peace; when the animals shall cease to devour each other. And this regeneration of the world is obviously combined with the restoration of the Jews to their own land." He says on another passage: "This seeing eye to eye makes for the personal reign of Christ, whose feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives." Bishop Butler, the most powerful mind probably that ever lived, the author of that magnificent and marvellous work the Analogy, says: "Things of this kind in John naturally turn the thoughts of serious men towards the full completion of prophetic history respecting the final restoration of the Jews. The glorious reign of Christ," says Bishop Butler, "shall commence when we shall reign with him on the earth." Dr. Urwick, of Dublin, who does not acquiesce in all these thoughts, says of one: "The Lord who on the cross spoiled principalities and powers will not stay in his career till he wrests the very earth itself from the grasp of its usurper, recreating the earth in unrivalled purity and glory, and taking possession of it with his people." Now Dr. Urwick, an eloquent and good man, differs from me on some of these thoughts, but in the main thought he is at one. Dr. Chalmers, again, observes: "As far as we can read into prophecies before us, we feel as if there is to be the arrest of a sudden and unlooked-for visitation to be laid on the ordinary processes of nature and history; and that the millennium is to be ushered in in the midst of judgments, and desolations, and fearful convulsions, which will uproot the present framework of society." So I am not alone in the thoughts I have given expression to. One thing closes beautifully this interesting passage: Jerusalem shall be a rejoicing and her people a joy. Over all the area on which the risen saints shall meet; in that consecrated metropolis of which they will be the inhabitants, and over which will hang the glory, there will be nothing but joy. Jerusalem shall be a rejoicing; no more weeping, nor tears, nor sadness, in that grand cathedral; no flag-stone will be lifted for the burial of the dead; no funeral chant will be heard within its walls; no funeral procession will wind along its aisles or will darken its beautiful light. All hearts there will be bounding; none shall be breaking. Every heart shall pour forth its thankfulness to God as a star its light in gratitude, as a flower its perfume in praise. There will be no wilderness unreclaimed; no discord in their songs; no misery unatoned for, no sin unforgiven; there will be no more tears, nor sorrow, nor crying; there shall be no more death. Notwithstanding all the difficulties, I take the 21st and 22nd chapters of Revelation as literal predictions of what is to be, and believe that the full actualization is to take place in that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The cry of the miserable Jews who assemble on Saturday near the mosque of Omar: "El Bene-Bene bethka bekarobbemheira-bemheira beyamenu, bekarob :" "Lord, build -Lord, build, build thy house-speedily, in haste—even in our day build thy house speedily!" will soon be answered. In the words of a sweet poet 66 1.. Sometimes flashes on my sight, Through present wrongs, the eternal right; I see the steady gain of man. "And still the new transcends the old "That song of love, now low and far, LECTURE IV. THE BINDING OF SATAN. THE archangel fallen is reserved for chains. He is a usurper and an intruder now, and must be expelled at that day. St. John says— "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand," &c.-Revelation xx. 1-5. I NEED not remark once more that on subjects confessedly relating to the future, good men-eminently Christian men-are at issue; I do not mean to say they quarrel, but they differ; and it would be strange if in speaking of those events that stretch into future ages, we should all see eye to eye. But I cannot help mentioning a most remarkable fact, the fulfilment of a prediction of the great Sir Isaac Newton, the most accomplished and the most successful student of prophecy; he who unbraided the sunbeam; he who weighed the stars in his balance; he who estimated their density, and measured their bulk, and calculated their distances and their progression in their orbits, descended from the loftiest physical investigations to the study of the grandest apocalyptic predictions, and so became the most successful student that ever tried to unfold and to explain the mysteries and the meaning of this book. He has stated, what has been literally fulfilled, that an age would come when men would study this book more than they had ever done, and when they would agree much more about its meaning, and its import, and its application, than they had ever agreed before. This is fact; for whilst some still retain a process of solution that I think is untenable, the most emi nent, the most learned, the most gifted, and I may add equally pious, hold an interpretation which seems to me to be the just, and textual, and scriptural one. Let me show first of all how this chapter has been understood by some. There are, first, those-a number gradually diminishing-who think that the angel binding Satan is purely figurative; that the resurrection of the saints, called the first resurrection, is merely the elevation and the ascendancy of Christianity, and the ascendancy of true Christians; that evil will be very much subdued during these happy years; and that those beheaded for the witness of Jesus mean not the resurrection of literally such, but of men of like spirit, like love, like faithfulness; who shall be spiritually ascendant, and shall spiritually reign with the Lord Jesus Christ, not present himself upon earth, but reigning by his Spirit in the hearts of his people. They hold that this economy-for all look forward to such an economy-will be introduced by no grand and miraculous events, by no disturbance of the present equilibrium of things; but that it will be the gradual expansion of what is truth, and life, and peace; they understand that it means simply a purer church, greater union among Christians, the places of influence and power consecrated and occupied by the good and the pious, and Christianity vastly predominating over all the earth and throughout the world in what is called the millennial era. This was an almost universal opinion in the last century; it is an opinion limited to a few, and these not the most enlightened, in the present century. The other school, which seems to me to be the true one, holds that the millennial era, called millennial from millennium, which means a thousand years, spoken of in this chapter is to be introduced by the personal descent, and manifestation, and present glorious majesty of the Son of God, the Prince of Peace. They hold that the dead in Christ, that is, all Christians who have died, shall instantly be raised in their resurrection robes, the moment the trumpet sounds and Christ appears; that all of us who are living at that day shall be changed, and it is possible, though I cannot predict, that some here may never die; that there may be some in every congregation who shall never see death; for we that are alive when the Lord comes shall not die, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, all imperfection shall be eliminated, all sin shall be exhausted; and this humanity of ours, like a glorious shrine, fit for the residence of a glorious and immortal inmate, shall without undergoing the process of decay appear with Christ in glory. It was just to teach this lesson that we find recorded in sacred history that Enoch never died, he was translated; Elijah never died, he too was translated; Moses died, and was raised from the dead, and appeared with Christ on Tabor-that scene that had all the splendour of heaven, but all the transience of a vision upon earth. Moses raised from the dead, and those that were raised when Christ rose from the dead in Arimathea, are the types of the dead in Christ that shall be raised at that day; Enoch and Elijah are the types and the earnests of the living in Christ that shall be changed. The instant, according to this solution-which I believe to be the scriptural and the just one-that Christ comes, the millennial sunshine, like a burst of celestial glory, shall overspread with its intense splendour heaven and earth, and every green sod shall be rolled aside, and every monument of bronze shall be broken, and every marble mausoleum shall crack; and the dead in Christ shall be quickened, and they shall rise, and reign visibly with Christ personally and visibly in the midst of a renovated earth, and a pure air, and a bright sky, for the period of a thousand years. This being the solution of it that seems to me the most just and consistent, I would try to meet the objections that are said to lie at the very threshold of the solution I have ventured to give. First, it has been objected to this last exposition that the Book of Revelation is figurative, and that this chapter should be regarded as figurative also. I answer, the facts predicted in Revelation are literal; the mode of expressing them is figurative. For instance, in this chapter the great white |