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The result of my examination of this prophecy (which has proved very much longer and more laborious than I anticipated when I undertook it)1 is, when compared with the Apocalyptic prophecy, as follows. Just as in the Apocalypse the Antichrist is described as drawn, together with his Antichristian confederacy, to Armegeddon, -some country or place without the territorial limits of the ten kingdoms of the Popedom, which, it was observed, had by some been conjectured to be Judæa,?— so we have inferred from this prophecy in Daniel, that either the Turk, or the Pope, is to be gathered in military strength to that very country, here clearly defined as "the glorious holy mountain." Nor does it seem undeserving of remark that the extent of the hill-country of Judah, between the two seas, has been estimated at about fifty miles square: and so with the exact circuit of the 1600 stadia noted of Armageddon.3-Again, just as we saw in the Apocalyptic sketch indications of the Jews mingling their Hallelujah with other saints of God, on occasion of Antichrist's overthrow, so we see here in Daniel the time of the Antichrist's (unless it be rather the Turk's) final overthrow, made to coincide with that of the end of the indignation against Judah, and of the deliverance of Daniel's people. And let me not fail to add, in corroboration of these views, that there are three other well-known prophecies in the Old Testament,-viz. in Ezekiel,"

It is right to state that I have not printed the result of my own researches, without the careful and kind revision of a relative skilled in the Hebrew language. 2 See p. 84 suprà.

3 See p. 84, 85, 88; also pp. 114, 115. 4 See pp. 110, 112, suprà. This note of Antichrist's time then coming to an end is given previously to the prophecy of the final catastrophe. For in xi. 36 we read of his "prospering till the indignation is accomplished:" as well as in xii. 7, "When he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished."

" I refer to the prophecy in Ezek. xxxix, about "Gog's coming up from the North, and falling on the mountains of Israel;" ("Gog the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal," verse 1;) whereupon God "will send a fire on Magog, and on them that dwell carelessly in the isles," verse 6: after which, "and the fowls of the air assembling to God's great sacrifice, and eating the flesh of the mighty, and being filled with horses and chariots," &c. (verses 17-20,) "God's glory in

Joel,' and Zechariah,2-which seem all to point similarly to some grand destruction of an anti-christian confederacy in the mountains of Judah or Israel, immediately

the judgment would be recognized by the heathen; and the house of Israel, brought back from its captivity, know the Lord." Verses 21-25.-Which last intimation that Israel's conversion was to follow after, not precede, Gog's destruction, clearly shows this to be an event premillennial; not postmillennial, as the destruction of Gog noted in Apoc. xx. 8, 9. Besides which difference the statement there is that Gog would then be destroyed by fire only: whereas here other instruments of death, (hailstones especially, Exek. xxxviii. 22, as in Apoc. xvi. 21,) were to bear their part :-moreover there the destruction was to be total; here a sixth part to escape (Ezek. xxxix. 2): the germ probably of those that would 1000 years after, on re-apostatizing, attack the camp of the saints, and the beloved city.

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As to Magog, the notice of him in Gen. x. 2 is as follows: "The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech," &c: it being added verse 5, By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands." So that the original European stock might partly have come from him.-Even if, however, Magog was primarily father of the Scythians, as some would have it, yet by the Gothic and Hunnick irruptions he became a father of the present Romano-Gothic kingdoms of Western Europe; and is clearly noted by the prophet as so situated in verse 6, when conjoined with "them that dwell in the isles." -In precise accordance with this view Coquæus observes, as quoted by the Benedictine Editors of Augustine, C. D. xx. 11; "Eusebius, Libro ix. de Demonstratione Evangelicâ, cap. 3, arbitratur Gog esse Romanum Imperatorem, Magog Romanum Imperium. Ambrosius, Libro 2, de Fide, capite ultimo, de Gothis cogitat."

Let it be observed that there is predicted in Ezekiel a double destruction:one of blood, on Gog and his armament; another of fire, on Magog and the careless ones in the isles; i. e. the countries of the Mediterranean and of Western Europe. Compare Apoc. xviii, xix. 20, 21.

1 Joel iii. 1, &c: "Behold in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and my heritage Israel." 'Let the heathen come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle," &c." Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!" "The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem and the heaven and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.—And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine," &c.

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Zech. xii. 2, &c. "Behold I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege against Judah and against Jerusalem. In that day I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness. In that day I will make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and they shall devour all the people round about. In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and the house of David shall be as God, as the Angel of the Lord before them. In that day I will destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look on me whom they have pierced," &c.

Compare Zech. x. 3-5, xiv. 4: also Ps. lxxvi. 3, Is. xxix. 7, Micah v. 8.Lowth, on Zech. xii. 2, suggests as probable that some of the Jews will return before the rest, and possess themselves of Jerusalem; then the Mahommedan nations confederate against them; then the rest of the Jews return, &c.

at or before the final conversion and restoration of the Jews, and the commencement of the consequent glorious predicted times of blessedness.

