many Christian Fathers,1 derived perhaps from Jewish Rabbies, those bones and that resurrection are to be construed, not simply of the living Jewish people, and their fall and resuscitation, but of the Jewish saints departed also, and their bodily resurrection, in common with Christian saints, at the time of Israel's restoration.Yet once more, (to close my Old Testament citations,) there is the memorable case of Daniel xii. 2, 13: in which chapter the resurrection of the just, and their shining as the sun in the firmament, is made to occur at the time of Israel's last trouble and deliverance, near about the end of the 1260 days; and the declaration made in chronological terms yet more exact, that at the end of 1335 days, or years, the time of blessedness would begin, and Daniel himself stand in his lot (i. e. his inheritance) at the end of those days.3 I have hinted that it was thus that the Jewish expositors that lived between the return from Babylon and destruction of Jerusalem understood the passages cited: in proof of which statement I subjoin a few extracts. 1 For example, Irenæus, v. 15, after citing the whole vision in proof of the doctrine of a resurrection, sums up thus: "Demiurgo et hic vivificante corpora nostra mortua, et resurrectionem eis repromittente, et de sepulchris et monumentis suscitationem et incorruptelam donante." (Is. xxvi. 19, "Thy dead shall live, [together with] my dead body shall they arise," &c., is another Old Testament prophecy here also cited by him)-So again v. 34.-Similar to this is Tertullian's explanation of Ezekiel's vision; (De Resurr. Carn. ch. 30;) though he allows that it may also signify the Jews' restoration; and Cyprian's, Testim. iii. 53: also Cyril, Hieros. Cat. 18. Augustine in his De Genesi ad Lit. x. 8, referring to it, says, Apud Ezechielem prophetam demonstratur resurrectio mortuorum;" but adds presently after, "etiamsi illo loco non resurrectionem carnis, qualis propriè futura est, sed inopinatam desperati populi reparationem per Spiritum Domini figuratâ revelatione prævidit."-So once more the Author of the Quæst. et Respons, appended to Justin Martyr's Works, Quæst. 45. Ην δε επι το Εξεκιηλ τα παντα οπτασια, και όσεα, και ἡ τούτων αναςασις· δεικνυσι δε τῳ προφητῃ ταυτην την οπτασίαν ὁ Θεός, προηγουμένως μεν μηνυων δι' αυτης εσομένην δια Χρισου πάντων κοσμικήν αναςασιν την εκ νεκρών, επειτα δε και την ψυχαγωγιαν των Ισραηλιτων των απογνόντων ἑαυτους τῳ δεδουλωσθαι, ότι ελευθεροι εσονται της των Βαβυλωνιων βασιλείας. κληρονομιά. 2 3. The article must be observed. It fixes the meaning to the days just before mentioned, viz. the 1335 days. It is violence to the text to give it any other meaning. 41. On Hosea vi. 2, "After two days will he revive us; in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight," the Chaldee Targum (a comment it is supposed of the time of Ezra) thus expounds the passage. "Vivificabit nos diebus consolationis qui venturi sunt :-die resurrectionis mortuorum suscitabit nos; et vivemus cùm ipso." (Schoettgen, vi. 6.) And though a different construction has been put upon them by ancient as well as modern anti-premillennarians, as if they were simply prophecies of the revival and resuscitation of Israel, (as well as of the world with it,) from a state of national and religious depression,' still, while allowing that this is in part their subject, and its being so is of course an essential point in my argument,) yet I think that the Jews rightly viewed them as including also distinct predictions of the literal resurrection 2. On Hosea xiv. 8, the Rabbi Eliezer the Great, who is supposed to have lived just after the second temple was built, thus applies it to the pious Jews who seemed likely to die without seeing the glory of Israel; "As I live, saith Jehovah, I will raise you up in the time to come, in the resurrection of the dead; and I will gather you with all Israel." (Brooks' Elements, p, 36.) 3. The Author of the Book of Wisdom, a Jew of high antiquity, some say two centuries before the Christian æra, (see Gray's Key,) and at the latest of the first century, says in chap. ii, verses 7, 8, of the dead; "In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble; they shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the peoples; and their Lord shall reign for ever." 4. In 2 Maccab. vii. 9, the second of the seven brethren put to death by Antiochus is represented to have said, "Thou takest us out of this present life, but the king of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, to everlasting life." The fourth brother (verse 14) said, "As for thee thou shalt have no resurrection to life." And the youngest showed that they expected this resurrection to life by virtue of the covenant with Abraham: saying, verse 36, "For our brethren, who now have suffered a short pain, are dead under God's covenant of everlasting life." For, says Macknight, Essay v. § 3, prefixed to his Comment on Epistle to the Galatians, "What covenant of everlasting life did God ever make with the Jews, under which they could die; unless it be the covenant with Abraham, in which He promised with an oath to give him and his seed the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession? " The author of this second Book of Maccabees is judged to have lived a century or more B. c. at Alexandria. 