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tabernacle or sanctuary; the Author contending in a learned dissertation on 1 Kings viii, &c. that the sanctuary is called in the Old Testament heaven," and "the dwelling place" of God; and he further conceives the same heaven to be actually called the sanctuary in chapter xi, 1. The Oupa or door opened (iv, 1.) and through which the Apostle sees the throne, is supposed to shew that he was now in the holy place, looking into the most holy, the vail of which was removed. The throne he takes to be the mercy seat, called in the Old Testament God's seat;" the living creatures he supposes to be the cherubim; the seven lamps of fire, the candlestick with seven branches; the sea of glass, the brazen sea; and the twenty-four elders, the twenty four courses of the Priests. But for these things we must refer to the work itself, as we do injustice to the Author to mention them, without accompanying that mention with his arguments thereon.

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We have only finally to observe, however we may hesitate to receive some of the opinions of the learned Author, that the perusal of his Work has afforded us clearer views of many particulars in it;—created in us an increased veneration for the Apocalypse itself;-and strengthened our previous assurance of the DIVINITY OF MESSIAH.

New Publications.

MEDE'S CLAVIS APOCALYPTICA, newly translated, by the Author of the Christian Herald. Dublin, R. M. Tims. 2s. 6d. in cloth.

"THE MILLENNARIAN'S Answer of the Hope that is in him;" by JOHN Cox. Price 3d.

ON THE ADVENT AND KINGDOM OF CHRIST,

No. VIII.

The Judgement.

(Continued from page 178.)

Having shewn from numerous Scriptures, that the Judgement of Christ will consist among other circumstances in the deliverance of his people, and in a rule or reign of righteousness, I have now to show that it is also a period of VENGEANCE on his enemies.

The passages are so numerous in the prophets, which speak of a time of signal wrath upon the ungodly, and of awful slaughter and bloodshed, that the most cursory reader must be acquainted with them. My present object therefore will be, not to bring before the Reader the mere fact of this period of tribulation; but, in order that he may form some notion of the uniform testimony of the prophets to this event, to select a few of the more remarkable passages, which are linked and tied together, like the curtains in the tabernacle, by certain obvious and peculiar expressions. And I will further beg him to observe, that this vengeance or indignation is in many instances so connected with the period of the glory which the Church shall enjoy, as to justify me in saying, that it will immediately precede or usher in that dispensation.

I. First we will take Isaiah xxxiv, of which I shall give the principal features. It opens by solemnly inviting the attention of all flesh. "Come near, ye nations, to hear; and INVESTIGATOR, No. VIII.

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hearken, ye people ;-let the earth hear, and all that is therein ;—the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them: he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood." Then at verse 5: Behold it shall come down upon IDUMEA; (i. e. Edom and upon the people of my curse, to JUDGEMENT. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood-for the Lord hath a great sacrifice in Bozraн, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea-the land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness-for it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion." Then (after dwelling upon the manner in which the land shall be desolated) it bursts out, in the next chapter, with a rapturous description of the way in which the earth shall afterwards be renewed for the righteous. The

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wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for THEM; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose-it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon March, 1832.

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'shall be given to it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon,-THEY shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees-say to them that are ' of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not behold your God will come 'with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save "you!"

In these passages I will chiefly call attention to the circumstance, that the judgement therein spoken of falls on Idumea, (or Edom,*) of which Bozrah was the capital. This will clearly connect the prophecy with another in Isaiah lxiii, 1-5; which informs us also who is to be the great actor in the tribulation.

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Isaiah with those of St. John. In the Revelation, chapter xiv, we have a description of the vine of the earth, which is cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God; and the wine-press is trodden without the city and blood comes out of the wine-press even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand ́ and six hundred furlongs :"-symbolical and figurative description; but calculated to afford us a most awful notion of the great slaughter and destruction alluded to! In the nineteenth chapter we again recognise the subject, in the circumstance of the blood-stained vestments of him who treads the wine-press alone. Messiah is introduced" clothed with

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a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called THE WORD OF GOD, &c. and he treadeth the wine'press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS ' AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying 'to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, captains, mighty men, horses, &c."

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*The ancient, as also the modern, Jews, and after them various expositors, interpret Edom to be Rome: but as my object is not now so much to apply the prophecy, as to mark its character, I enter not into this question.

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feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, assemble yourselves and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of princes of the earth-ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war 'saith the Lord God. And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my 'judgement that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.

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In this manner, were it not for tiring the Reader, we might glance at many other prophecies, and shew their evident relation to the same period of destruction, by similar internal and conspicuous marks: particularly a variety of passages, which shew the destruction to be sudden as well as extensive, coming upon the nations with the fierceness and rapidity of a whirlwind; which is the figure frequently used to describe it. He shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengehe shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked: so that a man shall say, verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth."* II. There is another important feature connected with the judgement, which must also be noticed; viz, the effect to be produced by the

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supposed agency of FIRE at this period.

