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unexampled convulfions of nations. And perhaps this vial may intend also, that God, in his providence, will cause the state of the air to be fuch that nature shall be thrown into terrible commotions, plagues fhall be gendered, and famines occafioned, that thus blind and obdurate men, who would not fee his judgments in war, may behold his hand in those more confpicuous tokens, of his wrath which will affect the rich as well as the poor, and may be brought to repentance; and that the kingdom of fatan, who is called the prince of the power of the air, shall now fall.

Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, the fource of oppreffions and all tyrannies, falls; and not only the mother, but all her children, all the cities of the nations, all the tyrannic polities which have despised and oppressed the fervants of God, and all mankind, and no place is found for them. The beaft and the false prophet are taken † and cast into

*Rev. xix. 20.

a

lake

But perhaps fome inquifitive mind may say, The beaft of Rome, fpiritual tyranny, and the false prophet, the beaft of France, his great fupporter, are taken, and exemplary juice is inflicted of fom for their abominations, but the dragon, civil tyranny, is not taken with them. No; he arose first, and he will continue longeft. But his career is short. Chap. xx. And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old ferpent, which is the devil and fatan, and bound him a thousand years. And caft him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and fet a feal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thoufan.l years fhould be fulfilled: and after that he muft be loofed a little feafon. Now commences the firft refurrection as predicted by Ezekiel (ch. xxxvii.) Now the Jews, and others with them, will find that mercy which will be as life from the dead. (Rom. xi. 15.) And as Elias lived in John the Baptift, fo fhall the former confeffors and martyrs live in the Christians of this generation. And they hall fit upon thrones of judgment, and act fo much under the influence of goffel principles, and establish fuch fyftems of juftice and righteoufnefs, that tyranny, which has bound fo many, fhall itself be bound, and be caft into the bottomlefs pit. Now liberty and peace, righteousness and joy, will reign undisturbed, for what is here termed a thousand years; after which the dragon is to be loofed for a little feason.

The events here predicted are evidently the fame with thofe foretold in Ezek. Xxxvii. xxxviii. and xxxix. and in Zech. xiv. What length of time then are we to understand by these thousand years? I fuppofe that all which is here faid is figurative, and that the years are not what we generally underftand by this term. I am inclined to judge thus for two reafons. Not only from a comparifon of the different prophecies concerning the return of the Jews, the after perfecutions of Gog and Magog, &c. which do not feem to allow of fo long a term as a thou

fand

lake of fire, i.e. exemplary juftice is inflicted on them, and now that economy of righteousness and peace which Jefus the Prince of Peace hath in charge, from his Father, to bestow on men, shall be established on immoveable foundations, till the confummation of all things; for not only human tyrannies shall perish, but the witneffes for the pure religion of Jefus fhall be so increased and quickened by an energy from above, and such an influence from God attend his gospel, while all nature fhall confpire to prepare men for repentance, that fatan's empire fhall be overturned, the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and they fhall learn war no more. EVEN SO COME LORD JESUS!

fand years between the shutting up of the dragon and his loofing, but also from the general prophetic use of such terms. Days, weeks, Sc. in the prophecies are generally used in a myftical fenfe, and for the obvious reason which has been mentioned. I fuppose therefore, that by this thousand years, a thousand weeks or months are intended. Time only can ascertain this; but I think that the other prophecies reftrain this period to a thousand weeks, or a little more than nineteen years. The proper and usual meaning of ivòs is a year, but prophetically it may, perhaps, stand for any change or revolution of time. John was a Jew, let us therefore examine the Hebrew word for a year, and hear what Buxtorf fays, 1 Annus, ab iteratione di&us, quod fole ad punctum, unde digredi seperat, redeunte, iteretur, & in fe fua per veftigia semper volvatur & redeat. Now seeing that the word year in Hebrew means a repetition, or a revolving round and returning by the fame fteps, this is as applicable to a week as a year.

Thus it appears probable from the prophecies, that after the bloody dragon, civil tyranny, whofe horrid character no objects in vifible nature are fufficiently vile to reprefent; after this crafty ferpent, which is the devil and fatan, has been confined for about nineteen years, he will again get out of his prison, and make a desperate effort against the kingdom of righteoufnefs, peace, and joy; but He who, by his providential judgments, caft the beast and the falfe prophet into the lake of fire, will manifeft himself in ftill more confpicuous judgments, and caft this dragon into the fame place of torment, and thus put an everlasting end to all tyranny, ecclefiaftical and civil.—Now a prospect opens, which transports the heart, and figures are ufed proportioned to the fublimity and felicity of the scenes which follow. Let the wife and pious anticipate by hope these happy days! We look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteoufnefs!!!

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WE are now come to the third Inquiry, Will all the numbers

of Daniel and John, which refer to the fate of things that we are looking for, agree with the prefent time? Let us examine.

In difcuffing the numbers of Daniel, I fhall not take up much. time in examining questions, and in endeavouring to solve difficulties which might be started, nor in inquiring whether any of thefe numbers terminated in Antiochus Epiphanes. I think, and I have very respectable authorities on my fide, that they refer to the overthrow of the papal apoftacy, and all those systems of tyranny which have been so much at enmity with the kingdom of Christ, to the purification of the Gentile church, and to the restoration and conversion of the Jews. To save time, and to spare the reader's patience, I shall take fome things for granted, which may be feen argued at length in more voluminous writings.

