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on one fide, of pruning and lopping it too short, and on the other, of suffering it to grow too wild and luxuriant. Great caution, soberness, and judgment are required, to keep the middle course. We should neither with fome interpret it into an allegory, nor depart from the litteral fense of scripture without abfolute neceffity for fo doing. Neither fhould we with others indulge an extravagant fancy, nor explain too curiously the manner and circumstances of this future ftate. It is fafeft and best faithfully to adhere to the words of scripture, or to fair deductions from fcripture; and to reft contented with the general account, till time shall accomplish and eclaircife all the particulars.

1

7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan fhall be loofed out of his prison,

8 And fhall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather, them together to battle; the number of whom is as the fand of the sea.

9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compaffed the camp of the faints about, and the beloved city; and

nunciata de Dogmate millennariorum. p. 897.

Z 4

fire

(9) Burnet's

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fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

10 And the devil that deceived them, was caft into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beaft and the falfe prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

At the expiration of the thousand years (ver. 7-10.) the restraint fhall be taken off from wickedness, for a little feafon as it was said before, (ver. 3.) Satan fhall be loofed out of his prifon, and make one effort more to re-establish his kingdom. As he deceived our first. parents in the paradifiacal state, so he shall have the artifice to deceive the nations in this millenial kingdom, to show that no state or condition upon earth is exempted and fecured from finning. The nations, whom he fhall deceive, are described as living in the remoteft parts of the world, in the four quarters of the earth, Tais τεσσαρσι γωνίαις της γης, in the four angles or corners of the earth; and they are diftinguished by the name of Gog and Magog, and are faid to be as numerous as the fand of the fea. Gog and Magog feem to have been formerly the general name of the northern nations of Europe and Afia, as the Scythians have been fince, and the

Tartars

Tartars are at present. In Ezekiel there is a famous prophecy concerning Gog and Magog, and this prophecy alludes to that in many particulars. Both that of Ezekiel and this of St. John remain yet to be fulfilled; and therefore we cannot be abfolutely certain that they may not both relate to the fame event, but it appears more probable that they relate to different events. The one is expected to take effect before, but the other will not take effect till after, the millennium. Gog and Magog in Ezekiel are faid exprefly (XXXVIII. 6, 15, XXXIX. 2.) to come from the northquarters and the north-parts, but in St. John they come from the four quarters or corners of the earth. Gog and Magog in Ezekiel bend their forces againft the Jews refettled in their own land, but in St. John they march up against the faints and church of God in general. Gog and Magog in Ezekiel are with very good reafon fuppofed to be the Turks, but the Turks are the authors of the fecond woe, and the fecond woe (XI.14.) is past before the third woe, and the third woe long precedes the times here treated of. Ezekiel's prophecy apparently coincides with the latter part of the eleventh chapter of Daniel, and prefignifies the deftruction of the Othman empire, which includes Gomer and many Euro

pean,

pean, as well as Ethiopia, Libya, and other nations. If Gog and Magog in St. John are the fame with those in Ezekiel, then we must fuppofe the Othman empire to subsist throughout the millennium, which can hardly be believed, as it can hardly be reconciled with other prophecies. It may therefore be concluded that Gog and Magog as well as Sodom, and Egypt, and Babylon, are myftic names in this book; and the laft enemies of the Chriftian church are fo denominated, becaufe Gog and Magog appear to be the laft enemies of the Jewish nation. Who they fhall be, we cannot pretend to fay with any the leaft degree of certainty. It is a strange whimsical abfurd paradox of (9) Dr. Burnet, but his hypothefis betrayed him into it, that they fhall be "fons of the earth, generated "from the flime of the ground and the "heat of the fun, as brute creatures were at "firft." Mr. Mede's (1) conjecture is much more rational, that they fhall be the nations of America, the nations of America being in all probability colonies or defcendents from the Scythians, that is from Gog and Magog. Whoever they fhall be, they fhall come up from the four corners of the earth on the breadth

(9) Burnet's Theory. B. 4. Chap. 10.

of

(1) De Gogo & Magogo in Apocalypfi Conjectura, in

Mede's

of the earth, and fhall compass the camp of the faints about, and the beloved city, the new Jerufalem with the faints incamping around it, as the Ifraelites incamped around the tabernacle in the wilderness. But they fhall not fucceed and profper in their attempts; they shall not be able to hurt the church and city of God, but fhall be deftroyed, in an extraordinary manner, by fire from heaven: and the devil himself, the promoter and leader of this new apoftafy and rebellion against God and his Christ, shall not only be confined as before, but shall be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where he fhall be punished together with the beaft and the falfe prophet who were caft in before him, and fhall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

II And I faw a great white throne, and him that fat on it, from whole face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.

12 And I faw the dead, fmall and great, ftand before God; and the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of thofe things which

Mede's Works. B. 3. p. 574. Cap. 4. in fine. 'Fulleri Mifcell. Sacra. Lib. 2.

were

(2) Burnet's

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