Most christians admit, that there is to be a conflagration of the world ; and it was the opinion of the early Millennarian Fathers, as also of many of the Reformers, that it would be the great agent employed to regenerate the material globe, to purify and restore it to its pristine state, or more than its pristine state, of beauty and salubriousness, and thus to fit it for the abode of the righteous.† But it has been and is disputed, whether this conflagration is to take place before or after the Millennium; and secondly, among those who believe it to be pre-millennial, it is further disputed, whether it is to burn up the whole world, or only the prophetical earth, or only the region

of Palestine in its utmost limits.

As to the extent of the conflagration, I have no clear light vouchsafed to me. And though I incline from various considerations to conclude, that there will be a judgement by fire before the Millennium; (whatever may take place after it ;) yet I confess, that great difficulties present themselves, and much may be said on the other side of the question. So that on this point I submit certain particulars more in the way of inquiry, and of communicating what I have gleaned from Scripture, than as a demonstration of the truth.

First then let me observe, that a judgement by fire is not always in the Scriptures to be understood literally; but it is a figure used by the prophets to denote tribulation and wrath. Thus Isaiah says, "The Lord

* Psalm lviii, 9-11; and see also Prov. i. 23-33; Is. xvii, 12—14; xl, 18—24 ; xli, 14—16; lxvi, 15, 16; Jer. xxv, 15–38; but especially verses 31-33. Compare also Jer. xxiii, 19, 20, with xxx, 23, 24; Hab. iii, throughout, but especially verses 12-15.

See the extracts brought forward by me at pages 14 and 15 from the Nicene Fathers and King Edward's Catechism; to which many similar testimonies might be added.

shall purge the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgement, and by the spirit of burning"a upon which bishop Lowth observes, that these are bold figures to set forth the Lord's wrath. Of this we have a convincing proof in the promise which Moses makes to the children of Israel, just previous to their taking possession of the land under Joshua. Understand there'fore (he says) this day, that the · Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, (thine enemies,) and he shall bring them down before thy face."b

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It is not unlikely therefore, that some places, which speak of fire, only respect that time of bloodshed and trouble we have considered: as where it is said in Zephaniah, "all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy." It is also worthy of remark, as proving fire to be frequently a symbol, that whereas in St. Luke's Gospel Jesus says, I am come to send fire on the earth;"'d "d the parallel place in St. Matthew is-"I came not to send peace, but a sword :”e and indeed Luke himself afterwards explains it of the divisions and persecutions which would accompany the Gospel. I cannot however under

stand St. Paul as speaking otherwise than literally, when he says, that the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." f Nor can it be figure when St. Peter says, "that the heavens and the

earth, which are now, are reserved 'unto fire against the day of judge

ment and perdition of ungodly 'men.”g And Isaiah appears plainly to distinguish between the judgements of fire and the sword when he says, that "the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind,-to render his anger with fury and his rebuke 'with flames of fire: for by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh."h*

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I subjoin two or three passages which speak of this pre-millennial judgement in the two-fold view of "fiery indignation, which is to devour the adversaries," and destruction by other means; and I postpone some other remarks which I have to make on the judgement after the Millennium, until I come to treat formally on Rev. xx. Habakkuk speaking of the coming of God says: Before him went

a Isa. iv, 4.

b Deut. ix, 3.
f 2 Thess. i, 7, 8.

c Zeph. iii, 8.
g 2 Pet. iii, 7.

d Chap. xii, 49. e Chap. x, 34. h Isa. lxvi, 15, 16.

* I have said that I experience difficulties in placing the conflagration before the Millennium; but they are nothing compared with those which oppose themselves, if I change my position, and postpone it till after the Millennium. I never felt the perplexity it would involve me in more, than in the perusal of "An Inquiry after Prophetic Truth" by Joseph Tyso. The work is written in a strait-forward scriptural style, and with considerable ability, and the Author generally contends for and adopts the literal system of interpretation. Yet having denied a pre-millenial conflagration, he is driven to the following inconsistencies. He discovers in Rev. xx, 9, (which certainly may, consistently with the general contents of the Apocalypse, be interpreted figuratively,) the dissolution of the heavens and earth at the time of the conflagration;-he makes the new heavens and earth in 2 Peter iii, (and by a necessary implication the burning which precedes them,) a figurative description ;-and yet 2 Thess. i, 7, 8, (which to me again appears a plain and literal description, and seems so to be understood by Mr. Tyso,) he makes pre-millenial! See chapter vi, p. 116, and chapters ix and xiii.

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