Dispensational premillennialism had its origin in the early nineteenth century among the Plymouth Brethren in England and Ireland. This system of interpretation was promoted by one of the early leaders of the Plymouth Brethren, John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), and was a reaction against the then widely held view called postmillennialism. It received its name from its view that human history is divided into “dispensations.” A dispensation is defined as “a period of time during which man is tested in