while the servants of the Lord prayed unto him, and were strengthened by him for their work-and so it will ever be with the enemies of the truth. Sooner or later a blast will come upon them-God will assert his own authority-he will plead his own cause he will make his Church "a praise in the earth." "Be still then and know that he is God."" "Fear not-the Lord of Hosts is with us-the God of Jacob is our refuge."

Your very affectionate Pastor,
and faithful Friend,

St. Mary's Glebe, Kilkenny,

January 1, 1833.

PETER ROE.

ON THE PERSONAL REIGN OF CHRIST.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR,-As the doctrine of the personal ADVENT and PERSONAL REIGN appears still to agitate the Christian world, and to be the subject of as much difference of opinion as ever, I hope it is no infringement of Christian charity, or of that spirit of peace which ought to sway the breast of every disciple of the Prince of Peace, to offer a few observations, founded on Scripture, against that doctrine. As I do not mean to trespass much on your pages, or on the patience of your readers, I shall confine myself to one of what I conceive to be the vulnerable points in that mode of interpreting Scripture, viz., the period to which they assign a personal reign of Christ, and on that point I shall propose but one argument.

Since my attention has been first drawn to the subject, the parable of the tares of the field, (Matt. 13th,) has appeared to me to be absolutely irreconcilable with the doctrine of the personal reign. The Millenarian manner of disposing of that difficulty, by saying that "the end of the world" means only the end of the present dispensation, I have always considered as insufficient to satisfy any sober inquirer after truth. This interpretation of the expression, however, is not what I intend to make the subject of remark at present. A few days ago, in reflecting on the parable, and comparing it with part of the 15th chap. of 1st Corinthians, the force of the two passages, when taken in connexion, appeared to me to be completely subversive of the whole scheme. From the ideas that occurred to me, I shall form my argument as follows:

The Millenarians must admit that such a personal reign of the Son of God upon earth, as that of which they speak, and for which they so earnestly contend, cannot possibly take place till the wicked are severed from among the just-till the Son of Man

has gathered out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. I believe they in general consider that his personal advent will be for this purpose, that thereby the way may be prepared for the personal reign. To maintain any consistency of the parts of their scheme with each other, or of the whole, with the general tenor of Scripture, they must acknowledge that until the arrival of this grand crisis in the affairs of our species-until this complete separation takes place, such a kingdom as they are looking for cannot be revealed. They surely cannot imagine that Christ will come and reign in person in a mixed community. Before this event, therefore, there is no place for the personal reign. To me it appears very plain, that unless the Apostle has erred, as little place can be found for it after that event; and my reason for so thinking is this, whenever this great revolution (as it may be termed) takes place in the kingdom of the Son of Man, the Son shall then have put down all rule, and all authority and power--all enemies shall have been subdued under him—all things put under his feet. But as soon as this great work is accomplished, according to the Apostle, the reign of the Son terminates. He delivers up the kingdom to his Father-He himself becomes subject to Him that did put all things under him, that God may be all in all. "Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies," is the tenor of the commission by which the Son is invested with the government of that kingdom, which is peculiarly and distinctively his.

To expand the argument a little: The PERSONAL REIGN must be placed either before or after "the end of the world." Let the Millenarians make their election. If before it, then is Christ to be revealed in person, reigning in glory with his holy Angels and his glorified Saints, having selected, for the theatre of his kingdom, a world in which all things continue as they were since the fall, in which the tares are still growing among the wheat-which has undergone no grand process of purging-consequently is still under the curse. I believe it will require little reflection from any person, whose ideas of divine things have been derived from the oracles of God, to perceive the absurdity, not to say the impiety, of such doctrine. It remains, therefore, that a place must be found for the Millenarian kingdom after "the end of the world." And then, I am humbly of opinion, I have satisfactorily proved, that the Mediatorial kingdom terminates-that the Son ceases to exercise any sovereignty distinct from that of the Father and the Holy Ghost, but that God is all in all.

It might be added, that the view I have taken is corroborated by a comparison of the 41st and 43d verses of the chapters containing the parable. That Kingdom, which contains within it things that offend, &c., is the kingdom of the Son of Man. That in which the righteous shine forth as the sun, is the kingdom of their Father. But I do not rest the argument on that. A dispute might perhaps be started about the meaning of the expression, "their Father;" and my position I conceive to be sufficiently

strong without my having recourse to any thing as subsidiary, the meaning of which may be open to dispute.

My design in writing has not been to provoke controversy. I have merely proposed an argument, which to myself appeared to present a difficulty insuperable on the hypothesis of the personal reign. I have no doubt it will be animadverted upon; and as my desire is that truth may be elicited, I trust that if fallacy be fairly shown in my reasoning, I shall experience no other feeling than that of gratitude towards the person who shall point out to me my error.

MINIM.

ON UNFULFILLED PROPHECY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

Sir, You sometimes allow me to make known, through your pages, some of my opinions on the very obscure but interesting subject of prophecy, though by many they are considered utterly heterodox. I am not scared by the terms orthodox and heterodox. I think they were long since very justly and wittily definedOrthodoxy is a man's own opinion; heterodoxy is any other man's opinion. In the fundamentals of Christianity, I start back from every thing new. The Author and Finisher of our faith hath not left his church in the dark. I feel, in essentials, that that is truth which has been held "semper, ubique, et ab omnibus." But in the mysterious non-essentials, I am not afraid of novelty. I look for new light to be given to the church; her path may be expected to be as the "shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day."

