5.) This text is understood by many to express some unknown personal dignity and authority to which our Lord is now advanced, as the reward of his obedience and sufferings, and by which he was enabled in the primitive age to communicate the holy spirit to the first teachers of Christianity, and to protect, assist, and direct them in their labours: and by which he is at all times operating effectually for the benefit of the church, though in an unknown and imperceptible manner 5.

6.) Mr. Locke, in his note upon Eph. i. 10, shows that in the writings of Paul the words "heaven and earth" stand for "Jew and Gentile." And if this sense be admitted in the present case, the meaning of our Lord's declaration will be, q. d. All authority is given me over Jews and Gentiles: that is, All men, without distinction, will be invited to become the subjects, and to participate in the privileges, of my kingdom. And this interpretation derives probability from the exhortation which immediately succeeds: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations."

It is a question among learned Unitarians of the present day, whether the reign of Christ upon earth is real and personal, or symbolical and figurative. Dr. Priestley, though he first defended the figurative hypothesis, became in his later publications a decided advocate for the personal dominion of Christ. He thought that the kingdom of Christ would not commence till the period of the Millennium, and that he would then appear in the clouds, to raise martyrs and confessors from the dead, to restore the Jews to their own country, and to govern the world for a thousand prophetic years of peace and prosperity, virtue and happiness 6.

On

5 See Grot. in loc. This appears to have been the opinion of Dr. Priestley and other modern Unitarians.

6

See Dr. Priestley's hypothesis stated and defended in his Notes

On the other hand, Mr. Lindsey and many others with him conceive, that those expressions which appear to at tribute to Christ personal dignity and authority are wholly figurative. They plead that the kingdom of Christ is uniformly opposed to that of Satan. But it is conceived that in this connexion Satan is a symbolical and not a real person, and that his government expresses not the rule of a powerful evil spirit, but the prevalence of idolatry, superstition, and vice. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the dominion of Christ is to be understood in the same figurative sense that it expresses not the personal authority of our divine Master, but the prevalence of his religion in the world, the empire of truth, and virtue, and happiness, which is continually extending its beneficial influence in proportion to the progress of christian principles, and which we have every reason to believe will in due time be come universal and perpetual. And though it is pleaded by the advocates for the personal dominion of Christ, that Jesus, being a man, like other men, was capable of being influenced by personal considerations, and that it is refining too much to suppose that he was altogether free from every bias of this nature; it seems, nevertheless, to be more consistent with the acknowledged piety, humility, and disinterested benevolence of our Lord's character, to conceive of him as acting under the influence of these generous principles and comprehensive views, rather than from the

upon Rev. xx. He apprehended this period of Christ's second coming to be very near. In the spring of 1794, a few days before he set sail for America, he said to a friend, that in his judgement this great event could not be more remote than twenty years. And it was his firm conviction, that this period of Christ's personal dominion will be of very long duration. He even conjectures that every prophetic day of the Millennium represents a natural year. He conceived that Christ is at all times actively employed for the benefit of mankind, but that he does not enter upon his kingdom till the Millennium arrives. Mr. Evanson also advances a similar hypothesis in his Reflections on Religion in Christendom, p. 39, and p. 147, 148. comparatively

comparatively low and interested expectation of personal recompense 7.

2. John xviii. 33, "Pilate said, Art thou the king of the Jews?"-Ver. 36, "Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world."-Ver. 37, "Pilate said, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am—a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." 3. 1 Cor. xv. 24-27, " Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy shall be destroyed, even death.”

In this passage Death, a symbolical person, is placed in the list of those enemies of Christ who are hereafter to be destroyed it is probable therefore that the other enemies here alluded to are symbolical persons likewise: and thus the whole paragraph is a figurative description of the ultimate triumph of the Gospel over all opposition, and of the final extermination of idolatry and superstition, of ignorance, and vice, and misery.

