yet we reject such an interpretation. Why? First, because of the natural impossibility of the thing; and secondly, because of the utter incongruity of such a sentiment, for how could a second and merely natural birth prepare a man for the kingdom of heaven? Even Mr. D. is compelled to go along with us here, and yield assent to our reasons. But just the same difficulties as these lie in the way of assigning historic reality to the prophecies about the future coming and kingdom of Christ; I mean, of course, historic reality in the sense in which Mr. D. employs this phrase, i. e. mundane, visible, palpable reality. It is impossible in the nature of things, that glorified bodies should dwell in and belong to a material world; and it would be utterly incongruous with the state of perfection and glory that is promised to saints, to suppose that they are to come back from the presence and beatific vision of their God and Saviour, to a terrestrial, limited, and degraded condition; for degraded it really is, in comparison with their heavenly state.

But Mr. D. does not appear, for a moment, to hesitate about these matters, for any such reasons as these. While he is frequent and occasionally somewhat vehement, in his charges of unfairness and want of candour upon those who differ from him as to millennial speculations, and seems to consider them as wilfully shutting their eyes against the light of truth, and as refusing to apply the plainest and most cogent rules of interpretation, he himself still takes the very same liberties, in all parts of his system of religious belief which are not concerned with his great subject—the very same which he censures in them; in other words, in spite of all his seemingly unbending system of interpretation, he bends every where, in case common sense bids him so to do, provided it does not interfere with his favorite views in respect to Christ's second coming. How convenient it is to see a mote in a brother's eye, while a beam is in our own, was long ago the subject of notice and animadversion; and seldom indeed have we met with a case, in our reading, where this is more conspicuous than in the present. But of the topic thus incidentally brought to view, in these few last paragraphs, more in the sequel.

Mr. D. has done nothing in reality to establish an intelligible rule of hermeneutics, which will essentially aid him in his main purpose; for historical reality belongs just as much

to the spiritual world, as it does to the material and visible world. And as a great portion of prophecy, beyond all reasonable question, has respect to the moral and spiritual concerns of men, so we may very rationally believe, that a great portion of it concerns the moral and spiritual world, rather than the terrestrial and visible one. All then is afloat, on the ground of Mr. D. We are compelled to leave the matter just where it was when we began to consider it; for we have not acquired, by 150 pages of discussion, any new light, nor one single principle to which appeal can be made, with any success, for the establishment of his system.

Come we next to the grand outlines of the system itself, which Mr. D. has exhibited and defended. He has undertaken to give these in chap. vi. p. 148. seq., and to present them in contrast with what he calls the system of the Spiritualists, i. e. of those who believe only in a moral or spiritual Millennium. Passing by several inadvertencies or incorrectnesses in his statements respecting the views of the Spiritualists, and overlooking some seeming attempts secretly to ally them with the skeptics, who expect only such a golden age as the perfectability of man will usher in, we come at once to the very essence of Mr. D.'s LITERALISM. We shall give, as briefly as may be, the leading features of it, as developed on p. 163 seq.; and give them, so far as brevity will allow, in his own language.

(1) The literal restoration of the Jews to their own land'; which will be either introductory to, or in the midst of, convulsions and revolutions among the European and Asiatic nations.

(2) An extensive conspiracy among antichristian nations, led on by some sovereignty, which shall be the Assyrian of Isaiah, the last form of Antichrist; and this will lead to the great war of Gog and Magog as described by Ezekiel, and battle of Armageddon as set forth by John. All will issue in the destruction of the conspirators, p. 164.

(3) During or previous to these movements, Christ will come personally and visibly in the air, accompanied by the souls of deceased saints; the bodies of these will now be raised; while other saints, then living on the earth, will be transformed and caught up to meet Christ in the air.

(4) Dreadful judgments will next be inflicted on all the apostate nations, by means of volcanic and other forces; mys

tic Babylon will in the sequel be destroyed, but not all the nations of the earth.

(5) The saints, i. e. both those with raised bodies and those with transformed ones, will live, for a while, in the air with Christ, until he shall have executed his judgments upon the nations of the earth; thus preparing the way for the national conversion of the Jews.

(6) While his judgments are going on, the wickedness of the antichristian nations will come to the full; so that he must needs now descend to execute his final vengeance on his enemies.

(7) He will come down from the air, stand on the Mount of Olives, and utterly destroy the hosts of the wicked; he will change the geological structure of Jerusalem and its vicinity by a terrible earthquake, and so transform the region as to make it fit for building there the metropolis of the regenerated world.

