may
perhaps be rather at a loss to say, seeing that his sys
tem requires him to suppose that they died again,
and are yet under the power of death. Will he tell
• Matlh. xxvii. 52, 53.

61
us, in that case, whether these twice dead bodies were
buried a second time by their friends, or whether
they walked quietly to their tombs, and laid them
down to sleep again ? Perhaps the Doctor may here
feel himself in a sort of dilemma. He cannot take
refuge in the word souls, as they were many bodies
koxkx oufixTa which arose. If he affirms they died
again, he equally contradicts all probability, and, as
I have shown in my answer to Mr Faber, all anti
quity. * If, on the other hand, he yields to the force

* As many of the readers of this Tract may not possess my answer to
Mr Faber, I shall, in this note, give that passage of it wherein I treat of
the resurrection of the saints recorded by St Matthew : —
" I remark, in the next place, that what Mr Faber here intends by that
which is mystical and obscure, is evidently the first resurrection of St
John, when understood literally, i. e. the resurrection of a part of the dead
before the rest of the dead : But before we can admit this resurrection of
a part before the whole to be mystical and obscure, Mr Faber must prove
it to be so, which he has not even attempted to do. To us the fact of an
order in the resurrection, or the rising of a part before the whole, appears
to be in no greater degree mystical and obscure, than the doctrine of a
resurrection of all men at the same moment of time. Nay, we must go
further, and remark, that the fact of a resurrection of a part before the
whole is matter, not merely of prophetic anticipation, but of historic
verity, seeing that it is recorded in Matthew xxvii. 52, that the graves
were opened, and many bodies of the saints that slept arose, and came
out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and
appeared unto many. What became of these saints afterwards, we are
not informed in the Scriptures. But only two things are conceivable with
respect to them : either they died again, or they must have accompanied
our Lord in his ascension to heaven. Now, that they died again, is in it
self exceedingly improbable ; for, in that case, instead of being blessed
above other men, they were afflicted and cursed above other men, by being
called twice to endure the sting of death, the great enemy. Moreover, in
this case, where were the glory of our Saviour in raising them as the tro
phies of his power and victory, if he could not prevail to keep them alive?
Hence we learn, that it was the opinion of the primitive church that these
saints accompanied our Lord to heaven. Mede informs us, from Euse
bius, that it was written in the heads of the sermon of Thaddeus, in the
Syriac records of the city of Edessa, that our Lord descended alone, but
ascended with a multitude. In like manner, in Ignatius's Epistle to the
Magnesians, will be found the following words, which show that he ex
tended this resurrection to a very large number, even all the prophets : —

62
of evidence, and acknowledges that • these saints
ascended bodily with our Lord to heaven ; then, all
his reasoning against the literal sense of the first re
surrection, and in support of the simultaneous resur
rection of the just and unjust in one and the same
hour, falls at once to the ground. As our Lord told
Saul, that it was hard for him to kick against the
pricks, so tell we Dr Wardlaw, that it is hard for him
to reason against facts and history.
The passage in 1 Thess. i. 7 — 10, which is next
cited by Dr Wardlaw as opposed to our views, could
not, I think, be produced by him for this pur
pose, if he had a right understanding of the parable
of the tares, as denoting the judgment of the quick

' How shall we be able to live different from him, whose disciples, the very
prophets themselves being, did by the Spirit expect him as their Master ;
and, therefore, he whom they justly waited for being come, raised them
up from the dead.'
" There is a passage in the Catechism of Cyril of Jerusalem, from which
it is evident, that he also supposed all the just to have been delivered from
death when our Lord descended into Hades : — ' All the just were re
deemed whom death had devoured ; for it became him, who was preached
as King, to become the Redeemer of his good preachers.' Athanasius of
Alexandria likewise represents our Lord, when he descended into the
lower places of the earth xxtxx^ovix, among the dead, to have become
the liberator of the dead, quoting in proof of it the words of Matth.
xxvii. 52.
" Without entering into the question, whether the dead then raised ex
tended to such a number as these fathers supposed, it may be sufficient for
our purpose to rest in the general conclusion, that many of the saints did
then arise and did afterwards accompany our Lord when he ascended.
And there is thus a striking analogy observable, between the fact of a re
surrection of the dead being introductory to the evangelical dispensation,
and a like resurrection at the commencement of the millennial economy.
If an objection were here offered, that in that case the resurrection of the
martyrs cannot be justly termed the first resurrection, we answer it by ob
serving, that if the resurrection of all the just be in order that they may
be equally partners of Christ's reign upon earth, then it is still the first
resurrection with respect to all who are partakers of it, though they may
not all rise at one and the same period."

