John Wesley and Premillennialism
This is an edited version by Kendall Meek from - First Fruits, The Academic Open Press of Asbury Seminary - By Dr. Nathaniel West, Presbyterian Clergyman c. 1894.
The original version of this book was submitted for peer review to at least five other scholars of the time, all of them praising the work as irrefutable, changing at least one of their minds on the subject. The original work can be found here.
Jeremiah 6:16
Thus says the LORD:
“Stand by the roads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.
Isaiah 62
6 On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen;
all the day and all the night they shall never be silent.
You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest,
7 and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it a praise in the earth.
10 Go through, go through the gates;
prepare the way for the people;
build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones;
lift up a signal over the peoples.
11 Behold, the LORD has proclaimed
to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion,
“Behold, your salvation comes;
behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.”
12 And they shall be called The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the LORD;
and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.
Commenting on the book by Dr. Nathaniel West:
“The pre-millennial view of Christ's second coming is evidently in harmony with the plain teachings of the word of God. It was so understood and proclaimed by the apostles, the early Christians, and the fathers and founders of Methodism. It is quite natural that the revival of holiness should also revive an interest in the glorious hope of the appearing of our Lord.” -Henry Clay Morrison – former president of Asbury College and one of the founders of Asbury Seminary
"The doctrine (as you well know) which Justin Martyr deduced from the Prophets and Apostles, and in which he was undoubtedly followed by the Fathers of the second and third centuries is this. The souls of them who have been martyred for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and of those who have not worshiped the beast, neither received his mark, shall live and reign with Christ a Thousand Years. But the rest of the dead shall not live again until the Thousand Years are finished. Now, to say they [the Fathers] believe this, is neither more nor less than to say, THEY BELIEVE THE BIBLE." – John Wesley to Dr. Conyers Middleton 1749
It is proper to say of Justin (Martyr) that he was of Roman descent, and born of heathen parents, in Palestine, shortly before or after the death of the Apostle John. He received a high education in all the great schools of philosophy, was first a Stoic, then a Platonist, last of all, a convert to Christianity, still wearing the cloak of the philosopher. He became one of the most learned and eloquent defenders of the Christian Faith in the second century. He was profoundly Versed in the Scriptures. At Ephesus he disputed with Trypho the Jew, at Rome with Crescens the Gentile, and everywhere in the cities of Europe and Asia stood forth as the champion of the truth and of the suffering Church. He addressed his first "Apology" for the Christian Religion to the Emperor Antoninus Pius ; his second, to the Roman Senate. His martyrdom is variously assigned to A.D. 161-168, as his birth has been to A.D. 89-113. His influence was unlimited, and his name is a sacred heirloom throughout the Christian world. It is of this man's faith Wesley speaks. Whoever knows John Wesley's character as a scholar, or debater, or man of cautious language and positive convictions, will be able to appreciate his estimate of the premillennial creed of the early Church, and her hope of the Coming of the Lord. That doctrines dear to Wesley's heart, preached, advocated, and defended by him, built upon the word of God, and attested by the martyrs, should be thrown into the background, or denied, or opposed by Christian men, is one of the astounding developments in the so-called progress of the Christian Church. Over his grave, words were written that can never be forgotten. His epitaph says he was raised up of God to "Revive, Enforce, and Defend the Pure Apostolic Doctrines and Practices of the Primitive Church," -and did so for "more than Half a Century”.
Justin Martyr’s understanding of the future is found particularly given in his celebrated "Dialogue" with Trypho the Jew, held at Ephesus. The Jew asks, "Do you confess that this place, Jerusalem, shall be rebuilt, and your people be congregated, and rejoice together with Christ and the Patriarchs and Prophets" The answer of Justin is: "I confessed to you, before, that I and many others, besides, do believe, as you well know, this shall be. On the other hand, l have also signified to you that MANY, WHO ARE NOT OF THE PURE AND PIOUS FAITH OF THE CHRISTIANS, do NOT CONFESS THIS. They are called Christians, indeed, but are godless impious HERETICS, because they teach doctrines that, in every respect, are blasphemous, atheistic, foolish. . . . They do not confess this, but dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and say there is no resurrection of the dead, but that at death souls are received up into heaven. Do not imagine that these are Christians. But I and others, who are orthodox on all points, know there will be a Resurrection from the dead and a Thousand Years in Jerusalem, built again, broadened, and adorned, as the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, and others declare. A certain man among us, of the name of John, one of the Apostles of Christ, in a Revelation which he had, prophesied that they who were faithful to our Messiah would accomplish a Thousand Years in Jerusalem, and after that the general, and to speak concisely/the final Resurrection and Judgment of all would take place" (Dialogue with Trypho, chapters 80, 81).
