THE QUESTION STATED.

All Christians believe that the Saviour will return at some period, however remote, to our earth. It is a fundamental article of their faith, so universally received it has never provoked controversy, that the same Jesus, who died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and ascended up into heaven, will, in due time, come forth personally and visibly from the right hand of the Father. It is also a cherished expectation, common to His followers of every name, in every age and every land, that although unknown or rejected by far the larger portion of our race at present, the nations will eventually be led to “crown Him Lord of all,” so that the great voices in heaven can truthfully say and joyfully sing, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever.” (Rev. xi: 15).

This happy age when His name shall be everywhere known, and His authority shall be gladly recognized, and “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,” (Isa. xi: 9), is usually called the Millennium, which is derived from two Latin words signifying “a thousand years,” just as Chiliad is derived from a Greek word also signifying “a thousand.” It is so designated principally in allusion to the testimony of the Apostle John who says, “I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. 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 of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” (Rev. xx: 1-6).

Those who believe that the Lord Jesus will return to our earth at the beginning of the thousand years, and reign in person with His saints, were called Chiliasts in earlier times, as they are generally termed Millenarians now. A more accurate and appropriate designation, however, would be Pre-millenarians, or Pre-millennialists, as those who believe that Christ will not come in person until the close of the Millennium should be called Post-millenarians, or Post-millennialists. There is no dispute concerning the fact of His coming at some time, nor concerning the fact of a Millennium, when truth shall prevail over error, and righteousness shall triumph over unrighteousness, but only concerning the relation of His coming to the blessed period which all His true disciples are fondly expecting.

But just at this point a marked and most important divergence occurs between Christians whose faith may be one in every other respect. Pre-millenarians believe, as already asserted, that Christ will personally return to the earth at the commencement of the thousand years; Post-millenarians believe that He will not personally return until the thousand years are ended. Pre- millenarians believe that the world will not be converted until the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven; Post-lllenarians believe that the world will be converted long before He comes. Pre-millenarians believe that the present age, notwithstanding its boasted progress, will go from bad to worse, terminating at length in the appearing and power of Antichrist who will be destroyed only at the literal advent of Christ; Post-millenarians believe that there will be a gradual and steady improvement in the moral and physical condition of the race through the instrumentality of the Church combined with the discoveries of science and the march of civilization, until what they regard as the present hopeful aspect of the times will be followed by the universal spread and triumph of pure Christianity, as the gray dawn is followed by the splendour of the noon-day sun. Pre-millenarians believe that at our Saviour’s coming before the thousand years, none but the righteous dead will be raised from the grave, who together with the righteous living, changed in a moment into the likeness of Christ’s glorious body, will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; Post-millenarians believe that there will be a simultaneous resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, to be instantly followed by a general judgment. Pre-millenarians believe, for the most part, that there will be a literal return and restoration of the Jews to their ancient land, where Israel will become chief among the nations; Post-millenarians believe that there will be a future conversion of the children of Abraham, but are not agreed with regard to the literal restoration. Pre-millenarians believe that at Christ’s coming the risen and changed saints will be manifested in their present high character and dignity as kings and priests unto God and his Father, and reign over the earth; Post-millenarians believe that immediately after the general resurrection and judgment, and the condemnation of the wicked to perdition, Christ will return with His people to heaven. Pre-millenarians believe that the earth will not be annihilated but renovated, and remain as a 'chosen and honored theatre for the everlasting display of the glory of God in Christ; Post-millenarians are undecided whether it will be totally destroyed, or become, when purified, tire heaven of the redeemed.

These are the principal points of difference between the two, although those who belong to either class differ to some extent among themselves upon minor points. It is utterly unfair, however, to present the disagreements that exist among Pre-millenarians upon the unimportant details of their views as an objection to the doctrine of our Lord’s pre-millennial advent; for in the first place, these disagreements are no greater than are found among Post-millenarians so far as they give attention to Eschatology; in the second place, it is only of comparatively recent date that the Church has been reawakened to the great subject, and its discussion is not yet sufficiently protracted and thorough to arrive at entire harmony of opinions; and in the third place, there is more substantial agreement in the views of Pre-millenarians than exists on other subjects between the various bodies of Christians after centuries of agitation. The Confessions that have come down to us were usually the result of sharp controversies, and sometimes of bloody conflicts, that continued for generations before the floating and discordant tenets of the Church were carefully defined and presented in accepted Ecclesiastical Standards. No Christian, at least, thinks of urging it as an objection to Christianity that Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and other bodies differ so widely in doctrine and Church polity. That they do differ, and on important points, is an unquestionable fact, but it is also a fact that Pre- millenarians belonging to all of these denominations are in perfect accord with regard to the leading features of their belief, and only differ in relation to particulars of little consequence. Such harmony under the circumstances is very remarkable, and should excite the admiration of a candid opponent, instead of leading to cavils at the want of agreement among those who are looking for the coming of the Lord.