63
when our Lord appears. But of this, more hereaf
ter. In the meanwhile, I must refer the Doctor to
what I have written in the penultimate chapter of my
work on the Apocalypse, * with regard to the awful
vengeance to be executed by our Lord on the wicked,
at his appearance in the day of the treading of the
wine press, which will be found altogether commen
surate with the language of St Paul in the passage
of 2d Thessalonians referred to.
Passing over what the learned preacher says on 1
Thess. iv. 16, with respect to which I have nothing
to offer, since I explain it very much as he himself
does, I only observe that he has entirely omitted all
reference to the same Apostle's words about the
order of the resurrection in 1 Cor. xv., from which
we assuredly learn, that the saints arise before the
wicked.t Next, it is affirmed by the Doctor, that it will
hardly admit of question, that in Acts iii. 21, the
word restitution means fulfilment. I must, however,
assure the Doctor, that it not only will admit of ques
tion, but has been questioned by me in another place,
where the meaning of the word «xo*.*t»wt«<»? is fully
treated of, — with what success I leave others to de
termine, t
As to the next question, how Death can be the
last enemy, if, after the resurrection of the just,
there remain other enemies, as Gog and Magog, we

• The 2d Edition.
f See this point fully treated in my Reply to the Edinburgh Theologi
cal Review, p. 23.
t See my answer to Mr Faber's Sacred Calend, p. 130 — 142.

64
answer, that with respect to the saints, Death is de
stroyed when Christ comes before the Millennium.
But with respect to the nations of men in the flesh,
who shall live upon earth during the reign of Christ,
we believe, that death shall not be destroyed, till the
general resurrection at the close of the Millennium.
This order of events completely reconciles our
scheme with the declaration of St Paul, that the
last enemy which shall be destroyed is death. Ac
cordingly, in Rev. xx. 14, Death and Hades are
both cast into the lake of fire. In other words,
Death shall then be blotted out of the creation of
God, and for ever abolished. Still, however, we
confess there are mysteries in that text which we
cannot fathom ; and if Dr Wardlaw can help us to
unravel them, we shall gladly sit at his feet.
It is next objected to the literal doctrine by Dr
Wardlaw, that if our Lord's words respecting the
children of the resurrection, " that they neither
marry nor are given in marriage," are to be under
stood of the age of millennial glory, then what be
comes of all our heart-cheering prospects of the rapid
augmentation, during that period, of the spiritual
subjects of the Redeemer's reign, to which we have
been accustomed to look for the making up of the
multitude which no man can number ?
I certainly, though I had before seen evidence of
the very small knowledge which Dr Wardlaw pos
sesses of the system he opposes, was not prepared
to expect so great a degree of ignorance of it as is
here manifested. The literal doctrine, then, let us
once for all inform him, while it receives from the

