Letter on the Prophecies.

LETTER ON THE PROPHECIES.F19

REV. SIR, - I was very much surprised to hear you read part of a letter written on the impending revolutions; they have often been, for some years, the subject of my meditations, and of many conversations with a great divine abroad. That gentleman, as eminent for his uncommon learning, as he is remarkable for the use he has made of it, from his youth, showed the greatest inclination to dive into the apparent obscurities of the prophecies contained in the Bible. That inclination increased with his knowledge and piety; it followed him every where. When upon his travels, he generally got what light he could from the learned in that uncommon branch of knowledge, and had several conferences with Sir Isaac Newton and others. For these fifty years he has spent his time in making himself perfectly master of the oriental languages, (which are become as familiar to him as Greek and Latin,) and in comparing and explaining the various prophecies scattered in the Old and New Testament. Therefore, if his labours have been attended with a blessing from above, and a measure of God’s Holy Spirit, he is, in all appearance, a man most likely to discover what God has been pleased to hide, for a time, under the veil of prophetic figures. As I have often read his works, both those that have been printed, and those which he has not yet been able to publish, on account of the strong opposition of several people, I shall take the liberty to give you a short account of his system.

It is, as far as I can judge, pretty much the same as the gentleman’s whose letter you read lately, and supported by the numerous train of his arguments; it seldom fails either to silence or convict those that oppose it; it agrees with the tenor of the whole Bible; it gives such grand ideas of God’s justice in punishing the wicked, and his faithfulness in remembering the gracious promises he has made to the faithful; it squares so well with history and chronology, (I would almost say, with the present state of the world,) that if it be not true, one must confess it is at least very probable. This has been owned by numbers of clergymen, and even by some of those who, because the Lord delays his coming, think that the work shall always remain in the same state.

Let me beg of you, sir, for the sake of that gentleman, whom I have great reason to honour, not to judge absolutely of him by what I shall say; considering that clear water, running through a foul pipe, may easily contract a disagreeable and muddy taste. I confess I want a competent knowledge of Scripture, and the degree of profane learning, necessary to illustrate it; so that if you observe in these sheets any inconsistency, it is probably all my own.

According to that diviners opinion, we are come to the last times: the grand catastrophe of God’s drama draws near apace; he shall soon be avenged, first of his unfaithful servants, and next of his barefaced enemies; in a few years he will “purge his floor,” and “burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Every Christian ought then to prepare himself for that day, which “will come as a thief in the night;” and to labour for a living faith, the ark which alone will carry us safe to the harbour, amidst the universal deluge of wo which is going to overflow the earth. Here follow some of the reasons on which his opinion is founded: - (1st.) Consider Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, which is a rough sketch of the world’s four universal revolutions. Three are past long ago; the empires of the Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks, have disappeared. The iron legs, that represented the strength of the Roman empire under the consuls and emperors, have had the same fate: the feet only remain, which being “made of clay and iron, partly weak and partly strong,” express plainly the remains of the Roman monarchy, which is nothing but a weak compound of spiritual and temporal power, and does not cleave better together than iron to clay. And whereas the feet of the statue ended in ten toes, so was the Roman empire divided into ten kingdoms: these were still united together by the clay, i.e. the pope’s erroneous religion and idolatrous worship. “In the days of these ten kings,” says the Prophet Daniel, “shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: for it shall swallow up all these kingdoms, and stand for ever: forasmuch as a stone cut from the mountain without hands,” (a small number of true Christians sent from Mount Sion, without the hand of mortal man, and by the Spirit of God alone; or Jesus himself, the corner stone,) “shall smite the feet of the statue,” the last of the four monarchies; “and the pieces of it shall become as the chaff, carried away by the wind, and no place shall be found for them; but the stone that shall smite the image will become a great mountain, and fill the whole earth.” (2dly.) Compare with this the vision of the seventh chapter, where the fourth beast that had iron teeth, to devour all, answers clearly to the iron legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s image; for as this had ten toes, so that had ten horns: viz. the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided; those of Burgundy and Lombardy; that of the Vandals; the eastern and western empires; England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Poland. Between these ten horns did another come up, i.e. the pope; who aggrandized himself at the expense of the other kings, and before which three of the horns fell, the kingdoms of Lombardy, Burgundy, and that of the Vandals, who were once possessed of a great part of France, Spain, and Africa, but are now no longer known but in history. This horn had eyes; i.e. an appearance of wisdom, and a great deal of fraud; “and a mouth that spake great things against the Most High: it warred against the saints;” and so has the pope; millions have fallen, as so many victims to his cruelty, pride, and persecuting spirit. But we are near the time when, having fully “prevailed against them, they shall be given unto him for a time, times, and a division of time:” but after this last raging of antichrist, his body shall be destroyed: then the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom and possess it for ever and ever: this will be an end of the matter; and if any one meditates thereon with singleness of heart, his thoughts, like Daniel’s, In will be troubled in him, and his countenance changed, and he will keep the matter in his heart.” (3dly.) Compare again this vision with that which is contained in the following chapter, where the prophet, having foretold the ruin of the Persian empire, the conquest of Alexander, and the division of his dominion between four kings, comes at once to the little horn that should spring from one of them; namely, from that of Greece or Macedonia: for as the Spirit of God had shown the prophet before all that concerned the beginning of the fourth kingdom, he passes lightly over it, to come to the main point, the rising of the little horn, at whose destruction the empire of the saints shall begin. Let it be remembered here, that Constantine, having transported into Greece the seat of the Roman empire, renewed (as it were) that of Macedonia, of which Byzantium was one of the chief cities; and that it was under him, and his successors, that the bishop of Rome increased in honours, and began to lift up himself above all the bishops and patriarchs in the world; so that in two or three hundred years he “waxed exceeding great in the pleasant land, and cast down, and stampt upon” kings and emperors, those stars in the heaven of government; he took away the daily sacrifice, abolished or quite disfigured the true worship of God and Jesus, and cut down the truth to the ground, with his army.

