have maintained the opinion; and at the present time the expectation pervades Christendom; and every individual bosom possessing any share of scripture knowledge, and regarding it as truth, expects the promised Millennium. The heathen also, of many countries, anciently entertained opinions equivalent to this, who were doubtless indebted to the Patriarchs and Prophets from Noah and downward, for their ideas, though vastly adulterated with their own fancies by some of them. A description of the changes which await the earth, are very clearly hinted at by Plato. In the end, he states, the world shall be plunged into an eternal abyss of confusion, but God, he says, will again appear, and resume the reins of the empire, and restore order. Is not the new creation here hinted at, though obscurely, by this great philosopher? See Rev. xxi. 5. "Behold I make all things new." Virgil has expressed an opinion, which, in the aggregate, agrees with the opinion of this book as it respects the Millennium. He says, A child of a superior order is soon to descend from heaven to earth; and at his birth the iron age will cease, and the golden. age be restored; crimes will be banished, and the world shall be delivered from all its fears, and become fruitful as at first, and produce every thing every where. Seneca declares a sentiment, which seems to favour the opinion, that before the Millennium, (as contended in this work) all sinners shall be destroyed, to prepare its way. He says, "Haste and come, last and great day, when the heavens shall fall into confusion, and their ruins crush the impious set of men, so that a better race may arise; such as they were heretofore, when Saturn reigned over the beginning of the world." Here is a hint at the state in which our first parents existed, before they fell by sin, and were banished from Eden. The Chinese ancient books have an account, that an extraordinary person, called by them the Saint, or second person in the trinity, is to reign, and in his kingdom he will not allow any wicked men to be there, but they must be banished into the dark abodes of beasts and monsters, leaving none to be the subjects of his kingdom but heavenly and upright people. Plutarch says, that the Persian Magi hold, that there will come a time when Arimanius, the evil spirit, or satan, will be banished from the earth, when it shall, therefore, become beautiful, when men shall be happy and their abodes become transparent, and shall all have the same life, language and government. Thus it is plain, that from very early ages, the expectation prevailed, that a better state of things was finally to succeed this bad state, so acknowledged to be by all. Yes, even Infidels. Having shown that the Prophets, the Jewish Rabbius and Doctors, the ancient Christian Church and fathers, and even the very heathen, have expected the Millennium, 1 now proceed to exhibit the signs of the times which went before the flood, and before the conting of Christ, and also the signs of our own times, which denote the Millennium nigleits commencement. 1 THIRD DIVISION. Our next endeavour shall be, to give a view of the signs of the times which preceded the great deluge and the birth of Christand an account of Herod the great, who put to death the infants of Jerusalem. Also, a minute description of the Ark, and the animals saved in it-proving it amply sufficient to contain all the Scriptures state it did. 444 Before the whelming flood, when Enoch liv'd, THE reason why a view of those times are presented to the reader, is to prepare the mind for a view of the signs of our own times, which signify the Millennium nigh its coming. The signs of the times, which were eminently calculated to arouse the antediluvians to the expectation of severe judgments, to be poured out upon them, was, in the first place, their own great wickedness, corruption and violence. Of these things they were reproved and threatened by Enoch, the first prophet, who was the seventh from Adam, and was translated from earth to heaven by the miraculous power of God. We have in St. Jude, an account of his manner of reproof, which strongly indicates that those times were highly fraught with fearful forebodings, that great wrath was in waiting for those abominable nations who had so thoroughly corrupted their ways in the earth. E* t The manner in which he communicated his reproofs of their doings, was, no doubt, at their public assemblies of riot, confusion and idolatrous worship; where he, in some commanding situation, harangued and fore-warned them of impending judgments, and said, "The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, for their ungodly speeches, which they have spoken against Him:" namely, against the Lord God of Adam. For there is scarcely a doubt, but they constantly reproached and reviled his name, for what they might erroniously esteem severe in his conduct toward Adam and Eve, because he drove them out from Eden, for their sin. The local situation of Eden, was, most certainly, well known to the antediluvians, for they must have frequently conversed with their great progenitor, Adam, concerning it, who had informed them of its delights; which might have inflamed them with a spirit of covetousness to possess it again; but this being impossible, they raged against the Lord, and spake injurious words against him on that account. Of their works, therefore, the holy Enoch reproved them, and perhaps told them, that if God had so se verely judged Adam, they might not expect to escape some signal punishment. At which rebukes they were, unquestionably, enraged, and no doubt proceeded to lay violent hands upon hini, to take away his life; but in the midst of their fery, God caught him up from their sight. He was a man in the prime of life, being three hundred and sixty-five years old when he was translated; but had walked with God three hundred years, consequently, was born again at the age of sixty-five. This holy man, who had been among them a preacher of righteousness, as Noah was, in after years, was no doubt translated in open sight, as was Elijah, near the fords of Jordan. This circumstance should therefore have been received of them, as an evident sign, that God sanctioned Enoch, and consequently condemned them. But what avails the signs of Heaven with the ungodly-the translation of Enoch should have been to them as a voice from the ETERNAL, informing them that they were in imminent danger, since God had so suddenly and miraculously removed that good man from among them. Not many years after the translation of Enoch, there was given to the antediluvians another sign from Heaven, which was the preaching of Noah, who declared to them that God had determined to destroy the earth by water; for God had said to Noah, "The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence; and, behold, I will destroy them with the carth." This surely was a novel doctrine, which was by no means worthy of the attention of the wise ones of that day, who, probably, began to philosophize upon the subject, and to say, how can this thing be, since the waters every where cleave to the lower parts of the earth, and cannot, therefore, climb the hills, and from thence overflow the globe. Neither is there water sufficient in the clouds of hea |