secondexodus

THE SECOND EXODUS.

When the Lord has "broken to pieces together" all the parts of Nebuchadnezzar's Image -- that is, destroyed that power which bound them all together as one dominion -- the work next to be accomplished in relation to them is to subdue the gold, the silver, the brass, the iron, and the clay -- in other words, the powers represented by them -- that they may become "like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors;" so that, being carried away by the tempest of war, "no place may be found for them," and the subjugating power become as "a great mountain, and fill the whole earth."

But a question arises here which must be answered, or our exposition is at fault, and deficient of a very important link in the, chain of testimony which connects the kingdom of God with the foundation of the world. It is, By what means are "the kingdoms of the world to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ" after he has dissolved the imperial bond of union among them by the glorious victory of Armageddon? Is it to be accomplished by sending missionaries of the tribe of Judah to the nations, preaching to them salvation from hell by Jesus Christ, as missionaries are now doing among the heathen, and inviting them to submit to the spiritual authority of the Lord administered through men of like passions with themselves? Or is it to be brought about by burning up the wicked, and leaving none but the righteous to inherit the earth? Or are the existing orders of bishops, priests, ministers, and missionaries to be employed to bring the nations to the obedience of faith, that they may voluntarily surrender all political power into their hands, as the saints of the Most High God? I answer unhesitatingly, that the conversion of the world to Christ's supremacy will be accomplished by no such fantastical schemes as are implied in these suppositions. The answer to the question is, that the nations will be subdued to the sceptre ol Shiloh by the sword, and that the tribes of Israel will be his soldiers in the war. Besides punishing them for their idolatry, and subsequent unbelief of the gospel of the kingdom preached to Judah in the name of Jesus, Israel has been also scattered among all nations, that they may be ready for the work assigned them in "the time of trouble," which intervenes between the battle of Armageddon, and their final and complete restoration at the end of forty years. Though the dominion of Gogue be broken, the kingdoms and states which acknowledged him as their imperial chief will not voluntarily surrender themselves to another lord, any more than the populations of the old Assyrian empire did when the power of Sennacherib was broken in one night. The effect of his overthrow was only to prepare them for subjection to a more civilized and powerful ruler. In this case, the Lord used the Chaldeans for their subjugation: but in the coming strife he will use the tribes of Israel.

The Lord Jesus Christ at his appearing in his kingdom finds Judah inhabiting the land. Not all the Jews, but a goodly number of them. Having gained the victory of Armageddon, he convenes the elders of the people, which as their deliverer he has a right to do. Thus "they look upon him whom they have pierced" (Zech. 12:10); and one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thy hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends" (Zech. 13:6). The effect of this information upon the people is to cause a national lamentation. They will then discover that He to whom they owe their deliverance from Gogue is Jesus of Nazareth, whom their fathers crucified. They will therefore "mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and will be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. In that day, there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo" (Zech. 12:10-14; Rev. 1:7). Two-thirds of the people will have been cut off by the war against Gogue, and the third which survives will have passed through the fiery ordeal. It will have been a refining process in which they will have been refined like silver, and tried as gold is tried. Thus prepared, "a spirit of grace and of supplications" will be poured upon them, and they will call on the name of the Lord, and he will hear them" (Zech. 13:9), and open for them a fountain for sin and for uncleanness (ver. 1). He will say, "It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord (even Jesus) is my God" (ver. 9). Thus will Judah be grafted again into their own olive, and brought to acknowledge Jesus as King of the Jews, and to confess that "he is Lord to, the glory of God the Father."

The New Covenant being made with the house of Judah, the kingdom is established. Not, however, to its full extent. It is but the kingdom in its small beginning, as when David reigned in Hebron over Judah only. The Lord Jesus, as King of Judah, will have to bring the ten tribes and nations generally to acknowledge him as King of Israel and Lord of the whole earth. What would the reader think of the little kingdom of Greece undertaking to subdue the whole world to the sovereignty of Otho? Yet when the Lord appears in his little kingdom of Judea, he will undertake to deliver every Israelite in bondage, establish David's kingdom to its full extent, overturn all kingdoms and dominions among the Gentiles, abolish all their superstitions, enlighten them in the truth, and bring them to submit to him joyfully as their lawgiver, high priest, and king. He will begin this mighty enterprize with Judah for "he hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle. And they shall be as mighty men, which tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded" (Zech. 10:3-5). "And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the Lord of hosts their God. In that day," saith the Lord, "I will make the governors of Judah like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left" (Zech. 12:6). Such is the illustration of their prowess. The nations shall be as wood, or as sheaves, subjected to the action of fire. They may resist, but they are as certain of being subdued without further power of resistance as a lighted torch thrust into a sheaf of grain is of consuming it so that nothing be left. "They shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of their feet" (Mal. 4:3). Their conquests will begin with the countries contiguous to Judea. For when the Assyrian shall invade their land, the judge of Israel having caused him to fall, "Judah shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof, thus shall he "that is to be ruler in Israel" deliver them from the Assyrian when he cometh into their land, and when he treadeth within their borders. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord" (Mic. 5:1-7).

