of Isaiah. "Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shall call thy walls Salvation and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory; thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified." This is almost precisely the same language that is employed in the twenty-first of Revelation, to describe what is conceded to be the immortal state. So similar is the language, that we cannot avoid the conclusion that it was borrowed from Isaiah. The same state must be referred to by both. It must be plain to all that Isaiah's language cannot be applied to the earth, in its present disordered and wretched state. If all violence, wasting, and destruction are to cease; if all mourning and sorrow are to have an end; if the sun and moon will no more be needed, on account of God's presence and glory; and if all are to be righteous and inherit the land forever; it cannot be in this world, under the curse, or even in a mortal state. We must rather look for it in the immortal state, under the reign of Christ.

9. The millennium is to be in the New Earth, and therefore will be identical with the reign of Christ. The Bible becomes more and more clear and definite in its instructions, as it advances towards its completion. The New Testament throws much light upon, and gives proper order to, the events predicted in the Old. Peter, in treating, in his last epistle, on the coming of Christ, and the events to succeed, has given us the order in which some of the more important prophetic events are to take place. After speaking of the conflagration of the present heavens and earth, he says,—"Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Peter iii. 13. There is but one promise of this kind in the whole Bible, and that is found in Isaiah. John, the Revelator, saw a new heaven and new earth; but this was after the epistle of Peter was written. The promise in Isaiah, then, must be the one intended by Peter. And if so, we have a strong argument against a millennium in a mortal state. The promise in Isaiah is connected with a glowing description of the millennium; but Peter makes the period of its fulfilment after the conflagration of the present heavens and earth: the millennium connected with it, or dependent upon it, must, therefore, be after. And this will fix it in the new earth. And Peter suggests the reason why we are not to expect such a state

until the new creation, "wherein dwelleth righteousness." As if he had said, that cannot be expected in the present world. Why, then, not believe that he has given the prophetic events their true order? Why expect that here, which God has not promised; which cannot be?

10. A millennium before the resurrection, would exclude those from it who have the strongest claims to its enjoyment. Who should share in the bliss, and joy, and triumph of that state, if not Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, Paul, the martyrs, those who have suffered and sacrificed the most for truth and Christ? How marvellous, that those should have an exclusive right to that season of rejoicing and holy triumph, who shall come on to the stage just at the dawn of that day, without having suffered anything, sacrificed anything, or done anything for Christianity? And, stranger still, that they should have a thousand years' jubilee over the graves of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs! I cannot admit such a thought. It is inconsistent, irrational, absurd, and even revolting. Let the thought utterly perish! God's ways are not thus unequal So far from this being true, it is expressly declared, that such shall have "part in the first resurrection, and reign with Christ a thousand years." Rev. xx. 4. This clearly identifies the reign of Christ with the millennium. 11. The voice of the Christian church is

in favor of the identity of the millennium with the personal reign of Christ. To introduce any considerable part of the testimony that is at hand in proof of this, is not possible in this discourse. I can only present a few passages from the writings of different authors, which will exhibit the sentiments of the whole. Justyn Martyr, who flourished about thirty years after the death of the apostle John, thus testifies: "I, and as many as are orthodox Christians in all respects, do acknowledge, that there shall be a resurrection of the flesh, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, rebuilt, and adorned, and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others, attest!". [Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew.]—The testimony of Irenæus is equally full and explicit with that of Justyn. He succeeded Pothinus as Bishop of Lyons, about A. D. 171, and was martyred in A. D. 202 or 208. He wrote, among other works, five books upon the Heresies of his times, which books are still extant. He speaks of St. John, the apostle, as having lived to the times of Trajan, of Polycarp, as a hearer of St. John, and of himself as a hearer of Polycarp. "For it is fitting that the just, rising at the appearing of God, should in the renewed state receive the promise of inheritance which God covenanted to the fathers, and should reign in it; and that then should come the final judgment. For in the same condition in which

they have labored and been afflicted, and been tried by suffering in all sorts of ways, it is but just that in it they should receive the fruits of their suffering; so that where, for the love of God, they suffered death, there they should be brought to life again; and where they endured bondage, there also they should reign. For God is rich in all things, and all things are of him; and therefore I say it is becoming, that the creature being restored to its original beauty, should, without any impediment or drawback, be subject to the righteous. This the apostle makes manifest in the epistle to the Romans: 'For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God, &c. For the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.' The promise likewise of God which he made to Abraham decidedly confirms this; for he says, 'Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever.' Gen. xiii. 14, 15. And again, Arise, walk through the land in the length of it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee.' Ver. 17. For Abraham received no inheritance in it,— not even a foot breadth, but always was a stranger and a sojourner in it. And when Sarah, his wife, died, and the children of