e standard by which we can try the spirits is the whole
word of God,--"comparing spiritual things with spiritual."

THE FIRST RESURRECTION.

Bishop Newton, among those divines distinguished in ecclesiastical
history as Millenarians, may be regarded as one of the most learned,
judicious and cautious. The amount of the deductions which this class of
writers draw from the scripture phrase "first resurrection," and its
context, confirmed as they suppose by many other parts of Scripture,
appears to be the following:--All the righteous shall be raised from
their graves to meet our Saviour coming from heaven at the beginning of
the Millennium: he and these saints, clothed in real human bodies, are
to dwell and reign together upon a renovated earth during that happy
period. Indeed, writers on this interesting subject differ so much in
details, that no well-defined theory or system can be discovered among
them. The _literal resurrection_ of the bodies of the saints, and the
_corporeal presence_ of Christ among them, seem to be the cardinal
points of agreement with this class of expositors; and from this literal
interpretation of the resurrection of the righteous and bodily
appearance of the Saviour, they either took or received the name
_Millenarians_. Other Christians, however, who differ from them in the
interpretation of symbols, are no less believers in a millennium than
they,--a thousand years of righteousness and peace _on the earth_.

Bishop Newton understands "this 'first resurrection' of a particular
resurrection preceding the general one at least a thousand years." "It
is to this first resurrection," says he, "that St. Paul alludes, (1
Thess. iv. 16,) when he affirms that the 'dead in Christ shall rise
first,' and (1 Cor. xv. 23;) that every man shall be made alive in his
own order, Christ the first fruits, afterwards they that are Christ's at
his coming." It is surprising that a person of the Bishop's learning
should so readily mistake the _sound_ for the _sense_ of the words which
he quotes. While the apostle is, for the "comfort" of the saints,
treating of _their_ resurrection, he is evidently speaking of the
general resurrection at the _end of time_. In the morning of the
resurrection Christ's members will be raised after the manner and in
virtue of his resurrection,--"the first fruits" securing the following
harvest, in obvious allusion to the ceremonial law. In the other case,
when Paul says, "the dead in Chr