Here the prophet heard a saint asking another saint, How long the Church should be thus corrupted and desolate? And the answer was, till the end of 2300 days, and then the sanctuary should be cleansed. - Here is a number given; a number by which we may know that we are come to the very time the Spirit of God had in view: a number which fixes the beginning of the things that are coming upon the earth: let us take some notice of it.

1. When shall the sanctuary begin to be cleansed, in such a measure, as to deserve to be taken notice of by the Spirit of God? At the end of 2300 days; which are proved to be prophetic days, and to signify each a whole year, by the prophecy of the seventy weeks, and many other places of Scripture.

2. What is the epocha from which we must begin to reckon those 2300 years? It is evident it must be the time of the vision itself, which the prophet has taken particular care to observe; for in the first verse of the chapter, “In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, (says he) a vision appeared to me, even unto me Daniel.”

3. But how can we know certainly the time of Belshazzar’s reign? I must own, this question is not so easily answered as the others; but it can be resolved, with some knowledge of history and chronology: for if we compare the writings of sacred and profane historians; if we trust the canons of Ptolemy, which have been tried by astronomical observations, with Petrarius, Usserius, Prideaux, and others, we shall agree that Belshazzar (the same whom the historians call Niricasoolassar, or Neriglissor,) having killed Evilmerodac, the son of Nabocolasser, or Nebuchadnezzar, seized upon the Assyrian throne, A. M. 3476, i.e. 559 years before Christ, or as Torniel will have it, about twenty years after: because asserting that Evilmerodac, (instead of two years, which the above - mentioned chronologists give to his reign) enjoyed the diadem twenty - three years, which would make the reign of his successor, our Belshazzar, begin about 538 years before Christ. If we admit the first opinion, which is more probable, it follows that the third year of Belshazzar’s reign falls in 556 years before Christ, which is the epocha wanted; add to it four or five years, on account of the difference of the Judaical year of 360 days, and ours that is 365, and above; add three years more for the time that Belshazzar had reigned when Daniel had the vision, and we have about 550, which being substracted from 2300, give the year 1750, for the cleansing of the sanctuary; or for such a tolerable progress in the cleansing of it, as may be taken notice of, and attract the eyes of all those who wait for this cleansing of God’s Church.