Having thus conquered the land which God promised to Abraham and his seed for an everlasting possession, and made Judah as a bent bow in the hand of the king, the next thing is for the Lord to fill it with Ephraim as his arrow-headed weapon of war (Zec.9:12-16). In other words, "the Lord will seek to destroy all the nations that came against Jerusalem" (Zech. 12:9) under the banner of Gogue; and to accomplish this so as at the same time to bring back the ten tribes to the land of Canaan, he will cause Judah to make war upon Greece, and blow the trumpet to war against the ten kingdoms of the habitable, and the populations of the west among whom "the remnant of Jacob" is dispersed. These scattered tribes will have been "hissed for" or invited to leave the lands of their oppressors, and to make common cause with Judah. They will respond to the invitation; and as "the arrow of the Lord they will go forth as lightning; and they shall devour and subdue" (Zech. 9:14-16). "And they shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine. And I will bring them, saith the Lord, again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and Ephraim shall pass through the sea with affliction and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up; and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down; and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away" (Zech. 10:7-11; Isaiah 11:15,16).

Let us, then, attend more particularly now to the relation subsisting between the king of Israel and his ten tribes, designated as "Ephraim," and "the remnant of Jacob in the word. Addressing them, the Lord says by the prophet, Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war; for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms: with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers" (Jer. 51:20-23). This has never been the case since the prophecy was delivered; it remains, therefore, to be fulfilled. With Judah as his goodly war horse and well-strung bow, filled with the Ephraim-arrow, and wielding the Israel-battle-axe, "the Lord will go forth with the whirlwinds of the south." "The remnant of Jacob will" then "be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver." By such a weapon as this, the Lord will "execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard" (Mic. 5:8,15).

But, I have said, that this belligerent state of things between the King of Israel and the nations of Gogue's dominion, styled "the goats," will continue for forty years. The subjugation will be gradual as Israel is made to "go through" from kingdom to kingdom. "Feed thy people," saith the prophet, "with thy rod, the flock of thy heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood; let them feed in Bastian and Gilead as in the days of old." In answer to this petition, the Lord replies, "According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto him (Israel) marvellous things." This is forty years; for so long were they in passing from Egypt to Canaan, which was the type of their coming out from among the nations to the holy land under the generalship of Elijah, the Lord's harbinger, to the Ten Tribes. The "marvellous things" to be shown them will not be performed in private, but will be as notorious as the plagues of Egypt; for "the nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth; they shall be afraid of the Lord the God of Israel, and shall fear because of thee" (Mic. 7:14-17).

