gious range of rugged mountains, which extended their arms from the shores of the ocean to the banks of the Black Sea. Now this mighty mass of stone is loosened, and melts away, as a tender cloud softens into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas, with his head above the clouds. There was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia. And yonder, towards the North, stood the Riphæan hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, like the snow upon their summits, and swallowed up. The sea itself is gradually consumed; and the whole exterior frame of the earth is dissolved in a deluge of fire. But, whilst all the solid parts near the surface are thus reduced into a glittering orb of fluid fire; the lighter and more volatile, such as smoke, watery vapor, and the earthy particles, which the power of heat is capable of supporting, will float in the agitated air, and constitute a thick region of darkness, encompassing the flaming globe.

During the space of some years, it will remain a dreadful spectacle to the neighboring planets; an awful monument of the divine wrath against disloyal and disobedient creatures. At length, however, the flames will be extinguished. At length the surrounding darkness will be dispelled. For, when the force of fire ceases to operate, the particles of earth and air and water, which fill the surrounding chaos, will, according to their different degrees of gravity, successively descend, and arrange themselves on the smooth surface of the liquified world. As accessions are thus perpetually made to it from all the heights and regions of the air, it will become by degrees firm and immoveable, will be able to support itself and a new race of inhabitants, and, being possessed of all the principles of a fruitful soil, as well for the production of animals as of plants, will want no property belonging to an habitable earth. The new orb will be level and regular; and, as the ocean will be shut up in its centre, its surface will be alike destitute of mountains and of seas.

Nor will it long remain without inhabitants; for the virtuous of mankind, and the martyrs of Jesus, and, among others, the patriarchs, the prophets, and the apostles, will rise from the dead, and exclusively enjoy the privileges of a prior resurrection. The face of nature will be eminently beautiful; and the earth will be endowed with spontaneous fertility. The axis of the globe will be parallel to the axis of the Ecliptic; and there will be perpetual serenity, and a perpetual spring, free from the vicissitudes of the seasons, and the inconveniencies of heat and of cold. The newly created animals will be mild and tractable. The lamb and the kid will associate, on terms of familiar intimacy, with the wolf, the lion, and the leopard, who will retain no thirst for blood, no fondness for prey. The sons of the first resurrection will possess bodies similar in shape to those, which they had in their former life; but they will be superior to the attacks of disease. The new creation. will be enlightened by the divine presence in an extraordinary manner. All evil will be extirpated. All mischievous passions will be extinguished. There will be no marriage; and, as infants will not be born, no part of their time will be occupied in the nursing of children or in the education of youth. As they will be elevated to a life of uninterrupted freedom and of joyful inactivity, day will glide after day, and year will succeed after year, in the alternate fruition of the impassioned transports of devotion and the calmer pleasures of contemplation. After having thus enjoyed a thousand years of the highest terrestrial felicity, the glories of a celestial world will dawn upon them; and they will be transported through the sky to meet our Saviour in the clouds, when he comes to visit the earth a third time, at the period of the final resurrection and the general judgment.

Without stopping to combat the peculiarities of Dr. Burnet's Theory, objections to which will spontaneously occur in the mind of the intelligent reader, I shall proceed

to the farther developement of my own expectations and conjectures.

cease.

The idea of a millennium, it will perhaps be urged, is irrational, because we are told by different commentators, as by bishop Newton* and Mr. Lowth, that, on the arrival of this period, all earthly governments are to terminate.But of the texts, which authorise them to draw this conclusion, I am yet to be informed. That the destruction of the present European governments is predicted, I certainly am not disposed to question: but it surely does not, therefore, follow, that there are to be no governments at all. Very different was the opinion of Jurieu. All those vain titles,' says he, which now serve for ornament and pride, shall then be vanished. Brotherly love shall make all men equal; not that all distinction, and all dignities among men, shall This kingdom is no anarchy; there shall be some to govern, and others to obey. But government shall then be without pride and insolence, without tyranny and without violence. It is Christianity, says Dr. Maclaine, which ⚫ confirms by positive precepts, encourages by sublime promises, and enjoins, under pain of the most tremendous evils, those virtues of piety, candor, gratitude, temperance, and benevolence, that strengthen all the bonds of civil government'.' Mr. Stephens, a diligent student of the Apocalypse, long ago observed, that the kingdom of Christ is not contrary to governments, powers, and authorities, purely as such; but only to governments as idolatrous, as tyrannical, as contrary to the laws of Christ.' And it will shortly be seen, that there actually are passages in Daniel and in John, which lead us to expect, that governments will continue to exist in the millennium, though administered by persons of a very different character from those, who are at present invested with power.