(8) He will re-establish the Theocracy in Jerusalem, in more than its pristine glory; the temple will be rebuilt, and rites of worship be adapted to the dispensation, in which Jerusalem and the Jewish nation are to stand pre-eminent among the nations, p. 165.

(9) After a series of years, all the wicked will be exterminated on the face of the whole Roman [?] earth; but there will be distant nations unexterminated, on whom the Spirit will be poured out, so that nations will be born in a day, by means of the saints who reign at Jerusalem; and thus the whole world will be brought into a peaceful and blessed subjection.

(10) The risen and glorified saints, in the new metropolis, will be kings and priests for the administration of the political and religious interests of the [Jewish] nation.

(11) With the new Theocracy will be connected a temple, built after the model drawn by Ezekiel; and Jerusalem will become the nucleus and centre of all political and religious influences.

(12) Christ, after his descent to the earth, in reality will not habitually dwell at Jerusalem, the metropolis of his worldly kingdom, but make his appearance there only occasionally, according to rites and at seasons appointed by him. His constant and habitual presence will be in the New Jerusalem, the city which comes down from God out of heaven, where

there is no temple, but Christ's presence constitutes its glory, and the delight of the risen saints.

(13) The glorious politico-ecclesiastical dominion will last a thousand years, Satan being confined and restrained.

(14) During this period, the earth will undergo a remarkable transformation, by great geological and atmospheric changes; so that, although men in the flesh will still die, yet the period of youth will only be in bloom at the age of 100 years.

(15) At the end of the thousand years, Satan will be loosed, and all the wicked will be raised from the dead. These will constitute the Gog and Magog of John, typified by those of Ezekiel; and these, uniting with the devil and his angels, will make a violent assault upon the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem. Divine justice will then interpose, and hurl them all to the bottomless pit.

(16) The earth, thus freed from its enemies, will at last be transformed into a paradise of purity and glory, the everlasting abode of all the blessed, p. 166.

In view of a theme so transporting, the author breaks out, at the close of this representation, into an extacy; which he also endeavours to communicate to his readers, by alternate and rapturous expressions of his feelings both in poetry and in prose, p. 167 seq.

Such then is the substance of the millennial system-such the product of the conjoint wisdom and skill of its abettors; as Mr. D. himself has told us, on p. 163. I have made the whole sketch in the author's own words, as I proposed to do, with the mere exception that I have sometimes abridged in order to compress the representation. The Italics too are mine, and not his.

Besides the coup d'oeil of his views which he has given in p. 163 seq., there is another and briefer one in respect to several parts of the scheme, on pp. 366, 367. There is but little difference, however, between the two, which is of any special importance. From this remark we may except, perhaps, the fact, that in the first sketch, the risen and quickened saints in general are represented as "kings and priests for the administration of the political and religious interests" of the new realm (p. 165); while in the second, the collected Jews, it is said, will be the medium of reigning over all the earth, by Christ and his saints, p. 367.

The unprejudiced and simple reader will probably inquire, with some amazement: What can be brought now, from the Scriptures, in support of such stupendous arrangements as these? Who can satisfy us about occurrencies, which would seem to lie beyond any region reached by the loftiest or the most vagarious flight that the imagination of man has ever taken, or can take? On the subject introduced by these questions, something may be said in the sequel; but I must beg leave, for a few moments, to conduct the reader in quite another direction, in order to follow out the track of the author.

Mr. D., if we understand his views aright, is not accustomed, when he meets an opponent on the subject of the apostolical succession of bishops, to attribute much weight to the authority or the opinion of the Christian Fathers. But here we have no less than 100 pages, almost exclusively occupied with what he calls the Traditionary History of millennial opinions; see pp. 169-267. He denominates those Antimillenarians, who oppose his views of the coming and kingdom of Christ, and labours to show, that views like his own have been entertained not only from the early ages of the Christian church, but even from the times in which the Hebrew prophets lived and wrote.

He commences the sketch which he has given of this subject, by a hearty approbation of the remark of Tertullian, quoted and lauded by Faber, viz. that Whatever is first is true; whatever is later is adulterate. In connection with this he re minds us, that "it is certainly a reasonable presumption, that those who lived nearest the apostles, would be most likely to understand the general import of their teaching and charges and exhortations about the coming of Christ, and practically to adopt their principles of interpretation," p. 170.

The Romish church, in their claims of hierarchy; the English high-church advocates, in their claims respecting apostolical succession; in short, every church, and all sects, that build on tradition rather than the word of God-all reason in the same way; and so far as mere principle is concerned, all reason with equal force and correctness.

In what manner, now, if such a stand-point must be assumed, shall we get at the general opinions of the early ages? We have a short epistle of Clement, in the first century, and a few fragments of writings besides, more or less of which