65
Scriptures the doctrine of the resurrection of the
Saints to reign with Christ, does also equally receive
the doctrine, that the peoples, and kindreds, and na
tions, who shall serve Christ, or be the subjects of
his kingdom, * are to be men in the flesh, marrying
and giving in marriage, and procreating children.
Hence also he may see, that we feel at no loss for an
increase in the Redeemer's subjects, even infinitely
surpassing in number that multitude which no man
can number, (Rev. vii. 9.) which is by our popular
divines supposed to be a description of the whole
body of those ultimately saved through Christ, while
we, tying down the chronology of the vision to its
proper place in the Apocalypse, being the sixth seal,
view this innumerable multitude as a representation
of those only of the quick or living, who shall be
spared from the devouring fire of his second advent,
and, therefore, as but a small fraction qf those ulti
mately saved through the long ages of his millennial
reign. Thus, our scheme infinitely enlarges, rather
than contracts, our view of the extent of the saving
work of Christ. As it is also among the nations in
the flesh that we expect the apostasy of Gog, there
is no occasion or need for our seeking his innumera
ble hosts among the raised dead.
* Dan. vii. 14.
F

SECTION IV.
GENERAL SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE
THEORY OF DR WARDLAW.
Having now gone through nearly the whole rea
soning of Dr Wardlaw, I proceed to offer some ge
neral arguments from the Scriptures, in refutation of
the theory of Doctor Wardlaw and the whole of the
Spiritualists j in doing which I shall as much as pos
sible study brevity.
The inquiry, whether the saints do or do not arise
at the commencement of the millennium, does in truth
resolve itself into another question, namely, What is
the season in the chronology of prophecy when our
Lord shall come again 9 That this is the real and
ultimate question at issue betwixt us, is a point of
which Dr Wardlaw cannot be ignorant, seeing that
it has been publicly and keenly discussed, through
the medium of the press, for some years past ; and,
if I mistake not, Dr Wardlaw has had the means of
knowing what the writer of these pages has advanced
on this subject, not only in his Dissertation on the
Apocalypse, but especially in a Tract on the Second
Advent, * the substance of which was first printed
in the Christian Observer.

* A Summary View of the Scriptural argument for the second and
glorious Advent of Messiah before the Millennium.

67
The question to be solved is, therefore, not only
one as to the difference between letter and spirit, and
the true principles of Scriptural symbolization, but it
is chiefly a question of prophetic chronology and syn
chronisms. Mede clearly saw this ; and in his work
of imperishable fame, the Clavis Apocalyptica, (how
ever he may have partially erred in applying his own
principles,) he laid down the great foundations of all
true and just prophetic exposition, And it is unde
niable, that his disciples, who have cautiously follow
ed out the principles of their master, have, since his
time, made great and rapid advances towards the
true exposition of the Apocalypse.
Now, if the Sermon of Dr Wardlaw on the Mil
lennium is to be received as evidence of the stage
which he has reached in the great and momentous
inquiries to which it has reference, I should be dis
posed to think that he is entirely unacquainted with
the synchronisms and chronology of prophecy ; for,
were it not so, it seems quite unaccountable, that, in
treating of the nature of the first resurrection, he
has omitted all direct discussion of the times and
seasons of Messiah's future advent with the clouds of
heaven, upon which the true solution of the former
question mainly depends.
The chronology and synchronisms of prophecy are
as essentially necessary to guide us in these inquiries,
as the compass and the science of practical astrono
my are to conduct the mariner across the Atlantic or
Pacific : and Dr Wardlaw will bear with us, I hope,
when we assure him, that, in entering upon the sub
ject treated in his Sermon on the Millennium, with-

68
out ascertaining how the great synchronisms of pro
phecy bear upon his "scheme, he has acted just as
sensibly, as if one of the commanders of the largest
merchantmen in Clyde were, at the beginning of his
next voyage to the East or West Indies, to throw
overboard every compass, and time-piece, and sex
tant, and trust, like the ancient navigators, to the
polar star.
We press upon Dr Wardlaw the following concise
argument : —
When our Lord ascended, and a cloud received
him out of sight of his wondering disciples, they
were assured that this same Jesus shall so come in
like manner as ye have seen him ascend.* That is,
he shall come with the clouds.
In harmony with the Angelic annunciation, we
find the following among other texts of the Prophetic
Scriptures, all announcing the coming of the Son of
Man with the clouds.
Dan. vii. 13, 14. I saw in the night visions, and
behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds
of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they
brought him near before him : and there was given
him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all
people, nations, and languages, should serve him.
Luke xxi. 24. And Jerusalem shall be trodden
down of the Gentiles, until the times qf the Gentiles
be fulfilled ; and there shall be signs in the sun, and
in the moon, and in the stars ; and upon the earth
distress of nations with perplexity ; the sea and the
* Acts.. II.

