millennium is to last three hundred and sixty-five thousand years. During this period, be it longer or shorter, the Church is to enjoy a season of peace, purity, and blessedness such as it has never yet experienced.
The principal reason for assuming that the prophets predict a glorious state of the Church prior to the second advent, is, that they represent the Church as being thus prosperous and glorious on earth. But we know that when Christ comes again the heavens and earth are to pass away, and that no more place will be found for them. The seat of the Church, after the second coming, is not to be the earth, but a new heavens and a new earth. As therefore the Scriptures teach that the kingdom of Christ is to extend over all the earth ; that all nations are to serve Him ; and that all people shall call Him blessed ; it is to be inferred that these predictions refer to a state of things which is to exist before the second coming of Christ. This state is described as one of spiritual prosperity ; God will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh ; knowledge shall everywhere abound ; wars shall cease to the ends of the earth, and there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord. This does not imply that there is to be neither sin nor sorrow in the world during this long period, or that all men are to be true Christians. The tares are to grow together with the wheat until the harvest. The means of grace will still be needed ; conver- sion and sanctification will be then what they ever have been. It is only a higher measure of the good which the Church has experienced in the past that we are taught to anticipate in the future. This however is not the end. After this and after the great apostasy which is to follow, comes the consummation.
The Consummation.
12. When Christ comes again it will be to be admired in all them that believe. Those who are then alive will be changed, in the twinkling of an eye ; their corruptible shall put on incor- ruption, and their mortal shall put on immortality. Those who are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and come forth to the resurrection of life, their bodies fashioned like unto the glorious body of the Son of God. Thus changed, both classes shall be ever with the Lord.
The place of the final abode of the righteous is sometimes called a house; as when the Saviour said: "In my Father's house are many mansions " (John xiv. 2) ; sometimes " a city,
860 PA11T IV. Ch. IV. — THE SECOND ADVENT.
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." (Heb. xi. 10.) Under this figure it is called the new or heavenly Jeru- salem, so gorgeously described in the twenty-first chapter of the Apocalypse. Sometimes it is spoken of as " a better country, that is an heavenly " (Heb. xi. 16) ; a country through which flows the river of the water of life, and " on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month : and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse : but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it ; and his servants shall serve Him : and they shall see his face , and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there : and they need no candle, neither light of the sun ; for the Lord God giveth them light : and they shall reign for ever and ever." (Rev. xxii. 2-5.) Sometimes the final abode of the redeemed is called a "new heavens and a new earth." (2 Pet. iii. 13.)
As to the blessedness of this heavenly state we know that it is inconceivable : " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath pre- pared for them that love Him." (1 Cor. ii. 9.)
" We know not, O we know not, What joys await us there ; What radiancy of glory, What bliss beyond compare."
We know however: (1.) That this incomprehensible blessed- ness of heaven shall arise from the vision of God. This vision is beatific. It beatifies. It transforms the soul into the divine image ; transfusing into it the divine life, so that it is filled with the fulness of God. This vision of God is in the face of Jesus Christ, in whom dwells the plenitude of the divine glory bodily. God is seen in fashion as a man ; and it is this manifestation of God in the person of Christ that is inconceivably and intolerably ravishing. Peter, James, and John became as dead men when they saw his glory, for a moment, in the holy mount. (2.) The blessedness of the redeemed will flow not only from the mani- festation of the glory, but also of the love of God ; of that love, mysterious, unchangeable, and infinite, of which the work of redemption is the fruit. (3.) Another element of the future happiness of the saints is the indefinite enlargement of all their faculties. (4.) Another is their entire exemption from all sin and sorrow. (5.) Another is their intercourse and fellowship