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XIV.

CHAP. world, since it has pleased him, by the foolishness of preaching Christ crucified, to save them that believe.

1 Cor. i. 21, 23.

41. Where there is no sin, there is no curse; and where there is no curse, there is no need of any altar, atoning sacrifice, or temple service; and therefore the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb appeared as the only temple of the new Jerusalem; which leaves no place for making atonement for the unRev.xxii. cleanness of man or woman. "But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him and they shall see his face, and his name in their foreheads."

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4. and

aiv. 1.

42. The servants of God are sealed unto the day chap. vii. of redemption. "And I heard the number of them that were sealed,-an hundred and forty and four thousand ;" the same as those with the Lamb upon mount Zion, and the fruits brought forth by the tree Isai... of life, who brought forth every month in the year; according as it was said, "The year of my redeemed is come."

4.

Isi xxvi.

43. As the female is the mother, or bringer forth of all living into life; so all such prophecies pointed, for their accomplishment, to the appearing of Christ in the female. In the light of Christ's first appearing, his followers could suffer and be in pain; but it could be only in his second appearing that any could live and reign with him on earth.

44. Hence said the prophet, "Like as a woman 17,18,19. with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O Lord. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen."

45. And so it continued, through all generations, until the present appearing of Christ; in which it follows, that as the inhabitants of the old creation fall; so those of the new arise. Therefore it was Rev. xx. said, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.--And they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years:" which is the

4.

2 Pet. ii.

8.

year of the redeemed, or the great day of God Al- CHAP. mighty.

XIV.

46. Christ in this day, is the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him; they are quickened together with Christ, live as he lived, and reign over all that he reigned over. "But the rest of the Rev. xx dead lived not together until the thousand years were 5. finished."

47. Thus, while the people of God are brought forth and united in the life of Christ, the disobedient and gain-saying are more than ever divided, and will never find any thing into which they can gather and unite until the day of redemption and separation is

over.

48. Therefore the psalmist, speaking of the second appearing of Christ, says, "He shall call to the heavens above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me: those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness." The saints are first gathered to Christ in a covenant; and by thus becoming the habitation of God, the new heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness, they declare his righteousness.

49. And as the true and faithful are gathered unto Christ, in the covenant of righteousness and peace, by the testimony of unchangeable truth, which was designated by the voice of the arch-angel and the last trump of God; so, during the voice of this trumpet, and the gathering of the saints, the devil and satan is bound, that he cannot deceive the nations with any established system of false religion, as he has done under the reign of Antichrist. He can furnish nothing to imitate the truth, as a pretended revelation from God, sufficient to influence the nations, or unite them to one common head.

50. But when the year of the redeemed is finished, and the elect, or those who believe and obey the truth, are gathered of all nations; then shall the wicked also be gathered, according to those figures and prophecies which respect their final doom : this however, is not the work of the present day.

51. But while the new heavens are building up,

Psa. 1. 4,

See Ezek

xxxvii &

xxxix.

XIV.

Hag. ii.

47,22

Zech. xii.

4.

CHAP the old are dissolving, according to all that the prophets have spoken, particularly the prophet Haggai, "I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. And I will shake all nations. And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses [the people] and their riders [the priests] shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother."

52. This prophecy, with others of the like nature, has evidently been fulfilling ever since the present order of the Church was established, in the year 1792, by the encreasing commotions and revolutions among the nations of the earth; which afford the strongest evidence that peace will never be restored to the earth, until every purpose of God, towards the fallen race of man, be fully executed.

53. The dissolution of the kingdom of Antichrist, was also signified by all the threatnings against old Jerusalem for her abominations, and was particularly signed out by the destruction of that corrupt city, by Mat. xxir the army of Titus Vespasian, so that not one stone of their temple was left upon another, according to the words of Christ.

14.

54. And as the seat of that corrupt religion which stood in opposition to Christ in his first appearing, wasted away, by slow degrees, through their own divisions, and the superior power of a foreign people ; so in the second appearing of Christ, that which lets or hinders the progress of his work, will be taken out of the way by a similar overthrow.

55. Therefore, let them which be in Judea, flee Rev.xxii. unto the mountain of the Lord's house-And Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

CHAPTER XV.

4 short Calculation of the principal Prophecies, relating to the latter Day.

S the time for the fulfilment of the prophecies CHAP

A respecting the latter day, or Christ's second ap

pearing, was not to be known, nor the manner of it understood, until the event itself should declare it ; and as those prophecies were given by the Spirit of nspiration, and can be properly understood only by he same; therefore, where the revelation of God s given, and the events have taken place, there the prophecies may be rightly calculated and truly under stood, by those who are in the event itself, so far as the things are revealed and made known, and no furher.

2. And as the time fixed in many of the principal prophecies, is certainly run out, and the principal events, as to their commencement, have taken place; herefore the events are certainly known, by those who are in the Spirit of their fulfilment, at this presnt day.

XV.

vii. 21-25

3. The prophecies of Daniel include the time, and ›rincipal events, of all the other prophecies, which a their order, were to be fulfilled at three different eriods as follows: For a time, times, and an half,- Dan. fi.7 e shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the oly people: That is, three years and a half, which 12, 13. & ontain forty and two months, or 1260 days, a day Mat.xxiv or a year, the same period that the woman continu- Rev.xi.. d in the wilderness. This was to be the particular 3,& xü.6. ›eriod of Antichrist's dominion, in which the witesses prophesied in sackcloth.

xi. 31.

15. and

14. and

4. The second period is, Unto two thousand and Dan. vii. hree hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be clean- xii. 11,12, ed. And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall e taken away, (which is at the commencement of the 260 days) and the abomination of desolation set up, here shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. These two, in their expiration, refer to one and the ame period. Then follows the third, Blessed is he

XV.

CHAP. that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

5. As all the different periods have expired, and the principal events, to which all the three prophecies allude, have taken place, as they arose in the order of times; it is therefore proper to state those numbers in order, as they arose, with their several accomplishments; by which both the commencement and expiration of the most noted periods may be easily understood.*

6. The 2300 years include the reign of Antichrist, as at the end of that period the sanctuary was to be cleansed; and therefore, by taking from that number, the 553 years before Christ, at which time the prophSeemar ecy was given,† we have the period alluded to in the ginal Bi- Christian æra, 1747, at which time the present work of God began in England.

ble.

7. From the setting up of the abomination of desolation, there was to be 1290 years, which period must also expire at the cleansing of the sanctuary ; and therefore by taking 1290, from 1747, we have the time in which the reign of Antichrist began, namely, in the year 457, under LEO I. (commonly called Leo the Great,) bishop of Rome, at the death of the emperor Marcianus; as has been circumstantially stated.

8. The reign of Antichrist was to continue 1260 years, which being added to 457, brings that period down to the year 1717; but as there was a gradual preparation in civil government, before the time of the prophecy, alluding to the beginning of Antichrist's reign, commenced; so there was also a gradual preparation in the same, by which his kingdom was weakened.

9. Liberty of conscience, a deadly wound to Anti

In 2300 days, or years, the sanctuary was to be cleansed.
553 years before Christ this prophecy was given.
1747 the ministry of James Wardley commenced.
1290 years of desolation.

457 the abomination of desolation set up under Leo I.
1385 years of waiting for the fulness of the promises.
1792 the Church established in gospel order.

1747

45 years of gradual increase from 1747 till 1792.

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