wonders of the law, and the mysteries of the gospel, open before each an immeasurable field of growing wisdom and delightful contemplation. The brightest scenes of fancy are surpassed and thrown into the shade; when ten thousand hearts, capable of divine purity and immortal glory, are uniting all their earnest endeavours to secure the largest and fullest blessings which a God of infinite goodness is willing to bestow. 'Since the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him.' God hath seen it, and He only. His eye, even now, is beholding and rejoicing in the prospect of this unbounded happiness; which He will shortly pour down to refresh the desolate heritages of this fallen world.

Such is the delightful vision which these prophecies, by their implied contrast, open before us. This is the high standard which every Christian, and most of all every Christian statesman, should keep ever in view. His aim should be, to raise the nation of his birth from the worship of vain shadows, like the idol image, to the devout and holy worship of the God of heaven; to banish atheism from its counsels, and ungodliness from its cities, and enthrone, in the hearts of its citizens and the deliberations of its senate, the supreme authority of Christ, the Son of God. He will seek to turn it from the wasting course of cruel ambition, bent on conquest, and ravenous for its prey; to the harder but holier work, of rooting out its own corruptions, subduing the natural appetites and passions that range within, and uniting all its members in one holy rivalry of zeal in the cause of truth, and desires for the salvation of their fellow-men. Even though we may not hope to reach the high standard, till the fourth empire has passed away, and a new era has dawned on the fallen earth; still every step of approach is a cause for gladness; and no effort of love, which has this for its aim, can ever fail to receive a large blessing from the God of heaven.

But these visions of joy, thus dimly and faintly unfolded, are not fairy dreams, which cheat the fancy, and can never be fulfilled. The prophecy now leads us on to the untrodden future, where every step will be bright with mystery; and reveals to us those hopes as blessed realities, which might seem at first to be only fruitless and Utopian dreams of an idle imagination. The ideal of a righteous nation will yet be abundantly fulfilled. The four Empires, with their dark features of superstition and cruelty, will only lend a brighter contrast to that kingdom which shall ensue. The ideal of

holiness and happiness which we faintly attempt to form, while buried in the thick atmosphere of worldliness, will be far surpassed by the bright realities of the kingdom of God. And after our imagination has exhausted its powers to combine the various elements of truth and loveliness into one landscape of delight, the Spirit of God still renews to us the language of hope and mystery, and says to the faithful Christian, as to Nathanael of old, "Thou shalt see greater things than these." Let us now pass, from the review of three thousand years of sin and sorrow, to the promise of that world to come, and trace the course of the millennial blessedness, and the everlasting kingdom of God our Saviour.

CHAPTER XV.

ON THE MILLENNIUM.

THESE Visions have now led us in unbroken course, through the range of the Four Empires, from the time of Daniel to the latter days of the Roman power. The times in which we live plainly belong to the fourth empire, and answer to its latest stage, when it has been long divided into separate kingdoms. The prophecy, therefore, announces the near approach of a glorious kingdom of God. The whole range of providence is tending to this blessed consummation, as its final goal. The hopes of the Church, from the beginning, have been fixed on the same event; and the whole creation travaileth in pain together, with earnest desire, until the glory, so long promised, shall at length be revealed.

The nature of this kingdom, however, has been the subject of much controversy and debate in the Church of God. For here we enter on the field of unaccomplished prophecy, which many devout Christians conceive it dangerous and even impossible to explore. The predictions themselves are plainer, and less involved in symbols, than many which relate to the past; but the mere fact that they refer to things future has led many to regard their meaning as uncertain and doubtful. The variety of opinions, which have actually obtained in the Church from very early times, has deepened this impression. It is needful then to advance with cautious

steps, in establishing those truths which the word of God unfolds to us as the hope of the Church. Instead of confining ourselves to the visions of Daniel, we must include the whole range of Scripture evidence on the revealed order of the Divine dispensations.

The Millennium, or thousand years of rest predicted in the Apocalypse, has naturally formed the central point in each various interpretation. According as this reign of the saints is past or future, definite or indefinite in its length, and figurative or literal in its nature, all the hopes of the Church will be moulded into a different form and outline. To fix its true place is the first essential, that we may form a clear anticipation of the good things to come.

The following are the chief varieties of opinion on this great subject. First, that all the prophecies have been long fulfilled, and that the millennium was past in the days of Constantine. This view has but few advocates, and does the most manifest. violence to the word of God. Secondly, that the millennium began with the nativity or crucifixion, or the accession of Constantine, and therefore is now past; but the rebellion which follows is still future, and the same with the last Antichrist. This opinion prevailed widely from the fourth century till after the Reformation, and is the general view of Roman Catholic divines at the present day. Thirdly, that the millennium is future, but preceded by the second advent, and the resurrection both of the just and of the unjust. This opinion has very few advocates, and may be passed by, since it never has had any currency in the Church. Fourthly, that the millennium is future, preceded only by a figurative resurrection, in the wide conversion of the Jews and Gentiles, and followed by the second advent, and the general resurrection of all the dead. This view has prevailed widely in the Protestant Churches, but only within the last century and a half. Fifthly, that the millennium is future, but preceded by the coming of Christ, and the literal resurrection of the just, or at

least of the martyrs, and followed by the resurrection : of the rest of the dead. This opinion was general for the first three centuries, but afterwards died very much away; till it was revived by a large number of Protestant expositors, after the early times of the Reformation. A sixth view is an extension of the last, or of the strictly millennarian interpretation. It agrees in the doctrine of a future millennium, marked by a literal resurrection at its beginning and its close. But it views this as merely the porch to a kingdom of God upon earth, which shall last for ever; and wherein the glory of the risen saints, in the celestial city, will combine itself with the blessedness of redeemed generations in the new earth, who shall walk in the light of the new Jerusalem.

Three inquiries, then, will have to be answered, before we can have clear and firm views on the future hopes of the Church. First, whether the millennium be past or future? Secondly, what is the general nature of that kingdom which ensues afterwards? Thirdly, what is the true place of the Second Advent, before the millennium, or after its close? In the chapters which follow, it will be endeavoured to answer these inquiries by copious evidence from the word of God.

But here, on the verge of this great subject, we do well to pause, and to meditate on its grandeur, that we may search with a holy reverence into these Divine mysteries. These glorious hopes of the Church, even before the worlds were made, were the great object of the divine counsels. The events of six thousand years have been one continual preparation for this eternal kingdom. Compared with its greatness and majesty, the mightiest empires of this world are only like a passing shadow. Through tears and blood, through ages of strife and agony, the way has been preparing for these triumphs of Divine goodness; and all the sufferings of this present time, in their collective vastness, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which is hereafter o be revealed. How needful it is, while searching into