69
waves roaring .- men's hearts failing them for fear and
for looking after those things which are coming on
the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken ;
AND THEN SHALL THEY SEE THE SoN OF MAN COMING
IN A CLOUD WITH POWER AND GREAT GLORY.
Rev. i. 7- Behold he cometh with clouds ; and
every eye shall see him, and they also which pierc
ed him : and all kindreds of the earth shall wail be
cause of him, even so, Amen.
Rev. xiv. 14. And Hooked, and behold a white
cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like the son
of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in
his hand a sharp sickle ; v. 16. and he that sat on
the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the
earth was reaped.
That the above passages all relate to one and the
same advent cannot be denied, consistently with the
rules of sound exposition and reasoning. The cir
cumstances of the advent do also clearly point it out
to be the one intended in the angelic annunciation.
If any persons choose to deny this, they must prove
the negative — in other words, they must prove that
there are two distinct advents with the clouds, and
that the one mentioned in these passages is not that
referred to by the angels. Let Dr Wardlaw try this,
and if he succeed he will effect something for the
establishment of his theory.
Three of these texts, namely, the first, second,
and fourth, are most clearly pinned down by certain
chronological marks in the contexts to the com
mencement of the Millennium ; and this is so indu
bitable as now to have received the concurrence of

70
the whole body of the students of prophecy as a
prophetic axiom.* The third text, Rev. i. 7- must
therefore be referred to the same period.
Consequently the coming of the Son of man with
the clouds of heaven precedes the Millennium.
This conclusion -is expressly maintained even by
Mr Faber in his Sacred Calendar of Prophecy. How
then does he evade the acknowledgment that our
Lord comes personally and corporeally before the
Millennium ? It is by the truly marvellous process
of making all the passages which thus describe his
advent to be symbolical and figurative. I have re
plied to Mr Faber's arguments in my Tract, already
referred to.
Dr Wardlaw may therefore rest assured, that all
his reasoning against the literal sense of the first re
surrection must be quite unavailing, till he and his
brethren shall have met t the foregoing argument,
from whence we certainly gather that the second
coming of Messiah precedes the Millennium, even
as the ancient Jewish Church did from prophecy
conclude that he was to come in the very age of his
first appearance.
I remark in the next place, that the doctrine of
the literal advent and reign of Messiah is intertwined
as it were into the very substance of the ordinances
and worship of the Levitical church. That church

* Mr Faber, though he opposes the literal sense of the passages, quite
accords with us as to their chronology.
j I learn that the leaders of the Congregational Churches in London
have established a Lecture against the Literal or Millenarian views — but
that they will not consider the evidence.

71
or dispensation, we know from the Scriptures, was
one continued and complex type of the New Testa
ment church, and the dispensation of the Messiah.
All its sacrifices were types of his perfect sacrifice —
its priesthood a shadow of his priestly office— the
tabernacle itself was a complex volume of hierogly
phics — the altar of brass and its sacrifices showed
forth Christ the sacrifice in his divine and human
natures — the golden altar of incense was a symbol of
Christ in his priestly office, through which the prayers
of the saints are presented to God — the holy place
was a type of the true spiritual church, its light was
from the seven branched candlestick, with its seven
lamps, which signify the Holy Spirit.* None but
the priests could enter it to minister before the Lord,
so none but they who are priests unto God, that is,
true believers, can enter the true spiritual church,
or become living members of Christ.
The holy of holies was, as we know upon Scrip
tural authority, a type of heaven itself, whither
Christ is entered for us.t
But then a question immediately occurs to the
mind, deeply exercised in Scriptural inquiries, as to
what was the ultimate signification of this holy of
holies or typical heaven being reared up in the
midst of the congregation of the children of Israel,
a people stiff-necked and disobedient. Now, as every
other part of the tabernacle was typical of things to
be accomplished, in and for the church in this earth,
we certainly infer that the Spirit of God, in directing
* Rev. iv. 5. f Heb. ix. 12, 23, 24.

