WE know of no proof that the righteous will be raised a thousand years before the wicked. The Lord says, “The hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation.” We see no thousand years between the resurrection of those that have done good and those that have done evil here.
The quotation from John v. 28–29, above, connects the coming of Christ and the resurrection, and the following connects the coming of Christ and the judgment: “I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing (his coming) and kingdom.” II. Tim. iv. 1. Other Scriptures show the same. At the close of Matt. xxv. it will be seen, as it is from other Scriptures, that all will be judged at the same time, and at the same time that the righteous “enter into life eternal” the wicked “go away into everlasting punishment.” This connects the coming of Christ, the resurrection, the judgment, the separation of the righteous and the wicked, and the entrance into life on the one hand, and the going away into everlasting punishment on the other hand.
We listened to the Millerites in 1843, read pretty much all they wrote about a thousand years’ reign of Christ, between the resurrection of those who are Christ’s and those who are not his, and whatever the thousand years may mean in words, “the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were ended,” we find no clear evidence of its coming between the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked. Sundry Scriptures show that the judgment of all, will be at the same time.
Christ sitting on the throne of David does not make him a king, in the temporal sense, as David was, but only that he is in the royal family, and, in the sense of that Scripture, he is now in that reign, and not to be in the Millennium. In the end he will deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet. See I. Cor. xv. 24, 25. “When all things shall be subdued to him, then shall the Son also himself be subject to him, who put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” I. Cor. xv. 28. The Lord has come to receive a kingdom, and is now reigning over that kingdom—a kingdom not of this world—and on David’s throne, in the only sense he ever will be.
[METHODIST CLERICAL PRETENSIONS.]
WHO duly appointed the ministry in the Methodist body? A body that is not, and admits that it is not, the body of Christ! Where did this body get authority to appoint a ministry? It has no authority to appoint any thing in the kingdom of God. Who “divinely called” the ministry in the Methodist body? Not the Lord, for he has no Methodist body. He never called a man to minister in a body that he never authorized. The men called in that body were not called of God at all, nor divinely called. They either called themselves, or were called by a body that has no divine authority in it, and therefore are not divinely called. Nor are they divinely qualified. The apostles were divinely qualified. They had the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth. They never preached any Methodism, nor built up any Methodist churches. They never authorized a Methodist steward, class-leader, circuit-rider, presiding elder, or bishop, any more than they authorized that unmeaning bread and water love-feast, the band-society, the class-meeting, circuit or conference, either quarterly, annual or general. The Methodist church has not a duly-appointed ministry, a divinely-called and sent, or divinely-qualified ministry in it. Its worship, ordinances and discipline are not duly nor scripturally administered. Indeed, it has but little in it that hears any similitude to the original church. To talk of its having a divinely-qualified ministry will strike any one a little acquainted with the Scriptures with peculiar force. A more absurd idea could hardly be uttered.
The apostles were divinely called, sent and qualified, and should one of them appear in a Methodist revival, where persons are “seeking religion,” crying, “What shall we do?” as they did on Pentecost, and answer as Peter did on that occasion, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” in the place of the loud response, “Amen,” dismay would run all along the line, and the divinely-qualified ministry would want the divinely-qualified apostle out of the meeting. His voice would be a strange voice in their meeting. If he were to tell the seekers, as Ananias did Saul, “Why do you tarry? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord,” they would soon want him out of their meeting.