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will mention, and proceed. "If it be a state of the church in general, and of the church then in being, why is this resurrection applied to the martyrs? Why are they said to rise, seeing the state they lived in was a troublesome state of the church, and it would be no happiness to have that revived again?" Besides, who are the rest of the dead, (ver. 5,) that lived after the expiration of those thousand years?" The rest, surely, are those who were not of the church, who had not suffered for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God; but who had worshipped the beast or his image, or had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands: must these, with all the wicked and unbelievers of every description, after the thousand years are finished-" must all these, I say, be raised up to a happy condition?" Ought we not "to be tender of interpreting the first resurrection in an allegorical sense, lest we expose the second resurrection to be made an allegory also?"

And why is it said, ver. 6, that on such as have part in the first resurrection the second death hath no power? Why is this applied to the millennial saints as their peculiar privilege? For, according to these allegorical expositions of the first resurrection, they having not arrived to immortality and glory, it may be said of all true believers now, that on them the second death hath no power, in the same sense that it may be said of the saints in the millennium. And in the same verse it is said, they shall be priests of God, and of Christ, and shall reign with him: but, if the millennial kingdom be not the kingdom of glory, as, according to these figurative intepreta

tions, it is not, how can such promises as these be there fulfilled? To be freed from the power of the second death, and to be made priests of God, and of Christ, and to reign with him, are promises of immortality and glory-the peculiar crowning rewards of the faithful and overcomers: see Rev. ii. 11, and v. 10. And these promises being fulfilled to the saints in the millennium, they must then be in possession of immortality and glory. To be made superior to the power of the second death, and to be priests of God, and of Christ, and to reign with him, are some of the most remarkable and sublime ideas of immortality and glory contained in the Scriptures. But if these promises mean no more than what, accord. ing to the modern plan, will be enjoyed in the millennium, what foundation have we for a hope of immortality and glory? For a stronger foundation of such a hope than what is contained in these promises, we cannot find in the Bible.

With many such objections against a figurative interpretation of the first resurrection as the foregoing, Dr. Burnet mentioned, as what with him was not the least, the difficulty of fairly adjusting it to the limits of times and the connection of events in prophecy; which difficulty, consistently with our present limits, we cannot bring into

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*The expositions of the first resurrection as given above, in our view, do not materially differ from those now commonly given, viz.: "A resurrection of the souls of men, by the renovation of the Holy Ghost." "A resurrection of the truths and cause of Christ, which had been in a great degree dead and lost." The souls of the

Since Dr. Hammond, many able divines have labored to establish a figurative sense of the first resurrection and we are often told there is a necessity for our departing from the literal sense, and of our understanding it allegorical; because a literal first resurrection is incredible. But why should a literal first resurrection seem more incredible than a literal second resurrection? To many, the doctrine of any literal resurrection seems incredible: but, Is anything too hard for the Lord? I presume, had we just conceptions of the future kingdom of Christ, such as are warranted by holy writ, we should easily admit the literal sense of this passage; which, according to the received rule of interpreters, is never to be quitted or forsaken without necessity.

If we make the first resurrection allegorical, and the resurrection of the rest of the dead literal, we may make of the Scriptures just what we please; for it has never yet been shown from anything in the text, why we may not make the second resurrection allegorical as well as the first: yea, the connection of this passage is such, that if we make the first rising and living of the dead allegorical, we are obliged to make the rising and living of the rest of the dead allegorical also; and then we have made the doctrine of the resurrection a fable.

At least, will it not argue against the faith of the resurrection, if, in that book written expressly

beheaded, &c., "shall live again in their successors, who shall arise and stand up with the same spirit, and in the same cause, in which they lived and died." And the same objections lie with equal weight against them all.

to show us the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter, we find the word resurrection but twice used, chap. xx. 5, 6, and each time with the distinction of first, implying a second; and both the first and second meaning something in the present life-something besides the resurrection of the body? For the wicked, the rest of the dead, cannot be included in the first resurrection, or among the first raised, because those are blessed and holy; therefore, the living of the rest of the dead is the second resurrection, and includes everything that appears even implied by the resurrection, as the word is used by him who concluded the sacred

canon.

And (as their mode of interpretation necessarily requires) some of the last writers upon the modern plan have continued the allegory, and have included the rest of the dead, ver. 5. They suppose the wicked, the rest of the dead, after the millennium, will live in the same figurative sense as the righteous in the millennium. But this, instead of relieving any difficulty, involves the interpretation in new absurdities; it renders the sentence without sense or signification; for, as the interests of the righteous and the wicked are diametrically opposite, it is as impossible they should live, i. e., be in prosperity together, as that light and darkness should come over the earth and prevail together. To say the righteous and kingdom of Christ shall be in prosperity this thousand years, but the wicked and kingdom of the devil shall not be in prosperity until this thousand years are finished, is as unmeaning as to say, it will be day and light for twelve hours,

but it will not be night and dark until those twelve hours are ended; or to say of the balance, the right hand scale is up, but the left hand scale is not up.*

Again, how can the modern millennists interpret this as the first figurative resurrection; when, according to their own interpretations, the resurrection of the witnesses, mentioned chap. xi., is figurative, and is first? It has been considered as the greatest proof of the resurrection of the witnesses being figurative, that the resurrection of the souls of them that were beheaded, &c., i. e., of those that were slain or dead in body, is called the first resurrection.

*How could the wicked be called the rest of the dead, as, in this figurative sensc, the righteous and wicked could not be dead together; but, as the one die, the other live; and so, vice versa? Should one go into a floor where was a heap of threshed corn, and take up a part only, the remainder might be called the rest of the heap; but should he take up all, and at the same time thresh out a new heap, that could not with propriety be called the rest of the heap. And though the righteous before the millennium, on account of their scale being down, may figuratively be called dead; and the wicked in the millennium, on account of their scale being down, may also figuratively be called dead; yet they may not figuratively be called the rest of the dead: for, in the nature of things, the cause of the righteous and the cause of the wicked can neither prosper nor suffer together; therefore, the righteous and the wicked cannot in this sense be dead together; and, therefore, the wicked cannot be the rest of the dead. But to follow this figurative labyrinth would be an endless journey. When men depart from the letter of the Scriptures, when the subject-matter will bear a literal sense without absurdity or incongruity, they are greatly exposed to their imaginations and fancies, with which light, active, innumerable hosts, it is in vain to contend

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