Edit.

fhaken out of the Earth, as that ancient Writer Job expresses it, Chap. 38. 12. to make way for a Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace, which must at last take place upon the Earth. And as these Desolations are by our Blessed Lord reckon'd amongst the Signs that shall precede the Coming of Antichrift; so are they by the Holy Fathers counted as the very Means that shall introduce him. So says St. Cyril of Jerusalem *;* Cat. 14. The Second Sign of the Coming of Antichrist is, Pag. 209. when ye shall bear of Wars and Rumours of Wars; Oxon. and even now are the Persians and Romans at war about Macedonia. And a little after; The Contentions between Brethren make way for Antichrist; and the Devil shall fow Discord be tween Nations; that the Enemy (viz. Antichrift) may with more ease overcome them. All which is largely attested by Lactantius †;t P. 647: The whole Earth shall be in Confusion; Wars Edit. Shall rage in every Place; All Nations shall be in Oxon. Arms against each other, &c.

where this

§6. THE Quarter from whence this 6. The Rebloody Desolation shall first arife, is ex-gion or prefly afferted to be the North, or the Sides Quarter of the Earth. So faith the Prophet fer. Judgment Chap. 25. v. 32. Thus faith the Lord of Hofts, shall begin. Behold Evil shall go forth from Nation to Nation, and a great Whirlwind shall be raised up from the Sides or Coafts of the Earth: Which is also largely attested by many other Places of Holy Scripture 4. Befides which, there is another + See Chap. not contemptible Argument, (especially to 6.22. 59. some Men) fetch'd from the Contemplation 41. of the Harmonious Providence of God, who

in the Oeconomy of the Moral, as well as Natural

C4

* Compare If. 13, 14.

Natural World, so fitly orders and disposes all Occurrences, that even the least and most contemptible, do to those who are disposed to receive them, discover in the Spirit and Mystery of them great and furprizing Truths. An Instance of which, the whole Story of the Destruction of Judea by the King of Babylon, and of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, has been thought to be by many, both Ancients and Moderns; whose, both Crimes and Punishments (as I before observ'd) are tranfcribed and applied to Apostate Christendom, by the Divine Author of the Apocalypse. Many of the most minute Circumstances of which are not flightly to be paffed by or neglected; but this more particularly, that the Judgment is so often threatned to

them both from the North *, which was and Jer. 6, certainly mention'd for fome good Reafon. 50, and 51 The Word † which we translate the North, Chapters. fignifies properly a + Place of Darkness, be

פו

caufe (fay the latter Rabbins) of its great from distance from the Sun, and enjoying fo

Obnubi

Javit.

very little of its Light. Whether it be upon this or fome other Accounts largely insisted upon by the Cabbalistical Writers, I cannot determine: But the North has been generally used to express the Place of Darkness, of the Curse or Vengeance; as may be seen at large in the afore-cited Places of the Holy Prophets. And this I conjecture to be the Reason why the Destruction of Judea by the Babylonians, and of Babylon by the Persians, is so often said to come out of the North; though Babylon, in respect of Judea

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Judea, and Persia from Babylon, seem rather to lye North-East. For the Destruction of Babylon having a double End and Design; the one of Mercy, in delivering the Jewish Captivity; and the other of Vengeance, in destroying the Enemies and Oppreffors of the Church; so there is a different Stile appropriated to each Part of the Design. For when the Prophets speak by way of Denunciation of Judgment, they always say it comes out of the North, as may be seen at large; but when they speak by way of Comfort and Encouragement to the Jewish Captives, they then change their Stile from the North to the East. Thus Jer. Chap. 50. 9. says, That God will cause to come up against Babylon, an Assembly of great Nations from the North-Country: which he confirms, v. 41. saying, A People shall come from the North; meaning, no doubt, Cyrus with his Medes and Persians. Nevertheless the Prophet Ifaiah, comforting the People of God with the Promises of Deliverance, upon the Destruction of Babylon by the same Cyrus, says twice, that God calls him from the East, Chap. 41. 2. 46. 11. Cyrus being an Eminent Type of our Blessed Saviour, who is called The Morning, Job 38. 12. Light, Ifa. 8.20. The Day-Spring, Luke 1.78. The Day-Star, 2 Ep. Pet. 1. 19. and Rev. 22. 16, he says of himself, I am the MorningStar. And to shew how both these Designs were united in him, he is said in the felfsame Verse to come from the North and from the East too, Chap. 41. v. 25. I have

raised up one from the North; from the rising

of

د

Beside the

of the Sun shall be call upon my Name, And as from this Quarter of the World the Judgments came upon the Jewish Church of the

two Tribes, so did they also upon the Historians, Western Christian Church by the Goths, se Salvian Huns, Vandals, and other Barbarous Nations: of for over Which Western Church was understood, by frent Vid.Com. the highly Illuminated Abbot Joachim * in Jer. to be expressed to us in the Type, by the Edit. Ven. Jewish Church properly fo called, or the per Aldum.

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two Tribes. So also it will be again; and out of the North shall come that terrible Army upon Christendom, so dreadfully describ'd by the Prophet Joel 2.20. Such as there bath never been the like, nor ever shall be, to the Years of many Generations. And as the Apostle St. Peter (1 Ep. 4. 17.) tells us, that Judgment must begin at the House of God; and the Prophet Jeremiab, that the Destruction must begin at Jerufalem, Ch. 25. 29. I understand by it, that the Desolation must begin in the Northern Parts of Christendom or Europe; which (as I may say) are the principal Parts of the Holy Catholick Church, for whose Purgation and confequent Glorification, all these Punishments are design'd. So then the Scourge shall first light upon the Western or European Church, and probably for the fame Reafons on the most corrupt Parts of it, to bring them to a Sense of their sad Condition, to put them in mind of their abominable Deviations, and lamentable Apostacy from their first Love and Zeal, which were once stronger than Death; but now, thro

the miferable abundance of Iniquity, quite

cold and dead. And as a raging Fire arifing in one Corner of a City, often wrestles and spreads it felf, in spight of Oppofition, to the confuming of the whole: So shall the Northern Princes kindle a Flame that shall not be quenched, till it have accomplish'd the End for which it is sent. Their Disputes and Contentions shall influence and engage their Neighbours, either by Virtue of Leagues and Alliances, or upon the Account of Publick Safety, by keeping the Ballance; or of Politick Interest, by promoting their Divisions, with a Design to make an Advantage thereby; or by some more fecret contagious Influence of the Enemy of Peace, the Author and Spirit of Confufion; till at last all shall be involved in War and Bloodshed, tho' perhaps not at the same Point of Time, nor upon the same Interests and Pretenfions. By this God will break to Pieces and destroy the Antichristian Powers of the Earth, and prepare a way for the Establishment of the true Primitive Evangelical Spirit, which shall at last take root and flourish as out of the Earth, notwithstanding all the Opposition that either Men or Devils can make against it. Here then we fee the Wrath of God gone forth, and his Sword drawn against the Antichriftian Nations; a Spirit of Drunkenness and Fury is upon them; so that Ammon and Moab Shall be divided against Mount-Seir, and at last. shall help to destroy each other; as in the Day of Jehoshapbat, 2 Chron. 19. 23. or as the Philistines, I Sam. 14. 16, 20. and the Midianites,

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