72
the erection of a typical heaven upon earth in the
midst of the camp of Israel, in which the glory of the
Lord or Schechinah was visibly present, did thereby
clearly signify to the church, that there is a period
in the dispensation of the fulness of times, when
heaven itself, or the glorious manifestation of Jehovah,
shall come down to this earth by the personal presence
in it of the Lord Messiah, not as erst in the form of
a servant, but manifesting the glories of essential
Deity with unveiled face. Were this not to be ac
complished, then the highest and noblest part of the
sacred structure of the tabernacle shall be without
an antitype on this earth, or without any thing cor
relative to its deep spiritual signification, in the dis
pensation of Messiah, on this earth where he suffered.
Nay, were this not to be accomplished, the church
in the Levitical dispensation, which had the visible
presence of the Lord in the pillar of the cloud by
day, and of fire by night, leading her through the
wilderness, has a higher glory than the church in
the dispensation of Messiah ; for as this church was
not properly constituted or formed till the day of
Pentecost, when the apostles were endued with
power from on high, and as before that day the
bridegroom had been taken from his infant church;
and according to the scheme we are arguing against,
is not to return at all, but for the purpose of finally
removing her from this earth — it follows that there
is no period when the church upon earth is to have
his presence, and therefore, the Levitical church in
the wilderness had a higher glory than the church
of Messiah is to have, according to this hypothesis,

73
even in the Millennium ; but as this is in itself utterly
incredible, so is it expressly contradicted, not only
by the deep signification of the holy of holies or
typical heaven, reared up in the midst of the camp
of Israel, but also by sundry unequivocal and plain
prophetic annunciations in the Old and New Testa
ments, some of which I shall now bring before the
reader. Even the prophecies of Balaam, who celebrated
in mystic song the glories of Israel, can only be ex
plained by a reference to the future presence of
Messiah with his church in her glorious state in the
latter days. When he uttered the words, " Behold,
I have received commandment to bless ; and he hath
blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He hath not be
held iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen per-
verseness in Israel ; the Lord his God is with him,
and the shout of a king is among them ;"* we
shall in vain seek for the accomplishment of the
vision in the past history of this people. This king,
as the Jewish commentators will tell the modern
Evangelical Church, (which in the knowledge of the
prophecies respecting the glories of Israel, is far
behind even these commentators,) is the Messiah,
who is in the latter days to reign over Israel, even
at that time when the iniquity qf Israel shall be sought
for, and there shall be none ; and the sins of Judah,
and they shall not befound.i
We might make similar remarks as to the mystical
signification of the words of the same prophet, when
* Numb, xxiii. 21, 22. f Jerem. 1. 20.

74
in his next vision, from the top of Peor, he saw
stretched out beneath him the tents of Israel, " as
the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted,
and as the cedar trees beside the waters."* But we
fear that were we to enter into the meaning of these
words, we should be administering too strong meat
for those who are accustomed only to the doctrines
now in vogue ; we shall therefore leave them, and
go on to one or two prophetic passages, the import
of which lies nearer to the surface.
In the second chapter of Zechariah, after a call to
the ancient people of God to come out of the mystic
Babylon, or nations of the Roman Empire where they
are led captive, and a declaration of the judgments
to be executed upon those nations, the following
words are to be found. " Sing and rejoice, O daugh
ter qf Zion ; for lo, I come, and I will dwell in
the midst of thee, saith Jehovah, and many na
tions shall be joined to Jehovah in that day, and
shall be my people, and I will dwell in the midst
OF THEE, AND THOU SHALT KNOW THAT JEHOVAH OF
HOSTS HATH SENT ME UNTO thee, and the Lord shall
inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall
choose Jerusalem again."*
This prophecy manifestly relates to the period of
the second redemption of God's ancient people from
their final captivity at the commencement of the
Millennium. The Lord Messiah Jehovah (the Son)
here declares himself to be sent by Jehovah, (the
Father) and promises to the daughter of Zion that
* Numb. xxiv. 6. t Zech. ii. 10—12.

