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is the head and front of the offense of the Millerites. It has been fashionable with some who have not been carried away by the Advent-mania, to apologise nevertheless for the dupes and even the leaders in that monstrous imposture. The plea that has been urged in their favor has been that they are honest in their delusion.' We are very willing to admit this plea in extenuation of the folly and guilt of the masses who have occupied the secondary position of followers in the movement. But we are more and more convinced that it is a foolish and cruel sort of charity that extends the apology to the leaders. It is now manifest that the men who took upon them the responsibility of sounding an alarm which has driven multitudes to insanity and suicide, and has spiritually debauched and ruined still greater multitudes, arrogantly pretended to know what they did not know, and presumptuously promulgated by argument and pretenses of revelation, a foolish falsehood. We complain not that they were ignorant in regard to the time of the second advent, (though we can hardly conceive that any one can deliberately study the 24th of Matthew and remain innocently ignorant on the subject,) but, that being ignorant, they professed to be wise, and stood forth on the witness-stand be fore heaven and earth, under a virtual oath of veracity, with a random testimony in their mouths, pledging the word of God for a lie. For this we have called them, and still call them, IMPOSTORS. And if Mr. Bush's imputation of false testimony to the apostles were proved true, we should be obliged for the same reason to call them impostors.

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We demand, on behalf of the apostles, the benefit of the good rule of law that every man shall be held innocent till he is proved guilty.' Before consenting to turn them in with the perjured Millerites, we claim the right to inspect the grounds on which they are charged with the mistake which renders the lame apologies of Messrs. Bush and Barnes necessary. How is it made certain that Christ did not come the second time, and accomplish the first resurrection and judgment, within the lifetime of the primitive church? We have more ample data,' says Mr. Bush, and are better able to judge of the meaning of the prophecies than the apostles were.'What are these more ample data'? Have we any new revelation? None at all. But we learn from the event,' says Mr. Bush in another passage, that the prophecies which the apostles referred to a period within their own lifetime, included a vast extent of time.' Here is the foundation, and the only foundation, of the charge of mistake. It is the event' that has proved the apostles liars. No external second advent, no visible resurrection and judgment, is recorded in the writings of worldly historians, as having oc curred at the close of the Jewish dispensation; therefore (say the wise men) no advent, resurrection or judgment took place at that time, and the apostles are convicted of false prophecy.' So says the infidel Gibbon; and so say the devout Bush and Barnes. Now if we look narrowly at the nature of the advent, resurrection and judgment which were predicted and expected by the apostles, we shall see that this is a very small foundation for the heavy charge which rests upon it. Christ's resurrection was a sample of the resurrection expected by his followers. He was the first-fruits,' and they were to be gathered as the general harvest at his coming. Was Christ's

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resurrection visible to the world? Was it recorded by worldly historians? Mr. Bush himself argues in the very work before us, at great length, that Christ arose in his spiritual body and only appeared to his disciples-not to the world-as angels are seen, i. e. in vision. If the fact that there was no visible, notorious resurrection at the destruction of Jerusalem, is 'the event' which proves the expectations of the apostles false, then the event' in the case of Christ proved his prediction of his own resurrection false. The world saw him no more; and the Jews, among whom he died, believe him dead to this day. The promised second advent was to be kindred in its nature to the resurrection. Christ was to come in like manner as he ascended.' Did he ascend in a material body? Was the event public? Did worldly historians record it? So the judgment was to be of course like the resurrection and the advent-a transaction in the spiritual world. With such evidence concerning the nature of the events expected by the apostles, what presumption it is to accuse them of false prophecy, because there was no such physical parade at the period of the destruction of Jerusalem as human traditions have connected with the second coming and the judgment! What folly to make the silence of man a ground for impeaching the testimony of God! Will Mr. Bush or Mr. Barnes venture to assert that Christ did not come as he ascended?-that there was not a resurrection like his own?— that there was not a judgment in the resurrection world, at the close of the Jewish dispensation? Do they know any thing about the matter? Can they know any thing about it, except by either believing the predictions of the Bible, or by obtaining a new revelation? The charge which they have brought against the apostles, recoils upon them. They are the men that have allowed their speech to go beyond their knowledge.

