think unknown to us, the defenders of truth should accustom themselves to the same weapons.

Moses, deputed by God to conduct a numerous people, was skilled in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and his rod, transformed into a serpent, devoured, in the sight of Pharaoh, the serpents of the magicians, who by their sorceries hardened the heart of that prince. Promote, therefore, those sage institutions which, training up in retirement, under the eyes of the Lord, young ministers, and communicating to them that extensive information, those various talents, which give fresh lustre to virtue, and render them worthy of being adopted by you, and hereafter presented to the church as the ornament and pattern of the flock committed to their charge.

And you, my brethren! fellow-sailors in the same ocean and the same vessel, remember that one lot awaits the passengers and the pilot. It signifies little to have warned you of the shoals, and pointed out the means of escaping shipwreck; you must also co-operate with us: on your concurrence depends, in a great degree, the success of our ministry. Second our efforts; support our courage, which is requisite for inculcating your duty without fear of your displeasure; cheer us by a forwardness to receive our wholesome advice, saying, as the children of Israel to Moses, but with more steadiness and fidelity, "Speak to us from the Lord: we will do whatsoever you command.” Then, though your amendment and virtues may not influence the eternal designs of God towards the different nations of the earth, I may venture to say, the land wherein you dwell will, like that of Goshen, be exempted from surrounding plagues (Exod. ix. 25): you will behold, as Lot from the mountain's top, the conflagration of the criminal cities: or, if you must participate in the general chastisement, you will be purified, but not destroyed, by the tribulation: you will be of the number denoted in the holy Scriptures by the seven thousand who have not bowed down before the idol (3 Reg. xix.); and by a similar number who have not defiled their garments: you will be the happy first-fruits, the precious and blessed remains which shall have escaped the reaper's sickle; and will be joined by the converted Jews, and those Gentiles whom they will bring in their train. These two people will make but one, and you will be the link which unites them. Among them, the True Joseph, after long concealment, will discover Himself to his brothers, and take his seat at the banquet prepared for them. Composed of these two people, enriched by her new conquests, the church in the midst of her populous family will exult in her delayed fecundity: her youth renewed, as the eagle's, will efface the remembrance of afflictions gone by for ever: you will have

begun, your children will carry on, the work of a joyful regeneration: and, should your eyes be closed ere they could witness the manifestation of the Saviour's glory, and the triumph of his church, you will have hailed afar off that great day; you will have prepared for it, as if at hand; and God, who saw your endeavours, calling you to Himself, will assign you a place among the prophets who foretold it, the patriarchs who expected itthe four-and-twenty elders, who, sitting each on a throne at the side of Him, will with Him judge the nations, and partake of his glory and blessedness through all eternity. Amen. (Apoc. iv. 2-5.)

"Remarks" (by the French Publisher).

"The Son of God, weary of the crimes of the Gentiles, will come, in great majesty, to purify the earth, to renew the heavens, to establish a new kingdom" (p. 60).

Among them, the True Joseph, after long concealment, will discover himself to his brothers, and take his seat at the banquet prepared for them" (p. 68). "In these two passages M. de Noé seems to admit a visible and intermediate coming of Jesus Christ upon earth at the time of the conversion of the Jews. Some, even pious, persons have been offended at it. Let us endeavour to encourage them, and wipe off this sort of blemish from the memory of our learned and religious prelate, by shewing that the intermediate coming of Jesus Christ, called likewise the reign of a thousand years, has solid proof in Scripture and tradition.

It is in the Apocalypse that we first meet with it in express terms. In ch. xix. St. John sees the Word of God, who advances with a two-edged sword to fight against the beast and the false prophet, as well as their followers: the beast and the false prophet "were thrown alive into the lake of fire and brimstone." And at ch. xx., "Satan was bound and shut up in the bottomless pit for a thousand years, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled; after that he must be loosed for a little season. They who had been beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, which had not worshipped the beast nor his image, neither had received. his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands, lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years: the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished: this is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this resurrection; on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog," &c.

Either the clearest things prove nothing, or these few verses shew that the coming of the Word of God to strike the beast and the nations will take place long before the end of the ages; because, after the destruction of this beast we must admit at least a thousand years, during which they who have not worshipped him shall reign with Jesus Christ, and after which Satan will be loosed awhile and deceive the nations.

Moreover, that the coming of the Word of God to punish the beast is not the last coming, is so manifest, that the Apocalypse expressly places this last coming and the last judgment after the remarkable punishment of Gog and Magog.

Behold, then, the reign of a thousand years announced by the Scriptures in so formal a manner as to exclude any other interpretation for St. John seems to insist on, and repeat as often as six times, the expression a thousand years, as if to prevent an allegorical acceptation of this passage. It alone is enough to quiet those who may have been startled at this opinion, and think it a novelty. But the Bible furnishes many proofs of it; and the Prophets especially speak so often of this reign of Jesus Christ upon earth, that a learned commentator (father Houbigant) declared that these texts appeared to him inexplicable without such key. The only difference between this passage and others which we are about to cite, is, that the duration of the reign of Jesus Christ is not laid down in them as in this.

