In order to prove that the Christian Churches, in the days of St. John, believed that a Millennium should come in the latter days, I have only to transcribe the seven first verses of the 20th Chapter of Revelation, which I proceed to do.

Verse 1st." And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. 1

Verse 2d." And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and satan, and bound him a thousand years.

Verse 3d." And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed for a little season.

Verse 4th." And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them; and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

Verse 5th.- -"But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.”

Who can speak plainer than St. John does in those two last quoted verses? stating, explicitly, that between the resurrection of the righteous dead, and the resurrection of the wicked dead, shall be a lapse of a thou

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sand years, which is the Millennium contended for in

these pages.

Verse 6th." Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, for on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God, and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. Verse 7th." And when the thousand years are expired, satan shall be loosed out of his prison.”

It is thought that these scriptures show, as clearly and as definitely as can be desired, that the primitive Church did expect the Millennium.

Six times in the course of seven verses, has the Evangelist, in the most plain and emphatic manner, declared that a certain thousand years shall come, when the great Shepherd of the sheep shall walk in their midst, and that his spiritual presence shall be with them a thousand years. This, therefore, is the Millennium which is to come.

"This doctrine of the reign of the saints after the destruction of Antichrist, was the opinion of the whole orthodox Christian Church in the age immediately following the death of St. John, when Polycarp, and many of St. John's disciples, were yet living, as is expressly stated by Justin Martyr; and is a testimony of sufficient strength to convince any who rely at all on the authority of antiquity, that this doctrine was believed by the primitive Church, who unquestionably founded it upon Rev. xx. from the 1st verse to the 7th, inclusive."-Second Advent, page 503.

The Christian Churches have, in succeeding ages, held the doctrine; many able theologians and fathers

have maintained the opinion; and at the present time the expectation pervades Christendom; and every individual bosom possessing any share of scripture knowledge, and regarding it as truth, expects the promised Millennium.

The heathen also, of many countries, anciently entertained opinions equivalent to this, who were doubtless indebted to the Patriarchs and Prophets from Noah and downward, for their ideas, though vastly adulterated with their own fancies by some of them.

A description of the changes which await the earth, are very clearly hinted at by Plato. In the end, he states, the world shall be plunged into an eternal abyss of confusion, but God, he says, will again appear, and resume the reins of the empire, and restore order. Is not the new creation here hinted at, though obscurely, by this great philosopher? See Rev. xxi. 5. "Behold I make all things new."

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Virgil has expressed an opinion, which, in the aggregate, agrees with the opinion of this book as it respects the Millennium. He says, A child of a superior order is soon to descend from heaven to earth and at his birth the iron age will cease, and the golden age be restored; crimes will be banished, and the world shall be delivered from all its fears, and become fruitful as at first, and produce every thing every where. Seneca declares a sentiment, which seems to favour the opinion, that before the Millennium, (as contended in this work) all sinners shall be destroyed, to prepare its way. "Haste and come, last and great day, when the heavens shall fall into confusion, and

He

says,

their ruins crush the impious set of men, so that a better race may arise; such as they were heretofore, when Saturn reigned over the beginning of the world." Here is a hint at the state in which our first parents existed, before they fell by sin, and were banished from Eden.

The Chinese ancient books have an account, that an extraordinary person, called by them the Saint, or secand person in the trinity, is to reign, and in his king dom he will not allow any wicked men to be there, but they must be banished into the dark abodes of beasts and monsters, leaving none to be the subjects of his kingdom but heavenly and upright people.

Plutarch says, that the Persian Magi hold, that there will come a time when Arimanius, the evil spirit, or satan, will be banished from the earth, when it shall, therefore, become beautiful, when men shall be happy and their abodes become transparent, and shall all have the same life, language and government. Thus it is plain, that from very early ages, the expectation prevailed, that a better state of things was finally to succeed this bad state, so acknowledged to be by all. Yes, even Infidels.

Having shown that the Prophets, the Jewish Rabpins and Doctors, the ancient Christian Church and fathers, and even the very heathen, have expected the Millennium, I now proceed to exhibit the signs of the times which went before the flood, and before the coming of Christ, and also the signs of our own times, which denote the Millennium nigh its commencement.

THIRD DIVISION.

Our next endeavour shall be, to give a view of the signs of the times which preceded the great deluge and the birth of Christand an account of Herod the great, who put to death the infants of Jerusalem. Also, a minute description of the Ark, and the animals saved in it-proving it amply sufficient to contain all the Scriptures state it did.

Before the whelming flood, when Enoch liv'd,
God signifi'd by signs, his spirit griev'd-
So from his glorious Heav'n where now he reigns,
He show'd the coming Christ by mystic signs.

THE reason why a view of those times are presented to the reader, is to prepare the mind for a view of the signs of our own times, which signify the Millennium nigh its coming.

The signs of the times, which were eminently calculated to arouse the antediluvians to the expectation of severe judgments, to be poured out upon them, was, in the first place, their own great wickedness, corruption and violence. Of these things they were reproved and threatened by Enoch, the first prophet, who was the seventh from Adam, and was translated from earth to heaven by the miraculous power of God. We have in St. Jude, an account of his manner of reproof, which strongly indicates that those times were highly fraught with fearful forebodings, that great wrath was in waiting for those abominable nations who had so thoroughly corrupted their ways in the earth.

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