The _Jews_ have a remarkable Prophecy, which expresseth both the Whole, and the Parts of the World’s Duration. The World, they say, will stand Six thousand Years: _Two thousand before the Law, Two thousand under the Law, and Two thousand under the Messiah_. This Prophecy they derive from _Elias_; but there were two of the Name, _Elias_ the _Thesbite_, and _Elias_ the _Rabbin_, or _Cabbalist_; and ’tis suppos’d to belong immediately to the latter of these. Yet this does not hinder, in my Opinion, but that it might come originally from the former _Elias_, and was preserv’d in the School of this _Elias_ the _Rabbin_, and first made publick by him. Or he added, it may be, that Division of the Time into three Parts, and so got a Title to the whole. I cannot easily imagine, that a Doctor that lived Two hundred Years, or thereabouts, before Christ, when Prophecy had ceas’d for some Ages amongst the _Jews_, should take upon him to dictate a Prophecy about the Duration of the World, unless he had been supported by some antecedent Cabbalistical Tradition: Which being kept more secret before, he took the Liberty to make Publick, and so was reputed the Author of the Prophecy: As many Philosophers amongst the _Greeks_, were the reputed Authors of such Doctrines as were much more antient than themselves: But they were the Publishers of them in their Country, or the Revivers of them after a long Silence; and so, by forgetful Posterity, got the Honour of the first Invention. You will think, it may be, the Time is too long, and the Distance too great, betwixt _Elias_ the _Thesbite_, and this _Elias_ the _Rabbin_, for a Tradition to subsist all the while, or be preserv’d with any competent Integrity. But it appears from St. _Jude_’s Epistle, that the _Prophecies of Enoch_, (who liv’d before the Flood) relating to the Day of Judgment and the End of the World, were extant in his Time, either in Writing or by Tradition: And the Distance between _Enoch_ and St. _Jude_ was vastly greater than betwixt the two _Elias_’s. Nor was any fitter to be inspir’d with that Knowledge, or to tell the first News of that fatal Period, than the old Prophet _Elias_, who is to come again and bring the Alarum of the approaching Conflagration. But however this Conjecture may prove as to the original Author of this Prophecy, the Prophecy itself concerning the _Sexmillennial_ Duration of the World, is very much insisted upon by the Christian Fathers. Which yet I believe is not so much for the bare Authority of the Tradition, as because they thought it was founded in the History of the _six Days Creation_, and the _Sabbath_ succeeding: As also in some other typical Precepts and Usages in the Law of _Moses_. But before we speak of that, give me Leave to name some of those Fathers to you, that were of this Judgment, and supposed the great Sabbatism would succeed after the World had stood Six thousand Years. Of this Opinion was St. _Barnabas_ in his Catholick Epistle, _ch._ xv.