5. When the Rabbi Gamaliel (St. Paul's Master) was asked by the Sadducees to prove out of the Scripture the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, he is said to have cited among other passages, Deut. xi. 21, "That thy days may be multiplied, in the land which the Lord sware to thy fathers to give them ;" Deut. xxxi. 16, "But thou (Moses) shalt sleep with thy fathers;" as well as Isa. xxvi. 19, Thy dead men shall rise," &c which last seemed to give explanation how the fathers, though asleep, were yet to inherit. (Mede, Book iii,) 6. Let me add the Rabbi Saadias Gaon, thus interpreting Dan. xii. 2. "This is the resurrection of the dead of Israel, whose lot is to eternal life but those who do not awake are the destroyed of the Lord, who go to the habitation beneath, that is Gehenna; and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." (Bickersteth on Prophecy, 277.)-This Rabbi, though of the late date of the tenth century, yet seems to have given the exposition of more ancient Jewish expositors. So Vitringa in his Apocalypse, p. 1159, and in his Commentary on Isaiah xxvi. 19: referring to the prophecies, not only of Ezek. xxxvii and Hosea vi. 2, but even of Dan. xii. 2, as to be taken in the same sense. So too Rosenmuller on Ezek. xxxvii; who cites these same passages from other prophets. He also quotes Jerome's Comment on Ezek. xxxvii, to the same effect.-It is needless to multiply other names. of the saints literally dead, cotemporaneously with Israel's figurative resuscitation. For, in some cases at least, the language seems unequivocal; and the apostolic comment fixes the sense in others.2 And thus we come to consider more directly and fully what is the light of the New Testament on the point in question. Now with regard to Christ himself this is observable, not only that He did not reprove the Pharisees (the then disciples of the Rabbinical school referred to) for erroneous opinions about the resurrection; but rather seemed to hold with them. For, by adopting their phrase "in Abraham's bosom," to designate the place or state of holy spirits departed from among them, the expectants of a joyful resurrection, He almost sanctioned their view of the resurrection as involved in, and guaranteed by, the covenant-promise of inheriting the land, made to their representative head and father Abraham; and by adopting another of their phrases, the resurrection of the just, might also seem to sanction in a measure their views of its distinctive character: not to add that, on two different occasions, He assured to his twelve disciples a participation in the future government of the twelve tribes of Israel, at his advent, and in his kingdom;5 which parti I may especially rest on the prophecy in Dan. xii. 2, compared with verse 13 of the same chapter. Clarius, (an anti-premillennarian commentator in the Critici Sacri,) constrained by the clearness of the language, writes thus on Dan. xii. 2, 13, and notices the general concurrence both of Jewish and Christian expositors in so explaining it: "Hic apertissimè locus est de Resurrectionè etiam Judæis sapientioribus consentientibus: tametsi cùm Chiliastis videantur sentire. -Omnium Catholicorum et peritorum Hebræorum consensu in hoc ultimo versu resurrectio promittitur." And so too Calmet. Even Grotius himself, the most bold perhaps of anti-premillennarians, after a very singular primary exposition of the passage on that principle, (as if "Thou shalt stand in thy lot," meant Præfecturam quam habes retinebis, and "At, or to, the end of the days," ad plenam senectutem,) yet is forced to add, "Videntur tamen studio ita concepta verba ut illud Quiesces de morte sumi possit, et Stabis significare avasnon, (quomodo vertit Theodotion,) et finis dierum finem universi." He takes notice of the article, " the days."-So too Porphyry, says Wintle in loc. 2 Hence Lowth on Isa. xxv. 8, allows that the prophecy can only be fulfilled at the general resurrection. 3 Luke xvi. 22. 4 Luke xiv. 14. See Macknight, Essay v. § 3. 