world, together with the increase of gospel ministers, the thousands of ignorant children that have been taught to read the Bible, and the vast number of differ ent societies that have been lately instituted for the benevolent purpose of informing the minds and improving the hearts of the ignorant; who knows, I say, but what these things are the forerunners of events of the most delightful nature, and which may usher in the happy morn of that bright and glorious day, when the whole world shall be filled with his glory, and all the ends of the earth see the salvation of God."* These are the prevailing views.

We have exhibited them in the language of the author, because they are the more current, by reason of being found in a very popular work, extensively circulated, and doubtless contributing, no little, to mould the prevalent opinions on the subject of the prophecies, as interpreted by the spiritualists.

The literalists differ greatly in their views from them, and what is remarkable, they mostly agree among themselves in the general outline and results. It is true, they sometimes differ as to minor and subordinate prophecies not yet fulfilled, but not as to the general system, in its bold and radical features. The Millenium is regarded by them, not as the expansion and universal diffusion of the gospel, in a season of unprecedented religious prosperity-not as the consummation of the present evangelical dispensation, but as a new dispensation, to be miraculously introduced, as all the former dispensations were, and to possess its own distinct and peculiar attributes. The gospel dispensation, which commenced with the ministry of Christ, and was fully introduced on the day of Pente

* See Buck's Theological Dictionary, art, Millenium.

cost, they believe-as Christ and the apostles styled it is the dispensation of the good news of the kingdom of Heaven drawing nigh, but the Millenium, the kingdom itself, commenced with the awful retributions of Divine justice on the enemies of Christ-the one, the proclamation or heralding of the kingdom coming, and the other, the kingdom come, introduced by terrible displays of divine vengeance, and established and perpetuated by the exercise of all the high functions of executive, legislative, and judicial sway, entitling it to the denomination of THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

This kingdom, they affirm, is not the Church of God, as she now exists in her visible organizations, and in which Christians, or the saints, are the subjects, yielding obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ; but it is a new and glorious development of Almighty power, and grace, and justice, in which the saints of all ages, that have died in the faith, and been with Christ, shall return with him to the earth, and receive their bodies raised from the dead, and made like to his most glorious body; when those that love the Lord and his appearing, alive on the earth at the period of his coming, shall undergo an instantaneous change in their mortal bodies, assimilating them to the saints of the resurrection, and shall all be employed by Jesus Christ as his kings and priests, his subordinate agents and officers, to administer under him the government to be then established over the nations that shall yet remain in the flesh. The saints in the millenial state are to reign with Christ—to be the rulers and not the ruled—having been schooled in affliction, persecuted, tried, and many of them put to death for the testimony of Jesus, and no longer selfish, ambitious, covetous, and vindictive, like most rulers of this world, become fit and safe depositaries

.

of power for the government of the nations of the earth.

Such is the general idea of those who adopt the literal interpretation. As to the nature, order, and succession of events, preparatory and designed to usher in and to establish this kingdom, there are, as has been hinted, some differences; but the following are among the points, or facts, believed by different writers who have pursued their investigations farthest, to be taught in prophecy, viz.: That the Jews will be restored to their own land;-thatthis will become the occasion, or be in the midst of great revolutions and convulsions among the European and Asiatic nations, particularly those that occupy the territory of the Roman empire, embracing Western and Central Asia, and Northern and North-eastern Africa;-that a general dissolution of society shall take place through the spirit of lawlessness and violence, of corruption and revolution, which shall prevail, and be especially promoted by the irruption of Northern hordes into Southern Europe and Western Asia, like a devastating storm of hail; that there shall be a great conspiracy among the anti-Christian nations, led on by some one

See Rev. J. W. Brooks on the Advent and Kingdom of Christ; also, his Elements of Prophetical Interpretation. Sermons on the Second Advent, by Rev. Hugh M'Neile; also his Prospects of the Jews. Hon. Gerard T. Noel's Brief Inquiry into the Prospects of the Church of Christ. Cox on the Coming and Kingdom of Christ. Letters by Joseph D'Arcy Sirr, on the First Resurrection, and other works, to be met in the Literalist, published by O. Rogers of Philadelphia-especially Cuninghame on the Apocalypse, and Habershon on the Prophecies and on the Revelation. Also, Frazer on the Prophecies, though not believing in the personal advent, the Investigator, the Morning Watch, Fry on the Second Advent, Mede's Clavis Apocalyptica, and various letters and discourses contained in his works, Begg on the Prophecies, &c. &c.

of the ten sovereignties of Europe, or of some new oriental power to arise within the bounds of the old Roman empire, which sovereignty shall be the Assyrian of Isaiah, the last form of Antichrist ;that this conspiracy will lead to the great war of Gog and Magog predicted by Ezekiel, and the battle of Armageddon, by John, issuing in the terrible destruction of the anti-Christian nations ;-that some time, either previous to, or during these movements, the sign of the Son of man coming in the heavens, shall be seen, and He descending from Heaven into the air, with his saints for the resurrection of their bodies, and catching up the saints alive on the earth into the presence of the Lord; that at this coming, which will be sudden and unexpected, he will inflict dreadful judgments on the apostate nations by means of volcanic and other fires, which will destroy the seat of the Beast, the mystic Babylon, but not all the nations of the earth;-that while his saints remain for a series of years in the immediate presence of Christ, before He descends from the air to the earth, being judged and allotted to their stations and work, He will be conducting his retributive judgment on the nations of the earth, preparing the way for the full restoration of Israel, and their national conversion, in a manner analogous with his Providence toward them for forty years in the wilderness ;-and that when the work of judgment by various interpositions of His Providence, shall have gone on, and the wickedness of the anti-Christian nations shall have come to the full, at the last signal stroke of Divine vengeance, he will descend from the air, and stand upon the Mount of Olives, utterly to destroy the hosts of the wicked, to change the geological structure of Jerusalem and its vicinity, by a terrible earthquake, and to produce those transformations designed to fit it for being made the metropolis

of the world;-that He will re-establish the Theocracy in Jerusalem in more than its pristine glory, with its temple rebuilt, and rites of worship adapted to the dispensation in which Jerusalem and the Jewish nation are to stand pre-eminent among the nations;—that having concluded his work of retributive justice by various means, through a series of years, to the entire extermination of the wicked on the face of the whole Roman earth, there shall be found remnants of people on whom the abundant and mighty influences of the Spirit of God shall have been poured out, and nations be born in a day, by their thorough conversion and cordial submission to the dominion of Heaven by means of the saints ;-that these powerful effusions of the Spirit, and the dominion of Christ by means of his raised and quickened saints, will bring the heathen nations and the uttermost parts of the earth, the whole world, into peaceful blessed subjection;-that the risen and glorified saints will be His kings and priests for the administration of the political and religious interests of the nation;-that the Theocracy, with its temple rebuilt as described by Ezekiel, and established in Jerusalem, shall be the nucleus and centre of all political and religious influences, and all the nations of the earth be united to it ;-that while Christ will indeed dwell on the earth, his presence will be displayed but occasionally at Jerusalem as King, according to rites and at seasons appointed by him ;-that his constant and immediate presence will be in the Heavenly City, the New Jerusalem, not built by the hands of men, but directly and miraculously by God, in which there shall be no temple, but Christ's presence constitute its glory, and the delight of His risen saints ;--that while Heaven shall thus descend on earth, the saints will have communication with the