After all which agreeing evidence, it seems to me that we shall probably not err in looking confidently for the coincident occurrence of the two grand events following: viz. 1st, the homeward return of the Jews from captivity, in fulness and strength like as when the mighty Euphratean stream of their conquerors is forced backward by the mightier influence of the tide of the Southern Ocean; 2. the gathering into, and the destruction in Judæa, of the Papal Antichrist, and perhaps too of the Mahommedan Turk.

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CHAPTER V.

THE MILLENNIUM.

"And I saw an angel coming down 2 from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit,3 and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years; and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled and after that he must be loosed a

1 Psalm cxxvi. 4: "Turn our captivity, O Lord, as the rivers in the south." -Surely what I have hinted above is the meaning of this beautiful figure. The idea of streams dried up in the southern desert flowing again (of course in their old channels) on the rains commencing,―an idea suggested by Lowth, Horne, and other commentators in explanation,-ill suits the main point that the figure is evidently meant to illustrate, viz. the turning back again of the Jewish captivity. On the other hand, that which I suggest is a figure perfectly correspondent with the thing; and one which to the captive Jews in Babylon must have occurred as a figure equally appropriate and grand. For the force of the tide on the river, coming up as it did as far as Bussorah, must have been familiar to their minds : and appeared to them fully as striking as it did to the Macedonian soldiers of Alexander; when first brought from the tideless coast of the Mediterranean, to see the ocean tides of the Persian Gulf, or of the Indian Sea. καταβαίνοντα. 3 Tηs aẞuaσs the same word that was used before in Apoc. ix. 1, xi. 7, xvii. 8. See my Vol. i. p. 414. τα έθνη.

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little season. And I saw thrones ;' and they sate upon them; and judgment was given unto them and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and the word of God, and whosoever had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands: and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection on such the second death hath no power: but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

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"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison: and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle ;* the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are; and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sate upon it; from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God:6 and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out

1 So the Greek; Opoves, without the article.

2 OiTies either those whosoever; those being the accusative after I saw; or, of those whosoever; of those being the genitive after yuxas.

3 This is according to the reading avegnoav. The reading of Griesbach, Scholz, and Tregelles, is enoav. the same word as in verse 4. In Apoc. ii. 8 this latter word is used of Christ's resurrection; 'Os εγενετο νεκρός και έζησε. 4 εις πόλεμον, to war.

Scholz and Tregelles read is TOV TOλeμov. Griesbach,

in common with the received version, omits the Tov.

6 €8. throne.

5 This verb is not in the original.

But Griesbach, Scholz, and Tregelles read evaπιov т8 Opovo, before the

of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and hades gave up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man. according to their works. And death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.1 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had past away;2 and there was no more sea."-Apoc. xx. 1-xxi. 1.

We now enter on the great subject of the MILLENNIUM. In the Apocalyptic revelations, the vision of the Beast and False Prophet being cast into the lake of fire was followed by that of the binding of the Dragon, now again explained to be the old Serpent, the Devil, and Satan,3 (the same that from the beginning even to the end had been the Spirit ruling in the hearts and the polities of the children of disobedience,) by an Angel that descended from heaven, and shut and sealed him up in the bottomless pit, or abyss, for 1000 years; so as that he might during that time have no more power to deceive the nations-it being added, however, that he would afterwards be loosed for a little season. On the other hand thrones of judgment and royalty appeared set in the vision, whereon Christ and his saints were seen to take their sitting it being the privilege of these latter to live and reign with Him the thousand years. St. John specifies particularly, as if conspicuous among them, the

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1 Scholz and Tregelles read more fully thus; έτος ὁ θανατος ὁ δεύτερος εστιν ἡ λιμνη το πυρος. Griesbach and Mill omit the last four words.

2 #apnλlov. Griesbach, Scholz, and Tregelles read anλov had departed, passed away. In either case the aorist form of the verb is adopted; but in the sense of the pluperfect," had past away." 5ο απηλθον, verse 4.

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See Vol. iii. p. 13, Note 1, on the same phrase, as used in Apoc. xii. 9. That is, plainly, the same thousand years. The article prefixed four times to that phrase, (viz. in verses 3, 4, 5, and 7,) after its first mention as the term of Satan's binding in verse 2, identifies the period. So Pareus justly observes; in answer to Brightman's theory of the saints' millennium of reigning being one that would follow after Satan's millennium of incarceration.

It seems to me that the souls of them that were beheaded, &c, were scen not as the only persons that took seat on the thrones, but only among them. This is a point important to note, as a contrary view of the intent of the phrase has by some been supposed and argued from.

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