THOUGH there has been no age of the Church in which the Millenium was not admitt­ed by individual divines of the first eminence, it is yet evident, from the writings of Eusebius, Irenaeus, Origen, and others among the ancients, as well as from the histories of Dupin, Mosheim, and all the moderns, that it was never adopted by the whole church, or made an article of the established creed in any nation.

About the middle of the fourth century the Millinarians held the following tenets:

1st. That the city of Jerusalem should be re­built, and that the land of Judea should be the habitation of those who are to reign on earth one thousand years.

2d. That the first resurrection was not to be confined to the martyrs, but that after the fall of Antichrist all the just were to rise, and all that were on the earth were to continue for that space of time.

3d. That Christ shall then come down from Heaven, and be seen on earth, and reign there with his servants.

[Page 4]4th. That the saints, during this period, shall enjoy all the delights of a terrestial paradise.

These opinions were founded upon several passages of Scripture, which the Millenarians, among the fathers, understood in no other than a literal sense; but which the moderns, who hold that opinion, consider as partly literal and partly metaphorical. Of these passages, that upon which the greatest stress has been laid is the following: "And I saw an angel come down from Heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old servant, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thou­sand years shall be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little season. 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 worshipp­ed 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 till the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Rom. xx. 1—6.

This passage all the ancient Millenarians took [Page 5] in a sense grossly literal, and taught, that during the Millennium, the saints on earth were to en­joy every bodily delight. The moderns, on the other hand, consider the power and pleasure of this kingdom as wholly spiritual, and they repre­sent them as not to commence till after the con­flagration of the present earth. But that this last supposition is a mistake the very next verse but one evinces; for it is there said, that "when the thousand years are expired Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to de­ceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth;" and there is no reason to believe that he will have such power or such liberty in "the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

MR Brothers has taken much pains to adjust and ascertain the Bible chronology. He gives it in detail at the opening of his first book and alludes to it in several parts of the second, as holding out to men an evident proof that the time for the completion of ancient prophecies, and the recorded period for the execution of God's Judgments is really arrived. But the connection between the age of the world, viz. 5913 years, in A. D. 1794, and this predetermined resolution of the Almighty, is by no means apparent at first fight, or to a cursory observer. Something more is certainly necessary to develope the mys­tery, and the following is an attempt to eluci­date it by computation.

Allusions to the Millennium are to be found in all parts of Scripture; and the doctrine ge­nerally received is, that the Mosaic account of the creation of the world is a prophetical type of [Page 7] its duration: taking (according to St. Peter, 2d Eph. chap. iii. ver. 8.) one thousand years for one day. So that we are to understand the world to have been destined to last 6000 years under the yoke of labour and tribulation, (metaphori­cally signified by the labours of God in the six days of creation) and one thousand years under that dispensation which is typified by God's rest­ing on the Sabbath-day, and which is called Christ's Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Heaven, or the dominion of the Saints, &c. &c. when it is expressly said, that the Saints should enter into the rest of God, and e converso of the wicked, it is said, "unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

Now, if we suppose the 5913 years, above­mentioned by Mr. Brothers, to be common years of solar time, we find 87 years still wanting to arrive at the close of the six symbolical days of la­bour, and consequently we are too remote from the period of the Millennium to have any thing either to hope or fear personally from its ap­proach. But if we advert to that mode of calcu­lation universally adopted, both by Daniel and St. John in their prophecies; where not only a day is taken for a year, but a month invariably made to contain 30 such days, and 42 months to comprehend 1260 such days, and these 1260 days to form exactly three years and a half, and therefore every such year to consist of 360 such [Page 8] days. We may very well adopt this method of computation in our endeavours to explain any prophetical chronology, and may very fairly call those Divine years, by which, as Mr. Brothers expresses it, "God fulfils his recorded judgments." Now admitting the common solar year to consist of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 54¾ seconds, and multiplying 5913 years into quarters of se­conds, we shall find, on dividing this quotient by 360, a produce amounting to 5999 such di­vine years and a fraction; which fraction, de­ducted from the sum total of one year, leaves a deficiency, at the end of the year of our Lord 1794, equal to 322 days 6 hours 40 minutes 23¼ seconds, being so much wanting, at the opening of the present year, to the full completion of 6000 divine or prophetical years: and shewing that the Millenium will commence, on the 19th of November next, at or about sun-rise, in the latitude of Jerusalem.

If this calculation be true, it follows that the time during which "the Saints shall live and reign with Christ," which according to St. John, in Rev. chap. xx. ver. 4, is one thousand years, must be in fact 360,000 years. So that the Millennium will bear the same analogical pro­portion to the previous duration of the world as that very previous duration itself holds to the six original days of the creation.

