his head was bruifed who had the power of death. Three events, big with confolation to the How obvious the resemblance in all these instances, and equally fo is that between the living of God's dead men, Ifa. xxvi. 19. and the refurrection of his witnesses, Rev. xi. 11. The prophet reprefents the church, as rejoicing over her enemies, They are dead, they shall not live; deceafed, they shall not rife. Where the absolute is put for the comparative, agreeable to scripture-style in other cafes. See above, No 14. The church having under the expreffive emblem of a travailing woman, defcribed her ardent defires after this great deliverance, and how often she had been disappointed, all her high expectations iffuing as in wind, fhe now looks up to her God, and with an air of confolation, thus concludes her fong, Thy dead men fhall live; alfo my dead body, they shall arife, &c. Some doubt, whether thefe be God's words to the church, or her's to him †. But to me it is evident, that they are the words of the church. From the beginning of the chapter fhe is undoubtedly the speaker, as must appear at first view to the attentive. Almost in every verfe we have a pronoun of the second perfon applied unto God, Thou, thee, thy, &c.: And as Vitringa with his usual accuracy obferves, the words, Thy dead, and thy dew, being in the Mafculine Gender, fully determine the point. Taking the paffage thus, with what a beauty and a grandeur does the church conclude her fong! Thy dead men, O Lord, fhall live; thy witnefes arife. Thine thou calleft them, (Rev. xi. 3.) for thy teftimony, they loved not their lives, (chap. xii. 11. and xx. 4.) and even when dead, thine they are. The union continues firm; and being thine, live they fhall. They fhall not always ly dead, and thy cause with them. No: thy dead men shall live. Next fhe fings in foliloquy, My dead body, they shall arife. So the accurate Dutch verfion reads it, agreeable to the Hebrew pointing. The fupplement in our verfion is rather a hinderance than a help to the fenfe. What are God's dead men, but the church's dead body? What a ftrong affinity between the ftyle + Withius in Symbolum, p. 491, 492. church, fhall follow the refurrection of the witneffes, viz. the deftruction of Antichrift; the calling of the Jews; and the converfion of the Gentiles. ufed here and that in Rev. xi. There God fays, My two witneffes, ver. 3. Here the church speaking of them to him, fays, Thy dead men. There John fpeaking of the flain witneffes, fays, Their dead bodies, ver. 8, 9. Here the church fays, My dead budy. I cannot think, with fome excellent Hebræans, that the jod in the original word is paragogical, adding nothing to the fense, as in Deut. xxxiii. 16. It appears to me to be affixive, and therefore that the word is rightly rendered, My dead body. The church, having folaced herself with the fure profpect that God's dead men fhould live, haftens as to their grave, and with ardour cries, Awake and fing, ye that dwell in the duft. Next he turns to the living God, and says, For thy dew is as the dew of herbs: meaning the quickening influences of his Spirit, Hof. xiv. 5. Rev. xi. 11.-That a figurative and not a real refurrection is intended here, is evident from this one argument, That fuch as is the death of the church's enemies, of the fame nature is her life. For, of them it is faid, They shall not live of God's dead, it is faid, They fhall live. Of the one it is faid, They shall not rife: of the other, They shall rise. From this it is evident as the light, that in whatever sense the enemies are faid not to live or rife, in the fame sense, and in no other, are God's dead men faid to rife.-Now, it is certain, that when living and rifing are denied concerning the enemies, the meaning cannot be that they fhall not live and rise at the last day (for they affuredly shall, Ads xxiv. 15.;) but only that they shall not live or reign in that sense they had hitherto done, when they tyrannized over the church. They have had dominion over us, fays the church, but they are dead; i. e. they have loft their ufurped dominion, and they fhall not recover it; for being dead, (fo the Dutch verfion) they shall not live; being deceafed, they fhall not rife. When therefore it is faid, that God's dead men fhall live, that they fhall rife, the meaning evidently is, that they fhall emerge from that fea of troubles wherein they feemed to be 1. The deftruction of Antichrist. And the fame hour, fays John, i. e. the fame hour when the witneffes afcended, There was a great earthquake, fwallowed up; that darksome state, wherein, as in a grave, they lay: that the dominion, formerly in the hands of the enemy, fhall be given to them, Dan. vii. 27, and that in most profperous circumstances they shall be placed.-This notion of life is very agreeable to fcripture-ftyle, in which it fignifies not only that animal life refulting from the union between foul and body, (which may consist with a world of misery) but prosperity or happiness, 1 Sam. xxv. 6. John iv. 50. 1 Theff. iii. 8. I Upon the whole, it appears to me that the life and refurrec tion mentioned here, as awaiting God's dead men, is just the fame with the rifing of his witnesses, Rev. xi. and their longcontinued reign on earth, chap. xx. And taking their refurrection and their reign in this sense, the grofs absurdities of fome, and the groundless prejudices of others, naturally fall to the ground. No fuch thing as a proper refurrection of dead bodies is meant in any of these paffages, no more than that the witnesses are two individual men, who prophecy a thousand two hundred and fixty years, a longer period than ever mortals lived. Nor will it follow, that during the millennium, difeafes and death fhall not take place: No fuch thing. Then, as in ages past, one generation fhall pass away and another come; only the church fhall not be troden under foot of her enemies, God's dead men fhall live and reign. Mean while, as this period is held out under the notion of a resurrection, yea of the first refurrection; and that as typical of the fecond, and properly fo called, it's glory is often described in fuch terms, Ifa. Ix. as in their utmost latitude can agree to nothing but the heavenly state.The Reader will be pleased to indulge the following lines. 1. THY dead, O Lord, fhall furely live, and the tenth part of the city fell; and in the earthquake were flain of men feven thousand, and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of 2. Thine animating dew, O Lord, Is like the dew upon the field: Our wither'd bones fhall hear thy word, 4. Luke xxii. 44. That crimson dew which ftain'd the ground, We fhall not ftill continue fo, But rife, and foar aloft in air. 8. Farewell to dying, and to worms, 9. On him who dy'd we'll ever gaze, Praise him a thousand nameless ways, 1 Cor. xv. 52. Rom. viii. 9, 11. Ifa. lxvi. 14. Eccl. xii. 5. 1 Theff. iv. 17. John xvii. 24. PP heaven, Rev. xi. 13. viz. the great city The tenth part of the city fell, fpiritually called Sodom and Egypt, on whose street the dead bodies of the witneffes lay. Rome, fays one, is but the tenth part in greatness now of what it was anciently †.' However we understand this fall, it certainly fignifies fome great deftruction to Popish powers, which shall immediately fucceed the 1260 years of the beast's reign, and of the witneffes prophecying in fackcloth, (Guyfe). And to me it seems the fame with what is elsewhere faid of the effects of the feventh vial, That there was a great earthquake; and the great city was divided into three parts, and 10. Then, then the Hallelujah high, Shall ever dwell upon our tongue: Rev.iv. 10. v.9, 10. 11. To him who tore from death it's fting, It's vict'ry from the cruel grave; 12. In vict'ry, death is swallow'd up, 1 Cor. xv. 55,—57% Ifa. xxv. 8. Ifa. xxv.8. Rev. xxi.4. Jer. xxxi. 12. Rev. xiv. 1. I Cor. xv. 26. Rev. iii. 21. Enjoy the honours of a Son. + Charnock, Vol. II. p. 710. Rev. xxi. 7. |