apply to Papal Rome. See Rev. xviii. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. "For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning."

From which we may plainly understand, that the overthrow of the country where the Roman beast has his seat and throne, shall be burned with fire, after the manner of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And as Abraham stood afar off and beheld the smoke of the whole country ascend up, so shall many at that day, stand afar off and lament the overthrow of that great city and country.

This is also the sentiment of that truly great and good man, the Rev. David Simson, M. A. See his plea for religion, the new edition, printed 1812, page 160, as follows :-" It is remarkable, that all the country about the city of Rome, is a kind of bitumen, or pitchy substance. And in the year of our Lord 80, a fire burst out from beneath the ground, in the middle of the city, and burnt four of the principal temples, with the sacred buildings of the capitol. Italy is in

deed a store-house of fire. And when the 1260 years spoken of by St. John (see Rev. xi. 2d* and 3d.) shall be accomplished, Rome itself, with all its magnificence, will be absorbed into a lake of fire, and sink into the sea, to rise no more for ever." Here, then, instead of healing those marshy places, which for ages have poisoned, with their noxious vapours, the atmosphere of common sense, and the more glorious atmosphere of a revelation from heaven, they are to be destroyed by fire at an earlier stage of time than the general judg ment. But my reader may here inquire, if such shall be the fact, how then are these miry and marshy places to be given to salt in token of their everlasting ruin. Thus I answer, a city among men, is generally a depot and repository of arms, and is called a strong hold on that account. Therefore, when the besiegers had overcome any such place, they anciently did, at some particular times, sow the place of its foundation with salt. See Judges ix. 45.-" And Abimelech fought against, the city all that day, and he took the city, and slew the people that were therein, and beat down the city and sowed it with salt."

From this custom, the prophet has borrowed the idea of those marshy and miry places being given to salt, but of a vastly different kind of salt from that used by men on any such occasion, which shall consist of litera.

fire.

Now, as those marshy places are supposed to be embraced in the dark arcanum of the papal machinations

:

* The Jews reckoned invariably, 30 days to a month; the 42 months, there fore, multiplied by 30, will produce 1260 days or years.

D

at Rome, they are considered the city and strong hold of devils. And since it is the great God who shall then fight against them, and overthrow their city by fire, after the manner of Sodom, it was proper for the prophet to say, those marshy places shall be given to salt, and I will add, the salt of fire, because it is God, and not man, who shall be their conqueror.

This sentiment is supported by our Lord. See Mark ix. 49.-" For every one shall be salted with fire." Upon these words, I have read the following comment :-" Here may be seen the greatness, multiplicity, and eternity of the pains of the damned. They suffer without being able to die; they are burned without being consumed; they are sacrificed without being sanctified; are salted with the fire of hell as eternal victims of Divine Justice. We must of necessity be sacrificed to God, after one way or other, in eternity; and we have now the choice, either ot the unquenchable fire of his justice, or of the everlasting flame of his love."-Clark, copied from Quensel.

This I believe a just interpretation of the miry and marshy places, which shall not be healed, but shall be destroyed before the Millennium commences; and can therefore be no objection to the universality of the waters of life, which the prophet saw flowing over the whole globe.

But I resume the subject of proof, that the ancient Jews expected the Millennium.

The following is an extract from the Rabbinical writings of the Jews, among which are found their

account of the prophecies of Eldad and Medad, two of the seventy elders, who prophesied in the camp of Israel, in the presence of Moses. But of those two it is said, that they continued to prophesy when the others had ceased, which occasioned one of the young men to run to Moses and complain of what he thought was indecorous; but was reproved by Moses, who said to the young man, "Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets." Num. xi. 29.

The Jewish Rabbin who has noticed the prophecies of Eldad and Medad, is Jonathan Ben Uziel, whose account is found in an ancient Jewish book, called the Jerusalem Targum. I will give his account at full length. as follows:

"And there were two men left in the camp, the name of one was Eldad, the name of the other was Medad; on them the spirit of prophecy rested."

Eldad prophesied and said, " Behold Moses the prophet, the scribe of Israel, shall be taken from this world, and Joshua the son of Nun, captain of the host, shall succeed him."

Medad prophesied and said, " Behold quails shall arise out of the sea, and become a stumbling block to Israel."

Then they both prophesied together, and said, "In the very end of time, Gog and Magog, and their army shall come up against Jerusalem, and they shall fall by the hand of king Messiah. Behold a king shall come up from the land of Magog, in the last days, and shall gather the kings together, and leaders clothed with armour, and all people shall obey them, and they shall wage war in the land of Israel against the children of the captivity; but the hour of lamentation has been long prepared for them, for they shall be slain by the flame of fire which proceedeth from under the throne of glory, and their dead carcasses shall fall on the mountains of the land of Israel, • and all the wild beasts of the field, and the wild fowls of heaven, shall come and devour their carcasses; and afterwards, all the dead of Israel shall rise again to life, and shall enjoy the delights prepared for them from the beginning, and shall receive the reward of their works."

The conjoint prophecy of these two prophets, in reference to Gog and Magog, and their armies, who in the last days were to invade the country of Jerusalem, refers to the same thing with Ezekiel, though delivered many hundred years before his time. This invasion was by Antiochus, about three hundred years after Ezekiel had prophesied of him. This prophet, and the two others, Eldad and Medad, agree almost exactly about the manner of their destruction. The two conjoint prophets state, that they shall fall by the hand of king Messiah. This should be understood of Christ, who by St. Paul is said to follow the Jews, (Cor. x. 4.) and guided them, and breathed upon them the spirit of courage in battle, as in the case of Judas Macabeus, who terribly overthrew the armies of Antiochus; and hence, by the spirit of prophecy they said they shall fall by the hand of king Messiah. And further, they stated that they should be destroyed and