I HAVE endeavoured to peruse, with­out prejudice, every thing that has been written in answer to, or rather against my book: and if I had in any of the publications met with a single paragraph worthy of an answer, it should have been answered. The self-sufficient and abusive Dr. Horne of Oxford, has not one word of truth, or argument, or common sense, in his whole pamphlet; nor would it have misbecome a Doctor of Divinity who, by his own pen, con­fesses he can neither understand Greek, nor read the Gospel in English—to have endeavoured at least to give his jargon something, if possible, of the Gentleman. That he does not understand Greek, is clear from his doubting whether the Holy Ghost appeared in shape of a dove, when St. Luke expressly says, [...]: [Page 10] and that he cannot read, or has not read, even the first chapter of St. Matthew, must be evi­dent to those who perceive him denying that Christ had Brothers; and who shall, at the same time, have observed that the Evangelist, writing after Christ's death and resurrection, calls him, in the last verse of his first chapter, his mother's first-born son, ergo, she must have had a second at least. If the old miserable exposition of Daniel's four beasts, which I knew before he took up his pen about as well as Dr. Horne, can by any rea­sonable person (after mature deliberation) be deemed better than that furnished by Mr. Bro­thers—be it so—opinion is free—but I decline being of the party. And as for the phrase of selling my soul, which seems to have given such alarm, and furnished so much matter for false wit, I now think that every man who enters into Parliament with any personal view whatever, and not wholly and exclusively for the service of his country, must be deemed bona fide to have sold his soul—let him be of what party he will; and also that every man who joins any party to vote on all occasions for the purpose of promoting or supporting that party at all events, is perpetually guilty of the same act of selling his soul. I deny having ever sold my soul in any other manner than this:—and if any one think or say other­wise, on him be the onus probandi.

[Page 11]I take this opportunity of renewing my expres­sions of perfect conviction in the prophesies and mission of Mr. Brothers, and my encreasing re­liance (founded on hourly experience) on the com­pletion of every one of his predictions.

THE anonymous Author of a pamphlet, intitled, "The Age of Credulity," was so oblig­ing as to send the book yesterday to me; with an opinion, I presume, that I should find its ar­guments incontrovertible, and the positions I have assumed in my own publication totally untenable. I should be sorry to interrupt the gentleman's tri­umph by any unseasonable severity, and I am ut­terly averse to all argument for argument's sake.

I shall, therefore, only beg him to take in good part the few hints which I here hastily throw out for his consideration.

If he had turned to Cruden's Concordance, article "Wing," he would have found (4th sig­nification "it is put for the sails of a ship," Isaiah xviii. 1. "Woe to the land shadowing with wings;" meaning Egypt, which abounded with ships, "whose sails were like wings that shadow the sea."

So much for his pithy objection in the 15th page. The grand cheval de battaille of all my doughty opponents has been Daniel's vision, as explained by certain former clear-sighted exposi­tors, [Page 13] to mean four successive monarchies; viz. Babylonian, Mede-Persian, Grecian, and Ro­man.—I have been so bartered and annoyed with this ridiculous phantom, that I shall here demo­lish it altogether, at once, for the peace of the public, as well as my own.

Daniel saw this vision after Nebuchadnezzer was dead, as is evident from the first verse of the seventh chapter. After this, what does my ano­nymous author think of the supposition mentioned in his 14th page? The four beasts meant mo­narchs, and not monarchies. See the 12th verse. "As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time." The life of a do­minion I can conceive to be a poetical phrase, and admit its propriety; but to take away the domi­nion from a dominion, and yet prolong the life of that dominion, is too much even for me, with all my credulity, to comprehend.

Daniel saw this vision in the first year of the reign of Belshazzar, the very last king of Babylon, who lost his life at the same moment with his do­minion, and therefore his life certainly was not prolonged for a season nor a time. And in the 17th verse of this same seventh chapter, the angel tells Daniel, "These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth,"—shall arise—in the future tense; not, one of whom is already risen,—and kings, not [Page 14] kingdoms. From this verse nothing can be more undubitable, than that the king or kingdom of Babylon is totally out of the question; and there­fore the other three monarchies, in the common interpretation, all necessarily fall to the ground as vesting on this base. I hope I shall never here them mentioned again. My author hampers himself again in his 21st page, on the similitude and dissimilitude between the fourth beast of Da­niel and the eagle of Esdras. If he will cavil at nothing, or every thing, let him. But if he choose to read and think ingenuously for himself, he might find, that Daniel omits in his fourth beast, as in the other three, to make any mention of the rise or splendour, or even existence of monar­chies: His beasts are mere personages, and his fourth the Emperor of Germany; substitute for, and standing avowedly and ostentatiously in the place of the ancient emperors of Rome. Esdras delineates the monarchy or kingdom itself, of which he expressly says, in the 12th chapter and 12th verse of the second book, that the Lord told him this kingdom "was not expounded unto his bro­ther Daniel," and therefore it was now explain­ed to him. Esdras saw the whole history in de­tail, and even what would come to pass after the death of the present Emperor of Germany, the present Pope, and present King of Prussia, the three heads of his eagle: whereas Daniel only beheld the present Emperor and electors of the [Page] Germanic body, without a glimpse of the Anti-christ or of the pope.

