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days of the Messiah. But when all Israel shall arise, their tradition goes on to say, that they shall have wings like the wings of eagles, and shall fly above the waters. This view of the Targum, respecting all Israel, who shall arise from the dead, and are to be capacitated with wings, and shall fly above the waters, is to be understood of their belief in the resurrection of the righteous, to which St. Paul agrees, when he says to the Thess. iv. 16., "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."

But they shall not return again to dust, but for the space of a thousand years; not that the Targum means that when the thousand years are finished they shall again return to dust, but that during that thousand years the earth shall be renewed to its original blessedness, and its inhabitants to original holiness.

Indeed many of the prophets bear their testimony, some in a greater, and some in a less degree, to the same expectation.

Thus we see Moses recording, from the very mouth of the holy blessed God, "But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord."-Num xiv. 21..

How plainly does this signify, that, in the view of Him who sees all things at a glance, a time should come, when a disordered earth should be filled with the healing healthful glory of the Lord.

David, the sweet Psalmist king, seems frequently to anticipate the final universality of the Messiah's king

dom on the earth. “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."-Psalms ii. 8.

"Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great king.”—Psalms xlviii. 2.

"Then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our God, shall bless us : God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him."-Psalms lxvii. 6, 7.

"Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him."-Psalms lxxii. 11.

"And blessed be his glorious name forever, and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen, and amen."-Psalms lxxii. 19.

To Isaiah the prophet, the Lord has spoken plainly of the kingdom of his son. Many places in the book of his prophecy, declare that his government shall be from the rivers to the ends of the earth, and that all souls then on the earth shall come to have a saving knowledge of his grace.

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above all hills, and all nations shall flow unto it."-Isa. ii. 2. From which nothing can be clearer, than that a time must arrive, as the zenith of what the Saviour began to do (when he made to the woman her first promise, that her seed should bruise the serpent's head, this shall be done,) when Satan shall be shut up in the bottomless pit, and a knowledge of the Lord conse

quently shall cover the earth, as the waters cover th face of the sea. At that time they shall have “bei their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." This then is the expectation of Isaiah, and should be, the firm and certain expectation of all saints, who shall no then be disappointed; for then "Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders, but thou shalt call ty walls salvation, and thy gates praise. Thy people also, shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land for ever. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time."—Isa. lx. 18, 21, 22.

By the spirit of inspiration, the prophet Jeremiah looked beyond the sorrows of his countrymen, to whom was committed the oracles of truth, the first testameny, and after whose name all saints are called Israelites, not because they are descended from the lineage of Abraham, but because they are the household of faith.

The prophet, therefore, looks through the long vista of ages, to the time when Jerusalem, spirtual Jerusalem, Mount Zion, shall be built in the tops of the moun tains, and all nations shall flow to it, which shall no like the temple, its glorious type, "be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever."-Jer. xxxi. 40. "Therefore, they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd; and their soul

shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow any more at all.”—Jer. xxxi. 12.

The Jews, nor their country, nor yet their city, for glory and strength excelling all others, have ever yet arrived to any such state of happiness as spoken of above, by the prophet Jeremiah; it is therefore undoubtedly spoken of the times of the Millennium, when Jerusalem, in the spiritual sense, shall be built, and is called the New Jerusalem, which cannot be pulled down or overthrown, nor its inhabitants sorrow any more at all, strongly intimating that its citizens shall not suffer either from natural or moral evil, any more, as they formerly had, in the days of probation.

The prophet Daniel is declared, in the scriptures, to be a man greatly beloved of heaven; this was said to him by the angel Gabriel, at a time when he prayed and made his confession to God. And because he was beloved of the Most High, he was pleased to make known to him, in a vision of his sleep, the times which should pass over the nations of the globe, and also over the saints, how they must suffer from the tyranny of the beasts which he saw arise out of the sea, and strove together, which has actually come to pass in the several eras of time. But beyond all these, he saw a more glorious vision, which cannot be understood otherwise than of the Millennium. "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should

serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom And the kingdom

for ever; even for ever and ever. and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High."-Dan.vii. 13, 14, 18, 27.

It is evident that this kingdom shall be on the earth in the latter days, (which are even at the door) because in the last quoted verse, are the words, "under the whole heaven," and therefore, is qualified as betonging to the earth.

From what has been advanced on the preceding pages of the second division, I feel justified in believing, that the ancient Jewish Church did expect, that when the Messiah should come, he would finally involve the whole earth in his kingdom, and that peace and great glory should be the concomitants of his reign for one thousand years. But why the idea should obtain of so definite a term of years, in the early age of the Church, is deeply interesting; but we see the same doctrine taught by the holy St. John, who wrote as he received it from the angel of Jesus Christ.

I shall next proceed to prove, under the same division, that the Christian Church have ever taught the expectation of a Millennium.

St John, the Revelator, speaks of that great day, as a day in which Christ shall come to be admired of his saints, who shall then take the kingdom, and possess it for ever.