ESCHATOL'OGY, the doctrine concerning the last things, in the Christian system, treats of the millennium, the future coming of Christ, the state of man after death, the resurrection, last judgment, and final condition of mankind.
I. The Millennium and the Future Coining of xxth chapter of Revelation speaks of a period of a thousand years during which Satan shall be bound in the bot tomless pit, and the souls of them who had been beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark upon them, shall live and reign with Christ. This is called the first resurrection. Many persons, uniting this passage with others and professing to inter pret them literally, teach that the millennium will be preceded by the second coming of Christ in visible glory, and by the resurrection of the glorified saints to reign with him on earth. Their opinion on this important point naturally colors their interpreta tion of a large portion of Scripture and of their practical duties as Christians. Many of them are very earnest and confident in the maintenance of their views. In opposi tion to them the usual faith of Christians has been that the millennium will precede the visible coming of Christ, and will be accomplished through the divine blessing, oiven in copious measures, on the diligent use of such means of grace as the church has always employed. They who adopt this view regard the passage in the Revelation concerning the first resurrection as figurative (as the rest of the book manifestly is), and the coming of Christ, promised in the New Testament, as: 1. An exhibition of his providential government over the history of the world and of the church. In this sense the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, followed by the dispersion, of the Jews, Matt. xxiv. 4-28, and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ, with the gathering of his elect, 29-44, were foretold by him as a coming of the Son of Man. 2. His spiritual presence with his people during their lives. and work on the earth, and at the time of their death, Matt. xviii. 20; John xiv. 23, 3. 3. His glorious appearing to judge the world, Matt. xxv. 31; I. Thes. iv. 16.
II. The State of Man after Death.-1. Materialists, who assert that the soul is only a function of the body say, consistently enough, that at death both perish together. 2. Pantheists, who maintain that man is a transient form of God's existence, teach that the soul has no consciousness after death. The race is immortal, bilt the individual man is not. Flowers bloom from generation to generation, but each flower blooms but once, and after that exists no more. 3. Some, who are neither materialists nor panthe ists, suppose that the soul cannot act or manifest itself without a bodily organism, material or other, and that consequently at death it must either cease its activity, or be furnished at once with a new body. The latter part of the alternative many of the class referred to do not hesitate to accept.. "Do the dead cease to exist?" they ask, and quickly reply, "No: for there is the spiritual body as well as a natural body; at death the latter is dissolved, but the former is not affected; therefore the life of the soul, stiff clothed upon, remains unharmed." Those who reject this theory deny that the soul is. dependent on matter for the exercise of its faculties, or for its personality, or its suscep. tibility. Certainly God, who is purely a spirit, is not thus dependent: and as men have a spiritual nature like that of God, the theory cannot be true concerning them. To this. it is rejoined that the theory of a " spiritual body " does not require that it be any form of matter. 4. Many who reject or disregard the Bible, while they do not deny that the soul continues to exist after death, say they have no proof that it does. Some of this. class when dying have declared that they were taking a leap in the dark. 5. The Scrip tures teach the continued existence of the soul after death. The Pentateuch teaches it
when it calls God the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob after their death, thus imply. ing that they still lived. The Psalms teach it when they speak of the soul as redeemed from the power of the grave, and as being satisfied when it awakes in God's likeness. The prophets teach it when they declare that the dead shall live, that they shall awake and shine as the stars forever and ever. The New Testament teaches it by the promises of Christ, " I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish ;" and by the affir mation of the apostles that Christ bath abolished death and brought life and immor tality to light. 6. All who believe in a future resurrection and final judgment neces sarily believe in an intermediate state of the soul after death, in some respects different both from its former condition in this life and from its final condition in the life to come. The question is, What is the nature of this intermediate state? (1) Some suppose that between death and the resurrection the soul continues in an uncon scious state. Since the Bible speaks of death as a sleep, and since a dead body is as incapable of sleep as a stone, it must be (they think) the soul that sleeps. To this a sufficient answer is that in death the outward appearance of the body is exceedingly like sleep, and that it is for this reason death is compared to it; just as, on the other hand, the actual sleep of a living person has been called the `• coun terfeit of death." (2) The Roman Catholic church teaches that all who, dyintr rn the peace of the church, are not perfect, pass into purgatory, concerning which they say that it is a state of suffering designed for both expiation and purification; that the duration and severity of the suffering are proportioned to the sinfulness of the sufferers; that the duration may be shortened and the se-verity alleviated by the prayers of the saints and the sacrifice of the mats; and that it is the prerogative of the church to mint, entirely or in part, the penalty of sins under which the soul suffers. This doctrine was not held, in its completeness, even by Roman Catholics until a comparatively late period. " Purgatory as a burning away of sins," said Dollinger at the Bonn conference of Old Catholics in 1875, "was an idea unknown, in the east as well as the west, until Gregory the great introduced it. What was thought was that after death those who were not ready for heaven were kept for some time in a state of preparation, and that the prayers of the living were an advantage to them. Gregory the great added the idea of a tormenting fire. This the schoolmen gradually converted into doctrine which they associated with papal indulgence, till it came to apply to the dead generally, which of course made all seek for indulgence. It went on to have degrees (some could receive indulgence for a few of their sins, others for all), so that eventually the pope. having already the keeping of heaven and the dominion on earth, obtained also sover eignty under the earth." (3) The general faith of Protestants is not uniform on this point; probably the prevalent view is " that the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory." According to this view the intermediate state of believers is one of perfect freedom from sin and suffering, and of great exaltation and blessedness. This is not inconsistent with believing that after the second coming of Christ and the resurrection the soul will be still more exalted and blessed. And with it may be mentioned, as not altogether contrary to it, the opinion of many, in both ancient and modern times, that "sheol " and " hades " are general terms for the intermediate dwelling-places of the dead, one division of which is " para dise," the happy abode of the saved; and the other " gehenna," the wretched abode of the lost.