ment, must necessarily follow the universal resurrection; therefore, the Universal Judgment will be at the last day, or closing period of time. Again, our Lord will not again personally visit the earth, till he comes to raise the dead and judge the world; therefore he will not again, personally, visit the earth, till the last day. Further; if he will not again personally visit the earth till "the last day," then it follows, that he will not personally visit it at any intermediate period of time; consequently not at the Millennium. But then the doctrine of our Lord's pre-millennial advent having been (and here our Inquirer referred to the whole of his preceding arguments) demonstrated to be unsound, the key-stone of the Millennary Theory, is displaced, and the demolition of the entire arch becomes inevitable.

His MILLENNARIAN FRIEND then said, he could not deny that our Inquirer's arguments relative to the Resurrection of the Dead, and the Future Judgment, were both scriptural and conclusive; but he must, nevertheless, take the liberty to state what appeared to him, according to anti-millennarian views, to constitute an insurmountable difficulty. He said, he alluded to those parables of our Lord which seem to intimate that the pre-millennial saints will receive, during

the Millennium, a terrestrial recompence, proportionate to the sufferings they shall have endured, and the services they shall have performed, in the cause of their Lord and Master; and further, that He will himself, personally, make the respective awards during the period of his Millennary reign on the earth. Now, (continued he,) as those terrestrial recompenses could not possibly be enjoyed after the conflagration of the earth, and the alleged Final Judgment; it incontestably follows, that they must be dispensed at some antecedent period; and, as it appears from the parables in question, that they will be awarded by our Lord himself personally, he did not see why this award should not take place at the Millennium. He, moreover, observed, that the adjudications of our Lord in reference to the terrestrial recompences, to which he had alluded, and the enjoyment of them by those saints on whom they will be conferred, will themselves, he thought, impart to the Millennary era the character of a New Dispensation.

Our INQUIRER, in reply, said, that he regarded what had been now advanced by his Millennarian Friend, only in the light of an ingenious speculation, and as entirely destitute of Scriptural. support. It appeared to him, that nothing was more

evident than that the design of the parables of our Lord, to which his friend had referred, was by means of facts and circumstances, drawn from the daily history of life, and with which his auditors were, therefore, perfectly familiar, to represent the nature of the kingdom of God; the moral responsibility of its subjects, and the solemn obligations they are under to perform all their duties and services, in reference to the coming Judgment, when our Lord will personally return, and when "EVERY ONE," not some only, will "receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."

That the temporal rewards received by the true disciples of Christ have no relation to the Millennium, is evident from our Lord's own words, "There is no one who hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an hundred-fold, Now, in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." The lan

guage of this passage (which, be it observed, forms a clew for the interpretation of its parallels) evidently shews, that it is not to be understood literally, and, as we have already intimated, that it has

no reference to the Millennium. It is hardly necessary to observe, that if there will ever be any period of the world in which the Church of Christ will be exempt from persecutions, it will be during the Millennary era; how then (asked our Inquirer) can the words "with persecutions" be correctly applied to that period? how can they be applied to that period EXCLUSIVELY? All, indeed, that can be reasonably and scripturally inferred from these words of our Lord is, that those who suffer, for conscience sake, in the profession of the Gospel, shall not only be blessed with spiritual blessings, but also be richly compensated in the enjoyment of temporal things-not as the world enjoys them, with anxiety, and restlessness, and to excess, but in moderation, with a composed mind, with a contented spirit, and with a heart overflowing with gratitude, love, and praise to the infinitely exalted and gracious Bestower of them. Such is the view which St. Paul briefly expresses in the following words :-" Godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and that which is to come." Thus while the rich men of this world abuse their temporal blessings, and suffer from the abuse, "the meek,” however poor, in an emphatic, though not in a literal sense, really" inherit the earth."

HEAVEN THE FINAL RESIDENCE OF THE

SAINTS; AND THE TOTAL DISSOLUTION
OF THE EARTH.

EIGHTH CONFERENCE.

"Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory."

"I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory."

"And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."

"The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up."

OUR INQUIRER began the present Conference by endeavouring to shew, that the proper and eternal residence of the glorified saints is heaven, and, consequently, that their final abode will not be on the earth, in whatever degree purified. In reference to this point, he quoted, from among