5 1st. Matt. xix. 28; "Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, (τy waλiyyeveoig,) when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, shall also sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." In which passage the remarkable expression "in the regeneration," or renovation," will be referred to under the next cipation they could only have through and after a resurrection from the dead, so timed as the Pharisees expected. Nor were the disciples led even by his latest instructions otherwise to view the matter. It seems to me very remarkable that after Christ's resurrection, just when He had been speaking to them of the things of "the kingdom of God," they asked him, "If he would at that time restore the kingdom to Israel;" as if the Jewish view of the synchronism of Israel's restoration and Messiah's kingdom was admitted in these conversations nor were they corrected by Christ, but only told that it was not for them to know the times and seasons.1 -To the same effect was St. Paul's declaration, when pleading before Agrippa, that he was judged for the hope of the promise made of God to the fathers; “to which promise the twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hoped to come :' compared with his previous saying, "Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." For there can be no doubt that the promise to which the hopes of the twelve tribes were instantly directed, was that of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel: which event consequently was thus distinctly associated by the Apostle with the resurrection of the just. Besides which we have, as before said, his memorable comment in 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55, on certain prophecies already cited from Isaiah and Hosea, which treat of the time and circumstances and blessedness of Israel's restoration: a comment which represents them as to be fulfilled at the time, and in the fact, of the saints' glorious resurrection.1 head. 2nd. Luke xxii. 28, 29; "Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations: and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Acts i. 7. 3 Acts xxiii. 6, xxiv. 21. 2 Acts xxvi. 6, 7. 1 4 1 Cor. xv. 54; So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? "`In the former of these verses his reference is to Isa. xxv. 8: "In this mountain he will destroy the vail that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death in victory." In the latter he refers to Hosea xiii. 14: "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction." 4. And with this agree also the New Testament representations of the synchronism of Christ's advent and the saints' resurrection with the time of the general predicted blessedness of the world-a blessedness originally connected in the Abrahamic covenant with the promise to Abraham's own seed and family,' and which in Old Testament prophecy is so intermingled with the promises just considered to Israel, that it is difficult altogether to separate the consideration of the one from the other: though I think it well for distinctness' sake here to attempt it. μεσια Thus, as a first example, there is the passage from Matt. xix. 28, cited to illustrate another point under the former head,) which makes mention of the great future παλιγγενεσία or regeneration, For what the παλιγγεspoken of but the state when Christ shall make all things new,2 and this earth be restored to paradisiacal blessedness? In which state, however, and over which renovated earth, Christ here declares that the apostles (evidently raised from the dead for the purpose) shall, together with their Lord, have the authority and government.* 3 My second passage is that notable one in St. Peter's sermon, after the miraculous restoration of the lame man by the temple-gate, just after the Holy Spirit's effusion on the day of Pentecost: 5" Repent ye, therefore, and 1 Gen. xii. 3, xxii. 18; "In thee (and in thy seed) shall all the families of the earth be blessed."-Compare Rom. xi. 12, 15; "If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, how much more their fullness?" "If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what the receiving of them but life from the dead?" 2 Apoc. xxi. 5; "And he that sate upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new." 3 I cite what follows from Schleusner on the word Пaλıyyeveσia. 'Metaphoricè omnis magna et insignis pristini alicujus rei statûs instauratio, et institutio:-speciatim ille rerum humanarum status quo tristia tempora alia ac lætiora excipiunt fata. Sic. v. c. apud Græcos Scriptores maλiyyeveσia tribuebatur terræ, veris tempore formam suam mutanti; et apud Stoicos mundi in statum meliorem restitutio παλιγγενεσία dicebatur.” He adds that Lucian uses it of the butterfly bursting from its chrysalis; and that the Syriac translation renders it in Matt. xix. 28, "in sæculo novo." 4 Compare Heb. ii. 5.-The Jews supposed angels to be appointed over this earth and its several kingdoms, as I have observed Note p. 119 suprà. 5 Acts iii. 19, &c. I subjoin the original Greek here also, from Scholz. Μετανοήσατε ουν, και επιστρέψατε, εις το εξαλειφθηναι ύμων τας αμαρτίας όπως αν έλθωσι καιροι αναψύξεως από προσώπου του Κυρίου, και αποστειλῃ τον προκεχειρισ μενον* ὑμῖν Ιησουν Χριστον· δν δει ουρανον μεν δεξασθαι αχρι χρονων αποκαταστασεως πάντων, ὧν ελαλησεν ὁ Θεός δια στόματος των άγιων αυτου προφητών απ' αιώνος. So too Rosenmuller. The sense is, Him that was foreordained for you. The |