4. If any one should ask, what happened so remarkably about that time, as to show that the sanctuary is in some degree cleansed, or that this important work is really carried on with any tolerable success; I would answer, that God was working at that time, and still works such a work as never was seen since the apostles’ days; he has sent some chosen servants of his, both in these kingdoms and abroad, who, by the manifest assistance of God’s Spirit, have removed the filthy doctrine of justification by works, and the outward Christless performances of moral duties, which pollute the sanctuary, and make it an abomination to the Lord. The Holy Ghost is given, and the love of God is shed abroad in the hearts of believers as in the days of old; and the Lord has taken to himself servants, that will rejoice to stand boldly for the truth, to remain unshaken in the evil day, and to fight manfully his battles, when he shall call them to it. I own that the cleansing is but begun, but this first revolution may, in all probability, be the forerunner of a greater: God has called; a few have obeyed his call; the generality still shut their eyes and ears against the tender invitations of their Lord, and continue to pollute their sanctuary, and to look on the blood of the Lamb as an unholy thing. Shall not God carry on his work? Shall the creature still resist his Creator, and the arm of flesh be stronger than the living God? Not so: he will not always strive with obdurate hearts. What the gentle breathings of his Spirit cannot perform, he will do with war, sword and fire, plague and famine, tribulation and anguish. He is going to gird on his sword, and his right hand shall teach him terrible things. Nations refuse the sceptre of his mercy: what remains then, but to rule them with an iron sceptre, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel?

5. If this answer, satisfying as it is, do not content those who will not even believe even what they see, I would answer farther, that the calculation above mentioned is so far from being made to reach farther than chronology will allow, (as I have heard some object,) that it might admit of an addition or twenty - one years according to Torniel, as I said before; which would put off the cleansing of the sanctuary till 1770. Chronologists may mistake in a few years, but cannot err upon the whole; and as God is true and faithful, so it is manifest, that the prophecy of 2300 years must be fully accomplished in our days, or those of the next generation.

6. To set the argument, drawn from the number of 2300, in a clear light, it is necessary to prove, that it was not designed to show the time of the cleansing the sanctuary by Judas Maccabaeus and his brethren, from the pollution of Ahtiochus Epiphanes; nor the cleansing of Jesus and his apostles, who freed the Church of God from Pharisaical hypocrisy, and Sadducean profaneness; nor lastly, that of Luther, and other reformers, who cleansed the outside, and washed white the sanctuary but were not able to remove the filth of unbelief that remained within. Many arguments might be drawn from the number itself, which agrees with no cleansing but that in these days; but it will be easier to draw them from the general drift of the prophecy, and the context of the chapter. Observe first these words, “At the time of the end shall this vision be fulfilled,” where the word end signifies plainly, the catastrophe of God’s drama, the last act of the wicked tragedy men have been acting for near 6000 years, and the pantwn apocaluyiv of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again: in the 19th verse, the angel said to Daniel, “Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation, for at the time appointed the end shall be.” What end is here spoken of, if it be not that of God’s universal scheme? Ponder also these words, (verse 26,) “Wherefore shut thou up the Vision, for it shall be for many days:” which agrees far better with our times than those of Antiochus, Paul, or Luther. Observe again these words of an angel to Daniel, (chap. 10:) “I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days, for the vision is for many days;” where it is plain that “latter days’ here, and “end” in the eighth chapter, signify but one and the same thing. The angel, according to his promise, tells the prophet, in the eleventh chapter, many particulars of those things that shall soon come upon us, and of that time of trouble, which will be matchless and unheard of before: “Then, (adds the angel,) thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book:” and who is the man, so little conversant with history, as to say that here is meant the persecution of Antiochus, which, though fierce for awhile, by no means answers the angel’s words; or the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; for, though the troubles of the Jews were beyond expression, yet the Spirit of God had a far more distant prospect, as can be proved by the assurance the angel gives Daniel, that at “that time his people should be delivered;” which neither was then, nor has been hitherto: the Jews sighing still in a shameful banishment, and expecting yet that promised deliverance. An argument as strong as the foregoing, may be drawn from the first resurrection, which is to take place soon after that deliverance, “when many of them that sleep shall awake;” whereas, at the second and last resurrection, not only many, but all the souls of dead men shall re - enter their bodies: but more concerning this afterward.

