gift Tajjan Presti, Gas, 17411-1931 THE PREFACE, THE events that have lately taken place in Europe, and those which are likely to refult from the war in which we are at prefent engaged, are fo great, important, and interefting, that one cannot help being anxious to know whether God is leading us in the courfe of his Providence, and faying as the prophet did to the angel, Dan. x. 6. “ How long shall it be to the end of these won"ders?" or, as it is in Ifa. xxi. 11. "Watch man, what of the night? Watchman, what "of the night?" or, How much of this long night of trouble is paft, and how much is there yet to come? or, When will it be morning? To folve this important queftion, to fhew, if poffible, what part of the prophecies correfponds with the prefent times; which of of the vials we are at prefent under, and from thence to form a rational conjecture concerning the time when the great events mentioned in the prophecies are destined to happen, was, in part, my design in writing the following difcourfe; in which, though I have not had all the fuccefs I could wish, yet I have fucceeded fo far. I have made it exceeding probable, that the principal step of Antichrift's fall will be either in the year 12 or 28 of the prefent century; and that his final overthrow will be at least an hundred years fooner than the time that Lowman and Bishop Newton have fet for it. I could have faid a great deal more in proof of this point, and have actually done it in a feparate treatise, On the Rife and Fall of the Papacy, which I intended to have published along with this, On the Converfion of the Jews; but am unable, through want of health and bodily infirmity, to bear the fatigue of doing it at prefent. A DISSERTATION ON THE CONVERSION AND RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. A DISCOURSE ON ROMANS xi. 11. Say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but through their fall falvation is come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. THE defign of the Apoftle in this and the two preceding chapters, is to vindicate the juftice, wifdom, and goodness of the Almighty, in one of the most remarkable difpenfations of his providence that has ever happened fince the beginning of time; I mean, the calling of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews. And, in prosecution of this defign,, he firft fhows us, that the divine conduct, in this dif penfation, was perfectly agreeable to the natural notions that men have of equity and justice: That the bleffings of the gofpel, like all the other benefits which God has bestowed upon men, are the A effects |