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cumcision (i. e. those who are not circumcised) through faith.' So also Rom. 4: 9, 'Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also?' Gal. 2: 9, 'That we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision (the Jews).' Phil. 3: 3, 'We are the circumcision (the circumcised ones).' Phil. 3: 2, Beware of the concision (the concisionists).' Rom. 11:7, 'The election (the elect ones) hath obtained it.' In like manner, the expression, This is the first resurrection', we understand as equivalent to 'This is the first body of resurrectionists.' Not that we suppose a literal corporeal resurrection to be intended,-for it does not appear that there is to be a first and second literal resurrection,-— but a mystical and spiritual one; a resurrection which shall answer to the explanation given above of the 'living' of the saints and martyrs of the Millennial era. Repentance and abandonment of sin, conversion to truth and holiness, devout obedience to the divine commandments, a determined but humble perseverance in maintaining 'the testimony of Jesus and the word of God,' a resolute purpose to withstand at all hazards the aggressive usurpations of antichristianism, may justly be deemed a conduct worthy to be characterized as a resurrection to spiritual life, and therefore properly attributed to the noble band of confessors and witnesses whose bright example of courage, constancy, zeal, faith, and patience, relieved the darkness of that gloomy period.

In reference, therefore, to a more general and powerful and glorious triumph of the gospel, a revivescence of righteousness still more illustrious, to be enjoyed in subsequent ages of the church, this is termed by way of distinction 'the first resurrection.' And of this resurrection the subjects are pronounced to be 'holy and blessed,' inasmuch as they are favored with a happy immunity from the peril of being involved in the second death,' though they might be called

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to endure the pains of the first. This expression, which occurs in no other part of the Scriptures but in the Apocalypse, viz. ch. 2: 11, 'He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death;' and ch. 20: 14, ' And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death,' is not perhaps susceptible of an explication so clear and satisfactory as could be desired. It is a phrase of Rabbinic rather than of scriptural origin, and is evidently used to denote some fearful kind of punishment to be inflicted upon transgressors, whose guilt was of a deep dye, in some anticipated state called by them the world to come.' But until we are enabled to learn with more precision than has yet been practicable, the real sense affixed by Jewish writers to the phrase 'world to come,' we must remain in a great measure ignorant of the exact import of the expression 'second death.' In the mean time, the only clew which we possess to guide us to its meaning is afforded by the following passages, collected from the Chaldee Paraphrasts. Deut. 33: 6, 'Let Reuben live and not die.' Jerus. Targ. 'Vivat Reuben in seculo hoc, neque moriatur morte secunda'―let Reuben live in this world, and let him not die the SECOND DEATH. The Targum of Jonathan, however, has, 'Nec moriatur morte qua moriuntur improbi in futuro seculo'-nor let him die the death which the wicked die in the world to come.' Is. 22: 14, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you, till ye die.' Targ. 'Donec moriamini morte secunda '-till ye die the SECOND DEATH. Is. 65: 6, 'But will recompense, even recompense into their bosom.' Targ. Et tradam morti secundæ corpora eorum '—and I will deliver their bodies to the SECOND DEATH. Is. 6: 15, 'The Lord shall slay thee.' Targ. 'Interficiet vos Dominus morte secunda '—the Lord shall slay you with the SECOND DEATH. Jer. 51: 39, That they may sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord.' Targ. Sed moriantur morte secunda, et non vivant in

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seculo futuro'-but let them die the SECOND DEATH, and not live in the world to come. Ps. 49: 10,' For he seeth that wise men die.' Targ. Quoniam videbit sapientes improbos, qui moriuntur morte secunda, at adjudicantur Gehennæ' -since he shall see the wicked wise men who die the SECOND DEATH, and adjudged to hell. Although, therefore, Cocceius understands by the second death' in this passage merely final apostasy, or hopeless obduration of heart;* yet it is probable that it points to the ultimate irrevocable doom of the lost after death. If so, the drift of the prophet is to convey the assurance, that the blessed participants of the first resurrection should not only enjoy all the present happiness and triumph, included in their 'living' and 'reigning' state on earth, but in addition to this, should be crowned with the prerogative of exemption from the fearful lot of those who might finally sink beyond redemption into the woes and horrors of the second death.'

The Holy Spirit having thus completed all that it was necessary to say respecting the state of things within the limits of Christendom during the period of Satan's restraint, having fully acquainted us with the sufferings and trials of the victims of papal persecution, another transition now occurs in the thread of the visionary narrative, and he proceeds to the memorable finale of the Dragon's machinations against the church, eventuating in his own defeat and destruction. The consideration of this part of our subject will form the matter of the ensuing chapter.

* Qui autem revixerunt, ii beati sunt, quia justi-sancti, quia a Spiritu Sancto sanctificati ad amorem veritatis. Propter eam cau-` sam secunda mors, άvoμia àñоoτaola, induratio, in eos potestatem non habet. Regeniti non deficerent; quia beati et sancti sunt; h. e. quia a Deo justificati sunt et arrhabonem Spiritiis a Deo acceperunt, et eo signati sunt.-Coc. in Rev. 21: 6.

↑ "Because Satan was still to play a last game before he was condemned to his final judgment, by which he shall be quite driven

from having anything to do with mankind; the Holy Ghost goes on now to show us how he comes to his end in seeking, when loosed out of prison, to regain his dominion over men by assaulting even Christ and his saints, all over his kingdom; even to the very attacking of the blessed and holy city. The prison therefore is the abyss wherein he was chained. We have no hints at all to make us determine what, and where, this prison shall be; whether Satan indeed shall, during the Millennium, be quite without visible votaries, or whether he shall have some such, but in so low a condition, and so much penned up, that he shall be as in a prison among them, without capacity to make excursions to disturb the peace of the world. If this last be true, it is likely that it will be among some of those nations which are called Gog and Magog in the next verse, and which he will then seduce to disturb Christ's kingdom.Daubuz Perpet. Comment. p. 943.

CHAPTER V.

EXPLICATION OF THE GOG AND MAGOG OF THE APOCALYPSE.

"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea." No part of the Revelation has given rise to a greater diversity of opinion, or to wilder or more extravagant conjectures, than this announcement of the future appearance and exploits, defeat and destruction, of the mystic Gog and Magog. On the one hand, the tremendous power shadowed forth by this denomination has been summoned up from the then barbarous and pagan hemisphere of America and the Terra Australis Incognita. On the other, they have been generated, like the classical Python, by the productive heat of the sun, from the teeming slime of the renovated earth. Again, the bars of the grave have been burst in quest of them, and they have been resolved into countless armies of the risen dead, to whom a resurrection to life has been but a resurrection to their former fiendish malignity against the people of the saints, by which they are now urged on to a new assault against the holy and happy portion of the universe. Mede, Burnet, and Gill, are the distinguished names by which these strange hypotheses are severally endorsed, and their credit has given them currency, to a greater or less extent, among others of inferior note. Another class of writers, giving a purely mystical import to the appellation, suppose it to be intended merely as a figurative term denoting the enemies of the church in general, whether Pagan, Mohammedan, or pseudo-Christian.*

* The objection to this mode of interpretation is well stated by

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