7. As what I have been writing on the number of 2300 forms a complete proof, I shall not trouble you, sir, with longer digressions upon the various prophetic numbers that occur in the Bible concerning the things we expect to see in a short time: let me only beg of you to observe the harmony of the following ones: -

Revelation 10:6: “And the angel swore by him who liveth for ever and ever, that when the seven thunders should have uttered their voices Cronov ouk estai there will not be a time more;” which word time, in St. John and Daniel, signifies a year, and a prophetic year, viz. 360 years. If it be true that the seven voices here mentioned, signify the reformation of the seven Protestant countries, it will follow, that from the reformation there will not be a whole time, or 360 years, “till the mystery of God be accomplished, which he told for our comfort, to his servants the prophets.” Revelation 11:2: “Do not measure the porch, for it is given to the Gentiles, and they shall tread under foot the holy city forty two months. Ver. 3: My two witnesses shall preach 1260 days. Revelation 13:5: Power was given to the beast to fulfil forty two months.” The woman, or true Church, fleeing from the serpent, retires to a place where she is fed for a time, times, and part of a time; which number plainly signifies three prophetic years and a half, and falls in, in a wonderful manner, with the forty two months that are allowed the beast, or pope; and the forty two months, during which two or a few witnesses will, in spite of opposition, maintain the truth as it is in Jesus, against antichrist and their false brethren.

N. B. 1260 days is equal to 45 months, or three years and a half, Daniel 12:11. From the time that the daily sacrifice should be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be 1290 prophetic days. It is easy to observe that there is some years’ difference between the numbers of Daniel, and those of St. John; the reason is, that the apostle had the beginning of the war against antichrist in view; whereas the prophet looked farther, viz. to some remarkable battle that he shall lose, and in which he shall be utterly destroyed. As for his second number, it seems to refer to that happy year when the remotest nations of the earth shall have embraced the Christian faith.

You may probably have observed, sir, that the various numbers which come to the same, or very near, must be reckoned from the time the bishop of Rome showed himself plainly to be the head antichrist, “and set himself up as a god, in the temple of God;” which was not in a very remarkable manner till the end of the fifth century. Add then 500 years to 1260, and you will see that in a few years these plain prophecies concerning the preaching of the two witnesses, the flight of the woman into the desert, and the duration of antichrist’s reign, will soon be accomplished. It is worth observation, that as the tyranny of antichrist will last 1260 years, so his last raging, or that tribulation which will be so uncommon, shall last also 1260 common days, and not prophetic ones, because for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened, according to our Lord’s merciful promise. This observation will cast a great light upon all those numbers, and prevent many objections.

Having thus laid the prophetic numbers as the foundation of the edifice, I shall now give a short sketch of the above mentioned gentleman’s superstructure.

Seducers will come, saying, “Here is Christ, or there, and they shall seduce many; we shall hear of wars, and rumours of wars; kingdom shall rise against kingdom; there will be plagues and famines, troubles and earthquakes, but this is but the beginning of woes:” for the man of sin (recovered of the wound he received by the reformation) shall gather in incredible strength; and Satan, knowing that he has but a short time, will rage beyond all expression: God, whose wrath is justly stirred up by the iniquities and unbelief, nay, open profaneness of the Protestants, will give them into the hands of their enemies, as he formerly delivered his ungrateful people into the hands of the Assyrians: for his judgments always begin at his house. Then will come those dreadful troubles described in a hundred places of the sacred writings. “As the love of many will be cold,” and there will be comparatively no faith upon the earth, the apostasy foretold by all the prophets will soon take place; begin, in all probability, by the Lutherans in Germany, and follow in all the Protestant countries. Here cruelties unheard of since the beginning of the world will be the refining fire of our decayed faith; part of the reformed Christians will be destroyed by the sword, or by famine; part will be carried away into captivity; part will remain to serve their cruel conquerors, who (notwithstanding their falling away from the pure outward worship) will treat them in a most terrible manner.

As for Christ’s faithful witnesses, having withstood this grand apostasy with all their might, and confirmed their weak brethren, by whom they will often be betrayed into the hands of their enemies, they shall, for the greatest part, seal their faith with their blood, get the palm of martyrdom, and water the earth with rivers of blood, that the Lord may the sooner cover it with his promised harvest.