Nor is it fair to meet the doctrine of Christ’s pre-millennial advent with objections suggested by human reason, and founded upon the supposed difficulties in which its advocates will be involved. Nothing is more surprising and more painful to those who bow with unquestioning submission to the authority of God’s word, than this method of conducting the controversy, so common with Post-millenarians. Recently a very long article from the pen of a distinguished Theological Professor appeared against the pre-millennial advent, and it did not contain a single text of Scripture. There could hardly be stronger presumptive proof of the doctrine he so bitterly assailed. If any declaration of the Sacred Scriptures can be brought against it, of course it will be valid, and precisely what every lover of the truth will promptly heed, but a thousand objections and difficulties raised by man’s ignorance will not have the slightest weight with any one who accepts the Bible as the only rule of faith. A Christian might be asked by an infidel how the eternal Jehovah could appear as a little babe who afterwards died on the cross, how Jesus could feed five thousand men on five barley loaves and two small fishes, how the sovereign, unchangeable purpose of the Almighty can be reconciled with the freedom of human agency, and many such questions; and he would probably reply that he was willing to accept the facts upon the testimony of God without undertaking to explain them.

Bacon describes “the character of a believing Christian” in thirty-four wonderful “paradoxes and seeming contradictions,” every one of which in fact contains a self-contradiction in terms, and yet every one of which the believer knows to be true. Let the four following taken from the commencement of the series serve as an example of all the rest:

“I. A Christian is one that believes things his reason can not comprehend; he hopes for things which neither he nor any man alive ever saw: he labors for that which he knoweth he shall never obtain; yet, in the issue, his belief appears not to be false; his hope makes him not ashamed; his labor is not in vain.

“2. He believes three to be one, and one to be three; a father not to be older than his son; a son to be equal with his father; and one proceeding from both to be equal with both; he believing three persons in one nature, and two natures in one person.

“3. He believes a virgin to be a mother of a son; and that very son of her’s to be her maker. He believes him to have been shut up in a narrow room, whom heaven and earth could not contain. He believes him to have been born in time, who was and is from everlasting. He believes him to have been a weak child, carried in arms, who is the Almighty; and him once to have died, who only hath life and immortality in himself.

“4. He believes the God of all grace to have been angry with one that hath never offended him; and that God, that hates sin, to be reconciled to himself, though sinning continually, and never making, or being able to make him, satisfaction. He believes a most just God to have punished a most just person, and to have justified himself, though a most ungodly sinner. He believes himself freely pardoned, and yet a sufficient satisfaction was made for him.”

The objections usually urged against the doctrine of our Lord’s pre-millennial advent may be urged with equal force against the doctrine of salvation by grace, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and nearly every other prominent doctrine of God’s word. Indeed it would be very easy to bring strong objections, apart from the testimony of the Sacred Scriptures, against the theory of Post-millenarians, and to pose them with questions which they would find it exceedingly difficult to answer. But questions and difficulties prove nothing on either side, for little children are continually asking questions and proposing difficulties in the way of established truths which the wisest men are wholly unable to meet and remove. The question here is not, what seems to us reasonable, what is in accordance with our wishes, our preconceived opinions, our habits of thought, our accustomed subjection to this and that minister of the gospel or Theological Professor, our pride in the Church to which we belong, but what is in accordance with the plain teachings of the Bible. Does the Bible lead us to expect the general conversion of the world before the personal coming of Christ, or does it distinctly predict that the manifold evils which now afflict our race will maintain their dire ascendency until the Lord Himself shall return to earth, and that it is our duty to be looking continually for Him as the only hope of the suffering Church? This is the main question to which the attention of the reader is invited in the following pages.