The more immediate consequence of these exterminating wars will be the cessation of all further resistance in the north, which will have been thus compelled to "give up" the Israelites among them, and to let them go and serve in "the wilderness of the people." They will not march directly into the Holy Land, because the generation of Israelites who leave the north, will be no more fit for immediate settlement there than their fathers were who left Egypt under Moses. They would be as rebellious under the Government of Shiloh as that generation whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, and concerning whom "Jehovah [Yahweh] sware in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest." They must, therefore, be subjected to discipline, and trained up under the divine admonition. But, notwithstanding all the "marvellous things" they will have witnessed, they will prove themselves true to the character of their fathers, who were stiff-necked and perverse, and resistant always of the spirit of God; so that they will not be permitted to enter into the land of Israel. Their children, however, will come thither from "the land of the enemy," and attain to their own border (Jer. 31:15-17). The reader will, doubtless, desire to know upon what ground I affirm these things. This is as it ought to be; for he should set his face like a flint, and refuse credence to any thing and every thing which is not sustained by "the testimony of God." Turn, then, to the prophet Ezekiel, where it is thus written, "As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you: and I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face; like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod; and will bring you into a delivering of the covenant: and I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the Lord" (Ezek. 20:33-38). While they are in this wilderness it is, that the Lord Jesus becomes "a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to the house of Israel," as he had before been to Judah; and the consequence is, that "the rebels among them" are excluded flom the blessings of Shiloh's government, and eternal life and glory in the then world to come. Nothing can be plainer than Ezekiel's testimony. If the reader know how the Lord pleaded with Israel face to face in the wilderness by the hand of Moses, he will well understand the ordeal that yet awaits the tribes to qualify them for admission into the Holy Land. The Lord's power and the angel were with them in the wilderness of Arabia, but they saw not his person; so, I judge, will the Lord Jesus and some of the saints be with Israel in their second Exodus, seen perhaps by their leaders, as the Elohim were by Moses, Aaron, the elders, and by Joshua; but not visible to the multitude of the people, who must walk by faith and not by sight; for, though God is able to graft them in again, he can only do it upon a principle of faith; for the condition of their restoration laid down in his word is, "if they abide not in unbelief they shall be grafted in again." It would seem from the testimony of Malachi, who prophesied concerning the ten tribes, that while they are in the wilderness of the people they will be disciplined by the law of Moses as their national code, while things concerning Jesus will be propounded to them as matter of faith; for it is testified by Hosea that they shall be gathered, and "shall sorrow a little for the burden of the King of princes" (Hos. 8:10). The person with whom they will have more immediately to do in their second exodus is Elijah. There would seem to be a fitness in this. In the days of their fathers, when they forsook the Lord and abolished the law of Moses, Elijah was the person whose ministerial life was occupied in endeavouring to "restore all things." Though be did much to vindicate the name and law of Jehovah {Yahweh], he was taken away in the midst of his labours. For what purpose? That he might at a future period resume his work and perfect it by restoring all things among the ten tribes according to the law of Moses, preparatory to their being planted in their land under a new covenant to be made witb them there (Mal. 4:4-6; Jer. 31:31). But it may be objected, that Elijah has come already, and that John the baptist was he. True, in a certain sense he was. John was Elijah to the house of Judah in the sense of his having come "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17). But John was not the Elijah who talked with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration. The latter is Elijah to the house of Israel. The scribes taught that Elijah must precede Christ; which Jesus approved, saying "Elijah truly shall first come, and restore all things." He said this after John was put to death. John did not restore all things; but Elijah will, and that too before the Lord Jesus makes himself known to the ten tribes, whom he will meet in Egypt.

The period of Israel's probation drawing to a close, they will have advanced as far as Egypt on their return to Canaan, as it is written, "They shall return to Egypt" (Hos. 8:13). This is necessary, for it is written also in more senses than one, "Out of Egypt have I called my son." As they are to be gathered from the west, north, and east, they will have gone through the countries by a circuitous route to Egypt. They are to be gathered from Assyria, or the countries of Gogue's dominion; but I have not yet discovered in the word the line of march they are to follow in arriving at Egypt. But that they are to be assembled there is certain; for it is written, "I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt." This was spoken some two hundred years after the overthrow of Samaria; and it is indisputable that neither Israel nor Judah have been again brought out of Egypt to inhabit their land: the exodus from Egypt is therefore still in the future. But in coming out of Egypt they will have to cross both the Nile and the Red Sea; and although their march thither will have been one of conquest, it will not have been unattended with defeat, because of their own rebelliousness. The hearts of their enemies will be hardened to their own destruction to the last conflict. The south will still be disposed to "keep back" Israel from their country. Therefore, in leaving Egypt, "Ephraim shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away" (Zech. 10:10,11). The combined forces of Egypt and Assyria shall be broken as the hosts of Pharoah, and the horse and the rider be drowned in the depths of the sea. For "the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make Israel go over dry shod. . . . like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt" (Isaiah 11:15,16).

They will now sing the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb, who will have given them such a mighty deliverance from all their enemies. Being now "the ransomed of the Lord, they shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." The prophet, "like unto Moses," mightier than Joshua, and "greater than Solomon," will conduct them into the Holy Land; and, having delivered to them the New Covenant, will "settle them after their old estates." Having "wrought with them for his own name's sake," and by them as his "battle-axe and weapons of war, subdued the nations, and brought them to his holy mountain, he will "accept them there," and "there shall all, the house of Israel, all of them in the land," as one nation and one kingdom under Shiloh "serve the Lord God" (Ezek. 37:21-28; 20:40; 34:22-31).