IRENAEUS - "the Great" pupil of Polycarp, (who himself was a disciple of the Apostle John) says: "Christ is the Stone cut out of the mountain, without hands, who shall destroy temporal kingdoms, and introduce an eternal one, which is at the Resurrection of the just. When the Antichrist shall have devastated all things, and shall reign for three years and a half (1,260 days) and sit in the temple at Jerusalem, then the Lord will come from Heaven, with the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man to the lake of fire, but bringing in, for the righteous, the Times of the Kingdom, the Rest, the Hallowed Seventh Day, and restoring to Abraham the Promised Inheritance. Christ will Himself renew the inheritance of the Earth, and reorganize the mystery of the glory of His sons. In the Times of the Kingdom the Righteous shall bear rule when they rise from the dead, and then Creation shall be renovated. The Earth shall be called by Christ to its pristine condition, and Jerusalem rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem which is the Mother of us all .... Man rises, not allegorically, from the dead, as I have shown repeatedly. And as he rises actually, so shall he be actually disciplined beforehand for incorruption, and shall go forward and flourish in the Times of the Kingdom. John, therefore, did distinctly foresee the FIRST RESURRECTION; that of the just, and the Inheritance in the Kingdom on Earth" (Iren. Adv. Hares. V, 26, 30, 33, 35).
"It was," (the Millennium) says Mede (Joseph Mede an English scholar, educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow in 1613), the ablest scholar of his day, "the general belief of all orthodox Christians in the age next following the Apostles, and none but Heretics denied it" ( Works, 6o2, 771).
It never was abandoned until Church and State were united under Constantine
It never was abandoned until Church and State were united under Constantine; never until, as Kurtz says truly, "The State Church under her temporal prosperity forgot the millennial glory of the future" (Ch. Hist. I, 47), and the Church, as the great (Johann Albrecht) BENGEL, whom Wesley took for his teacher, says, "became worldly, and the hope of the future was weakened by the joy over the present success!" (Erlklurt Offenbarung, 664.) Then, and only then, did she depart from the martyr faith, under the teaching of Rome (the beginning of a corruption of Apostolic teaching) and the influence of worldly philosophy, so that, as Canon Faussett well says, "Christians began looking at the temporal prosperity and ceased to look for Christ's promised reign on earth" (Comm. VI. Introd. to Apoc., 70).
Mr. Thomas Hartley's book, "Paradise Restored" - He professes to show 'the great importance of the doctrine of Christ's glorious reign on earth with his saints,'and maintains that it was typified in many of the Levitical Institutes; was foretold and described in numberless places by the inspired prophets; was made the subject of many precious promises in the Gospel; was delineated in the Revelation of St. John; and was received as an apostolical doctrine by the primitive Christians, according to the testimony of the ancient fathers. He further argues that it received the sanction of the Council of Nicea called by Constantine the Great, and composed of Bishops from all parts of the Christian world;
Chief Points of Mr. Hartley's book. And these are: "
That Christ will come a second time, and will set up a kingdom, and visibly reign on the earth for a thousand years.
That, during this reign His saints will be raised, and restored to the perfection of the first man Adam ; and earth all over will become a copy of the Primeval Paradise.
That, during this millennial theocracy, saints will flourish and sinners will be in absolute subjection; hostility and discord will cease, and all things harmonize in unity and peace.
That some of the saints will be crowned, some sit on thrones, set over ten cities, or five, some sit at the table with Christ, and others serve; some follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes; others come periodically to worship in his presence."
In reference to Mr. Hartley’s book, John Wesley wrote him a letter saying,
"Your book on the MILLENNIUM was lately put into my hands. I cannot but thank you for your strong and seasonable confirmation of that comfortable doctrine, of which I cannot entertain the least doubt as long as I believe the Bible." -Wesley to Rev. Thomas Hartley, MA Methodist Magazine, 1783
Wesley taught, specifically:
The spread of the Gospel as a testimony to all nations;
An apostasy yet more to be developed, and already at work, in Christendom;
The literal Conversion and Restoration of Israel to their own land;
That the full revelation of the Antichrist precedes the Advent; (every single early church father who spoke on the subject believed the church would face the final antichrist on the earth at Christ’s return to destroy him and his followers)
That it is the duty of the Church to observe the Signs of the Times:
The literal, visible, personal, and glorious Second Coming of the Lord;
That the Third Beatitude, "the meek shall inherit the earth," refers to the millennial Age
That the curse shall he removed from the earth, and the animal creation restored to pristine innocence;
That there shall be a transfiguration of the Planet into a New Earth, with a New Heaven and a New Climate;
That it is the duty of the Church, always, to pray and look for the Coming of the Lord
From the official "Hymnal" of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, approved by the Board of Bishops, Hunt c;.. Eaton, New York. 1877.
Hymn 924; a prayer for the fulness of the Gentiles, the Conversion of the Jews, and the Coming of the Lord.
"Come, Lord,'' Thy glorious Spirit cries, And souls beneath the altar groan; "Come, Lord," the bride on earth replies, "And perfect all our souls in one." Pour out the promised gift on all; Answer the universal" Come!" The fullness of the Gentiles call, And take Thine ancient people home.
Hymn 946; looking for the Advent and Millennial Age.
Our residue of days or hours, Thine, wholly Thine, shall be; And all our consecrated powers A sacrifice to Thee, Till Jesus in the clouds appear To saints on earth forgiven, And bring the grand sabbatical year, The Jubilee of Heaven.
Hymn 1013; the grand old Judgment Hymn
Lo! He comes, with clouds descending, Once for favored sinners slain; Thousand thousand saints attending, Swell the triumph of his train: HallelujahI Hallelujah! God APPEARS ON EARTH TO REIGN.