but their tenet prevails in a less or greater degree throughout almost every department of the religious world.

MILLENARIANS.

THE Millenarians are those who believe that Christ will reign personally on earth for a thousand years; and their name, taken from the Latin, mille, a thousand, has a direct allusion to the duration of this spiritual empire. "The doctrine of the Millennium, or a future paradisaical state of the earth, (says a monthly reviewer) is not of Christian, but of Jewish origin. The tradition is attributed to Elijah, which fixes the duration of the world in its present imperfect condition to six thousand years, and announces the approach of a sabbath of a thousand years of universal peace and plenty, to be ushered in by the glorious advent of the Messiah! This idea may be traced in the epistle of Barnabas, and in the opinions of Papias, who knew of no written testimony in its behalf. It was adopted by the Author of the Revelations, by Justin Martyr, by Irenæus, and by a long succession of the fathers. As the theory is animating and consolatory, and, when divested of cabalistic numbers and allegorical deco

rations, probable even in the eye of philosophy, it will no doubt always retain a number of adherents."*

But as the MILLENNIUM has for these few years past attracted the attention of the public, we shall enter into a short detail of it.

Mr. Joseph Mede, Dr. Gill, Bishop Newton, and Mr. Winchester, contend for the personal reign of Christ on earth. To use that prelate's own words, in his Dissertations on the Prophecies:-" When these great events shall come to pass, of which we collect from the prophecies, this is to be the proper order: the Protestant witnesses shall be greatly exalted, and the 1260 years of their prophesying in sackcloth, and of the tyranny of the beast, shall end together, the conyersion and restoration of the Jews succeed; then follows the ruin of the Jihman empire; and then the total destruction of Rome and of Antichrist. When these great events, I say, shall come to pass, then shall the kingdom of Christ commence, or the reign of the saints upon earth. So Daniel expressly informs us, that the kingdom of Christ and the saints will be raised upon the ruins of the kingdom of Antichrist, vii. 26, 27. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the

It is remarkable, that DRUIDISM, the religion of the first inhabitants of this island, had a reference to the progressive melioration of the human species.

end and the kingdom 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, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. So likewise St. John saith, that, upon the final destruction of the beast and the false prophet, Rev. xx. Satan is bound for a thousand years; and I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given 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 fulfilledof 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 kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever. 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 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

Sabbatism,

One day (2 Pet. thousand years,

or holy rest to the people of God. iii. 9) being with the Lord as a 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."

* See Barnet's Theory.

Mr. Winchester, in his Lectures on the Prophecies, freely indulges his imagination on this curious subject. He suggests,

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; Dr. Priestley, in his Institutes of Religion, and the Author of the Illustrations of Prophecy, contend against the literal interpretation of the Millennium, both as to its mature and its duration. On such a topic, however, we cannot suggest our opinions with too great a degree of modesty.

Dr. Priestley (entertaining an exalted idea of the advantages to which our nature may be destined) treats the limitation of the duration of the world to seven thousand years as a Rabbinnical fable; and intimates that the thousand years may be interpreted prophetically: then every day would signify a year, and the Millennium would last for three hundred

and sixty-five thousand years! Again he supposes that there will be no resurrection of any individuals

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 across that vast ocean to the Holy Land; that Christ will appear at the equinoxes (either March or 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!'