shall return to the period, when, as we have supposed, all the wicked were cut off by the destroying angels. This was the last preparatory act for the introduction of the Millennium, at which time a mighty angel of God descended from heaven, having a great chain in his hand, who laid hold on that old serpent, the Devil and Satan, and bound him and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should go out no more till the thousand years are finished.

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If Satan, therefore, is so disposed of as to be totally restrained in his malignant influences upon the earth, and the matter of which the earth is composed, as well as upon the hearts and persons of men, it will follow of necessity that man shall be restored to Adamic innocence and happiness. This great dragon, by most commentators, is maintained to be the Devil; but there are others who think that St. John had no allusion to that fallen spirit. But that in vision was represented to him, the heathen powers called Rome pagan. powers, they say, was the many headed monster, called the dragon, who was cast out from heaven. And the heaven from which he was cast, say they, was their government and power to rule the nations, held in subjection. But from that heaven this great dragon was cast down to the earth, and deprived of his power to rule. This great revolution of casting down the dragon, it is said, was commenced by "Constantine, and carried on by his sons Constans and Constantius, and by others, Jovian, Valentinian and Valens, and was finally suppressed by the edicts of Gratian, Theodosius the First, and his successors; when about the year

A.

D. 400, this dragon was totally cast out, and became subject to the ruling dynasty of Christian emperors." Clark.

This argument is founded upon the fact, that the above described powers of heathen Rome used to paint on their standards a monstrous red dragon; hence are called the great red dragon by St. John: And corroborates the prophecy of the Revelator in his 19th chap. verses 3, 9, as follows: And there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. These angels, they say, were the ministers and officers of state, and were also deprived with their master, the dragon. All this is unquestionably true, and should be considered a just explication of the discomfiture of the great Roman heathen dragon.

But as Satan, the Devil, must be considered at the head of all this, spiritually operating in their councils, and after being cast out into the earth, i. e. down from the heaven of political power, he went to make war with and persecute the seed of the woman, whose influences, through the blood of the Lamb, had thus destroyed him. And on this very account, we ascertain that this dragon is not bound nor shut up, as we find he is in chap. 20 Rev. But this is the mystery of it: the same devil, who operated in the councils of the red dragon, St. John sees at a more remote period of time,

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seized by a mighty angel from heaven, who shall shut him up, and totally curtail his influences upon the earth, which was not done when he was cast out from his heaven of political heathen empire; for we see he soon corrupted the Christian worship, and reduced it in the hands of papal power to a situation but little preferable to the idolatry of the Roman heathen. The reason of these observations are, because at the present day some have made the dragon of the 12 chap. of Rev., verses 3 and 9, synonymous with the dragon of chap. 20, which is bound by the angel in the latter case, but not in the former. At the time when the latter dragon is bound, it is said the first resurrection is to take place, but not so when the former. At the time of the casting out of the heathen dragon, Satan does not cease to deceive the nations, but in the latter he is compelled to do so for a thousand years. Now if it be thought that the casting down of the great red heathen dragon in chap. 12, is the same thing with the binding of the dragon in chap. 20, it would be natural to look for a cessation of his influences among the nations, which has not been the fact, and also for the resurrection of the martyrs at that time. But instead of this, many of the martyrs have fell instead of rising, and have sealed their testimony with their blood, from the time of Constantine and his successors till the papal fires were extinguished in England, and even till the present time in some places.

The binding, therefore, of the dragon, which is the Devil, is yet to take place, at the time of the first resurrection,

It is well known, that in the beginning an evil spirit who once had been an holy angel at God's right hand, did, through the means of a serpent, address himself to our first-parents, so as to induce an act of disobedience in them, which produced death temporal, death spiritual, and exposed him to death eternal. And it is contained in the Scriptures, that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Now if Satan was the originator and cause of the temptation, and man's own voluntary act the cause and origination of his own sin, and sin the cause of temporal and spirital death, it will follow, that if Satan be taken away in his identity and influence, and sin abolished from the heart and nature of man; that death, and all natural and moral evil, the legitimate offspring of the Devil and Sin, must totally cease from the earth during the Millennium, or the thousand years in which Satan is to be bound. We cannot admit, that our first-parents were in the least exposed to any natural or moral evil while in their sinless and innocent state, but that these were introduced, as above stated. Their removal, therefore, must be effected ere innocence and pure happiness can be restored again to man. This should be expected, because it is said of the lion of the tribe of Judah, that he has come to destroy the works of the devil. The Universalians fancy, therefore, that when the works of the devil are destroyed, all men shall consequently be happy; but let them recollect that a sinner is properly a work of the devil, which Christ came to destroy, either by converting and sanctifying the sinner, or damning him in hell at the judgment day,.

soul and body, which is the destruction of the second death. These two destinies God has made dependent on certain conditions, to be performed by man, in reference to Christ and his atonement.

Let it be confidently relied on, then, that Christ will destroy both the devil and his works. The mighty conqueror will surely effect what he has undertaken to do; and at that time, when he shall send an angel to bind Satan, and set a seal upon him, that he shall not deceive the nations any more during the thousand years. He will also restore all that sin has spoiled, as it relates to the dwellers on the earth, whose happiness shall be perfected and made as complete as it can be this side. of the great change, which they are at length to arrive at, which shall be effected in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trump.

This being the fact, how changed and blessed will be the race of man, who shall live in the days of the Millennium! when the tree of life, which was nothing else but a natural tree, endowed with extraordinary qualities, for the express purpose of perpetuating man's natural life, shall again be restored to the earth for the same life-sustaining purpose. That the tree of life in the garden of Eden possessed this amazing quality, is the opinion of that most learned man, Adam Clark, who says the use of this tree was intended as the means of

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preserving the body of man in a state of continual vital energy, and an antidote against death." For most undoubtedly the man Adam, and his consort Eve, naturally tended to dissolution, as well as all the lower works of the animal and vegetable creation.