The opponents of the millenarians rely principally upon the passages in which the resurrection of the good and evil is spoken of as if it were simultaneous, or with- out any considerable interval of time interposed. They appeal also to the passages in the tiospels and I'pisiles ill which the general judgment is connected immedi-
ately with the second advent. Their conception of the prospects and destiny of the kingdom of Christ are de- rived from passages like the parables of the leaven, of the mustard-seed, and of the husbanilman. Tliat it was expedient for Christ to go away from his disciples in order that his visible presence might give way to liis invisible presence and influence everywhere, and to the dispensation of the Spirit, is considered an argument against the general philos(jphy on which the niilleua- rian tenet rests. It is thought to be more consonant with the genius of Christianity, as contrasted with the Jewish economy, to look for a triumph of the Gospel in the earth by moral forces and by the agency of the Holy Spirit within the souls of men, than to expect the stu- pendous miracle of Christ's reappearance as a Kider on this globe, for the spiritusil subjugation of unbelievers and enemies. Hence those who reject Chiliasm give a figurative rendering to the prophetic passages in the Apocalypse which are the most plausible argument for that theory. The tendency of the millenarian theory to chill the hopes, and thus repress the missionary activ- ity of Christians, by exhibiting the world as in a process of deterioration, and by representing the efforts of Chris- tians to convert mankind as fruitless, until the coming of Christ, constitutes not the least serious objection to such opinions.
There is in England at the present time an energetic propaganda of millenarian notions, called the " Prophecj' Investigation Society," which consists of fifty members, some of them prominent Churchmen, and which has published a series of volumes on prophetic subjects, add- ing largely to apocalyptic literature. There are also numerous journals published in England to support these views. The most important is the Quarterly Janrnal of Prophen/, edited by Dr. IJonar, of the Free Church of Scotland, which has been established fourteen years, and has a large circidation. The Rainhoic is a monthly periodical ; the Christian Observer, the monthly journal of the evangelicals, often displays millenarian tenden- cies. There are, besides, numerous weeklies of small circulation, the chief being the Revivalist, originally es- tablished to promote revivals in personal religion, but now devoted to the spread of millenarian views. Nor is the interest in this subject confined to Dissenters in England or Scotland; a certain class of minds in the Established Church seem to be just as strongly contam- inated. For many successive years, during Lent, courses of lectures have been delivered in St. George's Church, Bloomsbury, on the subject of the second advent, by clergymen of the Church of England. The course for the year 1849 was printed, under the title of The Priest upon his Thnntc. being lectures by twelve clergymen of the Church of England, with a Preface by the Kev. James Haldane Stewart, :M.A., rector of Limi>slield(Lond.lH49). This is, next to Dr. IJrown's Second Coming of our Lord, the ablest book against the millenarian doctrine. One of the latest productions in English is The Pud of all Things, or the Coming of Christ, by an anonymous author, a clergyman of the Church of England. It is an argument against millenarianism, and is interesting for its sketch of the rise of the doctrine with the well- meaning but weak-minded Papias, and its progress through all the sects and .shades of belief, until "more than half of the evangelical clergy of the Church of England are at this moment millenarians."
Among the most important writings on the millen- nium are Corrodi, Krit. O'esrh. d. Chiliasmus (Frankfort, 1871); Dorner, Gesch. d. Person Christi,v(>\. i; Herzog, Peal-Knri/klop. art. Chiliasmus. See also the cxegeti- cal criticism in Kothe's Dogmatik, pt. ii, sec. ii. Jlost of the recent treatises on doctrinal theology — for exam- ple, that of Gass, Dogmingeschichte, ii, 477 sq. ; and the able work by Dr. Hodge— contain discussions of this subject. Among the special writers on the subject may be consulted, on the millenarian side, Mede, Abt)adie, Beverley. Burnet, Hartley, Price, Frere, Irving, Birks, Bickersteth, Brooks, the duke of Manchester, Begg,
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Burgh, Greswell, Gilfillan, Bonar, Elliot, Homes, Bur- cliell. Wood, Tyso, Molyiieiix, etc. ; and on the other side, bishop Hall, E. Baxter, Gipps, Dr. David Brown, Waldegrave, Fairbairn, Urwick, Bush, and many others. Floerke (evangelical pastor in Llibz), Die Lehre vom tausendjdhrigen Reiche. Eiii theolof/ischer Versuch. (Mar- burg, 1859, 8vo) ; Volck, Der Chiliasmus seiner neuesten Bekdmpfuwi cjegeniiher, eine historisch-exegelische Studie (Dorpat, 18G9, 8vo); Carson, The Personal Reign of Christ during the Millennium jn-oved to be impossible (1873, 12mo); Second Adventism in the Light of Jeivish Bistorg, hv the Rev. T. M. Hopkins, edited by Joseph R. Boyd, D.D. (N. Y. 1873, 12mo). The following peri- odicals may be consulted to advantage : Church of Eng- land Rev. 1854, Oct. p. 443; Lond. Rev. No. x, art. ix; Aleth. Qu. Rev. 1845, Jan. art. v and vii ; 1850, July, p. 485; 1851, April, p. 325; 1868, Oct. p. 615; Kitto,Jo«?-- nal nf Sacred Literature, 1854, July, p. 505; Oct. p. 19 sq. ; 1856, Jan. p. 467 ; Amer. Presb. Rev. 1861, April, p. 403; 1864, April, p. 177 sq.; July. p. 411 ; 1«(;5, Ajiril, p. 195; Princet. Rev. 1867, Jan. p. 160 ; Eninii, I. (In. Rev. 1861, Jan. art. ii ; 1868, July, p. 337; Thcohigk-al Medium (Cumberland Presb. Church), 1873, April, art. ix ; Bib- liotheca Sacra, 1873, Jan. art. iv; Qu. Rev. Evang. Luth. Church, 1873, Jan. art. ii. (G. P. F.)