Those that shall escape, being hidden and saved in a wonderful manner, will be the seed of that harvest, and will remain concealed, (see Revelation 11., on the death and resurrection of the two witnesses,) when God, giving them an extraordinary measure of his Spirit, with an undaunted boldness, shall call on them to “lift up their voices like trumpets,” to proclaim pardon in the name of Jesus, and to rouse deluded nations, and bid them come out of Babylon, that they may not partake of her plagues, and be consumed at the appearing of the Lord. Then shall the tenth part of the city fall; or a great kingdom, leaving the party of the man of sin, will turn to God, and give the signal of a universal reformation: others shall join it in time, and all together will get the better of God’s adversaries, in spite of their desperate resistance.

Rome shall be destroyed, and antichristianism will share the same fate. The greatest wonders and signs shall attend these revolutions, insomuch that Turks and Jews, heathens and savages, will know the hand of the Lord, bow their stubborn hearts to his grace, and “give glory to him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever.”

Give me leave here, Rev. sir, to propose to you a thing that many will look on as a great paradox, but has yet sufficient ground in Scripture to raise the expectation of every Christian, who sincerely looks for the coming of our Lord: I mean the great probability that in the midst of this grand revolution, our Lord Jesus will suddenly come down from heaven, and go himself, conquering and to conquer. For, what but the greatest prejudice could induce Christians to think that the coming of our Lord, spoken of in so plain terms by three evangelists, is his last coming before the universal judgment, and the end of the world; since there is hardly any thing in those chapters that could have given occasion to such a thought?

1. Jesus himself says, that immediately (euqewv) after the tribulation, which has been proved to be very near, the powers of heaven will be shaken, and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And to the end of the chapter our Lord does not say a word of the end of the world, and the universal judgment, of which he does not speak till the end of the following chapter, so far from confounding his third coming with his second.

2. I read the very same account in the thirteenth of St. Mark, when Jesus having spoken of the general apostasy, and “the abominable desolation spoken of by Daniel,” (which of course cannot be that of the Jews, at the taking of Jerusalem,) he adds, “Let him that readeth understand. In those days the sun shall be darkened, &c, and then shall they see the Son of man,’ &c. Who does not perceive that Christ will come to give the finishing stroke to the great work begun by the might of his Spirit, to establish his kingdom upon earth, and to bring those happy days, “when ten people shall lay hold on an Israelite, saying, Lead us to the temple of the Lord:” when the kid shall feed with the lion, and a child lead them; when he that dieth young “shall die a hundred years old;” and when “righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters fill the sea.” I cannot conceive how so many divines have such an idea of God’s wisdom, as to think (contrary to the plain text of his word) that so happy a time will last but a few days; and that this Apokaluyiv twn pantwn will no sooner take place, but the earth will be destroyed by fire; such must be, however, the inconsistent opinion of those who confound our Lord’s second with his third coming.

3. After our Lord’s ascension, the angels promise the apostles, who then represented all true believers, that they should see Jesus Christ coming from heaven, but said not a word of the end of the world.

4. The second coming of our Lord was so frequently talked of in the apostles’ days, that many expected it daily, so that St. Paul, who knew it was yet afar off, thought it necessary to refute the strong expression of the Thessalonians concerning the nearness of Christ’s appearing: “That day will not come,” says he, “before the apostasy, and the revelation of the man of sin, the son of perdition;” which is the same as if he had said, You shall know that the Lord will shortly come, when you shall see the universal apostasy that I foretel you. Nay, the apostle goes a great deal farther; for in the same chapter he assures us, that the Lord “will destroy the man of sin by the brightness of his presence.” Can any thing be plainer?

5. Our Lord told his apostles, at the last supper, that he should not drink any more of the fruit of the vine till he should drink it new in the kingdom of heaven; which kingdom will be set up on earth thousands of years before the end of the world.

Having thus established the second coming of our Lord, give me leave, sir, to remove a specious objection: -

Those who dislike an opinion because it is not generally received, will object, that all that is said in Matthew 24, Mark 13, &c, of our Lord’s second coming, is certainly spoken of his last coming, immediately before the judgment, because Jesus says, that the angels shall gather his elect from the four winds, which seems to imply the resurrection and the judgment following it. But so far from granting it, this is the very thing that shows our Lord did not speak of the end of the world and the judgment; else why should not the reprobate be gathered from the four winds as well as the elect? Shall these only be judged, while the mouldered bodies of the wicked shall rest in peace? Is this Scriptural?

