bigoted votaries of the papal enchanter. On the contrary their latent hatred of the gospel truth and its advocates is strengthened, and their steady adherence to the old spirit of a deceptive policy betrays itself in spight of their endeavours to keep it down and conceal it. The angel of wrath is now standing in the sun of this period, that is, in the central point of the papal heavens at this time, conspicuous to every eye; and with loud and reiterated clangors inviting the birds of prey to gather themselves together to the supper of the great God, that they may tear in pieces and devour the flesh of the fallen beast, which he has hunted down, and pierced with a deadly wound. (135)

which declares them to be under a judicial blindness, and strong delusions, and that they do not repent of their deeds,-Rev. ix, 20, 21.-xvi. 10, 11.-but on the contrary, will soon have a grand opportunity of convincing the incredulous of this lamen

table truth.

(135) Daniel vii. 11.

SECTION XLVII.

The obscurity of the PROPHETICAL NUMBERS not to be wholly removed:—they are not essential to prophecy, but added only to some of highest importance for wise purposes.-Great mistakes in the adjustment of them -Are much cleared up by the accomplishment of one of them.-Hypothesis and prejudice in the Jews hard to be subdued.-In Papists utterly inextinguishable.-To afford an evidence sufficient, but not irresistible is the intention of divine revelation.-Dogs and sorcerers will remain in the Millennium.

I have now by a new representation of the character of the other beast, suggested by the learned Granville Sharp, corrected my former hypothesis on that point, and by such proofs as occurred to me, endeavoured to evince the superior eligibility of the new plan, above that commonly held in the highest esteem for the

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respectable authorities on which it was sup ported. I come now to some other topics of greater difficulty, on which I have not met with so entire conviction from the remarks of Mr. Sharp, upon the exposition given of them in vol. ii. of my Reflections on the Prophecies. I allude principally to the doctrine of the first resurrection, or the millennium,-the time when the commencement of it is to be expected,-and the persons in whose favor that mysterious revolution in the visible state and government of the world is to be effected.

The prophet Daniel, as I have shewn above, has given us an index to the three most remarkable prophetical periods of the latter days. One of these, according to Mr. Sharp's plan of adjusting its date, and which has been verified by strong facts, has recently been completed; and the next in order has been about four years in its course. (136) These are fixed points indeed, and seem to

(136) Mr Sharp gives a different account of the three prophetical periods, 2300 days, Dan, viii. 14,-and 1290 and 1335 days, Dan. xii, 11, 12,

afford a sure resting place for the foot of the adventurous calculator of the times: yet let him not be too confident, mindful of the severe falls which many have had, by too much precipitancy, and too high a reach, in climbing from branch to branch the tree of prophetic futurity. I shall not very easily relinquish my opinion, that obscurity in a certain degree, is essential to all prophecy connected with the computation of time, and not wholly separable from it, even by the event of its accomplishment; and that whatever data of that sort it may please the Author of divine revelation to communicate, they will still be so circumstanced in the uncertain nature of the things themselves, or the manner of delivery, that our Saviour's words will always hold good:-" It is not for you to know"with a computative arithmetical certainty,"the times and the seasons, which the Father bath put in his own power." (137)

(137) The learned Bengelius seems of a contrary opinion, and where he finds the reluctant prophet remaining obstinately silent, he puts him into his expositorial vice, and wrings him so very hard as to force out a sense the prophet never dreamt of. He makes our Saviour, in this passage, talk in his own mysti

to us.

A general sort of apprehension of those events foretold in prophecy that is connected with calculation of time, is most probably all that was ever intended to be vouchsafed And a certain degree of approximation is fully sufficient for every useful purpose. The distinguishing of the prophetical characters one from another, and authenticating by sufficient proof the true objects of each, and the complete accomplishment of the prediction, does not depend upon this single attestation to their truth, though it be a very wonderful one, the fixing a time when

cal jargon of chronoi,and chairoi, and by his own whimsical system of prophetical arithmetic, he has calculated the exact length of the eternity imputed to the everlasting gospel, which is 22223

years.

One great source of this learned man's absurdities seems to have been his mistaking the different views given of the same important events by St. John, (in order to a fuller elucidation of them, by shewing them under different aspects, and in different connections,) for so many fresh and different portions of prophecy. Thus he makes the everlasting gospel to take the date of its eternity not from the time of Christ, or the foundation of the world; but from the time of the angel flying in the midst of heaven, and proclaiming its revival, by Luther. The dura tion of this aw or ævum, is also loaded with a fraction, as all his calculations are. "Eviternal" is what lasts an ævum.