of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: For the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again."*

"This battle and terrible slaughter and destruction of men in so many ways, and for so long a course of years, will greatly lessen the number of mankind in the world; so that in the close of this terrible scene, comparatively few will be left alive. Those will be the Christians, who shall be then members of the churches, and descendants from good people who have lived in former ages, and others who will then be true penitents, who will look back on the terrible scene which had taken place in the battle of the great day of God Almighty, and see, and have a clear and affecting conviction of his displeasure with mankind, for their sins and the terribleness of his wrath ; and will acknowledge the righteousness of it. They will consequently see the guilty, miserable, and utterly lost state of man, and their need of a Redeemer, to make atonement for their sins, and the necessity of the Holy Spirit to renew their hearts, and form them to right, aud truly Christian exercises: And will be clearly convinced of the truth of all the great and important doctrines of the gospel, and cordially embrace them. And they will repent and humble themselves in the sight of the Lord, and earnestly, with united hearts, cry to heaven for the forgiveness of their sins, and for mercy on themselves, and on their children, acknowledging their infinite ill desert, and flying to Christ, and sovereign grace through him, as their only refuge and hope. And then the scene will change. The battle will be over, divine judgments will cease, and there will be no more frowns on man,

* Isa, xxiv. 17, 18, 19, 20.

in the providence of God; but all dispensations and events will be expressions of kindness and mercy; and the Holy Spirit will be poured out on them and their offspring, and all shall be holiness to the Lord; and the Millennium will begin, and men will multiply, and soon subdue the earth, and fill it with inhabitants.

"As anti-christ and the Church of Rome will have a large share in the cup of indignation and wrath which will be poured out; so all the Christian world will have a distinguished portion of it, as the inhabitants of it are much more guilty than others."

"The Jews have suffered greatly for their peculiarly aggravated wickedness, in rejecting and crucifying the Son of God; and they are now, and have been for near two thousand years, in a state of great affliction, and under the manifest displeasure of Heaven, to a great and distinguished degree. They yet continue a people, distinguished from all other nations, though scattered all over the world, as outcasts and vagabonds; and will continue thus a distinct people down to the Millennium. But though they have suffered so much, they yet continue as obstinate as ever in rejecting Christ, and in all their sins. And there is reason to think they will not escape the battle of the great day of Almighty God; but great and new calamities will fall upon them, by which they may be much diminished, so as to be left few in number, compared with what they have been, or are now. And the threatening denounced against that people by Moses will then be executed on them, in the full meaning and extent of it. “And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of Heaven for multitude: Because thou wouldst not obey the voice of the Lord thy God."* But God will not make a full end of them, which he probably will do of some, if not of many other nations.

* Deut. xxviii. 62.

"The revolutions which will take place in this battle will open the way for their return to the land given to their ancestors; and they which are left will repent and return to the Lord Jesus Christ, against whom they and their fathers haye sinned, and unto their own land, and will become an eminently excellent part of the Christian church, who shall multiply, and fill all that vast tract of land given to Abraham and his posterity, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates,* which has never yet been fully possessed by them. And their being thus received into the church of Christ, will be as life from the dead to them, and to the Gentiles.

"But whether they will continue a distinct people from all other Christians, through the whole time of the Millennium, or be so intermixed with others, as not to be distinguished from them, will be determined by the event: But the latter is most probable, as the ends of their being preserved in such a state of distinction, will then be answered; and those circumstances and things, which have been, and still are, the means of their continuing a distinct and separate people, will then cease; such as circumcision, and their observance of other Mosaic rites. When they shall become Christians, their name by which they are now distinguished will be lost, and they will be absorbed in the Christian church, the true Israel of God, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ: And then there will be one fold, and one shepherd. And then, by this event, the following prediction will be fully accomplished: "And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen! For the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name."+

That the above representation of this battle, which will be previous to the Millennium, and will introduce it. taken from the passages in the Revelation which have been considered, is just, and agreeable to

Gen. xv. 18.

+ Isa, lxv. 15,

the true sense of them, farther appears, and is confirmed by other parts of Holy Scripture, especially by the prophecies of this same event, recorded in the Old Testament.

"The destruction of the world of mankind by a flood, and the preservation of Noah and his family, who were by this brought into a new world, to be replenished by them, may be considered as a typical and prophetic representation of the great battle with the wicked world, previous to the Millennium; by which the wicked will be swept off the earth, and the true church of Christ will be delivered and preserved, and the way opened for its prosperity, and filling the earth.

"The series of judgments brought upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, for their disobedience to JEHOVAH, and oppressions of his people, and their dreadful overthrow in the Red Sea, to prepare the way for the deliverance of Israel, was also a prophetic type of this great battle. So was the destruction of the inhabitants of Canaan, in order to introduce the people of Israel, and put them in possession of that land.Therefore, reference is had to this in the representation of the battle of that great day, as has been ob served.

"David was a man of blood, carried on great wars and destroyed much people, and many nations, who were enemies to him, and the people of God; and by his conquests prepared the way for the peaceable and glorious reign of Solomon, and the building of the temple. In this, David was a type of Christ, when he shall go forth, clothed with a vesture dipt in blood, and in righteousness make war, and destroy the nations of mankind, his enemies, to prepare the way for the Millennium. Solomon was a type of Christ reignng in the Millennium, when the church shall rise to a state of beauty and glory, of which Solomon's temple was a type, when the meek shall inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of pear

"The coming of Christ, in favour of his church, and of the redeemed, is spoken of as a time of vengeance to his and their enemies, in which they shall be punished and destroyed, and his people shall be avenged on them. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn. "For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. 99* "And shall not God avenge his own elect, who cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily." "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Hallelujah! Salvation and glory, and honour, and power unto the Lord our God: For true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand."

"Balaam, in his remarkable prophecy of Christ and his kingdom, speaking of this latter day, when the Roman empire shall come to an end, and Christ shall have the dominion, represents this event as attended with great destruction of men. "Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth in the city. And he took up his parable, and said, "Alas, who shall live when God doth this!" This expresses a great and general destruction of men, so that comparatively few of them will be left alive." The same is predicted in the song which God directed Moses to rehearse to the children of Israel, to be preserved by them." "For I lift my hand to heaven, and say, I live forever. If (or when) I whet my glittering sword, and *Isa. Ixi. 1, 2. Ixiii, 4. †Luke xviii. 7, 8. #Rev. xviii, 20. xix.1,2 Num, xxiv. 17, 24. | Deut. xxxii, 40, 41, 42, 43.