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MILLERITES IN NOTTINGHAM.

DURING the last month two Millerites or second-advent preachers-Mr. C. Dealtry, late of New York, and Mr. Micklewood, his companion-have paid a visit to Notting ham and some of the adjacent villages. Their object was to proclaim to the inhabitants the immediate return of the Lord Jesus Christ to raise the dead saints, to change the living ones, and to set up the glorious, everlasting, that is unending, kingdom of God.

The earth, and the works thereof, in their view, are very shortly to be burned up, it may be between now and next September, or a few months after. The wicked thus destroyed are to continue under the power of death for at least a thousand years; at the end of which period they are to be raised from the dead, the number of whom is to be as the sand on the sea shore. (Rev. xx. 7-10,) In this raised state, with the devil to organize and lead them forth, they are to encompass the camp of the resurrected saints, and the beloved city, when fire is to come down from God out of heaven, and to consume or annihilate them all for ever.

According to these gentlemen, all the prophecies relating both to Jews and Gentiles, are now fulfilled except this last great and glorious event-the coming of the Lord. The carnal Jews will never go back to Palestine; they have no right to it any more than they have to any other territory in the world. It is true they are a distinct people; but God has not kept them so, any more than he has kept drunkards a distinct people, or that he has kept the Mormons, or Mahomedans, or Papists, or liars, or any other class of wicked or deluded men, a distinct people. The fact is, say they God broke down the partition wall "between Jews and Gentiles, by the death of his Son and never intended that any distinction should exist after the seed should come to whom the promise was made. That seed is Christ. See Gal. iii. 16; Eph. ii. 14.

Thus God has abolished all distinction under the gospel

dispensation between the Jews, as the natural descendants of Abraham, and the Gentiles. They never will be converted or go back to Palestine: of course they must be destroyed. Daniel's two thousand three hundred days, or years, as they must be interpreted, are now run out: they expired in March, (1844), which is the end of the Jewish ecclesiastical year; or the latest period to which they can extend, is next September, which will terminate the current civil year of the Jews: then comes the Lord! This is the midnight cry, "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him." This cry was to take place at midnight: it has been in existence more than twenty years. It has been echoed throughout the whole world it is now the midnight of the Gentile age. Many were to run to and fro; knowledge was to increase: it is so, and Daniel's weeks are all expired! Many shall be purified and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand THE TIME, and no man, woman, or child who does not understand the time and believe in the Lord's coming, as taught by these parties both in public and in private, can possibly be saved, for Daniel says the wise shall understand THE TIME. We ask, Where and when did Daniel say so? It is not in the Book, for of that day and hour knoweth no man; and if neither the day nor the hour is made known, of what advantage can it be to know the year ? Still, if the Lord has revealed it, let it be clearly proved from the apostolic testimonies, that all the disciples may believe and be ready. At present we do not believe it.

Such is a brief outline of this system as far as we could understand it. We heard five lectures, had several private interviews with the parties; and while we are ready to admit there is much Bible truth introduced into all their addresses and conversations, we are at the same time compelled to say the conclusions at which they arrive, appear in too many instances, to be mere assumptions, not having proof or matters of fact to sustain them.

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After hearing the lecture intended to prove that the carnal Jews will never return to Palestine, which occupied nearly two hours in its delivery, we were permitted to read to the audience the following prophecies from the Word of God: Ezek. xxxvi. 25-38; xxxvii. 15-28; xxxviii. 8-23; xxxix. 8-29. Will the reader examine these portions of Holy Writ, with many others of a similar kind, and then say, whether or not, there is anything in the history of either Jew or Gentile, that can answer to their fulfilment? 0, says Mr. Dealtry, these are all to be fulfilled after the Lord comes. The first part of the xxxvii. chap. of Ezek. will prove that which speaks, not of a figurative but a literal resurrection. He is at that time to raise his dead saints and change those who are alive, and then go forth with them to execute vengeance on all his and their enemies. sword is literally to be bathed in blood, and his saints are to have a two-edged sword in their hands, to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishment upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgments written. This honour have all his saints. What can be plainer? (Psalm cxlix. 6-9.) This then is what Jesus and his disciples will have to do when they, like him, are all clothed with immortality! So says Mr. Dealtry and the second-advent men of this school. He that can believe it, let him believe it; at present we are very sceptical in these matters, " still we are looking for the blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who shall change our humble bodies and fashion them like unto his glorious body by his spirit which he hath given unto us." "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life," was the promise made to the saints at Smyrna, and must be applicable to Christians in every age of the world. We shall without further remark, introduce the last essay we have seen from the pen of brother Campbell on "The Coming of the Lord." It is selected from the Millennial Harbinger for October, 1843.

THE COMING OF THE LORD.-No. XIII. I Do not conceive it at all important to prosecute this series of essays much farther at present. Time, that great teacher, that infallible expositor of prophecy, will soon decide between us and our brethren of the school of Mr. Miller. I mean no disrespect to any man in regarding him of that school. Mr. Miller is certainly and indisputably the founder of that school who consider the present year as the end of the world, or the time of the second advent. True, indeed, there are some non-committal adherents of that school, who are known to be of them in conversation, but not with them in print or in public sermons. Still they fraternize, sympathize, and co-operate in all the details of exposition and application of prophecy, and give their whole moral influence to the expectation of the Lord's immediate return. They represent and denominate myself and others as of the Whitby and spiritualist school; and, indeed, with many it seems to be a most satisfactory refutation of our arguments to say that they are those of Whitby, or of his school. If, however, we must be so regarded, (which, by the way, I wholly abjure,) I am inclined to think that there is full as much orthodoxy, and full as much learning and moral authority in the name of Whitby as in that of Miller; nay, for myself, I must say, that in the name Whitby there is more of all the elements of human authority than in Mr. Miller, and at least the best half of his school. Still I know it is quite possible that Miller may be right and Whitby wrong, and therefore we bow to the words of no master.

But some there are who, without thinking at all, regard and represent those as spiritualists who are expecting the prolongation of time for a thousand years beyond the present inillennium. These do not seem to perceive their own proper attitude to the great questions involved in the system they have espoused. Take, for example, such passages as concern the Jewish nation, the promises and prophecies concerning the future enlargement of the covenanted people; a mere sample of which follows:- -" Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,

and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleanness; and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loath yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord God, In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, and desolate, and ruined cities, are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen, that are left round about you, shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it. Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men; and they shall know that I am the Lord."-Ezek. xxxvi. 25-38. Now, when the question is put, To what portion of Jewish history is this applied? we are told that all this has been accomplished spiritually, i. e., the Gentiles are now the Israel of God; and that the children of faith, and not of the flesh, are counted for the seed. This may be inferred from other portions of Scripture that speak of the calling of the Gentiles; but certainly it is wholly out of place to apply to the Gentiles passages that speak directly either of or for the Jews.

Again, chap. xxxvii. after the figurative resurrection of the house of Israel, we read as follows:-"The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Moreover, thou son of man,

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