First, keeping to the Apocalypse, the saints say to God (v. 10) "Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth." Consequently it is on the earth that the saints must reign with Jesus Christ as is said, ch. xx. St. Peter (2 Pet. iii. 6), speaking of the earth before the flood, calls it "the world which then was." The earth altered by that event he calls "the world which now is;" and goes on to say, "As the world which then was perished by water, so the heavens and earth which now are, are reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment;" a day when will be fulfilled the promise of the coming of Jesus Christ; a day which "will come as a thief;" a day in which "with a great noise" the present heavens and earth shall melt with fervent heat," and introduce those "new heavens and that new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." The question, then, is, whether this day and this coming of Jesus Christ take place before the end of the ages. But St. Peter, again, tells us, "We wait for new heavens and a new earth, according to the promise of our Lord" (ver. 13). He thus refers us to the promise of it which the Lord gave by Isaiah, the only one of the sacred writers, before Peter, that has mentioned it. We may therefore easily settle the point; for, according to Isaiah (lxv.), under these new heavens and on this new earth they shall build houses, they shall plant vineyards, and eat the

fruit of them, and shall have offspring, &c. These, and many other things too long to enumerate, cannot occur in the abodes of the blessed. The day and coming of Jesus Christ, which will introduce these new heavens and earth, cannot be the last coming. It must, therefore, take place before the end of the ages; even a long while before; as God will not renew the heavens and earth for a short space; and, besides, there will be procreation of children, and a posterity, says Isaiah.

St. Peter adds, "Even as our beloved brother Paul, also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written to you, as he does in all his epistles, speaking of these things." M. Mesenguy, in his note on these words of St. Peter, tells us that they allude principally to the Epistle to the Hebrews. In fact, the Apostle in that Epistle (ii. 5) unequivocally declares, that he speaks of a future world, wherein all will be in subjection to Jesus Christ (ver. 8), whereas now we see not all things put under him." This future world cannot be the church, since the church existed already not heaven, the abode of the blessed, both because heaven existed already, and because we cannot say that "sheep, oxen, and wild animals" will be subjected to Jesus Christ in heaven, as St. Paul and David affirm they will be in the future world. The future world, then, must needs be this earth, new, or renewed, by that coming of Jesus Christ of which St. Peter speaks. St. Paul, in saying that all things, even tame and wild beasts, will there be in subjection to Jesus Christ; and that "the future world is not put in subjection to angels," but that he will govern it in person teaches us that the Divine Saviour; will come again upon earth to reign there, and, of course, long before the end of the ages.

Isaiah (lxvi. 22) recurs to "the new heavens and the new earth which the Lord will make," and which he had promised in the preceding chapter from God. And when should the Lord make them? At the time (ver. 15) when He "shall come with fire, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames; for by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many.' One can scarce avoid perceiving in these words of Isaiah the same coming of the Lord and the same flood of fire announced by St. Peter. Here, then, we have a fresh proof that the second coming of Jesus Christ will long precede the end of the ages: for to all that the prophet had said in ch. lxv. of "the new heavens and the new earth," and which requires an extensive series of time for its verification, he adds here (ver. 22), that the seed and name of the Jews shall remain as long as this new earth and these new heavens, and that "from one moon to another" (this must be before the end of the ages)" all flesh shall come to worship Him."

Ch. xxi. of the Apocalypse likewise recals the "new heavens

and new earth" mentioned by St. Peter and Isaiah; and St. John adds (ver. 10), "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice, which issued from the throne, and said, The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself, dwelling with them, shall be their God." This cannot relate to the abode of the blessed, since in that abode there is no distinction of a heaven and an earth: nor should Jerusalem which cometh down from heaven, be confounded with heaven itself. It is therefore on earth, properly so called, but on the renewed earth, that God will dwell with men, according to this passage of the Apocalypse.

It will, perhaps, be objected, that St. John does not give a description of the holy city until he has spoken of the last judgment, at the end of the foregoing chapter. But this objection does not affect the reasons I have adduced to shew that he is not there treating of heaven, the abode of the blessed. I may remark, that St. John at chap. xx. relates the whole series of events to the end of the world inclusively, not to disturb the order of them; and that at chap. xxi. he returns to the second coming and the reign of a thousand years, as the object which, from the birth of Jesus Christ to the end of the world, particularly deserves to fix our attention, to make us more sensible of their happiness who shall be admitted to it. Beside, if the Apocalypse does not describe it until after the last judgment, it is already mentioned in chap. xix. before the destruction of the beast, which must precede that judgment a thousand years at least it had been said, that before the combat of the Word of God against the beast this voice was heard, "Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready." The proof that the wife who is ready, and whose marriage is come, means the Jerusalem from heaven (chap. xxi.), is, that in the same chapter (ver. 9) an angel says to St. John, "Come, and I will shew you the Lamb's wife;" and he shewed him "from a great and high mountain, the holy city Jerusalem, descending out of heaven."

The marriage of this Lamb's wife, this new Jerusalem which comes down from heaven, must take place, according to chap. xix. during the reign of a thousand years, and before the rebellion of Gog and Magog, who "at the end of these thousand years compass the beloved city," and, consequently, must happen long before the end of the ages. Moreover, it is said (xxii. 2), “ In the midst of the street is the tree of life, which bare fruit every month; and whose leaves were for the healing of the nations.” But after the general judgment there will be no more months, no