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both,—from that of God, as the Unseen, Absolute, Eternal Fountain of life and of love; from that of THE LAMB, as the visible Channel, throughcut eternity, of all gracious and beatific communications from God to the redeemed.

"He that hath seen Him will have seen the Father." In his glorious Person, the triune Jehovah will stand confessed and manifested to all heaven and through all duration. Nor will it be mediatorial manifestation only. There will be incessant mediatorial intercourse and communication between God and his people. The river of life, as we learn from what is here said, shall flow, through him, from its Fountain to the souls that shall never have enough of it; and from them it shall be, through the same dear channel, sent back again, in the outgoings of their full hearts and in the services of their perfected natures, without end. Never a benignant look, never a gracious communication, from the triune Jehovah will reach the citizens of the New Jerusalem, but it will pass through, or rather proceed from, his manifested Person: Never a grateful feeling, nor a willing service, shall go from them to the Godhead, but it shall light upon, and be absorbed by, Him "in whom shall be seen dwelling all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Thus the mediatorial relationships will remain,—not in the passive state of mere existence, so to speak, but gloriously active and effectual. They will be the life of all heaven. The preservation and continuance of the heavenly state will be as dependent upon the continued application of his mediatorial merit, and the continued exercise of his mediatorial power, as was the attainment of heaven before. As in the kingdom of Nature, “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and rested the seventh day," and yet "my Father worketh hitherto," said Christ, " and I work”—as every moment He "upholdeth all things by the word of his power," the same creative power which called them into being at first-so in the kingdom of Grace, the whole saving grace and redeeming power of the

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Mediator will go out incessantly, in the heavenly state, for the preservation and continuance of what hath been attained-for the eternal sustentation of the Church, in its being and bliss. Thus, in the strictest sense, will it be the “KINGDOM of Christ and of God"—"His appearing and HIS KINGDOM”"THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST"-" He shall REIGN for ever and ever." In his glorious Person not only shall God be manifested, but restored humanity shall stand represented and headed up, as "the First-begotten from the dead, the First-born among many brethren," "the second Man." In Him also shall "elect angels" find the principle of their stability, and the Head of a system of new creation, of which they are a part; in whom are "gathered together all things in one, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him"—" by whom all things are reconciled, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven."-(Eph. i. 10; Col. i. 20.) At the head of this magnificent kingdom of new creation Jesus shall sit, the Life of all its activities and of all its felicities, and the very Prop of its being-feasting himself with the worthy and enduring spectacle. Long he "expected:" Now, he expects no longer, and expects nothing more; for he has gotten all. "He SEES the travail of his soul, and is SATISFIED." He rests and is refreshed. The Trust-character of mediation is at an end; but mediation itself is not at an end. The Stewardship has ceased, with all its mutual engagements, and interchanged fidelities, and surrenders and acceptances between the high contracting parties. "The Strength of Israel has not lied unto Him;" nor has He proved to Him that appointed him "altogether as a liar, and as waters that fail." So the covenant stands fast for ever, and "HIS THRONE AS THE DAYS OF HEAVEN!"-(Psal. lxxxix. 28–37.)*

* The further prosecution of this important branch of our argument I reserve to the second part of this volume; that the stream of evidence, under the successive heads, may flow uninterrupted.

CHAPTER VII.

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THE ENTIRE CHURCH MADE ALIVE"-EITHER BY RESURRECTION OR TRANSFORMATION-AT CHRIST'S COMING.

THERE is no part of the premillennial scheme, as now advocated, where it comes so entirely to a stand, as on the subject of the RESURRECTION. When Christ appears, we are told— at the beginning of the millennium-he will raise all the saints that shall have died before that time, and change all that shall then be alive. But what is to become of the myriads of saints that are to people the earth during the millennium?

The answer to this question will startle the reader, if he happens not to be well read in the changes which this unsteady scheme has from time to time undergone, and is unacquainted with its latest modifications. The fact is, This whole subject is a blank in the system. It has positively got no Scripture on the subject. It applies all that Scripture says about the resurrection of saints at all, to those living before the millennium. Of course, then, they find it silent about either the raising or the changing of any other saintswithout a word about the vast numbers whom they have to dispose of after the millennium. What do they do with them, then? For the most part, the subject is avoided. Those, however, who venture to grapple with it, are hurried into such revolting speculations as, I believe, will open many an eye to the true nature of the whole scheme.