Thus in forty years the little kingdom of Judea will have become "a great mountain," or empire filling the whole earth." According to my chronology the world will then be epochally 5995-'8 years old; that is 4089 years to the birth of Christ, three years and eight months before the vulgar era, which must be added to the two periods 1866-'8 and 40, which altogether yield 5995-'8 years, from the birth of Adarn on the sixth day, to the morning of the Seventh Day of 1000 years' duration. The "Economy of the Fulness of Times" will now have fairly commenced, and the Day of Christ in all the glory of the Sun of Righteousness have opened in all its blessedness upon the nations of the earth. The gospel preached to Abraham, saying "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed," will be a reality. The Lord, with Judah as his bended bow and Israel for his arrow, having subdued the nations, and "bound their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron" as his conquests progressed, will have transferred their much-abused power to his saints (Rev. 2:26, 27), who shall rule them with a rod of iron which cannot be broken. Having received his law (Isaiah 42: 4), and experienced the justice of its administration, "all nations will call him blessed," and "daily will he be praised." An universal jubilee will celebrate the admiration of mankind and their devotion to the King of all the earth. The world will no more resound with wars' alarms for a thousand years; and among the highest there will be glory to God, on the earth there will be peace and good-will among men (Luke 2:14) The mission of the Lord's Christ will have been gloriously fulfilled. He will have raised up the tribes of Jacob, restored the preserved of Israel, and been the salvation of Jehovah [Yahweh] to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6). In his days there will be abundance of peace; for the nations will beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into scythes, and practise war no more. "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem" as the metropolis of the world; "neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil "heart " (Jer. 3:17). The things they delight in will then be an abomination to them; for "the Gentiles shall come unto the Lord from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things in which there is no profit" (Jer. 16:19). When enlightened by the Lord this will be their judgment of the "names and denominations," pagan, mohammedan, papal, and protestant, which now as a covering vail spread over all nations (Isaiah 25:7), darken their understandings, and alienate them from the life of God.

But when the King of Israel and his Saints shall rule the world, all these superstitions will be for ever abolished, and mankind will be of one faith and practice. They will speak one religious language, and serve Jehovah [Yahweh] with unanimity; for, says he, "Then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord with one consent " (Zeph. 3:9). This must, indeed, be the Lord's doings, for who among men has the wisdom, knowledge, and power to bring the nations to speak intelligibly on religious subjects, and to be of one religion! The sword only can prepare the way for this. Mankind must be made to "lick the dust like a serpent," before they will consent to change their creeds for eternal truth. Judgment will bring them to reason, and they will say at length, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:3). Under such teaching as this the work will be accomplished.

As to Israel, the Lord will have gotten them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame; and have made them a name and a praise among all the people of the earth (Zeph. 3:19,20). "All nations shall call them blessed, for they shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts" (Mal. 3:12). Instead of being a bye-word and a reproach, as at this day, the Gentiles will glory in their patronage; for "in those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, we will go,with you; for we have heard that God is with you" (Zech. 8:23). Yes, the kingdom and throne of David will then be in their midst again, and Christ the Lord God, and Holy One of Israel, sitting upon it in power and great glory. The gospel of the kingdom will be no longer a matter of hope, but a reality; and those who have believed it, and submitted cheerfully and lovingly to the law of faith in the obedience it requires, and have perfected their faith by works meet for repentance, will be shining "as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever" (Dan. 12:3). This is the Hope of Israel which is set before men in the gospel, and for which Paul was bound in a chain. It is a very different one to that exhibited in pulpit-theology; yet it is that which must be embraced as the soul's anchorage, if a man would be saved, and inherit the kingdom of God.