By the sale of souls, pages 24 and 25, (for I am not writing a regular answer to a pamphlet) which is too insignificant to deserve one; but hastily running over a few of its capital errors, is meant a conscious sale of an article known to be in one's own possession. Those who purchase pardons and indulgences of popes, are not in this predi­cament.

Of Mr. Brothers's presumption, ignorance and artifice, of which he is accused in the 27th, and subsequent pages, I shall take no notice: my au­thor may compare his own pamphlet with the few remarks I have here thrown together, and set in judgment on himself, on the same articles.

But I shall boldly and authoritatively, retort the charges of falsehood, in every one of the par­ticulars by him enumerated, pages 33 and 34.

The first is, "the defeat of the Emperor's ar­my in the Netherlands." It is scandalous to term a prediction false, because it is not yet fulfilled. I say also, the Emperor's army will be defeated in the Netherlands: and if there were no other pre­disposing cause for this defeat, an attempt to raise the siege of Luxembourg, now seriously in­vested, would suffice for the purpose: and I add, therefore, that he will acknowledge the French republic, and will make peace with it.

Secondly, The Dutch have acknowledged the [Page 16] French Republic, and are making a hasty peace with it. Mr. Brothers never said it would hap­pen without a conquest, or that they would treat on equal terms. For the completion of his pro­phecy, it is enough that they should have acted as they are acting.

Mr. Brothers never said, our army would be disbanded and sent home, by the twenty-fifth of March: our author, therefore, should not have incurred the risk of the retort discourteous, un­til our army was out of the possibility of being so treated at all. Nor did he ever assert that the Duke of York would be detained: he expressly says, "the general" of the English forces. That is now Count Walmoden: to-morrow it may be somebody else; but to do away all chance of verification, the ar-should be proved to have no general at all.

In these three little articles, wherein our ano­nymous author has attempted to fix an imputation of falsehood on Mr. Brothers, he has convicted himself of "presumption,—ignorance—artifice— and falsehood; and here I leave him.

TO avoid the imputation of appearing troublesome, I waited a considerable time after the half-pay was advertised, that a very just applica­tion, tho' I believe unprecedented, should not dis­please the Admiralty. Government is in my debt to a much greater amount than twelve months; and altho' I have not enjoyed any emo­lument, perquisite, or profit, from any business or employment whatever, the only reason advanced for detaining my property, is the want of being qualified every six months, by swearing the con­tents of a certificate as the result of my own plea­sure and inclination, when an order of council commands me, and absolutely prohibits the pay­ment until I do.

[Page 18]A voluntary act is an avowed freedom of choice, and under that denomination cannot, to swear justly, admit the influence of a compulso­ry order; but I am not allowed any choice, swear I must, and swear the oath I take is not enforced by order, compulsion, or necessity, but a volunta­ry act of my own, received with equal freedom as the air I breathe as an indemnification for impo­sing an improper oath, I am obliged by the same rule to leave my signature duly attested by a ma­gistrate as a record, certainly not of superior wis­dom. To swear, then, agreeably to the prescribed form laid down by the privy council, is obvious to the plainest capacity a surreptitious oath, con­cealing its deformity under that mild appellation: for I hope no man is so far lost to all sense of vir­tue, as to prefer taking an idle oath of this kind, or any other description, when permitted an op­tion, by the very word voluntarily, to decline it.

Instructed from my infancy to guard against falsehood, as the most poisonous evil that can pos­sibly invade the human mind, and to court truth as the most beautiful of all moral virtues, I view an oath as the most awful and solemn appeal which a man can possibly make: the present judges say it should be administered with caution, and never repeated except when pressing necessity requires! for this reason, an oath before them is a public bond of true evidence; tear away the solemnity by habitual practice, the sacred barrier falls to the [Page 19] ground, and every man enters wild and lawless on the common of perjury.

It was the language of Mr. Pitt, in the House of Commons, (I ask pardon for the introduction of his name) when a clause was offered for a cer­tain bill late in the last session, recommending an annual oath, or thereabouts, as necessary for the better payment of that part of the revenue it went to describe, his answer was, such a multiplication of oaths tended to destroy every public principle, promote fraud and perjury, more than any imme­diate benefit to the Exchequer could possibly com­pensate to society. I lament, sentiments equally discerning and honourable do not adorn the heart of every man.