In the first place, let us confider Daniel's vision in chap. viii, It opens with the appearance of a ram, (ver. 4.) having two horns, pufhing weftward, and northward, and fouthward. This the angel interprets (ver. 20.) to be the kings of Media and Perfia. The next object in the vifion is an he-goat, (ver. 5.) which came from the weft, with a notable horn between his eyes. This, the angel fays, (ver. 21.) is the king of Grecia, the Grecian empire; and the great horn between his eyes, the firft king, or kingdom, under Alexander, his brother, and two fons. This horn was broken, (ver. 8.) and after it came up four others; the four empires which fprung up out of the conquefts of Alexander. And out of one of them came a little horn, (ver. 9.) which waxed exceeding great, toward the fouth, and toward the caft, and toward the pleafant land, and by him the place of the daily facrifice was taken away, and the place of his fanctuary was caft down, &c, Ver. 13. Then I heard one faint Speaking, and another faint faid unto that certain faint which fpake, How long fhall be the vifion concerning the daily facrifice, and the tranfgreffion of defolation, to give both the fan&tuary and the hoft to be trodden under foot? And he faid unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days, then fhall the fanctuary be cleanfed.

It seems natural to reckon these 2300 days (or years) either from the first part of the vision, the pushing of the ram, or the latter end, the violences of the little horn, or from the time when Daniel faw the vifion.* If we calculate from the time when Daniel faw the vifion, the termination of the 2300 years is past forty or fifty years, and the fanctuary is not cleanfed. If from the latter part of the vifion, (as understood of Antiochus) it will carry us to about the year A. D. 2130, which appears too far; for suppos ing the 1260 years power of the beast, predicted in the Apocalypfe, were to be calculated from the time when the Pope became a temporal prince from the exarchate of Ravenna being given to him by Pepin, A. D. 755, or by Charlemagne A. D. 774, (fome thinking that he was not a perfect beast till then) this would fall short of Daniel's number by more than a hundred years; but feeing that the power, idolatry, corruptions, and ufurpations of the papacy were such, at least in the fixth century, as appear fufficient to denominate it a beaft, and it is certain, that he began to rife much earlier; the most probable time for the fixing the coramencement of Daniel's 2300 years, and that which will altogether agree best with the other numbers of Daniel, and the predictions in the Apocalypfe, is the beginning of the vifion, the pushing of the ram, by which is intended fome diftinguifhed exertions of the Perfian empire for conquests. And to what period of that empire does this fo well agree as to the times of Xerxes, and that particular push which he made when he invaded + Greece with an army of 2,641,610 fighting men, reckoning 517610 on board his fleet, which confifted of 1,207 fhips of the line of battle, 3,000 gallies, tranfports, victuallers, &c, beside the 220 fhips which the nations on this fide the Hellefpont added, on board of which were 24,000

men ?

* Dr. Newton, Bishop of Bristol, concludes from verfe 13, that these days are to be calculated from the beginning of the vision. As the question was asked," fays he, "not how long the daily facrifice shall be taken away, and the tranfgreffion of defolation continue, but also, how long the vifion fhall laft; fo the answer is to be understood, and these two thoufand and three hundred days denote the whole time from the beginning of the vifion to the cleaning of the fanctuary." Differt. on the Proph. vol. 1. p. 331. Dr. Lowth, in his comment on this paffage, fays, "The words may be rendered more agreeably to the Hebrew, thus: For how long a time fhall the vifion laft, the daily facrifice be taken away, and the tranfgreffion of defolation continue?

+ Prideaux's Con, Part I. Book 4. P. 233.

men? Of his land forces, 80,000 were horse. And befides this multitude, as many more are reckoned to have followed the camp, fervants, eunuchs, &c. fo that the whole number of people engaged in this expedition was at least 5,000,000. What a push was this for conqueft! And, (though he had been rufhing for three or four years before, yet) nothing elfe forbidding it, what period could be more proper for the angel to begin his reckoning from? He paffed the Hellefpont B. C. 480: four years before this he pufhed at Egypt and reduced it; the next year he prepared for this invafion; the following he entered into a league with the Carthaginians against the Greeks, and in the year 481 B. C. marches as far as Sardis, on his way towards Greece, where he winters, and in the fpring paffes the Hellefpont.

Suppose we fix the year 481 B. C. for the commencement of Daniel's 2,300 years (allowing our chronology to be correct) this carries us to the year of Chrift 1819, when the fanctuary and host are no longer to be trodden under foot, i. e. the land of Palestine is no longer to be in the poffeffion of the enemies of the Jews, but they are to be restored, and the church freed from antichriftian abominations.

But it may be objected, that as the Jewish year confifted but of 360 days, five days and a quarter short of our folar year, this will make a difference of thirty-one years fhort. To which I anfwer, A fingle Jewish year confifted but of 360 days, and when we confider three or four years only, this mode of reckoning may be admitted, but, as we have leap years to regulate our measurement of time, fo had the Jews. When it was neceffary, they intercalated their month Adar; fometimes even a whole month, and this they were obliged to do to make their feafts of the Paffover, Pentecoft, and Tabernacles, happen at their proper feasons. The Targum of Chron. xii. 32. fays of the children of Ifaachar, that "They were skilful in the knowledge of times, and wife to fix the beginning of the years; dextrous at fetting the new moons and fixing their feafts at their feafons." Hence it follows, that though the Jewish ordinary year is to be attended to when but a few years are under confideration, yet, in a long fucceffion of time, they are not to be noticed, for by intercalations they amount to the fame with folar years.

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