Such will be the order of things for a thousand years. But, though truth and righteousness will have gained the ascendency and have prevailed for so long a period, sin will still exist in the flesh, and in some instances reveal itself in overt acts of disobedience. This is implied by the sayings "the sinner shall die accursed" (Isaiah 65: 20); and "whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall be no rain" (Zech.14:16-19). There will be no occasion to march an army into a country to put down rebellion; it will be quite effectual to bring it back to its allegiance to withhold from it the fruits of the earth. This spirit of insubordination will, however, smoulder among the nations until at the end of the thousand years the "enmity" against the Wornan's Seed burst forth again into a flame. If the apostle felt the workings of "the law of sin" within him, though obedient to "the law of the spirit of life;" need we wonder that the same "law of nature" should gather force in the hearts of nations subdued by fire and sword to the sovereignty of Israel's King. Man, unrenewed man, is essentially ungrateful and rebellious. The whole history of his race attests it. A thousand years of peace and blessedness will fail to bind him, by the bonds of love and a willing fealty, to the glorious and benevolent, yet just and powerful, emancipator and enlightener of the world. Some new dernon, who would rather reign as Satan than serve in heaven, will arise among the nations, and unfurl the old satanic standard of the Dragon empire, which will be known to the generation of that remote future as the past existence of the Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires are known to us; that is, historically. A giant will this rebel be in presumption and crime, and surpassing in hardihood the pre-millennial Autocrat, whom Michael bound with a great chain and cast into the abyss. But what will not a man adventure inspired with the pride of life! Enchanted thus, he becomes the Adversary (Satan) of the King of Glory; and goes forth to the remotest nations, to Gogue's Magogian people, and falsely accuses his administration, by which means he succeeds in detaching them from their allegiance, and in deceiving them into a vain attempt to recover their ancient dominion (Rev. 20:7-10). The King, instead of nipping the, insurrection in the bud, permits the Adversary and Seducer (the Satan and the Devil) to mature his plans, marshal his hosts, and lead them on to an invasion of the land of Israel. The King permits him to come upon "the breadth of the land," and to "compass the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city." Having inclosed the Governor of the world and his ancients in the metropolis, and so hemmed them in as to prevent all escape, with no army in the rear to raise the siege, the sceptre of universal dominion would seem once more to be within the grasp of the Head of the old Serpent empire. Like our contemporaries, professing to believe the past, but denying that its scenes will ever be repeated, he remembers the overthrow of the former Gogue, as the Autocrat of Russia now remembers that of Sennacherib in the days of Hezekiah, but believes not in the repetition of so terrible a destruction. He will know, doubtless, and who after that the knowledge of the Lord shall have covered the earth for a thousand years will not know, that "he must reign till he have put all enemies under his feet?" but he will no more believe that it will be so, than the Old Serpent, the founder of his dominion, believed 'that God would subject Adam to death in the day of his transgression though he had declared it. He will persuade the nations that the King of Israel shall not reign for ever, and that the overthrow of his government is possible. Thus deceived, we find them enrolled under Satan, or the Adversary, and "encompassing the camp of the saints, and the beloved city," full of savage exultation at the expected destruction of the best of kings. But fallacious will be the hopes of the rebel multitude, and dreadful the vengeance to burst upon them. The trembling earth and the blackening heavens warn them of a coming tempest. The dark vapors and thick clouds of the sky, curling in dense and lowering masses, suddenly hiss forth the forked lightning, and the heaven is rent by the deafening roar of the voice of God. Hail and fire, mingled with hail, pour down upon them, and they are destroyed from the face of the land. Thus God will deliver his King; for "fire shall come down from God out of heaven, and devour them."

Thus, though corruption of the flesh, nationally expressed, was restrained by the overthrow of Gogue, the Dragon-chief, at the pre-millennial advent of the King of Israel, it is finally subdued only when the head of the Serpent-power is crushed at the end of the thousand years. After this victory, another enemy remains to be destroyed to perfect the work of the Son of Man. Death is the last enemy. The power of death is the corruption of the flesh, which is the consequence of sin. But, the wicked all being destroyed by fire, there remain upon the earth only the faithful and true, who are rewarded for their fidelity with the inheritance of the ages. The "law of sin," or law of their flesh, is abolished in the change they undergo from corruption to incorruptibility and life. This is the abolishing of death from the earth, so that its inhabitants can die no more. This being brought to pass, the saying will be fulfilled, and the work accomplished, that "the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil;" and "him that hath the power of death, that is the Devil."

Such is "the end, when the Son shall deliver up the Kingdom to the Father that God may be all and in all (1 Cor. 15:24-28; Rev. 21:3). The separation between God and Man began with the transgression of the first Adam; it continues till the end of the 7000 years, when sin and death are utterly eradicated, and harmony again established in this orb of his glorious universe. Earth will have been delivered from moral and physical evil by his power administered and displayed through the Lord Jesus Christ, who, though "subjected to the Father," will have the pre-eminence over all "his brethren" through the endless duration of ages. The last resurrection, which is implied in the development of "the end" (Rev. 20:6), will bring up from the dust the sleeping dead of the previous thousand years. Those who are accounted worthy of eternal life will receive it, and be added to the saints of the "first resurrection." Thus a population will have been provided for the earth, which, instead of being destroyed, will be renovated, and all things belonging to it made new (Rev. 21:5). The earth and its inhabitants will be incorruptible, undefiled and unfading. God, according to his word, will have made "a full end of all nations," except that of Israel; which will be the sole occupant of the globe, and every Israelite, "an Israelite indeed," "equal to the Elohim," and crowned with glory and honor throughout all ages. During, the thousand years their nation will consist of three classes, Christ and the saints, righteous Israelites in the flesh, and those who "die accursed," but when perfection comes, there will be but one class, and all will be immortal. The purpose of God, in the formation of the earth, will be accomplished; and "the headstone of the creation will be brought forth with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it."