years, ages since the beginning of the world, that the six thousandth year is not yet concluded or ended. But that number being fulfilled, of necessity there must be an end, and the state of human things must be transformed into that which is better." This he proves from God's making the world in six days.

The learned JOSEPH MEDE, called the "illustrious Mede," says, 66 The divine institution of a Sabbatical, or seventh year's solemnity among the Jews, has a plain typical reference to the seventh chiliad, or millenary of the world, according to the well known tradition among the Jewish Doctors, adopted by many in every age. of the Christian church, that this world will attain to its limit at the end of six thousand years."

The Rev. RICHARD CLARK, in his essay on the number seven takes a similar view. He also says in his treatise on the prophetical numbers of Daniel and John, that "The six thousand years preceding the Sabbath of rest" "will be. cut short in righteousness."

THOMAS BURNET, in his "Theory of the Earth," printed in London A. D. 1697, states that it was the received opinion of the primitive church from the days of the apostles to the council of Nice, that this earth would continue six thousand years, when the resurrection of the just and conflagration of the earth, would usher in the millennium and reign of Christ on earth,

Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, speaking of the faith and character of

primitive Christians, says "The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was intimatı ly connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the creation had been finished in six days, their duration in a present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed at six thousand years. By the same analogy, it was inferred that this long period of labor and contention, which was now almost elapsed, [the early Christians supposed the world was about 6020 years old in their day] would be succeeded by a joyous Sabbath of a thousand years-and that Christ, with the triumphant band of saints, and the elect who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon the earth till the time appeared for the last resurrection."

John Bunyan, the pious author of the Pilgrims Progress, says: "God's blessing the Sabbath Day, and resting on it from all his works, was a type of that glorious rest that Saints shall have when the six days of this world

are fully ended. This the Apostle asserted in the 4th chapter to the Hebrews, 'there remaineth a rest (or the keeping of a Sabbath) to the people of God,' which Sabbath, as I conceive, will be the seventh thousand of years which are to follow immediately after the earth has stood six thousand years first. For as God was six days in the works of Creation and rested on the seventh, so in six thousand years he will perfect his works and providences that

concern this world. As also he will finish the toil and travail of his Saints, with the burden of the beasts and the curse of the ground, and bring all into rest for a thousand years. A day with the Lord is a thousand years; wherefore this blessed and desirable time is also called a day, a great day, that great and notable day of the Lord, which shall end in the eternal judgment of the world. God hath held this forth by several other shadows, as the Sabbath of weeks, the Sabbath of years, and the Great Jubilee.”Works vol. 6, p. 301.

Again he says: "None even saw this world as it was in its first creation but Adam and his wife, neither will any see it until the Manifestation of the children of God; that is, until the redemption or resurrection of the Saints. But then it shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."-Ib. p. 329.

Among more modern writers, we find that Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, and Knox, preserved substantially the ancient faith, and did not believe in the conversion of the world before Christ's coming. Thus, so far from our doctrines being NEW and heretical, they are the republication of the sentiments of those champions of the Reformation.

LUTHER, in his Commentary on John 10: 11 -16, "Other sheep I have," &c., writes thus: "Some, in explaining this passage say, that be. fore the latter days, the whole world shall be. come Christians. This is a falsehood, forged

by Satan, that he might darken sound doctrine, that we might not rightly understand it. ware, therefore, of this delusion."

Le

In another place he uses the following striking language: "I am persuaded that verily the day of judgment is not far off: yea, will not be absent above THREE HUNDRED YEARS LONGER." Thus it will be seen that, by the "latter days," he must have referred to the time following the resurrection, before which time he did not expect the Millennium, for he proceeds: "The voice will soon be heard; Behold the Bridegroom cometh! God neither will nor can suffer this wicked world much longer, but must strike it with the judgments of his DAY OF WRATH, and punish the rejec tion of his word." Luther died in 1546, and of course the three hundred years from the time he wrote, must be now expiring.

66

MELANCTHON, "Luther's fellow laborer in the Reformation," was the author of the Augsburg Confession, which," says the Rel. Enc., "may be considered as the creed of the German Reformers, especially of the more temperate among them." The seventeenth article says: We condemn those who circulate the judaizing notion that, prior to the resurrection of the dead, the pious will engross the government of the world, and the wicked be oppressed."

CALVIN, in his Institutes, maintained the doctrine of the new earth, or the "restoration," and says: "I expect, with Paul, a reparation of ALL the evils caused by sin, for which he

represents the creatures as groaning and travailing." This was the millennium he looked for.

JOHN KNOX, "the great champion of the Scottish Reformation," (who died in 1572) in his Liturgy, speaking of the reforming of the face of the whole earth, says: "Which never was, nor yet shall be, till the righteous King and Judge appear for the restoration of all things."

The above are but a few of the many testimonies which might be adduced in proof of the antiquity of this belief; but here are enough to show that it is of no modern origin. As therefore we are evidently at the very termination of the 6000 years, we are at the very point of time when all the honored names of antiquity would be looking for the coming of the Lord. Well, then, may we live in continual expectation of this glorious event, when we find the fulfilment of the prophecies, the signs of the times, and the prophetic periods, all harmonizing in the completion of this period.

Boston, Sept. 1st, 1843.