75
He will come and dwell in the midst of her. Now,
the Hebrew phrase -pin:. TDDttn n_i ¦o.n fo, I come, and
I will dwell in the midst of thee, is the very expres
sion used in Exod. xxix. 45. for the dwelling of God
among his people in the wilderness, and we fearlessly
assert that it is utterly incapable of any other mean
ing than that of a personal inhabitation. The word
for dwelling is the one always employed to signify
the tabernacling of the Divine glory in the midst of
his people, when the glory of the Lord filled the
temple. It is also the word used for the abiding of
the cloud upon the tabernacle of the congregation in
Exod. xl. 35. Indeed, as every one a very little ac
quainted with the Hebrew knows the word for the
tabernacle is derived from the very same Hebrew
root, signifying the dwelling place of Jehovah. Fur
ther, the Hebrew pty exactly answers to the Greek
okwou used to express the tabernacling with us in the
flesh of the Divine Word in John i. 14.
In exact harmony with this promise is the vision
which Ezekiel saw in his forty-third chapter of the
return of the glory of the Lord God of Israel to the
temple, when the following words wrere uttered by
the Lord to his inspired servant ; and I surely need
not tell Dr Wardlaw that this prophecy relates to the
future glories of Israel.
" And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of
my throne and the place of the soles of my feet where
I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for
ever."*
* Ezek. xiiii. 7.

76
Also the words of Isaiah,* " Then the moon shall
be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of
hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem,
and before his ancients gloriously.
Now, to deny, as the modern church does, that all
these and similar passages do contain a declaration
of the personal return of the Lord Messiah to this
earth, and a personal presence with his church in the
earth, and in Jerusalem, the holy city, seems to us,
to use the words of Dr Wardlaw himself, to be " an
outrage on every principle of fair and simple exposi
tion," and I will add, a refusal to believe the word of
God. As it is time, however, that I should draw this
Tract to a close, I proceed rapidly to glance at the
evidence in the book of Revelation for the point I
am now discussing.
I shall begin by quoting some of the words of
Vitringa, on Rev. xx. 4. "As heaven is in this period
to be LET DOWN TO the earth, and Christ Jesus is
now to have his throne on the earth, and is to
reign on it in a more illustrious manner than he has
hitherto done ; the prophecy teaches that the martyrs
are. to be called to a share in this reign and glory of
Jesus Christ, and (to anticipate what follows in the
context) also the men of former ages, like the martyrs,
illustrious for holiness and merits, who had died in
the Lord, and who were now seen by John as raised
and reunited to their bodies."
Although, as we have already said, Vitringa in
* Isa. xxiv. 23.

77
interpreting this vision rejects the literal and adheres
to the symbolical sense, yet we see that as to the
matter of the vision itself, he accords with us in
affirming that at the time to which it refers " Heaven
is to be let down to the earth where Christ is to reign."
But it is especially in the two last chapters of this
mystical book that we behold realized the exact anti
type of the holy of holies of the Levitical tabernacle,
and this antitype is no other than the new Jerusalem
which came down from God out of heaven, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband. The Apostle
informs us, " I saw no temple therein, for the Lord
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof"
Now, I am at a loss to know what Dr Wardlaw
and the spiritualists will say in reference to this vision,
for it is impossible to symbolize the city itself without
symbolizing Him who dwelleth therein, which would
be direct and awful blasphemy, and I may well trem
ble to write even the idea itself. Moreover, Dr
Wardlaw cannot surely affirm that coming down from
heaven means going up to heaven, and consequently
we are compelled to affirm that this earth is to be the
theatre of the display of this marvellous dispensation
of grace, and mercy, and glory, to the human race—
and we may add, notwithstanding the assertion of
Dr Wardlaw to the contrary, that so far from this
being previously improbable, there is a fitness, and a
harmony, and a beauty in the same world which has
been the theatre of the great victory and hellish ma
chinations of the enemy of God and man, and the
humiliation and death of the Son of God being also
made the theatre of the discomfiture of that enemy,

