66

Before the Gospel difpenfation, the heathen world, having fallen from the righteous inftructions of Noah into pagan darkness, had no light to direct reafon, thus perverted, back to the practice of virtue, and religion. Mankind had loft all idea of the true God; and therefore had lived in a blind flavery to the unreftrained gratification of their pride, ambition, and lufts, and of courfe in a dreadful ftate of perpetual quarrel, difcord, and war. Hence arofe the four great empires, the Babylonian, Perfian, Grecian, and Roman; which were reared in blood, and perifhed in their turns by their own perfidy and wickednefs. After the revelation of the will and word of God through his bleffed Son, pagan darkuefs, fin, and mifery, fell before it in proportion to its fuccefs, and fpread in the world. In the fourth century "the fear and love of God, and obedience to his holy word," became propagated by the church in moft parts of the earth; and the excellence and divine operation of it in the hearts of men, became clearly demonftrated. Good faith, peace, and concord prevailed among the nations, and war was comparatively unknown. Of the peaceful and happy state of mankind in that age, hiftorians of the day fpeak in ftrains of triumph and joy. The emperor Conftantine, to commemorate it, ftruck a medal with his name on one fide, and on the reverse, Beata tranquillitas, "the age of "bleffed tranquillity;" and in one of his epifiles to the churches he fays, "The great power of God is "now manifeft to all." Lactantius defcribes it as an age, “in which tranquillity was reftored through"out the world; the defired light became refplen"dent, and God had wiped away the tears of the "afflicted." And Eufebius, in his Ecclefiaftical Hiftory, fpeaks of it in the following words of the Pfalm

ift:

Come hither, and behold the works of the

* Rev. xxi. 4.

K 4

"Lord,

"Lord, what wonders he hath wrought in the earth: "he maketh war to ceafe unto the ends of the earth; "he breaketh the bow and cutteth the fpear afunder; "he burneth the chariot in the fire*." Thus God has mercifully been pleased not only to reveal his will to mankind, but to carry demonstration to their own experience, to their very feelings, of the comfortable effects of fubmiffion and obedience. This event the prophet foretold under the fixth feal 200 years before it took place; and here he predicts, that the church of Chrift, now embracing within its pale the greater part of mankind, fhould at a future time, in defpite of reafon, and the evidence of their own experience, depart from the word of God, and fly into the wilderness; and the woman fled into "the wilderness," meaning, that the church would fall from this happy ftate, into Mohamedan fenfuality, and Papal idolatry.

I have been led to this conftruction of the word wilderness, because in its literal fenfe it is a place of diforder, confufion, and darkness, having no path to direct a traveller to his home (and therefore is a proper figure to denote an apoftacy from the Gofpel of Chrift, replete with falfe doctrines and myftical errors; which tend to bewilder and mislead mankind from the path of truth into darkness and fin); because I find it in the Scripture made ufe of as a figure, to denote the polytheism and idolatry of the heathen world; and because it ftands confirmed by the events themselves. For it is well known, that in the fifth and fixth centuries, the church gradually departed from the true apoftolic faith, into a variety of falfe doctrines and fchifms, and thus became prepared to ftep into the

Pfalin xlvi. S, 9.

fnares

fed,"

fnares which Satan meditated for her, through his inftruments Mohamed and the Pope; and that in the feventh, the church being now divided into the eastern and western, the fled precipitately; or, in a very short period, fell in the Eaft into Mohamedan, and in the Weft into Papal apoftacy; infomuch that the pure Gospel of Christ was scarcely to be found ineither hemifphere, and that only in a small remnant. In this "wilderness" of falfehood, fraud, and error, the remained to the time of the Reformation, when she began to make feeble ftruggles to obtain the light which might enable her, like the prodigal fon, to return to her father's houfe. It is also faid in the text, that the fled, "where the hath a place prepared of "God;" ordained by God for her punishment, repentance, and purification; where the fhould be on bread and water, as it were, or, as it is otherwise expreffed," prophefy in fackcloth, one thoufand "two hundred and threefcore days." Now if we date the flight of the woman, from the rife of the Mohamedan and Papal fuperftition, in the beginning of the seventh century, which their hiftories clearly prove is the true time (notwithstanding commentators have puzzled themselves fo much on the fubject), we have, in a manner, feen the events predicted in this verse evidently fulfilled. For it was in the year 606, that Mohamed in the Eaft, and the Pope in the Weft, eftablished their apoftacies, and began to convert the church to their doctrines: and before the end of that century their fuperftitions became the predominant religion; and the church, a small remnant excepted, was converted either to Mohamedanifin or Popery, and has continued, in a great measure, in that dreadful ftate of ignorance and darkness, more than 1200 fynchronic years.

From all the preceding facts, which are well fupported by history, it appears evident, that the prophet does not refer either to pagan or imperial Rome by the "dragon." To which I add, that the period of 1260 days here mentioned for the confinuance of the church of Chrift in its wilderness ftate, is the fame in which the "two witneffes of God "(another type of the church) were to prophefy in "fackcloth" 1260 days*, and the fame time is limited for the continuance of the power of the Pope, and the captivity of the church, "namely, forty and "two months," and the fame time, for his "treading "the holy city (or the church of Chrift) under foot forty and two months." All which prophetic defcriptions of periods feverally amount 1260 years, and cannot, without great violence to the texts, be applied to any other events, but those of the continuance of the power of Mohamed and the Pope, and their depreffion of the church.

to

Ver. 7.-" And there was war in heaven; "Michael and his angels fought against the "dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels;"

66

8. And prevailed not: neither was their place found any more in heaven.'

When we fet out wrong in the beginning, it often happens that we commit one error after another; and the farther we proceed, we are the more diftant from the truth. Thus commentators upon these verses, having before afcribed the dragon to the perfecuting pagan emperors, here refer the battle between Michael and the dragon to a war between them and the church. In fupport of this reference no reason is affigned, because there was none to offer. Hiftory

* Rev. xi. 3.

Ibid. xiii. 5. 10.

gives an account of the heathen perfecutions, in all which the church was entirely paffive, and fuffered millions of its members to be deftroyed, rather than forfake the Gospel of Chrift; but none of any war or rejistance made by the church, it being at that time a fundamental article of her creed, that all violence was unlawful. And had there been fuch war, the conteft must have been unequal indeed! The heathen emperors having all the power, and the church only the weapons of truth to oppofe them, of course the iffue must have been very different from that here mentioned by the prophet, that "the

"

dragon and his angels prevailed not." Befides, the prophet here tells us that this "war was in heaven," that is, in the church, or between powers profeffing Chriftianity, and therefore could not be be tween the church and the heathen emperors. The truth is, that the prophet here refers to and foretels the REFORMATION, that great and bleffed conteft and war between the Proteftants, a remnant of the church of Chrift, and the church of Rome; in which the former (after a long feries indeed of wars, both with the pen and with arms) emancipated herfelf from the ignorance and darkness of Papal idolatry by the Diet at Augsburg, A. D. 1555, and by the treaty of Weftphalia, A. D. 1648. These wars the prophet reprefents as being " in heaven," or in the church, to point out that the parties would originally be of the fame church, profeffing Chriftianity, as they really were. Thefe he figuratively describes by Michael," formerly the tutelary faint of the Jewish church, but now of the reforming church of Chrift," and his angels," on the one part, to reprefent that original and truly great reformer WICKLIFF (who fowed the feeds of the reformation fo early as in the fourteenth century)," and his followers; and by the dragon and "his angels," the Pope of Rome, and his adherents, on the other. Having