A View of the Scripture Relations Concerning a Future State (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1842 edition. Excerpt: ...with it. It is more agreeable to the general character of the Scripture-prophecies (especially those relating to Christ's kingdom) to be, in their meaning, spiritual, rather than earthly and carnal; in their expression, figurative and obscure, rather than so literal and plain that no perversity could misunderstand them. And if you look to the rest of Scripture, --to the general character of the Christian religion, you will see much stronger reasons still against those notions which I have been speaking of. And it is very important to recollect this, --that, on the one hand, the Book of Revelation is confessedly the most obscure and difficult in the whole Bible; while, on the other hand, the great leading doctrines of the Gospel, --the general character and spirit of Christianity, are set forth in Scripture, as most persons would allow, and (as is evidently needful) more clearly than any thing else. Now when there are two portions of Scripture which at the first glance might seem rather at variance, is it natural and reasonable to make the most obscure and doubtful portion set aside the plain and obvious meaning of the simplest and easiest? Does not common sense dictate the very reverse? namely, to explain an obscure prophecy, such as that we have been speaking of, by the general tenor of Scripture, and according to the general character of the Christian religion, which is so frequently and so strongly set forth. Now nothing can be more at variance with this, than a literal reign of Christ, in bodily person, for a thousand years at Jerusalem, --a literal restoration of the Jews to their country; and all the other circumstances of a literal and carnal Millennium. For to say nothing of the point I have already mentioned, the assurances in...