78
and of the triumphant reign of the Messiah and all
who have suffered with him.
Having thus shown from the Scripture what was
the deep and ultimate signification of the setting up
a typical heaven, or holy of holies, in the midst of
the camp of Israel, I now go on in the last place to
consider Dr Wardlaw's objection to the literal or
Millenarian system, as being " not in harmony with
those parts of Scripture in which the gospel is evi
dently represented as working its way to universal
extension and influence by a gradual progress, till
' the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the
waters cover the sea.' "*
Now, had the learned preacher taken a compre
hensive view of the chapter of Isaiah, from which he
quotes the foregoing words, he might have discerned
that its language utterly contradicts his visionary
theory! For instead of the glorious transformation
of this lower world being, as Dr Wardlaw supposes,
therein described, as effected by the gradual progress
of the truth overcoming all obstacles, it is evidently
represented as preceded by an awful process of judg
ment, in which the Branch out of the root of Jesse
shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and
with the breath of his lips shall slay the wicked, t
And had we space for it, we could lead Dr Ward-
law through an overwhelming body of Scriptural evi
dence on this point, Nor will it avail him to present
to the reader, in opposition to this body of testimony,
* Sermons, p. 516.
t Is. xi. 4. St Paul in 2 Thes. ii. 8, tells us who this wicked one is,
even the man of sin, and son of perdition.

79
his own interpretation of the parables of the grain of
mustard seed, and the leaven hid in three measures
of meal. We, also, from these parables, believe that
the grain of mustard seed shall become a tree, and
that the leaven shall leaven the whole meal. But to
learn how, and at what period in the chronology of
prophecy, this is to be effected, and also by what
events it is to be preceded, we go to the Scriptures,
and thus reason from them.
The time when the grain of mustard seed becomes
a tree, filling the whole field of the husbandman, and
when the leaven leavens the three measures of meal,
must be the same as that when the stone cut out of
the mountain without hands becomes a great moun
tain, and fills the whole earth. Now, by what is this
preceded ? By the most terrible acts of judgment,
whereby the four kingdoms of Daniel are broken in
pieces, and become like the chaff of the summer thresh
ing floors, and the wind carried them away*
In like manner, the time when these things shall
be accomplished, must be the time when the Son of
man receives a kingdom, that all peoples, nations,
and languages, should serve him.f Again, we ask,
what events precede this ? And we find in the con
text they are the placing of thrones of judgment, the
sitting of the Ancient of Days, and the giving of the
body of the fourth beast, the whole of the western
Roman empire, or Christian Europe, to the burning
flame. In precise harmony with these prophetic an
nunciations is the voice of the Apocalyptic seer, who
* Dan. ii. 35. t Ibid. vii. IL

80
at the very time when the voices in heaven proclaim,
that the kingdoms of this world are become the king
doms of our Lord and of his Christ, is informed also
that the wrath of God is come, and the time of the
dead that they should be judged, and the time to
destroy them that destroy the earth*
Next, as to the nature of the judgments to be then
executed, they are set before us in John the Baptist's
simile of the burning of the chaff.t In our Lord's
parable of the gathering the tares, and casting them
into a furnace ; t in the awful scene of the treading
of the wine press, when blood shall come even to the
horse bridles for a thousand and six hundred fur
longs. § In Isaiah's vision of the slaughter in the
land of the mystic Idumea, when the mountains shall
be melted with blood. \\
Even in the parables from which Dr Wardlaw has
deduced inferences so opposed to the general har
mony of the scriptures, there are circumstances un
derstood, which we apprehend are necessary to the
complete elucidation of their meaning. Thus, it
were impossible that a grain of mustard seed should
attain a size so supernatural, without an extraordinary
culture and painful processes of weeding. The weed
ing process shall be terrible. So, as to the leaven hid
in the three measures of meal, we suppose that, to
complete the elucidation of the parable, there must
be understood the whole process of preparing the
dough, which includes the kneading ; and, perhaps,

Rev. xi. 15—18. f Matth. iii. 12. % Ibid. xiii. 30, 38—11.
$ Rev. xiv. 20. || Is. xxxiv. 3.

