'heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein, 'shall be burned up.... Nevertheless we, according <to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, ' wherein dwelleth righteousness. 30 To those who were so far versed in the opinions on the Millennium, which might be acquired from the Jews, this intimation was not merely sufficient to recall the subject, but to impress it with the full weight of the apostolical authority.

'31

For the doctrine of the Millennium there is express authority in St. John, by whom the state which the Church is to enjoy in the Great Sabbatism is explicitly mentioned, and circumstantially described. He not only speaks of the thousand ' years which were to be fulfilled,' and of those who shall reign with Christ a thousand years; but describes the great consummation with which it will be attended, in the same language and images in which it is described by St. Peter. In recounting the concluding scenes of the Apocalyptic vision, he delivers himself in nearly the same terms with that Apostle; And I saw a great white throne, ' and him that sat on it, from whose face the heaven ' and the earth fled away; and there was found no 'more place for them. And I saw the dead small ' and great stand before God; and the books were opened.'. . . . And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death....

30 2 Pet. iii. 5. 7, 8. 10. 13. 31 Rev. xx. 3. 6.

6

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the < first heaven and the first earth were passed away ".... And I John saw the holy city, the new Jeru'salem, coming down from God out of heaven."32 But while the Apostle is thus explicit in defining the period of rest, as extending to a thousand years; it does not directly appear how far the subject is identified with the lapse of the great week, from which the Millennium derives its character as a proper sabbath. The connexion may be, however, in a great measure supplied, in the contexture of the Evangelist's subject; in which the mystic emblems of the angels seals and trumpets, wherein it is clothed, as consisting precisely of seven, have a manifest reference to the sabbatical period and character.33 As the subject of the Apocalypse embraces the whole course of time, and is distributed into seven periods, under those mystic symbols, a single consideration seems to enforce the conclusion, that the Millennium, which constitutes the last, should be regarded as a period strictly sabbatical. In describing the period computed from the opening of the seventh seal,35 in which it is included, the whole of the imagery is derived from the commencement of the semitah and jubilee, with the great day of

34

32 Rev. xx. 11, 12. xxi. 1, 2.

33 Vid. S. Hilar. Prol. in Ps. col. 7.

34 Burnet. Theor. ubi supr. p. 52.

35 Rev. viii. 1—6.

atonement: the Evangelist thus determines its nature by the character of the periods, with which, as I shall soon take occasion to shew, it is identified in his descriptions.

As the doctrine of the Millennium was thus delivered to the Primitive Church, we find it was received by the early Fathers. In their notion, respecting the duration of the world for so many thousand years, the seventh of which, termed emphatically the Millennium, would be a sabbath of rest, they are very generally agreed; however they may differ in their notions of its nature, and the exact time of its occurrence. On the peculiar views of the chief of those writers, many of whom unfortunately suffered their opinions on the subject to be warped by Jewish prejudices, it is unnecessary at present to enlarge, as they have been extracted from their works by a learned writer,6 whose particular hypothesis derives much of its weight from their authority. It will suffice at present to observe, that the opinion of the Primitive Church, respecting the nature of the Millennium, received more than a tinge of error, from the peculiar notions of Papias: for the statement of this writer acquired an undue authority, from his professing to transmit it, as a tradition imparted to him, by the immediate hearers of St. John;

36 Burnet. Theor. B. IV. ch. vi. p. 246. De Stat. Mort. cap. ix. p. 222.

who received from his mouth what had been deli

37

vered on the subject by our Saviour. But by those who had the opportunity of consulting his works, and were most competent to decide upon his pretensions, he is described as a person of mean parts and narrow judgment.38 And although some of the earliest Fathers, not less misled by the speciousness of his professions, than an erroneous view of the Prophets, have inconsiderately acquiesced in his sentiments; by some of a later age, and more matured judgment, who have reviewed the subject under a freedom from the controversial prejudice with which it was at first debated, this statement has been censured, as not merely tinctured with error but heresy.39 From this sentence it is however of importance to observe, we must except St. Barnabas, as well as the Elders of the Asiatic Church, from whom the Bishop of Hierapolis professed to derive his tradition on the Millennium; for an occasion will hereafter present itself for shewing, that the Apostolical Fathers mutually agreed, not less in the substance of their accounts, than in an exemption from the error which has been imputed to Papias. But by what

37 S. Iren. adv. Hær. V. xxxiii. § 3. 4. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. III. xxxix. 137, 11.

38 Euseb. ibid. p. 137, 20.

39 Euseb. ib. VII. xiii. p. 349, 29. S. Hier. in Ezech. xxxvi. Tom. IV. p. 214 a. Præf. in Es. cap. xxviii. 443 f.

ever shades the opinions of the Primitive Fathers may have been diversified, they have uniformly agreed in recognising the Millennium as a great sabbatism, or septenary period; and with little more in their testimony are we at present concerned. Such was clearly the opinion, not merely of Barnabas and Papias, but of Justin, Irenæus, Hippolytus, Melito, Nepos, and Victorinus, in the eastern Church ;40 and of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Lactantius, in the western. Of the later writers, who escaped the contagion of Jewish prejudices in their notions, we distinguish Origen, Ambrose, Hilary, Chrysostome, Jerome, and Augustine; though the opinion of the last of these Fathers seems to have undergone a considerable change on the subject of the Millennium.43 But so uniform was the consent of the Fathers, in admitting its sabbatical character, that, in consequence of the Oriental Church having dated, after the chronology

42

40 Just. Mart. Apol. p. 207, a. 208. a. b. Iren. ubi supr. n. 37. Hippol. ap. Phot. cod. 202. Melit. ap. Hier. et Gennad. Cat. Scrip. Eccl. Nepos ap. Euseb. et Hier. ubi supr. n. 39. Victorin. ap. Hier. in Ezech. xxxvi.

41 Tertul. adv. Marc. III. xxiv. Cypr. Exhort. Mart. cap. ix. Lactant. Div. Inst. VII. xv.

42 Orig. Hom. in Matt. tom. xvii. s. 35. ix. 28. lib. vii. c. 7. Hilar. in Ps. cxviii. 18.

Ambros. in Luc.

Chrysost. Hom.

in Ps. vi. Hier. Ep. cxxxix. ad Cyprian. August. Civ. Dei.

XVIII. liii. XX. vii.

43 Conf. Aug. Ep. ad Cypr. et Civ. Dei XX. v.

D