What then can be the meaning of that “gathering of the elect?” The question would be too deep for a short - sighted man to answer, had not the Spirit of God revealed it to St. John, and all the believers who with an humble mind search the writings of the prophets. I will begin at Revelation 17., to show, by the by, how well every thing I have wrote concerning the man of sin, and his destruction, agrees with the account St. John gives us of his visions.

There he gives such strong characteristics as at once point out Rome and the pope; they agree extremely well with St. Paul’s and Daniel’s description: the beast and the ten kings that defend it “having made war with the Lambs shall at last be overcome by him;” whereupon the ten kings, Revelation 17:14, forsaking the whore or popish idolatry, shall rebel in turning against the pope, and with the Lord’s unexpected assistance shall destroy him, his city, and all his adherents. The eighteenth chapter is a sublime description of the vast alteration which this fall of Babylon will cause in the world; pride and luxury falling with the same blow.

The nineteenth chapter contains a magnificent account of the sudden manner in which God’s kingdom shall take place: Christ comes down, (this is again his second appearing not distinguished enough from the third by our divines;) Christ comes down to be avenged of his enemies, who are all destroyed in a last and decisive battle, whereupon all the kingdoms of the earth become the kingdoms of our Lord.

The twentieth chapter displays to our expectation the most glorious scene that can be on earth. “Satan is bound for a thousand years,” and if they are prophetic ones, for 360,000.f20 “Thrones are set up, and judgment is given to those that sit on them; [which probably refers to what our Saviour promised his apostles, that at his coming they should sit upon twelve thrones, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel,] and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, as well as the souls of those that had not worshipped the beast nor its image,” &c. And having been gathered from the four winds, Matthew 24, “they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; but the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished: this is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

This takes away all the difficulty arising from that gathering of the elect so long before the day of judgment, and it confirms the ideas you give us in your hymns of God’s wrath and mercy, -

“His wrath doth slowly move, - his mercy flows apace.”

Nor can I conceive that Jesus would accept of a kingdom without his members, without the heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. The world, however, shall not last always in this happy state: Ezekiel and St. John are very express on this article. Satan shall be loosed at last out of his prison, and seduce two powerful nations, Gog and Magog; but this second almost universal rebellion will be quenched as prosperously as that of antichrist. How long the world shall last after this no one knows, not even the angels of God; but it is certain, that all those things must come to pass before the conflagration of this globe, spoken of by St. Peter, as well as before the resurrection and judgment: see the end of chapter twenty. We have in the twenty - first chapter an account of the palingeny [regeneration] of the earth after its purification by fire, of the New Jerusalem, and of the ravishing happiness of those who shall have persevered unto the end. This is, sir, a short account of the gentleman’s system, which, far from fearing a severe examination, does never appear in a better and clearer light than when it is compared with the writings of all the prophets and apostles, with the prophetic psalms, and, in a word, with the whole Bible. Give me leave to conclude with some reflections that naturally flow from what has been said on that system.

1. Many people, I know, look on meditations on the prophecies, so expressly enjoined by St. Peter, as one of the greatest instances of presumption and enthusiasm; Cause they believe there is no sure ground to build upon, and that it is a land of darkness, in which the most enlightened Christians will never fail to stumble and fall shamefully. But is it probable that God, who foretold to a year, and very clearly, the deliverance of the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage, the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, and the building of the second temple, and the birth and death of the Messiah; - is it probable, I say, that he should have been silent, or not have spoken as clearly concerning his coming to destroy the destroyers, and to set up that kingdom which we pray for, when we daily say, according to our Lord’s appointment, “Thy kingdom come?” If God has exactly foretold, for the comfort of believers, the various revolutions that have happened to his Church in past ages; is it possible that he should have left himself without a witness concerning the most important of all, I mean the last? If he showed the prophets the first acts of his dramas is it not highly probable he has not forgot the last, without which his wisdom, justice, and mercy, would always remain hid under a thick cloud?