I shall not take my statement of these speculations from

those who are reckoned extreme men, nor from books which may be supposed to be out of date. The following is from the pen of Mr BICKERSTETH. The startling nature of it, and its important bearings, will justify our giving it pretty nearly in full.

"If," says he, "the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, and the general judgment of all men, took place at one time, and in the same day, none would, none could be left, as the heads and parents of a redeemed people on earth [after the general judgment.] But the Holy Scriptures reveal to us a progress in judgment, and that the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked are clearly distinct in time. There is the first resurrection of the saints at the commencement of the millennium, and after the thousand years the rest of the dead [the wicked] live, and are judged.” . . . . At the close of the millennium," there is a last open apostasy of the wicked, who during the thousand years had yielded only a feigned obedience." This "finally separates all the believers, and removes them from the earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The apostates are first slain by fire, and afterwards raised with the rest of the wicked dead for judgment. But NO CHANGE IS THEN MEN

TIONED AS PASSING ON THE JEWISH NATION, OR ON THE LIVING RIGHTEOUS, who continue faithful to God, AS IN THE TRANSLATION OF THE SAINTS BEFORE THE MILLENNIUM.* The object of the rebellion, to overthrow the camp of the saints and the beloved city, fails of its design. God protects them. The living righteous, then, after the millennium, MAY YET CONTINUE A SEED TO SERVE GOD, AND IN SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS BE TRAINED UP FOR HEAVENLY GLORY."+

In this statement, the least surprising thing which the reader will mark is, that there is to be no simultaneous change of those myriads of believers who have lived during the millennium, as in the translation of the saints before

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* I thought the author had, in the previous sentence, 'finally removed all the believers from the earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." How he keeps them on earth still, unchanged and untranslated, I am at a loss to understand.

† Lent Lecture for 1843, second edition, pp. 329, 331. The Lecture is entitled, "The Kingdom of Christ the Lord, in its successive stages and heavenly glories."

the millennium." That, be it observed, is given up. What, then, becomes of them? One by one, throughout successive generations," they get glorified-we are not told how, or on what principle-but the race of them never dies out: they live on, and propagate their kind—to all eternity; they "continue a seed to serve God!"

But possibly this is but a hasty conjecture; for, says the author, 66 they may continue." In the next sentence but one, however, the conjectural is changed into the positive;

and page after page is spent in attempts to prove the mon

strous position of an eternal perpetuity of the generations and families of men in flesh and blood upon the earth.

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"Its truth," says he, "is distinctly revealed in many testimonies of Scripture, both in the Old and New Testament. The covenant with Noah was an everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh for perpetual generations.' The covenant of Abraham is called by the psalmist the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.' So Moses describes the Lord as 'keeping covenant and mercy for a thousand generations.' This period of a thousand generations, thus repeatedly mentioned, woULD REACH FAR BEYOND THE CLOSE OF THE MILLENNIUM. The promise made in Isaiah concerning the kingdom of Christ, and his reigning on the throne of David, are in the strongest expressions of NEVER-ENDING CONTINUANCE. The same promise of perpetuity is often given to the people of Israel: The people shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever?'-(Isa. lx. 21.) Corresponding with this is that very full and clear promise, They shall dwell in the land, they and their children and their children's children for ever, and my servant David shall be their prince for ever! The plain and obvious meaning of such passages would lead us to the conclusion of a continuance both of Israel and Gentile nations in a state of righteousness on our earth." After attempting to show "the consistency of this with the last fire described in St Peter, and the new heavens and the new earth afterwards to come forth," he says, Thus remarkable are the proofs in the Old Testament of the PERPETUAL continuance of the Jewish nation on our earth.” *

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* The reader will observe how studiously the estimable author avoids saying, "eternal continuance." Is it that an everlasting propagation of

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