PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. WHEN the first edition of this Work was published, we had not received intelligence of the disastrous termination of the campaign of 1805, at the battle of Austerlitz now, although one decisive victory has been gained over the armies of Prussia, we are nevertheless in a state of somewhat similar uncertainty respecting the final issue of the present contest. I can therefore only again observe, as I then observed, that "the Christian cannot reasonably doubt, that the hand of God is stretched forth over the earth in a peculiar and remarkable manner; and that all things will assuredly work together to fulfil those prophecies which yet remain unaccomplished, and to prepare a way for the last tremendous manifestations of God's wrath." The Work, of which a second edition is now offered to the public, was wholly written in the year 1804. After it was written, and even while I was revising and correcting it for the press, so many important events occurred, that I soon found it an endless labour perpetually to alter the text: hence I adopted the plan of preserving the text substantially the same as it was originally written, and of introducing into additional notes any remarkable passing circumstances that seemed to throw fresh light on my subject. The same plan is still pursued in the present edition. Except where I have corrected some errors (of no very great moment so far as my main subject is concerned,) into which I have since seen reason to believe that I had fallen. the text remains the same as it stood in the year 1804 and whatever matters of importance have occurred previous to my sending to the press, in June 1806, the revised copy from which this second edition has been printed, are all thrown into the notes. Yet so rapidly do great events succeed each other, that even this has not been sufficient to bring the present edition perfectly down to the day of its publication and it is only in a Preface that I have an opportunity of mentioning the formal resignation of the Roman Carlovingian emperorship by the chief of the house of Austria, the entire dissolution of the Germanic body, and the rapid formation of a new feudal empire subject to France under the title of the Rhenish confederacy. While the reader therefore is requested to consider the body of the work as written in the year 1804, he will find its proper date annexed to every note which has been subsequently added. Such, when the peculiar nature of my subject is considered, a subject on which every day throws new light, was thought to be on the whole the best plan which I could adopt. Nothing is more favourable to the cause of truth than fair and open discussion. My work has been attacked; and I have answered the attack. As yet I have seen no reason to alter any of my main positions: however both the attack and the reply are before the public. Though I am little inclined to be swayed entirely by mere authority, it would nevertheless argue an intolerable degree of presumption to slight with wayward petulance the opinions of those, whose superiority of learning and talents is acknowledged by all. Two of my positions, which were impugned with peculiar acrimony, were the application of Daniel's wilful king to infidel France, which I conceived to be the great Antichrist of the last days; and the reference of the remarkable expedition against Palestine and Egypt, not to the king of the north, but to this wilful king. Yet in both these positions I have the satisfaction to say that I am supported by the very high authority of the late Bp. Horsley. A letter, which I received from him, contains the following pas"I entirely agree with you, that the latter part of the 11th chapter of Daniel (i. e. all that follows the 30th verse) has no sort of relation to Antiochus or any of the sage. • In one of the last sheets, which was sent to me previous to the impression being struck off, I have had it in my power to notice the assembling of the Jews by Buonaparte: but I have carefully avoided indulging myself in any speculations on this event. Dan. xi. 36-39. Dan. xi. 40-45. VOL. I. 3 Syrian kings. And the wilful king of the last ten verses I can understand of nothing but the great Antichrist of the last ages." This alone is a sufficiently explicit declaration, that his Lordship conceived the wilful king to be the subject of all the last ten verses of the 11th chapter, and that he did not refer the six last of those ten verses to the king of the north, as Mr. Whitaker maintains that we ought to do. If however the declaration contained in the Bishop's letter to me required any explanation, a most full explanation of it would be found in his Lordship's letter to Mr. King on Isaiah xviii. He there scruples not to avow his belief, that in the monstrous tyranny of infidel France, he beheld the rise of the Antichrist of the West, or at least of a principal and conspicuous branch of Antichrist and to this Antichrist thus interpreted, the Antichrist depicted in Dan. xi. 36-39, he unreservedly ascribes the whole expedition into Palestine, foretold in Dan. xi. 40-45; adding, in perfect harmony with ver. 45, that he thinks there is ground for believing, as the early fathers believed, "that Palestine is the stage on which Antichrist, in the height of his impiety, will perish."* Thus it appears, that his Lordship held the very opinion which drew upon me the censure of Mr. Whitaker. He supposed Daniel's wilful king to be the great Antichrist of the last ages; he supposed the great Antichrist of the last ages to be infidel France; and he supposed, that the expedition into Palestine would be undertaken by the great Antichrist or the wilful king, and consequently not by the king of the north. Nov. 24, 1806. See Bp. Horsley's Letter on Isaiah xviii. p. 102, 105, 106, 107, 108, 86, 87, 88, 98, 109, 104, 105, and see the citation from this letter in the second volume of the present work. CONTENTS. VOL. I. CHAP. I. General statement of the subject. 