MR. TAYLOR' S FIRST REPLY. 37 



The celestial Canaan : and the Millennial Sahhath. 



millennial Sabbath, that should succeed and terminate six thou- 

 sand years of worldly toil.* 



The intimations, then, that we receive from this somewhat 

 abstract treatise are, first, that there is a Sabbatism for 

 Christians ; and, secondly, that this Sabbatism is something 

 very widely different from the keeping of a holy dai/. A 

 strong presumption is thus afforded that the Jewish Sabbath 

 was itself, in fact, the "provisional type'^ of this new rest 

 reserved for believers ; that, as literally it commemorated 



■world, they say, will stand six thousand jears. . . . This propliecy tliey 

 derive from Elias." [Sacred Theory, ^'c. B. iii. chap, 5.) "And so our 

 Kabbins of blessed memory have said in tlicir commentaries on ' God 

 blessed the seventh day' — the Holy One blessed the world to come, 

 which beginneth in the seventh tliousand of years." [Bereschith Rabba.) 



* We find this idea of a millennial Sabbath very common among the 

 Christian " Fathers." In an epistle of undoubted antiquity (thougli 

 genera lly considered as falsely ascribed to Barn ab as, the companion 

 of Paul), the meaning of the six days' creation is said to be, "that in 

 six thousand years the Lord will bring all things to an end," and " that, 

 when his Son shall come and abolish the season of the Wicked One — 

 then he shall gloriously rest in that seventh day." ( Wake's Translation, 

 chap. xiii.) 



" The assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by 

 a succession of Fathers, from Justin Martyr and Irenæus, who con- 

 versed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to I^tan- 

 tius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine." Gibbon. {De- 

 cline and Fall, chap. xv. ) 



Says this last-named Fatlier, " Since in six days all the works of 

 God were finished — so, during six ages (that is, for six millenniums), 

 it is necessary for the world to remain in the present state. For the 

 great Day of God is completed by the circuit of a thousand years, as 

 the prophet indicates who says, ' Before thy eyes, Lord, a thousand 

 years are as one day.' . . . And since God rested on the seventh day 

 from his finished work, and blessed it, it is necessary that at the end 

 of the six thousandth year, all evil should be abolished from the 

 earth, and justice should reign for a thousand years ; and that there 

 should be an universal tranquillity and rest from labors." Lactantius. 

 [Divin. Instit. Lib. vii. sect. 14.) 



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