“Tertullian, who wrote about A. D. 180, says it was a custom of his times for Christians to pray that they might have part in the first resurrection; and Cyprian, who lived about A. D. 220, says that Christians ‘had a thirst for _martyrdom_, that they might obtain a better resurrection,’—the martyrs being raised at the commencement of the thousand years. “The first of whom we have any account that opposed this doctrine was Origen, in the middle of the third century, who styled those who adhered to it ‘the simpler sort of Christians.’ Mosheim assures us that the opinion ‘that Christ was to come and reign a thousand years among men’ had, before the time of Origen, ‘met with _no opposition_.’—_Ch. Hist._, vol. 1, p. 284. “At the era of the Reformation this doctrine was revived, and taught by Luther and Melancthon; it is in the confession of Augsburg (A. D. 1530); was the belief of Latimer, Cranmer, and Ridley; is in the Articles of the Church (Ed. vi., A. D. 1552); is not denied in the more prominent creeds and confessions of faith of the churches, and was believed by Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Milton, Knox, Bunyan, Gill, Cowper, Heber, Pollok, Greswell, and many other distinguished names of modern times. “This point was vital to Mr. Miller’s theory, for, however correct he might be in his _time_, without this _event_ he must fail in his application of prophecy. “Prof. Bush, while he admitted that all ‘the leading periods mentioned by Daniel and John do actually expire _about_ this age of the world’ (_Letter to Mr. M._, p. 6), claimed that ‘the great event before the world is not its _physical conflagration_, but its _moral regeneration_.’—p. 11. “Mr. Hinton said: ‘It is possible we may have reached the goal of the world’s moral destiny. It is, indeed, our deliberate opinion that we are in the general period of termination of the 23d century alluded to by the prophet ... and that the events alluded to in the phrase “then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” are now actually passing before us.’—p. 121. But he considered the _event_ ‘a resurrection from death in trespasses and sins.’—p. 336. “Dr. Dowling, Dr. Hamilton, and others, while they did not admit, with Prof. Bush, that the present age ‘is just opening upon the crowning consummation of all prophetic declarations,’ contended that the millennium ‘is to be ushered in, not by a literal resurrection of the bodies of the saints, but by the figurative resurrection of the holy men of all past ages, in the numerous instances of eminent piety that shall appear in every nation under heaven.’—_Dr. H._, p. 30. “Prof. Stuart, while he admitted that the resurrection here brought to view was a resurrection of the body, limited it to the martyrs, and denied that there is to be a descent of Christ to the earth, or a _visible_ reign of the martyrs with him.