81
also, we must include the baking process, by placing
it in the oven. At any rate, Dr Wardlaw ought to
have known, from the words written in Hos. vii. 4,
that the kneading process precedes the complete
leavening of the dough. It will be an awful day
when the Lord shall arise to knead his lump. He
will have no assistance in it from our Bible, and Mis
sionary, and Tract, Societies ; for he himself says : —
I have trodden the wine press alone, and qf the peo
ple there was none with me ; for I will tread them in
mine anger, and trample them in my fury ; and their
blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I
will stain all my raiment. *
Again, another prophet, contemplating the same
scene, says : — " Thou didst march through the land
in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.
Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people,
even for salvation with thy Messiah; thou woundest
tlie head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering
the foundation even to the neck." " When I heard,
my belly trembled: my lips quivered at the voice: rot
tenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in my
self, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he
cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with
his troops." 't
The idea which pervades the minds of a great part
of the evangelical professors of the present day,
" that Bible, missionary, tract, and school, societies,
are to bring on the manifestation of the sons of
God,"t we of the prophetic school do therefore view
* Is. Ixiii. 3. f Hab. iii. 12, 13, 16.
X Dr Wardlaw's Sermons, p. 4S7.
G

82
as a fond vision of enthusiasm, directly opposed to
the testimony of the word of God. Still, however,
the writer of these pages cannot join in the vitupera
tive language of some of his brethren respecting these
societies. He would zealously support them : not
because he entertains the delusive idea of their con
verting the world ; but because they are accomplish
ing that preaching of the gospel for a witness to all
nations, * which being fulfilled, the end shall forth
with come : and while they are helping forward this
accomplishment, and in obedience to the command
of the Lord are preaching his gospel to every crea
ture, they shall not be left without wages, but shall
assuredly be the instruments of gathering many souls
into the kingdom of our Lord. By a most extensive
diffusion of the written word, they shall also be in
strumental in preparing the nations for turning to the
Lord, when the terrible judgments of the second ad
vent shall, like a torrent of fire, burst upon an aston
ished world. I, in short, believe, that in the purposes
of God, our Bible and missionary societies bear the
same relation to the second advent, as did the trans
lation of the Old Testament into Greek by the
Seventy to the first manifestation of Messiah, and his
being preached to the Gentiles.
I remark, finally, that Dr Wardlaw's inference,
from the parables of the grain of mustard seed and
the leaven, directly contradict the scope of our Lord's
other parables in the same chapter of St Matthew.
In the parable of the sower he teaches us, that dur-
* Mat. xxiv. 14.

83
ing the whole of this dispensation, which is that ol
the witness preaching of the gospel, but a small pro
portion of those who hear it shall savingly believe.
In the parable of the tares, our Lord teaches, that
the triumph of righteousness shall be the result, not
of the sowing process, but the reaping. In the para
ble of the net cast into the sea, and gathering of
every kind, he tells us, that no. efforts of his servants
shall purge his church of the wicked, till the process
of judgment shall effect it. In supposing, therefore,
as the Doctor does, that the gigantic growth of the
mustard plant is the result of the sowing process on
ly ; and in excluding from all share in it the other
operations of husbandry, particularly the weeding
process ; and in forgetting the laborious process of
kneading in the parable of the leaven ; Dr Wardlaw
excludes, or leaves out, that which is necessary to
the complete elucidation of both parables, and to
their harmonious agreement with the deep lessons of
wisdom contained in those of the sower and the tares
— as well as the whole declarations of the prophetic
scriptures.

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