4 Vol. I. p. 492.

6 Vol. II. p. 379.

5 On Dan. VII. 26.

7 Lett. addressed to S. Jenyns, Esq. on his view of the Intern. Evid. of Chr. p. 123.

8 Calculation of the Number of the Beast, &c. p. 300.

The whole of the Apocalypse may, says a late writer, 'be considered as a number of scenic pictures'.' Thus the material images, occurring at the entrance of the xxth chapter, are similar to those employed at the close of the xixth. We are there told, that the ten-horned beast was taken, and with him the false prophet, and that these were both cast alive into a lake of fire: that the overthrow of the antichristian monarchies of Europe is foretold in this, as well as in other passages, has already been seen. But the succeeding verses in ch. xx proceed a step farther. Another symbolic personage, the dragon, is there described, as appearing to St. John in the prophetic vision, and being bound with a chain, till the thousand years be fulfilled. Conformably to what was stated in ch. vi.1° and in agreement with its proper symbolic import, I observe, that the dragon, as it cannot here denote the tyranny of the Roman emperors, appears to be put for monarchical despotism in general.

Now to bind,' says Dr. Lancaster, is to forbid, or to restrain from acting.' Therefore the binding of the dragon for a thousand prophetic years seems manifestly to signify, that the fury of monarchical tyranny shall during that period be restrained". The angel of the vision is described (v. 1), as having not only a great chain, to bind this figurative personage, but also Ty λida rus abvors, the key of the sea, την κλειδα by means of which the symbolic sea may be shut up. 'Our translation,' says Daubuz, turns the whole thus, the key of the bottomless pit; but abvoros signifies always the deep or great sea, in opposition to little waters or seas12.'

6

Whilst it is remarked by this able commentator, that a key is an emblem of that which binds and shuts up; he declares, in correspondence with a passage formerly cited from him, that abuccos, or the sea, is an established symbol for a state of war. That a complete stop will now be put to this unnatural state of things, is accordingly the inter

9 The Revelation is wholly dramatical.' Daubuz, p. 154. 10 In p. 65-67.

11 In the symbolic diction of prophecy a 'chain signifies hindrance from action. So Artemidorus, lib. III. c. 35. Dr. Lancaster.

12 P. 397.

pretation, which he annexes to this clause of the prophecy13

In the verse which follows the account of the symbolic dragon (v. 4), the prophet says, And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them, that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

After observing from Dr. Lancaster, that a throne is the symbol of government or power, I shall again cite the first clause of the verse, as translated by Mr. Wakefield: and I saw thrones, to the sitters on which judgment was given. 'What can this mean,' says Dr. Lightfoot, but power and authority to be magistrates and judges". To the same purport Mr. Lowman. This figurative description seems to intimate order and government in this kingdom of Christ, that some were to have judgment given unto them, or to be raised to the authority of magistrates in it. This, as all other governments, was to be made up of governors and governed.' Judgment was given unto them. By judgment,' says Vitringa, 'here without doubt is understood the office and dignity of a judge. John hath imitated the expression of Daniel, who says the judgment sat: i. e. judges were invested with the power of pronouncing sentence, and adorned with the dignity and office of judges.— But judgment involves and carries with it the idea of government, as De Launay has very well observed on this place; for to judge in the style of the Old Testament is to govern.' Who the persons are, who hereafter shall govern, is not, however, stated by St. John; and the reason is this, says Vitringa: he expected, that his readers would compare what he says with the parallel place in Daniel, from

13 See Daubuz, p. 917.

14 Mr. Wakefield translates, and they came to life. 15 Vol. II. p. 1058.

16 VII. 10.