I conceive the subject of unfulfilled prophecy to be one of those mysterious non-essentials, in which we may suppose that the Lord may have allowed his church to have been in the dark, or even generally to have fallen into error. On such a subject, I have ceased to reverence a theory because it is old, or start back from one simply because it is new, or, I should rather say, because it is called new.

Among the novel or heterodox opinions which I have ventured to advocate in your pages, was that of the 1260 days, meaning not 1260 years, but literally the shorter period of three and a half years. When I was led to advance this position, strange in the ears of most students of prophecy, I had few, indeed, to agree with me; and was by many, I believe, considered little less than a heretic. I find, however, this opinion rapidly gaining ground. It is embraced by many, tolerated by a few more, and anathematized by only a small remnant of its original opponents. In my occasional journeys through different parts of Ireland, I have found many individuals who have confessed their change of

sentiment, and I have the pleasure of saying, that they have acknowledged your EXAMINER as the means of their conversion. Some, indeed, complained that the papers on that subject, in your Magazine, had deprived them of their former system of prophetical interpretation, whilst they provided them with no system to supply its place. As far as I am concerned in this effect, I feel bound to plead guilty to the charge of rather upsetting former systems than of building new ones. But is it really a subject of blame to detect and destroy a false system, even though one does not pretend to have as yet discovered the truth? Is it not a step towards the establishment of truth to have got rid of some of the error and falsehood which stood in the way of the reception of the truth?

Emboldened by the success that has attended my former presumption in setting forth an apparent novelty, I would, with your permission, venture to follow up my former attempt by dissenting from long received interpretations, and suggesting apparently novel views of some portions of Scripture, that appear to me to be connected with those which treat of 1260 days.

It will be in the recollection of your readers, that I stated that Rev. xiii. was the portion of Scripture which I first found it impossible to reconcile with the views of those who looked upon the 1260 days as so many years, either already passed or nearly so. I could not acquiesce in any of the interpretations given of this chapter. I could not find in history any manifestation of evil that had come up and lasted for 1260 years, which at all agreed with the strong language in which those beasts are described. I was led, therefore, to think it probable that those beasts were yet future, and that the manifestation of evil foretold by them was yet to come, and would last the shorter period of 1260 days. I find this opinion rapidly gaining ground; it seems to be the growing sentiment of those who study prophecy, that we have to expect the yet future manifestation of a short-lived, furious, awful, persecuting power in the latter days of the world and the church. I meet with very many who have lately come to this conclusion. In different minds the process of reasoning has been different, and the steps by which they have arrived at their conclusions various ; some have first been led to adopt the opinion of the 1260 days being literal days, and thence of necessity have been led to expect a short-lived, yet future, persecuting beast; others, like myself, having first been forced to reject the idea of the beast having existed for nearly 1260 years in the world, without the church which it was persecuting being sure what it was, have been obliged to consider the beast as yet future, and therefore the 1260 days of its existence as yet future, and therefore not years, but days. These two opinions, whichever be received the first, stand linked together. He that believes that the vision of the beast, in Rev. xiii. leads the church to expect a yet future, short-lived, furious, persecuting enemy of Christ and his church, must also believe that the period of 1260 days are yet future, as he is to ex

ercise his power during that period; and on the other hand, he that believes that the 1260 days mean the shorter period of literal days, still looks forward to that period as yet to come, and therefore expects the manifestation, during that awful period, of a short-lived, furious, persecuting power-a power such as has never yet appeared in the world, and which will sift the inhabitants of the earth in a way such as has never yet occurred. "And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them; and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life." (Rev. xiii. 6, 7, 8.)

It is further said, in connection with this, of the second beast, in the same chapter, verse 15, " And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, and that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." Here we have revealed to us, that it is the purpose of Him who doeth whatsoever he will both in heaven and in earth, that there shall be manifested such a fiery test, to try all those that are upon the earth, as I am at a loss to conceive how any person can think has yet appeared in the world-a test that shall, indeed, separate the pure gold from the counterfeit; that, wherever its operation extends, shall accurately separate between mere professors of the Gospel of Christ, and the true followers of the Lamb. Such will be the violence and the prevalence of that persecuting power, that none shall have strength to stand against him, but those who are strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. "All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." But these shall find Christ's grace sufficient for them; they will not count their lives dear unto themselves, that they may finish their course with joy, and testify the Gospel of the grace of Christ; they will be faithful unto death, and Christ will give them a crown of life. In the next chapter, verse 14th, we have written, for the warning of all those who are disposed to flatter themselves that they may, without danger to their souls, yield to the storm of persecution, and deny Christ and his truth, to save their lives from the sword of the persecutor, a plain, explicit declaration of the fate of all those who shall purchase the beast's favour by falling down before his image: verse 9th, "And the third angel followed them, saying, with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out, without mixture, into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and