1. The dream of Nebuchadnez THE 1260 years cannot have any connection with the persecutions of pagan Rome, p. 25.-They are the period of the dominance of the great Apostacy, and of the reign of the two little horns, p. 27.-They comprehend likewise towards their conclusion the tyranny of the Infidel king, who was destined to arise after the era of the Reformation, p. 35.-At the end of the 1260 years all these enemies of God will be destroyed, and the restoration of the Jews will commence, p. 36.--These matters are predicted in four of the prophecies of Daniel. 3. The vision of the ram and the he-goat. zar. 2. The vision of the four beasts. 4. The latter end of the prophecy of the Scripture of truth, p. 36.-With these four prophecies the Apocalypse is closely connected, p. 46.-This grand chronological prediction contains a history of the Church of Christ from the days of St. John to the end of the world, p. 47.—It is divided into three successive periods of seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven vials, p. 48.-Under the three last trumpets the period of 1260 days is comprehended; the final trumpet containing the seven vials, p. 49. This period is equal to the whole duration of the great two-fold Apostacy in its dominant state, p. 49.-The History of the Apostacy is detailed in two distinct parallel prophetic lines, p. 50.-The little book contains the peculiar history of the western Apostacy under all the three woe-trumpets, p. 51.-Under the last woetrumpet Antichrist fully revealed, p. 52.-This last woe-trumpet comprehends along with its seven vials two remarkable periods of God's wrath, the harvest and the vintage, p. 54.-The harvest synchronizes with the three first vials; and the vintage with the last vial, p. 55.—After all the vials have been poured out, and the enemies of the Lord have been destroyed, the Millennium will commence, p. 56.—— Points of correspondence between the prophecies of Daniel and St. John, p. 59. CHAP. II. On the symbolical language of prophecy. ONE symbol does not represent many different things, though one thing is frequently represented by many different symbols, p. 62.-Symbols typify at once both temporal and spiritual things, provided the matters thus typified have a mutual relation and correspondence, p. 63.—Symbols may be reduced into various classes.---1. Heaven, with its subordinate symbols, p. 64.-2. Earth, with its subordinate symbols, p. 65.-3. A city, with its subordinate symbols, p. 68.-4. A woman, p. 72.5. A vine, p. 73.—6. A beast, with its subordinate symbols, p. 73. CHAP. III. Concerning the scriptural phrases of the latter days, the last days, and the time,of the end. IN the old Testament, the phrases of the latter days, and the last days, are sy nonymous; for the original expression, thus variously translated, is the end of days, p. 77.-The end of days denotes primarily any time yet to come, but secondarily the period of the Millennium, p. 78.—In the new Testament, the last days, when not spoken of prophetically, signify, the whole period of the Gospel dispensation, p. 80.-But, when the latter days, and the last days, are spoken of prophetically, then they bear two entirely distinct significations, p. 80.-In this case, the latter days import the reign of su perstition, which continues during the greater part of the Apostacy: while the last days mean the reign of Atheism and Infidelity, which openly commences under the last woe-trumpet towards the termination of the Apostacy, p. 81.-The propriety of this distinction appears from a survey of the different prophecies professedly descriptive of the latter days and the last days, p. 82.-What we are to understand by the term Antichrist, p. 87.-The time of the end is the termination of the 1260 days; and it apparently extends through the 75 years, which intervene between that termination and the commencement of the Millennium, being the period of God's great controversy with his enemies, p. 91. CHAP. IV. Concerning the two first prophecies of Daniel, and the little born of the fourth beast. FROM the days of Nebuchadnezzar to the commencement of the Millennium, there are to be no more than four empires, universal so far as the Church is concerned the Babylonian; the Medo-Persian; the Macedonian; and the Roman, p. 98.—These are doubly symbolized by the different parts of a large human image, and by four distinct beasts, p. 98.-The last or Roman beast is described as having ten horns, and a little horn rising up among and behind them, p. 99.—The history of the little horn is not an epitome of the whole history of Antichrist, considered as Papal, Mohammedan, and Infidel, p. 102.-Nor is the little horn itself revolutionary France, p. 106.-On the contrary, it is the Papacy, p. 117.-Yet it cannot be the temporal kingdom of the Papacy; but must be that spiritual kingdom of the Bishop of Rome, which, small as it originally was, grew at length into a catholic spiritual empire, symbolized by the second beast of the Apocalypse, p. 117.—It was to arise during the period that the Roman empire was divided into ten kingdoms, p. 119. It was to be harmless during the first part of its existence; but, after the saints had been given by the secular power into its hand, it was to become an universal ecclesiastical tyrant, utterly offensive in the eyes of God, p. 119.-At the pe riod of their being thus given into its hand, the 1260 days of the great Apostacy of the man of sin, considered in its dominant state, commenced, p. 120.-Exact cor |