dicted, God's people—those who were really such, and whose names were written in the Lamb's book

of life were delivered. Christ gave to his disciples so definite a statement of what should be the signs of this day of evil, that they were enabled to flee to a place of safety.

Next in order in the vision of the prophet, vs. 2, 3, the dead were raised. A life-giving power was to go forth and stir up, as in their graves, the very dead. Some would awake, and as "wise" or "teachers," live a glorious life, and turn many to righteousness : while others, rejecting the proffered grace, would find it a savor of death unto death. This we understand to refer to the Gospel, and to its proclamation not to the Jews merely, but to the "many;" and especially to the Gentiles, who were, as not true of the Jews, asleep in the very dust of the earth. The language indicates the coming in of the Christian Dispensation, and the effect of the means of grace in Christ Jesus upon the world, Gentiles as well as Jews.

We are happy to be able to quote the following from Matthew Henry. In his commentary on v. 2, he says: "When upon the appearing of Michael our prince, his gospel is preached, many of them that sleep in the dust, both Jews and Gentiles, shall be awakened by it, to take upon them a profession of religion, and shall rise out of their Heathenism or Judaism; but since there will be always a mixture

of hypocrites, with true saints; it is but some of them that are raised to life, to whom the gospel is a savor of life unto life, but others will be raised by it to shame and contempt, to whom the gospel of Christ will be a savor of death unto death, and Christ himself set for their fall. The net of the gospel incloseth both good and bad."

We cannot agree with Henry in supposing that by Michael is meant the Messiah; and from some of his specific applications should therefore dissent. We quote him as sustaining the exegesis that by "many that sleep in the dust of the earth," is to be understood the "dead in trespasses and sins." These are awakened to spiritual life.

Rev. George Judkin, D. D., President of Lafayette College, in his Treatise on the Prophecies, makes the following comment on v. 2: "The chronology of the writer leads us here to understand this of the same spiritual awakening; and yet the force of the language in our English translation has led most commentators to the conclusion that a real bodily resurrection is intended. . . . The natural and proper force of the language does not at all involve the idea of dead bodies of men coming to life again; but only of persons in a careless and secure condition being aroused, rather arousing themselves, to vigorous action, shaking off the dust of indolence, and calling their powers forth into exercise. . . .

The very clods of Gentilism, the sleeping ones of earthly clay, shall stir themselves up, and inquire after the Lord. . . . The cold earth that has slept for ages in all the darkness of paganism and delusion, shall be thrown into vast commotion. The blinded heathen, 'multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision,' and all over the world, shall rouse up and act vigorously in reference to religion and eternal things. Of the vast masses of mankind who shall thus be brought into energetic action, some will inquire successfully and find the way to salvation, and so live forever;' some to everlasting life;'

others will spend their faculties in perverting and opposing the truth, as the Romans, Pagans, and the Mohammedan-pagans, and all forms of heretics now do, and shall utterly perish in shame and everlasting contempt.'

...

"By the context and the natural force of the original terms we are shut up to this interpretation, and must conclude that we have in it the mind of the Spirit. These words do not teach a resurrection of the body."

LATER JEWS.

At a later period we find a more practical conviction of a future existence. It was regarded as decidedly a state of rewards and punishments. The

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seven brethren with their mother" (2 Macc. vii.),

who suffered martyrdom under Antiochus Epiphanes, were sustained by the expectation of a blessed hereafter. Said one of them in the agonies of a cruel death (v. 9), " Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life" (εἰς αἰώνιον ἀναβίωσιν ζωῆς ἡμᾶς ἀναστήσει, will raise us to an everlasting revival of life-a revivification that shall know no succeeding death). - Another, when dying, said (v. 14), "It is good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised up again (ráλív ávaoτhoεovα). As for thee (Antiochus), thou shalt have no resurrection to life” (ἀνάστασις εἰς ζωήν).

With the men of this period the philosophy of a future state was crude and undefined. They seemed to think of the future life as much like the present, -with the same or a similar material organization. Thus, one of the brothers, when his hands were about to be cut off, and his tongue plucked out, said, "These I had from Heaven; and for His laws I despise them; and from him I hope to receive them again” (v. 11). And the mother said to the sons (v. 23), "Doubtless the Creator of the world... will also of his own mercy give you breath and life again” (τò пvɛõμa xai tǹv (wńv). — Razis, when sinking under his wounds, "plucked out his bowels, and taking them in both his hands, he cast them upon

the throng; and calling upon the Lord of life and spirit to restore him those again, he thus died."2 Macc. 14: 46. See also 12: 43-45.

The Jews of this period made no distinction between the future state and the resurrection of the body. They conceived of the soul as living only in a state of corporeity. By dvάoraois (anastasis)* they ex-. pressed the future condition of man. Knapp, who is high authority on such subjects, says, "Both among the later Jews and earlier Christian writers, there is no distinction made between immortality and the resurrection; both are considered as the same thing." And he adds, strangely inconsistent with his own belief, "IT IS THE SAME FREQUENTLY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT." Theology, II. p. 616. This is This is precisely our doctrine. It is the doctrine of the Bible rightly interpreted.

Josephus says (Ant. B. 18, chap. I. sec. 3), "They (the Pharisees) also believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life, and that the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to re

*'Avάoraois. It will be convenient on the following pages to Angli cize this word. We shall use Anastasis to signify the future life-life beyond the grave. The verb anastasize will also be used.