2. Let none say that Jesus himself, as man, knew not the end of the world; and that Moses says, “Hidden things are for the Lord, but revealed ones for us and for our children.” I acknowledge that the end of the world and the time of the purification of this globe by dissolution and fire, is a secret too deeply hid in the glass of God’s decrees for any man to fathom, before God himself is pleased to reveal it. But nobody talks here of the end of the world; nobody fixes either the hour or day, nor even the year of Christ’s second appearing; since he did not think fit to reveal it to us, we ought to stand in continual readiness for it. For, supposing this system to be true in all points, supposing the tribulation is to begin next year, it will still be impossible to determine whether Jesus will come down in ten or fifty years: so that our Lord’s words are true, in all their extent, even now, for that day and hour, and even that year, knoweth no man. Yet we expect to see the full cleansing of his sanctuary, by the fire of persecution; the destroying of antichrist and unbelief, his great enemies; the subduing of all nations to his easy yoke; the calling of the Jews; the fulfilling of God’s gracious promises to that long scattered seed of Abraham; and the bringing of those times when the fear of the Lord shall cover the face of the earth, as the waters do that of the sea. Where is the child of God that dares to say, that all these things must not come to pass before the end of the world; and if so, when should they happen but in the time he has been pleased to fix in his Holy Bible? Where is that man that makes God a liar, because he is an unbeliever? Shall the Lord say, and shall he not do? Shall he promise, and shall he not perform? If he has borne with the wickedness of the world so long, not being willing that any man should perish; shall he delay, to all eternity, to fulfil his threatenings? God forbid! the day is fixed, it is foretold; and though the vision was to be after many days, as the angel said to Daniel, yet it may be fulfilled in a few days for us, who live in the last times.

3. It is lawful, yea, needful, that we and our children should often think of these things; for hidden things are for the Lord, but these are revealed for us and our children: they are revealed in all the prophets from Moses to John, and more especially in the Revelation of this beloved apostle. Let but these objectors ponder the word Apocaluyiv, and they will be ashamed to say that we must not look into those things because they were never revealed unto us.

4. If Jesus told his disciples that it was not theirs to know the times when those things should be accomplished, it does not follow that it must be hid from us who are far more nearly concerned in them than they were; beside, how should they have understood and borne those things before they had received the Comforter, since they thought them bitter, after they had obtained the Divine gift, when they had some knowledge of them? Add to this, that Daniel’s vision was to be closed till the end, and could not be perfectly known till very near the time of the fulfilling of it.

5. It is remarkable that more books have been written upon the prophecies these last hundred years, than were ever known before; and all (those at least which I have read) agree that these things will, in all probability, soon come upon the earth. I know many have been grossly mistaken as to the year, but because they were rash, shall we be stupid? Because they said, “To - day,” shall we say, “Never;” and cry, “Peace, peace,” when we should look about us with eyes full of expectation?

I know that a good part of a hundred thousand Protestants, scattered in France, expect some great revolution, that will turn at last for their good, and reunite them to the children of above two hundred thousand of their brethren, that were either expelled the kingdom, or forced to leave it, because they would not take the mark of the beast in their hands, or on their foreheads.

Let us not judge rashly, nor utter vain predictions in the name of the Lord; but yet let us look about us with watchful eyes, lest the enemy take an advantage of us, and we lose the opportunity of rousing people out of their sleep, of confirming the weak brethren, and building up in our most holy faith those who know in whom they have believed. If we are mistaken in forming conjectures; if the phenomena we hear of every where are but common providences; if these things happen not to us, but to our children, (as they most certainly will, before the third generation is swept away;) is it not our business to prepare ourselves for them, to meditate on them, and to warn as many people as we can prudently, lest their blood should be required at our hands, were they to fall because of a surprise? Let us pray to God more frequently, that for the elect’s sake, he would still more shorten the days of the tribulation, and add daily to the true Church such as will be saved. But let us not forget to rejoice with Abraham, in seeing, by faith, the glorious day of our Lord, and to hasten, by our fervent prayers, that glorious kingdom, those happy days, when narrow shall be the way of destruction, when saints, raised from the dead, shall converse with living saints, and the world of spirits be manifested, in a great measure, to the material world: in a word, when Jesus will be all in all. What a glorious prospect is this! Let us then often think of these words of our Lord, “Behold, I come quickly, blessed is he that mindeth the sayings of this prophecy.” Let us join the Spirit and the bride, who say, “Come:” O let him that heareth say, “Come,” and let him that is athirst come; “for he that testifieth these things says, Surely I come quickly, Amen: even so, come, Lord Jesus.” J. F.

LONDON, November 29, 1775.