§ 45. DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE."

THERE is a very simple way of determining when the book of Revelations was written. We need not consult the dubious and discordant testimonies of the Fathers and church historians. The book itself contains a decisive index of its own date.

Christ said to John, in the commencement of his vision- Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.' Chap. 1: 19. The things which John had 'seen' are recorded in the first chapter. The events then in progress the things that are'are recorded in the second and third chapters, which describe the state of the seven churches. The things which were then future, are introduced in the fourth chapter. Come up hither,' said the voice to John, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.' 4: 1. John saw his visions, then, before the events predicted in the fourth chapter and onward took place. And it is evident that he wrote his book at the time he saw the visions, from a circumstance recorded in the tenth chapter, verse 4. "When the seven thunders had uttered their voices,' says he, 'I was about to write.' This shows that he noted down the things he saw as soon as they had passed. He wrote the Apocalypse then while the events introduced in the fourth chapter and described in the rest of the book were yet future. Now if we can ascertain when some of the first of those events which were then future, actually transpired, we shall have a fixed date, before which the Apocalypse must have been written. Let us then look into the things which must be hereafter.'

The fourth chapter describes the magnificence of the divine presence. In the fifth chapter the book with seven seals is introduced, and the Lamb, who only is found worthy, receives it, and prepares to open the seals. All this is only the introduction to the subsequent disclosures. The predictions of the Apocalypse properly begin at the sixth chapter. The series of events which follow the successive openings of the seven seals are those which are

*As our views of the second coming involve the conclusion that the book of Revelations was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, this was very generally denied by our opponents when we first broached our theory. We apprehend a change is coming over public opinion on this point. Prof. Stuart, in a late article on the Apocalypse, says:

That it was written under the bloody reign of Nero, or shortly after, is now a matter agreed upon by nearly all recent critics who have studied the literature of this book.The exemption of Christian Jews, who are sealed in their foreheads as the servants of God, as related in chap. 7; the measurement of the inner sanctuary of the temple, to be preserved from impending destruction, ch. 11: 1, 2; the express naming of the city to be destroyed, as the place where our Lord was crucified,' ch. 11: 8; these and other concurrent circumstances put it beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Apocalypse was written before the destruction of Jerusalem. And if all this were not sufficient, the passage in ch. 17: 10, which declares that five kings or emperors of Rome had already fallen, while the sixth is reigning when the writer is composing the book, marks the period too definitely to be called in question. It might easily be shown, moreover, that the tenor of the book renders it necessary for us to suppose that the persecution was actually raging when it was written; and consequently, it must have been written during Nero's life, for persecution ceased immediately after his death.”—Bibliotheca Sacra, No. II. p. 349.

to be examined for the purpose of fixing our first boundary. At the opening of the sixth seal (ver. 12-17) we find a description of the advent of Christ in language identical with that in Matt. 24: 29, 30. There can be no doubt that John quoted the words of Christ, and that both referred to the same transaction. But we find it declared in Matt. 24: 29, that the advent there described was to be immediately after' the awful tribulation which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem. The events, then, which followed the opening of the sixth seal, took place immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem. But the opening, not only of the sixth seal, but of all the seals, was future when John wrote the Apocalypse. He must have written, therefore, some considerable time before an event which happened immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem. This creates a strong presumption at least, that he wrote before the destruction of Jerusalem.

