which being subtracted 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 remarkable about that time, as to shew 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 justifition by works, and the outward Christless performance 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 the 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 at it is, does not content those who will not 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 of twenty-one years, according to Torneil, as I said before; which would put off the cleansing of the sanctuary till 1770. Chronologists may mistake in few years, but cannot err upon the whole; and as God is true and faithful, so it is manifest, that the prophecy of two thousand three hundred must be fully accomplished in our days, or those of the next generation.

"6. To set the argument, drawn from the number of two

thousand three hundred, in a clear light; it is necessary to prove, that it was not designed to shew the time of the cleansing the sanctuary by Judas Maccabæus and his brethren, from the pollution of Antiochus 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, &c.; 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; 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 six thousand years, and the παντων αποκαλυψις 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 is not that of God's universal scheme?

"Ponder also these words (ver. 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. x.: am come to make thee understand what shall befal 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 viiith chapter, signify but one and the same thing. The angel, according to his promise, tells the prophet, in the sith 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 a while, 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 afterwards.

7. As what I have been writing on the number two thou sand three hundred 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.

"Rev. x. 6: And the angel swore by Him who lived for ever and ever, that when the seven thunders should have uttered their voices, Xpovo ek esaι, there will not be a time more; which word time, in St. John and Daniel, signifies a year, and a prophetic year, viz. three hundred and sixty 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 three hundred and sixty years, till the mystery of God be accomplished,' which he told, for our comfort, his servants the prophets.

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Chap. xi. 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 one thousand two hundred and sixty days.' Chap. xiii. 5: 'Power was given to the beast to fulfil forty-two months.'

"The woman, or true church, flying 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 an half, and falls 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. Twelve hundred and sixty days is equal to forty-two months, or three years and a half (Daniel xii. 11). From the time that the daily sacrifice should be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be twelve hundred and ninety 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 shewed 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 five hundred years to twelve hundred and sixty, 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 twelve hundred and sixty years; so his last raging, or that tribulation which will be so uncommon, shall last also twelve hundred and sixty common days, and not prophetic ones, because of 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 abovementioned 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 war: a kingdom shall rise against another 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 an 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 that dreadful persecution 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 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 three years and a half (see Rev. xi. 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 an 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 upon as a great paradox, but as 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.

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1. Jesus himself says, that immediately (evoews) 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 xiiith of St. Mark, when, Jesus having spoken of the general apostasy, and abominable desolation,' spoken of by Daniel (which of course can