The prophecies uttered against BABYLON, EGYPT, EDOM, SODOM, &c. in which are enumerated many particulars that did not, and evidently could not take place, at the time when those prophecies were fulfilled in the first sense of them, are so many additional proofs of this position; and that those names occurring still, in prophecies delivered after these places had been long time destroyed, are to be understood as mystical names of other things and other events, not yet come to pass. Thus of EGYPT, it is said that our Lord was crucified there.* Of EDOM, that her land should be turned into burning pitch,† on account of sins which were never committed in the real EDOM, or land of IDUMEA. BABYLON, that she should be consumed by volcanic fire, and remain for ever a smoking monument of divine justice; whereas on the contrary, the true scite of the ancient Babylon is not known, nor was her destruction effected in that manner.

* Rev. xi. 8.

Of

To this it may be

+ Isai. xxxiv. 9.

Isai. xxx. 33; Rev. xix. 3.

added, that although BABYLON was in her day the destroyer of the jews, yet not so completely as the romans were afterwards. For they recovered from that ruin, but have not yet emerged out of their captivity by the

romans.

ROME is therefore, so far as the jews were concerned, of much greater importance in the prophetic history of the church, than BABYLON; and if we take into the account the sufferings that the christians have undergone from her strength and cruelty, both as a pagan and a papal persecutor, it might well have been supposed (had it not been plainly revealed) that the numerous and terrible prophecies of GREAT BABYLON, and her double fall, are many of them yet to be fulfilled, in the usual second intention of important prophecies.

The prophecies of St John concerning BABYLON, are the echo of those first pronounced by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. And are therefore on all hands confessed to

have a mystical and double sense, which yet remains to be fulfilled.

*

Gro

The little horn of Daniel, may be produced as another of those prophecies, which were so contrived as to admit of a double accomplishment, at very distant periods of time. tius and others have shewn how closely the actions of ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES (in his barbarous persecution of the jews, and profanation of the temple, for the exact space of time ascribed to the prevailing power of the little horn) do agree with the description given by Daniel.† Yet certainly this agreement does not preclude the title of HIS HOLINESS to that prophetic character in a still more eminent degree; of whose long tyranny for three and a half prophetic years, (or 1260 real years,) the short madness of Antiochus for three years and a half only, was a type.

*"Quod quidem et nos de ANTICHRISTO intelligimus. Porphyrius autem et cæteri qui sequuntur eum, de ANTIOCHO EPIPHANE dici arbitrantur.”—Hieron. Coll. 1131.-Grotius in locum, † Dan, vii. 11.

The application of this prophecy to Antiochus, seemed so very exact in the judgment of Porphyry, that he inferred from the circumstance of its not applying to the Macedonian empire any farther down, than to the time of ANTIOCHUS, that it was a forgery, and written by some one who lived after the facts of which he pretended to prophesy. But this is, on the contrary, a proof of the authenticity and truth of the prophecy. For it here departs from the Grecian, to pursue the history of the Roman empire; with which the fates of the church and people of God were from thence chiefly connected.*

The e tyrant PHAROAH, the first persecutor and destroyer of the church, is such another type of Antichrist; and, as bishop Newtont remarks, there is a very striking analogy between the plagues inflicted upon ancient Egypt, and the vials of wrath to be poured out upon the kingdom of the beast, or mystical Egypt." And time and events will shew a

Newton, vol. ii. p. 188, † vol. iii, p. 274.

further resemblance between the destruction of the tyrant PHAROAH and that of Antichrist, and the original EXODUS and the modern.

Like Pharoah, the man of sin sets himself up to oppose the will of God, and labors obstinately to the last, by art and force united, to defeat his declared purpose of delivering the church out of his egyptian bondage; and will not suffer the servants of Christ to obey the loud and reiterated call, "come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her plagues." He also-" knows not the Lord: but, devoted to the worship of Mabuzzim, (a strange and motley crew of rabble gods, many of which never existed,) "be regards not the God of his fathers.*

*Mabuzzim, (Dan. xi. 38,) "The god of forces."] Bishop Newton translates the word Mahuzzim, gods protectors,‡ which makes good sense of an obscure passage, and corresponds with the matter of fact in the prophet's eye; the protecting gods, or tutelary saints and angels, worshipped in the church of Rome as mediating spirits, which are to receive a worship proportion

Newton on the Prophecies, vol. ii. p. 185.-See Sect, 32.