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room enough for a detailed account of the prophecies, other reasons reftrain me from entering immediately on a tafk, not lefs eafy perhaps, than amufing. For Inter+ preters, I think, have generally been too much in haft to apply the prophecies, before they had fufficiently prepared the way for their application: So that, leaving many doubts unrefolved, which men of thought and inquiry are apt to entertain on this fubject, or not laying before them all the reasons and inducements, which should engage their attention to it, their clearest expofitions are not received, and poffibly not confidered.

With regard, then, to the prophecies, concerning Antichrift, though the chief obstructions in our way seem fairly removed, and it be now evident that there are certain grounds, on which the moft abftrufe of them may be reasonably interpreted, yet, because the application of them is a work of time and induftry, many persons, before they undertake it, may desire to know,

What

What GENERAL ARGUMENTS there are, which may affure them, beforehand, that their labour will not be mifemployed, and that Papal Rome is, in fact, concerned in the tenour of these prophecies: And, when this demand has been made, they may further with to be informed, To what ENDS OR USES this whole inquiry ferves; of importance enough, I mean, to encourage and reward their vigorous profecution of it ?

These defires and expectations are appa rently not unreasonable: And to fatisfy them, in the best manner I can, will be the scope and purpose of the two following Lectures.

SER

SERMON XI.

Prophetic CHARACTERS of Antichrist.

LUKE xii. 56.

How is it, that ye do not discern this time?

So much having been faid on the manner,

in which the prophecies, refpecting Antichrift, may be interpreted; I imagine that now, at length, ye are difpofed to afk, On what GENERAL GROUNDS WE affirm, that the Church of Rome is actually concerned in them.

To refolve this question, it will be fufficient to fet before you, in few words, fome of the more obvious notes, or characters, by which Antichrift is marked out in the prophecies: fuch, and fo many of them, as

may

may convince

you, that they are fairly applicable to the Church of Rome; and that, taken together, they cannot well admit any other application.

Of these prophetic characters,

1. The FIRST, I fhall mention, is, That we are to look for Antichrift within the proper limits of the Roman empire.

On this head, there is no controverfy among those who acknowledge the authothe au rity of the prophet Daniel, and can be none : For that prophet, in his famous vifion of the four kingdoms, fays exprefsly, that, among the ten kingdoms into which the fourth, or Roman, fhall be divided, ANOTHER fhall arife [a]; that is, as all interpreters agree, the kingdom of Antichrift. So that this power, whatever it be, muft have its birth and feat within the compafs

[a] Dan. vii. 7, 8.-I faw in the night vifions, and behold, a fourth beast-had ten horns. I confidered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn-Compare with ver. 24.-The ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings (or kingdoms) that fhall arife and another fhall arife after them.

of

of the ten kingdoms, that is, of the Roman empire, when, in fome future time from the giving of Daniel's prophecy, it should be fo divided.

But, to fix the ftation of the antichriftian power more precisely, it is to be observed, that, as the four kingdoms of Daniel, confidered in fucceffion to each other, form a prophetic chronology [b]; fo in another view, they form a prophetic geography [c], being confidered, in the eye of prophecy, as coexiftent, as ftill alive, and fubfifting together, when the dominion of all, but the laft, was taken away [d].

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In confequence of this idea, which Daniel gives us of his four kingdoms, fo much only is to be reckoned into the description of each kingdom, as is peculiar to each; the remainder being part of fome other kingdom, ftill fuppofed to be in being, to [b] Mede, p. 712.

[c] Sir Ifaac Newton, p. 31.1

[d] Dan. vii. 11, 12.-Concerning the rest of the beafts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a feafon and a time.

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