unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus Christ and for the word of God; 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. But the rest of the dead lived not again, until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.'

"It is, I conceive, to these great events, the fall of Antichrist, the re-establishment of the Jews, and the beginning of the glorious Millennium, that the three different dates in Daniel of 1260 years, 1290 years, and 1335 years, are to be referred.—And as Daniel saith, xii. 12, 'Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the 1335 years ;' so St. John saith, xx. 6, ' Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.' Blessed and happy indeed will be this period; and it is very observable, that the martyrs and confessors of Jesus, in Papist as well as Pagan times, will be raised to partake of this felicity. Then shall all those gracious promises in the Old Testament be fulfilled-of the amplitude and extent, of the peace and prosperity, of the glory and happiness of the church in the latter days. 'Then,' in the full sense of the words, Rev. xi. 15, shall the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.'

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According to tradition *, these thousand years of the reign of Christ and the saints will be the seventh Millenary of the world: for as God created

*See Burnet's Theory.

the world in six days, and rested on the seventh; so the world, it is argued, will continue six thousand years, and the seventh thousand will be the great Salbatism, or holy rest to the people of God. One day (2 Pet. iii. 8.) being with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.' According to tradition, too, these thousand years of the reign of Christ and the saints are the great day of judgment, in the morning or beginning whereof shall be the coming of Christ in flaming fire, and the particular judgment of Antichrist and the first resurrection; and in the evening or conclusion whereof shall be the general resurrection of the dead, small and great; and they shall be judged, every man, according to their works!'"

This is a just representation of the Millennium, according to the common opinion entertained of it, that Christ will reign personally on earth during the period of one thousand years. But Dr. Whitby, in a dissertation on the subject, opposes the literal interpretation of the Millennium, both as to its nature and as to its duration.

Mr. Winchester, in his "Lectures on the Prophecies," freely indulges his imagination on this curious subject. He suggests, that the large rivers in America are all on the eastern side, that the Jews may waft themselves the more easily down to the Atlantic, and then cross that vast ocean to the Holy Land; that Christ will appear at the equinox, either in March or in September, when the days and nights are equal all over the globe; and finally, that the

body of Christ will be luminous, and being suspended in the air over the equator for twenty-four hours, will be seen with circumstances of peculiar glory, from pole to pole, by all the inhabitants of the world.

Dr. Priestley, entertaining an exalted idea of the advantages to which our nature may be destined, treated the limitation of the duration of the world to seven thousand years as a Rabbinical fable, and maintains, in his "Institutes," that the thousand years should be interpreted prophetically: then every day would signify a year, and the Millennium would last for three hundred and sixty-five thousand years! He supposed also that there will be no resurrection of any individuals till the general resurrection, and that the Millennium only implies the revival of religion. Later in life he was a believer in the personal reign of Christ upon earth. See his "Farewell Sermon," preached at Hackney, previously to his emigration to America.

The late Dr. Bogue of Gosport published a " Series of Discourses" on the Millennium, which will reward the reader's attention.

The Reverend Edward Irving published two small volumes on prophecy, in which he contended for a Millennium and for the personal reign of Christ on earth.

The learned Joseph Mede thus expresses himself: "The presence of Christ in his kingdom shall no doubt be glorious, yet I dare not so much as imagine (what some of the ancients seem to have thought)

that it will be a visible converse upon earth; for the kingdom of Christ ever hath been and shall be Regnum Cælorum, a kingdom whose throne and kingly presence is in heaven."-MEDE'S Works, vol. ii. p. 729.

Dr. Burnet says, "That Christ should leave the right hand of his Father to come and pass a thousand years here below, living upon earth in a heavenly body, is a thing I never could digest."

Sir H. Taylor's "Thoughts on the Grand Apostacy," Pt. i. p. 205.

The principal anti-millenarian writers are Bishop Hall, Baxter, Whitby, Lowman, Allix, and Scott, the author of a Commentary on the New Testament.

Mr. Irving fixed the time of the commencement of the millennium to be 1866; Mede dated it from 1716; Bishop Newton removed it to 1987; Sir Isaac Newton, to 2036.

However the millenarians may differ among themselves respecting the nature of this solemn event, they agree in believing that under the mild and gentle sceptre of the Messiah, there will be an infinite progression in all that is holy and good, and that happiness will be universal and everlasting.

"Oh scenes surpassing fable, and yet true,
Scenes of accomplish'd bliss; which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refresh'd with foretaste of the joy?"

THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.

THIS may be regarded as yet an infant denomination. It is indebted for its origin to the state of feeling on religious subjects which has been produced by the long-continued and active ministry of the late Dr. Hawker, Vicar of Charles, Plymouth.

"The Brethren" hold doctrinal opinions which have been described as semi-antinomian.

They decry church establishments and church creeds and covenants. According to their own representation, they form themselves into a religious society upon "the most liberal grounds," deeming that alone to be essential to Christian fellowship which is essential to Christian character. It is more than insinuated, however, by some who have joined their ranks for a time, that their professions and their practice, as a religious body, are at variance. Far from ever stepping out of their own inclosure, they pronounce it to be sinful in the extreme to hold communion with any other class of Christians whatever, or to join with any other class of professors in acts of Christian worship. Thus, while they call themselves the most catholic of Christians, they are charged with being, in reality, the most sectarian.

They are not all precisely of one opinion as to the nature and operation of the "gifts" mentioned by the great "Apostle of the Gentiles," in the 12th and the 14th chapters of his First Epistles to the Corinthians. Some of them admit that "the gifts of miracles, and of diversity of tongues," are at the