Having served under three commanders, not less amiable in private life than eminently conspi­cuous on the list of professional merit, their pa­rental precepts, their example of rectitude and manners, remain still as an admonishing lesson of advice never to be departed from. To drink from a foul stream, in preference to a clear foun­tain, for no other reason than a multitude being constantly led by official persuasion to do so, without once deigning to examine the contaminat­ed resource it flowed from, or, as a gentleman in the commission of the peace observed to me with evident marks of displeasure, what business have you to object against it, when others do it? would be treating every faculty with ingratitude, and [Page 20] manifest an open indifference for the good of knowledge.

I can pass by the oath; it is frequently done; the terms are low, safe, and practical easy; for it is inconsistent with common sense to take a voluntary oath as an act of necessity; it is a bad doctrine that goes to obliterate the terror of iniquity by habitual repetition, and actually libels the propriety of justice; but to be forced in any manner, and swear to the contrary! or if the fraud was discovered, I believe it would torture the invention of the most learned disquisitor to frame a prosecution for counterfeiting a forced, unjust, nominal, voluntary oath. To me, the evasion would be dishonourable, and amount to a crime of equal magnitude as embracing the evil I complain of.

Profane swearing, or any other description of idle oaths, as a passport to receive those wages the law, reason, and equity, does not allow the detention of, under any pretence, in the most uncivilized countries, is forcing a man privately by the most cruel of all tortures, to the commis­sion of iniquity, without being able to advance even a plausible reason in its defence; for I ob­serve, it is not for the prevention of fraud to the revenue, or to prevent that kind of emolument in future, which it goes back to discover, neither is it to prohibit an officer from wandering abroad, when liable to be called for at home, but for a [Page 21] purpose which may be guessed at—delicacy will not allow me to mention.

At any rate, as men of more liberal and inde­pendent characters now fill the departments of State, than at the period which gave birth to this curious order, the intention it was intro­duced for is now done away, consequently a continuance of it is entirely unnecessary: not­withstanding the remote period of its formation, those who advised it, were in some degree sen­sible that a public oath could not be imposed on any part of the community beyond the walls of the council chamber, unless specifically intro­duced and authorised by act of Parliament, or so great a people would never attempt to conceal the imbecility of a measure, and fritter away their own power, by retiring behind the speci­ous form of 'this deponent voluntarily makes oath,' when an absolute order was in force to carry it into execution, or stop the payment of wages until it was obeyed.

If I am to be precluded from all use of my property, because I do not implicitly swear to error and contradiction, under the vain idea of compulsion being an ample shield against the dis­grace of swearing improperly, and that the enor­mity would revert on those who imposed it, such language is beneath any man that had under­standing to perceive, though not fortitude to op­pose; clothed with the benign hand of provi­dence [Page 22] with health and strength, necessity shall never compel me to look for it by any way dis­honourable to myself, or repugnant to the nicest laws of equity.

If it is true virtue animates the hero, and emulation is meritorious in the youth, if vice is ugly, and falsehood a deformity; as a senator, and a man of sense, the good of the Navy, the benefit of your country, call on you to attempt the extirpation of a custom dishonourable to God, and reproachable to man.

THE Prophesies and revealed knowledge communicated to the world by Richard Brothers, having generally attracted public notice, I think it my duty to state some of them as they have been al­ready fulfilled, and let the world judge of them according to their own knowledge and belief. The truth of them ought to be carefully examin­ed. That such a man will come there can be no doubt of, and is expressly mentioned, Jerem. xxviii. 9. "The Prophet which prophesieth of PEACE; when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him."

Richard Brothers prophesieth of universal peace, that shortly will be restored to all king­doms upon earth.

[Page 28] These things having been already fulfilled, ought to be a caution to every body how they deny Revelation and Prophecy, and it behoves every person to examine into the revealed prophe­cies very carefully, and judge impartially. Acts. v. 39. "But if these things be of God, ye can­not overthrow them."

Richard Brothers stands in the Court Calen­der as a naval officer, Jan. 3, 1783. Surely then his character and behaviour during his continu­ance in the navy are very easily to be enquired by those that doubt his sanity. Because he quotes Scripture and believes in GOD, is too ridiculous, one would think, for any person to set him down either as an impostor or a madman. If he has not wrote those letters to government, as he as­serts, then he is a false prophet, and the onus probandi lays with the ministers, &c. If those letters are established, I think his prophecies com­ing true, absolutely prove him a true prophet. I have taken every step to detect him in imposition or madness, but cannot in either.