immortality be permanently established and commence its sway over the
living, as the last and best system of God to man, and this
_resurrection day_ continue down to all subsequent generations of
slumbering dead, raising every man in incorruption and glory. The
judgment and resurrection of the world are therefore both progressing,
for these two constitute the gospel reign of Christ. He is "the
resurrection and life of the world," as well as "judge of quick and
dead." Both are to be accomplished in the _last day_, and that day is
now progressing. A _general_ resurrection, at the last vibrating
pendulum of time, cannot I humbly conceive, be substantiated by the
oracles of truth, any more than a _general_ judgment. I am rather
inclined to think that _the judgment of the world by Jesus Christ
expresses the whole, including the resurrection and all; even as the
high priest, clothed with the breastplate of judgment on the day of
atonement, closed his services by raising the nation into the holy of
holies, "which was a pattern of things in the heavens_."
If the Scriptures afford us any evidence of the _third_ coming of
Christ, to raise the dead, for one, I must acknowledge my utter
ignorance of the fact. In John (chap. vi.) Jesus several times uses
the expression, "and I will raise him up at the last day." If others
contend that this has reference to "_the last day of the last
generation of the human race on the earth_," yet I must candidly
acknowledge, that I cannot see a shadow of evidence to prove this
position. The _last day_ in this instance, refers to the gospel
dispensation, which commenced at the destruction of the temple, and
involves the whole reign of Christ. It is synonymous with the "day of
Christ" and the "day of the Lord" mentioned in several places by the
apostles. Nor do I conceive it means, that Christ would raise them up
by his own immediate power, but that God would raise the dead
according to that doctrine, which he sent his Son to reveal to men,
and this would be fully established in the world, and be believed and
felt by Jew and Gentile Christians at the coming of Christ in his
kingdom, at the end of that dispensation. _Then_ and not till _then_
were the predictions of Christ fulfilled, and then were those
Christians, who had not seen Jesus after his resurrection, "made
perfect in faith."
The dead are to be raised at the _last_ trump; by which I understand
the _seventh_, for no other _last_ is reve
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