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But let us examine the events of the first five seals, which occupied the period between the time of John's writing, and the second advent. As those events came immediately' before that advent, we may fairly anticipate that they are the very tribulations which in Matthew are placed immediately before it. Accordingly we find that the first five seals actually usher in a train of awful tribulations, closely corresponding in order and kind to those described in Matt. 24: 6-22. The meaning of the symbol of the first seal is not very clear. But the second seal (ver. 4) introduces the war spirit, corresponding to the prediction in Matthew of wars and rumors of wars'-nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.' The third scal introduces. the famine spirit: and in Matthew famines in divers places' follow the wars. It must be borne in mind too that famine was one of the principal elements of misery in Jerusalem at the time of its downfall. The fourth seal ushers in the spirit of universal destruction-a combination, of war, famine, pestilence, and every other agent of death. Nothing could more vividly picture the tribulation which Christ declared should be such as never was since the beginning of the world.' Matt. 24: 21. At the opening of the fifth seal the souls of the martyrs are discovered, calling on God to avenge them. These are evidently they who suffered death in the dreadful persecutions which in Matthew are described as following or attending the wars, famines, and pestilences of that awful time. Ver. 9. In our view there is evidence, amounting to demonstration, that Christ's prediction in Matt. 24, extending from the 6th to the 31st verse, is in all substantial particulars identical with John's vision in the sixth and seventh chapters of the Apocalypse. Since, then, it is certain that John wrote before the events of the sixth chapter, it is clear that he wrote before the awful tribulations which are described in Matt. 24: 6-22, i. e. before the final agonies of Judaism, and the destruction of the Holy City.

This fixes the chronological boundary on one side. We know that the date of the Apocalypse is earlier than A. D. 70. The only element of calculation which we have for the boundary on the other side, is contained in the introduction to the book, (chap. 1: 1-3,) which announces that the things revealed in it must SHORTLY come to pass.' If it is considered that the events of the sixth chapter are the first of those which the book reveals as

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future, and therefore are nearest in order to the time when John wrote, it will be seen that the above annunciation attaches first and most emphatically to them. We may conclude therefore that the Apocalypse was written shortly' before the destruction of Jerusalem, i. e., at a time when the unprecedented tribulations of the final scene were the future events next in order. It certainly was not written after A. D. 70, and it certainly was not written long before.

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This result is confirmed by many passages in the addresses to the seven churches. Among the precursors of the destruction of Jerusalem, Christ predicted a great declension among Christians. 'Because iniquity shall abound,' said he, the love of many shall wax cold.' Matt. 24: 12. cordingly John's record of the things that are,' exhibits the churches of Asia in a state that exactly corresponds to this prediction. The Ephesian church had left its first love.' The church of Sardis had a name to live, and was dead.' The Laodiceans were neither cold nor hot.' Again, those addresses abound with allusions to Christ's coming, and represent it as very near. 'I come quickly'-is the oft-repeated warning. (See chap. 2: 5, 16, 25, 3: 3, 11.) All this exactly harmonizes with the idea that John wrote in that predicted dark period of the church which immediately preceded the destruction of Jerusalem and the second advent of Christ.

§ 46. SCOPE OF THE APOCALYPSE.

THE book of Revelations, as a whole, is simply a vision of the entire judg ment of mankind, including the first judgment at the second advent, the intermediate reign of Christ, and the second judgment at the end of the times of the Gentiles. In other words, it is the filling up of the outline sketched in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew. The great facts announced in those chapters are-1, the destruction of Judaism; 2, the coming of Christ to destroy his enemies, and gather his elect; 3, his reign, and the gathering and separation of all nations; 4, the final judgment. These also are the great facts of the Apocalypse. The sixth and seventh chapters of that book (which are the beginning of its prophecies) announce the destruction of Judaism, the coming of Christ to destroy his enemies, and the gathering of the elect. At the eighth chapter commences a series of movements among the nations, introduced by the successive soundings of the seven trumpets. These movements are to be referred to the agency of Christ, whose accession to the throne is announced in the previous chapters. These are the transactions of his intermediate reign-the gathering and arrangement of the nations. At the end of the eleventh chapter the sounding of the seventh trumpet introduces the final and universal judgment. This is the plot of the book. All the other visions are bounded by this outline, and

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