4. Eph. i. 20-23. See p. 130.

5. Philipp. ii. 9-11, "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

"Agreeably to the prejudices and imaginations of Jews and Gentiles, the subjection of all mankind to the rules of piety and virtue, delivered by Christ, is shadowed out under the imagery of a mighty king, to whom all power was given in heaven and earth," &c. Lindsey's Sequel, p. 473.

Compare

Compare Col. i. 17, 18; ii. 10. In the epistles to the seven churches, in the Apocalypse, chap. ii. iii., Jesus assumes a sovereign authority. And chap. xix. contains a symbolical representation of the final triumph of the Gospel, and of the judgements of God upon its enemies and persecutors.

II. Christ is represented as personally present for the Ail and Protection of those who submit to his Authority.

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1. Matt. xxviii. 20, " And, lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world,” έως της συντελειας το aves, to the conclusion of this age.'

Grotius, Whitby; Doddridge, and the Polish Socinians, also Dr. Priestley and many others, understand this text as a promise that Jesus will be personally present with his disciples, acting for their benefit to the end of time. And Dr. Whitby contends that this is the only sense in which the evangelist uses the phrase wherever it occurs in his writings 8.

Dr.

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The places in which these words occur in the Gospel of Matthew are, chap. xiii. 39, 40, " The harvest is the end of the world, or age, and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burnt in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world, or age."Ver. 49, "They gathered the good (fish) into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world, or age.”—Chap. xxiv. 3, "What will be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of this world, or age?" Here the phrase unquestionably means the Jewish dispensation, or rather polity. For, in reply to the question proposed by his disciples, our Lord immediately proceeds to foretel the calamities which should precede the destruction of Jerusalem. And ver. 34, he declares, "This generation shall not pass till all these things are fulfilled." This phrase, which, as Mr. Wakefield observes in his note upon Matt. xiii. 39, "is an idiom of the Hebrew language," occurs but once more in the New Testament. Heb. ix. 26, " but now, once, in the end of the world, επι συντελεια των αιώνων, 6 at the completion or conclusion of the ages,' hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."- "But let me ask," says Mr. Wakefield, ibid. "when did Christ appear, but towards the end of the Jewish polity, civil and ecclesiastical? They therefore, who interpret this phrase by

'the

Dr. Whitby was certainly mistaken in this assertion, as appears from the note below. It may nevertheless be conceded that our Lord is, or may be, personally present in this world, and actively engaged at all times in some unknown manner for the benefit of his church. But it does not follow that this is the meaning of the promise in Matthew; much less can it be concluded that Christ in his present state, however exalted and glorious, is invested with those divine attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, which are usually ascribed to him. The truth is, that the Scriptures have left us totally in the dark with regard to the present condition, employment, and attributes of Christ, and therefore it is in vain to speculate upon the subject.

The interpretation which is given to this text in Matthew, by Bishop Pearce, Mr. Wakefield, Mr. Lindsey, and others, viz. “ I am with you alway, to the conclusion of this age," is that which by Unitarians is generally and justly preferred.

Our Lord says "I am with you," that is, as Mr. Lindsey observes, Seq. p. 75," with you who are now present with me, you may be assured of extraordinary assistance and support. But he does not promise the same to succeeding christians: the miraculous aid and gifts of which he obviously speaks, were confined to the age of the apostles."

Mr. Lindsey thinks that "this limitation, which our Lord himself prescribes, throws great light upon many passages of Scripture."-1. "It may account for our

the end of the world,' or the consummation of all things,' do so without any authority, and in direct opposition to the idiom of the Hebrew language, and the sense of a plain text of Scripture."-That excellent and judicious commentator Bishop Pearce, and after him Mr. Wakefield, interpret the parables of the tares and of the fish, chap. xiii., of the events which took place at the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Christians, warned by divine admonition, retired from Judea before the desolation of the country by the Romans. See Pearce's Comment. in loc.

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