consent." The whole earth was once of one language and of one speech. That language, (which is generally believed to have been the Hebrew, the language of Adam and Noah, and all generations between them,) that lauguage was confounded at Babel to defeat an evil purpose in which men were then engaged, and its purity lost to the great majority of men.* Being unable to understand each other, they dispersed abroad over the earth, conversing in new and various tongues, and from that period to the present there has been an effectual barrier against any unity of purpose among them, in consequence of the difficulty of holding communication, or enjoying social intercourse.

But when the happy period shall arrive, when all nations shall agree to worship the same Lord in the same manner, may it not be expected that God will restore to them again a 66 pure language, a common speech ?" For if the confounding of their language was a punishment for rebellion, restoring it would be the proper reward for united return to His service. This seems to be the meaning of the prophet we have quoted. The unintel

*The language which God gave to Adam in Paradise may be called "pure," when compared with those many tongues invented by men after the dispersion at Babel. If that was the original vehicle of thought in which the Old Testament was written, and which has been so wonderfully preserved as a living tongue by that remarkable people, of whom God says, Isaiah, lxvi., "I will take of you for priests and for Levites, and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles; for as the new heaveus and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain;" it is not improbable that Abraham's seed may, in Abraham's language, go forth from Abraham's land, and in the tongue in which the Saviour worshiped while on earth, declare to Tarshish, Pul and Lud, to Tubal, Javan, and the isles afar off, His glory

ligible jargon of a thousand tongues in the united worship of the millennial age, would not sound as agreeable to the ear, as one harmonious swell of a pure speech, understood by all, and going up from all in the same accents of thanksgiving and praise. We can only touch, but can not enlarge further on this point. Rome has attempted to remove the difficulty of divers tongues, in the way of general union, by enjoining the use of the Latin language in public worship, but has failed-as fail she must in all her efforts to introduce and make universal her system of false pretense, for that glorious dispensation is yet to come.

Lastly, not only shall there be one visible Head, acknowledged as Prophet, Priest, and King, the sole Lord and Judge of all laws and ordinances then to be observed; one language in common use, and spoken by all; but.

3. There shall be one great metropolis, the seat of royal power and authority, the center and source of religious influence and of control over the whole earth. This shall be that Zion which God formerly chose to put His name there, and of which He said, "This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it." This sacred spot shall, at this period, be exalted above the mountains and all hills, and all nations shall flow to it; and He who then and there reigns, will "teach them of His ways, and they shall walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Here again the Mother of Harlots has attempted to counterfeit this glorious state of the Church among the Gentiles, and the whole earth become again, in the worship of God, "of one language and of one speech."

yet to come, by making Rome the center and source of all religious authority and influence, but has miserably failed; for it has become, as Saint John declares, “a hold of every foul spirit, a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Revelations, xviii. 2. Jerusalem (when it shall become the city of the great King, King Messiah, in His second advent;) shall be the joy of the WHOLE EARTH, and the metropolis of the redeemed world. But as this point will be more or less involved in a succeeding lecture, we shall not dwell upon it any longer, only remarking in conclusion,

That this new dispensation of which we have spoken has its limits, as all the former ones have had, and is like them all, not an eternal, but only a probationary state. Its duration will be shorter than some of the past dispensations and longer than others of them. The Adamic, or patriarchal dispensation, as it is sometimes also called, continued sixteen hundred and fifty-six years; the Noatic dispensation lasted four hundred and fifty-one years; the Abrahamic four hundred and six, the Mosaic fourteen hundred and eighty-seven, and the Christian has now continued eighteen hundred and fifty-nine years, i. e., two hundred years longer than the Adamic, four hundred longer than the Mosaic, and fourteen hundred years longer than the Noatic or Abrahamic. The new dispensation of which we now speak, the millennial, takes its name from its duration-millennial, from mille annum, a thousand years. An old tradition, which the Jewish Rabbis trace to the Prophet Elijah, says the world shall continue seven thousand years, two thousand years without the law, two thousand year under the law, two

thousand years under the Messiah, and then comes the Sabbath, or seven thousandth year, when it will have rest. According to the present system of chronology, this would make us yet nearly a century and a half distant from that glorious period. But chronology is somewhat uncertain, and therefore we can not, with accuracy, calculate the time and the seasons. Let it be our wisdom, then, to be like servants waiting for their lord, who, whether he cometh at evening, or at midnight, or at cock crowing, may find them watching; and especially since, in that new heaven and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, perfect obedience and subjection to Christ will be the reigning law of that dispensation, let us see to it that our hearts and minds, and all our powers within us, are brought into that state of perfect submission to His will, which will always make it our highest delight to walk in His ways, and to do His service, and fit us, if not to live as subjects, peradventure to reign as kings and priests with Him a thousand years.

LECTURE XI.

THE FIRST RESURRECTION AND REIGN OF THE SAINTS WITH CHRIST FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

"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 worshiped 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. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. On such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God, and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years."-REVELATIONS, xx. 4-6.

THE glory which shall be hereafter revealed unto all and in all the children of God, is constantly held forth in holy Scripture as the great persuading and animating motive to us to deny ungodliness, and all worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Concerning the nature of that glory, we can say nothing but what the Scriptures say; we can only speak as they speak. Concerning its degree, we are assured that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things [to which God hath prepared for them that love Him; and concerning the heirs of that glory, all the sacred writers, are unanimous in the declaration that they are only those who have become reconciled to God, through the